Darkmouth Read Online Free

even pace. . . .”
    It was then that he noticed Finn wasn’t in his shadow anymore. Instead, after quickly bagging the Basilisk, he found his son two alleys away, on his back, kicking his legs in the air like a stranded turtle. His dad’s fear had been that a Legend would fell Finn; instead, his son had been undone by the awkwardness of his own fighting suit and the not-exactly-famous fighting skills of a sidewalk.
    There was an uncomfortable silence on the walk home.
    The second hunt, just the previous week, had started well enough. Following a few modifications to his armor, Finn was even given his own Desiccator. His father stayed with him as they hunted the intruder. It was a small Manticore, with the body of a lion, the stubby wings of a dragon, a scorpion tail lined with poisonous darts, and, most dangerous of all, an inability to shut up.

    They moved quickly, Finn tracking the dustfrom the Infested Side, just as he had learned, until he corned the Manticore in an alleyway. Then it all went wrong. When Finn tried to get his Desiccator from the holster at his waist, he snagged his glove on his armor and couldn’t even raise his arm.
    â€œHold on a second,” he said to the Manticore.
    This was a big mistake.
    The first thing Legend Hunters in training are told about Manticores is: Never engage them in conversation . The Manticore will keep you there all day, talking almost exclusively in riddles. Bad riddles. You will eventually go quite mad.
    Luckily, as the Legend opened its mouth to respond with a particularly devastating riddle, Finn’s father desiccated it.
    He and Finn again walked home in a deeply awkward silence.
    And then, of course, there was today.
    In less than a year, Finn would be expected to Complete and become a full Legend Hunter. Among the criteria to even be considered were three verified, successful Legend hunts. Being cornered by the Minotaur that morning had instead completed a hat trick of calamities.
    He had caught the look on his father’s face as he got outof the car outside school, the disappointment furrowing his brow. Now, as Finn walked home, he had a greater understanding of how deep that disappointment ran. He faced two possibilities.
    Either he would fail so spectacularly that he couldn’t become Complete, thereby preventing his father from being the only Darkmouth Legend Hunter in forty-two generations to bag every Legend Hunter’s dream job.
    Or he would somehow succeed and be left with the responsibility of defending Darkmouth, and every soul in it, alone. Finn couldn’t decide which was the best outcome.
    Or, more accurately, the worst.

7
    F inn turned onto a street that featured a row of apparently derelict houses on one side, windows bricked up or boarded, some painted with childish images of flower boxes in an attempt to brighten them up a bit. A couple of trees sprouting from the sidewalk softened the view a little, but a long blank wall on the other side of the street gave everything an inescapably austere look.
    In a town with street names that spoke of Darkmouth’s violent past, this one had no name. Finn’s house was the last in the row, ordinary looking and unremarkable.
    As he approached, Finn could see a police car parked just behind his father’s. The front door to the house was open and he could make out the figure of the local sergeant just inside.
    Finn scurried to the low wall that hemmed in the small patch of grass outside his house. Out of sight, he crouched and listened.

    â€œYou know we appreciate what you do, Hugo,” Sergeant Doyle was saying. “And we know you’ve got to teach the boy.” The sergeant was a large man who used to be barrel-chested, but that barrel had slumped into his belly with age. “But this is the third time in only a few weeks.” There was a pause. Finn peered over the wall into the open doorway and saw Sergeant Doyle flip open a notepad and begin reading.