Hero Rising

by Shane Hegarty

  As he ran on again, he heard the sound of Desiccators firing on the road behind him.

  There was a stifled whhooooopppp.

  Finn knew it was the sound of the Shapeshifter sacrificing itself.

  On the road, the wheels of the jack-knifed truck were still slowly spinning to a stop. Lucien peered into the newly empty container, his fingers tight with anger as he pulled the glasses from his face to wipe them clean.

  Around him, it was mayhem.

  “We got him,” the assistant said.

  Lucien rolled the green fur-lined ball beneath his feet.

  “Do you really think this is the boy?” Lucien asked the assistant.

  “It was him when we shot him,” replied the assistant, uncertain.

  “And do you remember ever seeing that boy walking about Darkmouth with a coating of bottle-green fur?”

  The assistant gave that some thought until Lucien interrupted to yell, “No, because he never did! So you did not get him. You got whatever was masquerading as one of us – as several of us – and which then tore through this town as a horse with too many legs. So let me ask you one more time: do you really think this is the boy?”

  “Probably not,” admitted the assistant.

  “Probably not,” echoed Lucien pointedly, wiping his forehead. “So maybe instead of standing around here with that clipboard you should be off finding him.”

  He heard the sound of children. Bickering, screeching children. Recognised those voices all too well.

  Turning, he greeted the unmarked black car that rolled up to him.

  Estravon was driving, although he looked like he might burst with the stress of the noise from the back seats, where Elektra and Tiberius appeared to be having some kind of punching competition with each other. Emmie was in the passenger seat, more anxious about what she saw outside the car.

  “You see what he’s done now?” asked Lucien.

  She nodded, as if it might be possible to miss the carnage. “Where is Finn now?” she asked.

  “Out there somewhere,” Lucien said, sweeping the area with a hand.

  Emmie breathed a sigh of relief. “So that’s not—”

  “No, it is not him,” said Lucien. “That would appear to be a Legend he rode through town on. Can you believe it?”

  Emmie could believe anything at this point. Still, she shook her head sadly. “No. I can’t.”

  “Well, it has happened,” said Lucien. “He has stolen the desiccated Gantrua, and we can only guess at what he plans to do with it. Unleash it here. Or maybe send it back to the Infested Side so he can plan a new invasion.”

  Emmie knew Finn’s real plan, considered sharing it. It would make no difference. Finn was on his own path now. She needed to intersect with that path before it was too late for him.

  “So, Emmie, it is best if you return to Darkmouth at this stage,” said Lucien. “Take Elektra and Tiberius with you.” He addressed Estravon. “You can start planning their return to Liechtenstein.”

  Elektra and Tiberius had moved on to a competition to see who could kick each other hardest.

  “I would really be better off helping you here,” Estravon said. “I could guide you on the correct procedures for capturing Finn without causing any harm to—”

  “Actually,” said Lucien, cutting him off. “I want you to accompany Elektra and Tiberius all the way back to Liechtenstein, Estravon. I think that’s best for everyone.”

  “You can’t desiccate the boy,” insisted Estravon. “It’s not the correct procedure. Worse than that, it’s not—” “That’s an order, Estravon,” said Lucien, walking away. “Goodbye.”

  Emmie watched him go, the noise of the children getting louder and louder in her head. Beside her, Estravon’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.

  He slowly reversed, turned the car.

  They drove away.

  They would find him soon. Finn knew it was inevitable.

  The assistants were not as expert as his father, but there were enough of them, and they were determined. They could also enlist the help of local police keen to get rid of this problem before it got out of control. More out of control than it already was anyway.

  Finn presumed they also had Emmie on their side. Would she help them? The thought froze Finn. He didn’t want to believe it. But he had seen too much now to rule anything out.

  He had reached the park, which was empty save for a gently swaying swing and a helicopter-shaped climbing frame. A breeze rustled the trees, the leaves working up a soft crescendo. It was calm. He was safe. It was green and leafy and lovely. If he could hold a moment for ever, he decided this was as good as any.

