Hero Rising. Shane Hegarty

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ guinea pig.”

      Hugo looked like he might swing a fist, or maybe an entire labradoodle, at his boss.

      “But we had better get Darkmouth back soon,” Hugo said. “If I have to wash another mutt’s you-know-what, I’ll go insane. More insane than I am now anyway.”

      Finn knew his father had sacrificed many things over the years in order to fulfil his duty as a Legend Hunter. He’d never holidayed. He’d never been able to relax during a rainstorm. He’d never stopped training, thinking, planning, day and night and next day again. But this seemed to be the greatest sacrifice of all. Swapping his dignity for a couple of bottles of doggy shampoo.

      Hugo looked around to make sure Mr Green had gone, then pulled six small plastic bottles from under the table and pressed them into Finn’s schoolbag.

      “That’s a couple of litres of Shampoodle,” he said. He then reached across for a box from the shelf. “And one packet of Fabulous Fish Fin Formula. They’ll shrink a jumbo jet when mixed right. Just don’t be seen leaving with them or I’ll lose my job.”

      Hugo took a moment to contemplate that possibility, knowing being sacked would be a sweet release from the doggy drudgery.

      “No,” he said. “I can’t think about losing my job. I must plough on. It’s the only way for now.”

      “You keep saying that, Dad, but what’s changing?” said Finn, grabbing a towel and laying it over the labradoodle’s sodden back. “Nothing. It’s getting worse out there and you’re stuck in here.”

      “Listen to me, Finn,” Hugo said. “Do you think I want to be here? Do you think my only plan is spending my life with pets whose toenails are out of control?”

      “Then what is your plan?” Finn asked, frustration building. “Because I don’t see it.”

      “I have it under control, Finn. You just need to be patient.”

      “And while we wait,” Finn said, “we’re crammed into a small house, waiting for disaster, knowing they’re scheming something but we just can’t see what yet.” He was getting properly angry now.

      His father stopped towelling the dog. “Please just go to school, play football, do whatever, but I need you to let me deal with this in case things really do get out of control.”

      Mr Green shouted from outside the room, “Hugo! Rabbit poo! Now!”

      Hugo gritted his teeth. Took a long, calming breath. “You need to understand, Finn,” he said before leaving. “The most effective way to grab victory is to first look like you’ve lost everything.”

      “That makes no sense,” Finn muttered, alone now.

      The labradoodle sneezed, covering Finn in flecks of water.

      Wiping himself down, Finn stepped into the salty Darkmouth air. Things were definitely as bleak as they’d ever been. He could sense it. It was as if the world itself had darkened. Then Finn realised that it had. While he’d been in with his dad, a low, heavy cloud had dragged itself across the sky. The bright, cloudless blue of the day had given way to a near twilight.

      A drop of rain splashed on to Finn’s shoulder. He put his hand out and caught two more.

      It wasn’t supposed to rain today.

      The rain fell heavier, stinging drops hopping off his head, bouncing off the road around him.

      Rain meant Legends, breaking through.

      Finn looked up, took a raindrop in the eye. He wiped it away, and when he did he realised that the ground around him was being lit by a growing golden glow.

      Finn felt a tiny prick in his neck, like he’d been stung, smacked at his skin as he swung around to meet the chest of someone. Something. He looked up, saw an eye staring at him. One eye. No more.

      “Sorry, kid,” the Legend said, voice deeper than hell. “You’re coming with us.”

      

      The gateway opened for a few seconds.

      About three minutes later, four panting assistants finally arrived at the scene, carrying Desiccators awkwardly. They’d been delayed by an argument about which alley to run down. Half of them had said they should go right. Half said they should go left. They ended up going straight ahead which, by sheer luck, was exactly where they should have gone in the first place.

      They burst into the dead end near the back of Woofy Wash, where the gateway had torn its way into our world.

      But there was no gateway.

      There were no Legends.

      Even the rain had gone, stopping so suddenly it was as if someone had turned off the shower tap.

      The assistants looked at each other with some bemusement.

      “There’s nothing here,” said one of them.

      “I told you we should have gone right,” said another.

      “You said we should have gone left. I said we should go right,” said a third.

      A noise startled them and the assistants lifted the Desiccators they’d brought.

      But it was only Hugo, throwing out a basin of dirty, rabbit-poo-filled water.

      They kept their weapons raised. He paused, liquid slopping about the edge of the basin.

      The assistants lowered their weapons. Hugo threw the water along the ground, so that it lapped and splashed at their gleaming shoes, then returned inside.

      As if a single entity, the assistants turned to clatter and bump their way away from the dead end back towards the main street, still arguing about which direction they should have gone in.

      But someone else remained unseen. Emmie had followed their movements, knowing they’d be so wrapped up in the thought of catching Legends that she could shadow them easily.

      She crouched to the ground, found a patch of dust, exactly the sort created when something comes through a gateway. But there was only one smattering, as if a large foot had been placed in this world, and immediately withdrawn. Otherwise, there was no sign of scratch marks on walls, or bite marks on bins.

      Nothing.

      She was about to leave the scene when something else caught her eye. A small bottle of Shampoodle rolling across the ground, spilling a dull blue chemical from its open top.

      Emmie walked to it, rolled it with her foot and glanced back at the door of Woofy Wash.

      Something СКАЧАТЬ