Читать книгу Chaos Descends - Shane Hegarty, Shane Hegarty - Страница 21

“Fantastic,” said Hugo.

“He was choking, Dad,” explained Finn, feeling the world sink away beneath him.

“I presume he went through a whole routine, did he?” said Hugo, and began to imitate a choking Hogboon. “Kkkgggggggggurrrrrrrkkk. Help me. Kkkgggggurrrrkk.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” said Finn, even though it had been exactly like that.

Hugo turned, pushed past Finn and Emmie to get to the Long Hall, quickly returning with a scanner: a chubby box with a screen that winked into view, displaying a hand-drawn map of Darkmouth. A blue dot appeared. This was the tracking device in Broonie’s locket. He was already moving at pace from the house.

Hugo clicked the Desiccator, arming it. There was a meek wheeze from its canister, the sound of its fluid engaging for action.

“This is getting serious,” said Hugo. “Mr Glad has killed two Half-Hunters. More may die. He’s up to something, even if we don’t know what it is yet. So we’ll go and bring Broonie back, but this time we’ll do it without any messing around, without playing nice. We’ll track him like we would any Legend. Hunt him down. Shrink him. Bring him back. Then we’ll start dealing with this situation properly.”

“Are we going to tell the Twelve he’s loose?” asked Finn.

“I’ll think about it,” answered Hugo.

“Oh yeah,” said Emmie, “that’s what I came to tell you.”

“Hello,” said a voice. “Anyone home?” Steve stuck his head round the door. “Hey, Hugo. You’d better have the kettle on.”

“Ah, it’s just you,” said Hugo.

“And me too, delighted to finally be back in Darkmouth,” said Estravon the Assessor, appearing from behind Steve, his hair black, slick and combed so neatly it looked like he may have measured each individual strand to make sure they were all the same length. He stepped into the house, his long legs encased in a blue suit with a velvety sheen. He wore a bright red tie.

“Good morning, Hugo, Finn, Emmie. Doing some training already?” Estravon asked, spotting the Desiccator. He looked at his watch. “Anyway, that’s all the time allocated for small talk; we must get on with business.”

He stood aside to reveal a group of people behind him. They were ancient men and women in colourful robes and heavy chains, and each had their own drably suited assistant just a step behind their right shoulder.

Hugo’s face fell.

Estravon thrust his chin out, and announced proudly, “Allow me to introduce the Council of Twelve.”