  It felt right now as if he had never known anything other than being the hunted rather than the hunter. But he was about to reach the end, and wanted to savour the peace of this moment for as long as possible.

  Once he sent Gantrua to the Infested Side, to help Cornelius and Hiss destroy the Bone Creature, he was still determined to expose Lucien’s experiments before the deranged assistant captured him. To reveal his plans to the world.

  He remembered he still had the bag containing the computer, stuffed into the chimney of the abandoned warehouse. That might hold back-up proof if he could get it into the hands of someone who could unlock the password.

  All of that would mean running more, of course. A lot more. Yet he had no choice. He had nowhere else to go now, nothing else to do. Judging by what had happened back at the hall, he’d end up a small ball of hard skin in a Liechtenstein filing cabinet if Lucien got his way.

  When he was gone, they would spit his name, call him traitor, would delight in the shock and horror as they turned over the black page to read about him in The Most Great Lives of the Legend Hunters.

  He breathed in the fresh Slotterton air. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad place after all. It had colour and life and the people seemed happy – or at least they had been happy until he rode a shapeshifting eight-legged horse through their town. That would give the local kids a story to tell for the rest of their lives anyway.

  The breeze ran through the park again, the branches above Finn waving in response. He took a deep breath, a last lungful of freedom. It was time.

  He held the remains of Gantrua. He had handled desiccated Legends so many times. He’d seen them used as paperweights, to hold open doors, as bookends. But this one really creeped him out.

  Finn was sure now that this was Gantrua, and he felt foolish for thinking that Griffin was the Fomorian. The veins of the shrunken stolen wings were clear, like a chrysalis, an insect wrapped tight ready to re-emerge. The streaks of white that had been stolen fangs and teeth.

  And there, so clear, was a bright emerald bump glinting at the ball’s surface. It was shrunken and crushed in there, but there was no doubt in Finn’s mind this must be the charm that would stop the Bone Creature.

  With his free hand he pulled the Gatemaker from where it had been tied uncomfortably to his calf, beneath his trouser leg, since he’d last been in the Infested Side, hidden there in case the assistants went through his pockets. He pulled the conical device out and without delay pressed it against the air. He stood back as it sparked a portal into existence.

  The trees shook. Birds whistled and called. The streaming light of the gateway was a sudden and blinding intrusion in the world.

  Nothing came through. No hands in search of Gantrua. No one-eyed Legends. They said they’d follow him using Beag the Sprite’s power to track his signature across worlds. But there was no sign of them.

  He checked his watch. 7.45pm. They needed to do this now. He wondered if he should step in, or just throw Gantrua in there.

  “Finally,” said Sulawan, stooping eye first through the gateway. He looked at the surroundings. “Nice place you got here,” he said, an edge of bitterness just detectable below the sound of the rock he was chewing.

  Beag was on his shoulder, looking anxious. “You’re becoming harder to track,” he told Finn. “Your signa
l is fading with time. It’s a good thing you’ve got the charm because I’m not sure how much longer I can keep following you. You have got the charm, right?”

  Finn nodded, tapped the desiccated ball.

  “Great job, kid,” said Sulawan, staying close to the gateway so he could duck in before it closed. “Now hand it over and we’ll finally get some sleep without worrying about the dead waking up.”

  Finn lifted the Gantrua ball and held it towards Sulawan. Above him he heard the sound of birds, a growing chorus of their chirping. He looked up at the trees, saw the beating of wings, fighting to clear branches.

  “Hurry,” urged Sulawan, gruff, impatient.

  Finn reached a hand out and touched the bark of the nearest tree. It was terribly sticky.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Beag.

  Fresh sap coated Finn’s finger, pulled at his skin. Looking up, he saw that in every tree lining this corner of the park, birds were fighting to get clear.

  “They’ve started the experiments already,” realised Finn, moving away from the gateway. “They’re messing with the gateways earlier than they’re meant to.”

  “Cut the craziness and give me Gantrua,” Sulawan insisted, leaning forward but keeping a leg in the gateway as it began to creak. “Now.”

  Finn stood back further, Gantrua tucked tight under his arm. “They’re using the crystals in a graveyard,” he said. “The Bone Creature can come through. Will come through.”

  Sulawan’s eye widened. “This gateway’s about to close, and I ain’t going to lose an arm to it,” he told Finn, patience near breaking point. “So give me Gantrua right now or all these beautiful friendships you’ve made in our world are gone for good.”

  Finn pushed through the conflicting thoughts and demands in his head, the impending collapse of the gateway. He knew what he had to do.

  “The Bone Creature is about to break through here. I have to stop it,” said Finn, readying to run.

  Realising the gateway was about to close, the Legends retreated, Sulawan growling. “We will find you again, and next time we won’t be so polite about taking Gantrua.”

  The portal slapped shut as violently as it had opened, replaced by only a drifting wisp of sparkling dust.

  The loudest sound in Finn’s world seemed to be of birds caught in the sap, fighting to free themselves. He wanted to help every last one of them, but there was no time for that now.

  He had a town full of people to save first.

  When the people who built Smoofyland first arrived in Slotterton, they had no idea what kind of place they’d chosen for it.

  It was, its owners thought, a quiet little village with nothing amiss other than, perhaps, the enormous amount of tremendously nervous people who happened to live in it.

  It wasn’t that they could really tell what those nerves were caused by. The townspeople were a friendly bunch. Really friendly. Maybe a bit too friendly. But, thought the owners, maybe that’s to the advantage of a theme park based on a popular TV unicorn.

  The owners of Smoofyland were unaware of several rather important facts about Slotterton.

  Fact no. 1: If they’d checked the sign on the way into it they’d have seen that someone had changed the original name of Slaughtertown to Slotterton using some white paint and letters stolen from a nearby house.

  Fact no. 2: Hundreds of years ago, the patch of land on which they planned to put Smoofyland had been a burial site. A very well-used burial site.

  Fact no. 3: Slotterton had the worst chip shop in the entire country, largely as a result of its owner using turnips instead of potatoes for his chips. This had nothing to do with dangerous Legends, but was something the Smoofyland planners really wished they had known before they bought a bag of them.

  All of these bits of information would almost certainly have helped to inform the decision whether to build Smoofyland at Slotterton. The team would have had a meeting at Smoofyland HQ to weigh up the pros and cons.

  “On the one hand,” they would have said, “it is a lovely big piece of land, with great roads in and out, space for a Smoofy Hotel and a corner where we could put the sparkliest rollercoaster ever built.”

  “On the other hand,” someone else might have added, “the gates of hell might reopen one day right inside Smoofy’s Happy House of Rainbows.”

  They’d have thought about this for a while, until someone inevitably asked, “Do these chips taste of turnip to you?”

  Chips were not on Finn’s mind right now. Something else, far nastier, faced him as he double-checked the map. Then looked up at where the graveyard was supposed to be. Double-checked the map again.

  Triple-checked it.

  This was Site Two. No doubt about it. The map was clear. This was where the experiments had been planned, were being carried out right now, if the sap on the trees was anything to go by.

  But where was the graveyard?

  Only then did Finn realise the map was out of date. The graveyard wasn’t there any more. Something else had been built on top of it.

  Which is why he now stood, a great sigh welling in his back of his throat, beneath a huge sparkly arch, with a giant unicorn at either end and lettering so richly, ridiculously purple they must have used every drop of available purple on the planet to make it.

  It read: Welcome to Smoofyland.

  Smoofyland was closed for the day, the place empty now but for seagulls pecking through discarded food wrappers, and a rogue apprentice Legend Hunter searching for assistants opening gateways to a hellish world.

  Finn had made his way in through the entrance, whose attendants had left their posts now there were no more tourists due. From a souvenir stall left unmanned for the night, he grabbed a small Smoofy Snaps camera that would take pictures of the experiments, though it would also add glittery frames to them. From there, he moved past the Smoofy Superstore, various burger joints and slushy stalls, to a ridge overlooking the entire park.

  It gave him a view of Smoofyland, its rides of various heights and sizes and speeds, each a more sparkly colour than the next. The park culminated – at the furthest point – in a shining purple rollercoaster. It was, the guide map confirmed, the sparkliest ever built.

  Finn didn’t doubt it. Right now, in the low warmth of the setting sun, its glitter was mesmerising enough to almost distract him from his mission. He was sorry his mam wasn’t here with him now. She’d love this – if you ignored the whole on-the-run-from-the-authorities bit of things.

  Finn saw something move in the park. Someone. Far off among the rides was a grey suit, a flash of gold. Hard to make out.

  He was sure it was the assistants. That briefly seen gold had the hue of a gateway. They had started – he knew that for sure now. But he hoped that he wasn’t too late to stop them from bringing the Bone Creature into the world.

  A single path looped the full way around the theme park’s higher ground, from which smaller paths branched off to the various sections and rides. He kept on this higher path, keeping as far back from its edge as possible while still being able to look for anything down below. He couldn’t be sure who was there. Running in while screaming something about a killer Legend could get him desiccated all too quickly.

  He caught another glimpse of someone down there among the rides. Another spark of light, as if someone was striking a flint. It lit up two assistants trying to open a gateway. Here. In a theme park. In the last minutes of daylight.

  Finn could only assume that his actions – the Skin-Walker, the chase, his own gateways – had forced them to carry out their reckless tests ahead of schedule.

  He moved quickly, quietly, to a part of the path overlooking them, and saw them almost immediately, at a patch of narrow ground between rides, specifically the Upside-Down Umbrella Spintacular and the Magic Flying Manatees. Finn recognised Scarlett and Greyson straight away, the scientists he’d seen working in the ruined cliffs of Darkmouth. She was crouched at a large case, whose contents were blocked from Finn�
�s view. He was making notes, scribbling away while occasionally chewing his pen.

  “Again, at twenty-two centilitres,” said Greyson, looking at his notebook.

  Finn hid behind a bin shaped like Smoofy’s sidekick, Prickles the Porcupine, checking first to see if they were alone. For all he knew, a trigger-happy assistant or two might be lurking among the stalls, observing and guarding the scientists.

  Scarlett turned from the canister with a small lump of yellowish rock in her hand. Finn knew it was a crystal, or their clumsy attempt at re-creating one. Impure, dirty, it had none of the beauty of the crystals he had seen, held and used. Theirs had been concocted in a lab, while the Coronium he had seen and used grew naturally in the fissures between worlds.

  The crystals in his Gatemaker were precision tools, opening swift small gateways.

  The bad imitations the assistants were using were crude approximations, polluting the very fabric between the two worlds as they tried to tear holes in it.

  Finn took a picture, scanned again for any sign of watching guards.

  Through Prickles the Porcupine’s open mouth, overflowing with the day’s discarded burger wrappings and drinks cans, Finn watched as Scarlett held the crystal in a gloved hand, the thickness of the material making it difficult for her to press it against the air and hook it there.

  Finn took a picture.

  Scarlett got a spark.

  The crystal stayed in the air, its tip lost in the space between worlds. Scarlett and Greyson both stood back, their expressions telling Finn this was something they hadn’t quite experienced before.

  While they were staring at the crystal, Finn moved down a side path to get a bit closer, to get a better look. He didn’t know what might happen, but needed to be prepared. He stopped to hide at a vending machine filled with stuffed toys, its grabber poised as it waited for someone to put money in the slot.

  Another spark in the air. The crystal was trying to catch fire, to work up the energy to split the world, to open a way to the Infested Side.