Shane Hegarty - Chaos Descends

First published in hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,

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London SE1 9GF

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Copyright © Shane Hegarty 2016

Jacket illustration © James de la Rue 2016

Jacket Design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Design by HarperCollins Publishers © 2017

Character illustration © James de la Rue; claw mark illustration © Peter Crowther

Shane Hegarty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.

James de la Rue asserts the moral right to be identified as the illustrator of the work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007545636

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007545698

Version: 2017-02-14

For Caoimhe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Maps

Previously in Darkmouth

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Liechtenstein: Two Months Earlier

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Liechtenstein: Seven Weeks Earlier

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Liechtenstein: Five Weeks Earlier

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Liechtenstein: Two Weeks Earlier

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Liechtenstein: Twelve Hours Earlier

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Liechtenstein: Six Hours Earlier

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Liechtenstein: The Very Same Moment

Chapter 59

Thank Yous

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Shane Hegarty

About the Publisher

Ten months after returning from the Infested Side, Finn still had to be careful where he sneezed.

If he sneezed in the kitchen, the microwave went ting .

If he coughed too hard, the television changed channels.

One night he snored so loudly it woke him with a terrible start and the sound of thunder in his ears. He sat upright, calming his breath, convinced he had caused something, somewhere to explode.

Things had, after all, exploded before. Everything had exploded. Gateways. Caves. Worlds. People. Finn.

While trying to find his father, Hugo, he had accidentally thrown himself, Emmie and Estravon the Assessor into the Infested Side. There Finn had discovered that he had the ability to ignite – to explode with devastating power, sending out a wave of energy that laid waste to everything around him. Although he had found this out only once he had exploded.

He had been further astonished to find it left him in one piece. More or less. A scar across his chest reminded him of what had happened. As did the occasionally problematic sneezing fit.

So much else had happened on the Infested Side. He had walked with the enemy, blown a giant hole between worlds, found his long-missing grandfather, Niall Blacktongue, become involved in a Legend rebellion and, to the loudest complaints of all, ruined Estravon’s best trousers.

He’d done all of this having landed in the right world , but three decades too early to find his father. It meant he could add time travel to the list of things he hadn’t meant to do.

Yet, despite this, his father had been rescued and the Legends had been defeated at Darkmouth’s Cave at the Beginning of the World.

Ten months on, and that same energy occasionally welled inside him, unexpected, uncontrolled, but otherwise all was quiet in Darkmouth.

Finn sat in his classroom, paying little attention to the teacher, looking instead at the empty chair where Emmie used to sit. With her father, Steve, she had been sent to spy on Finn, but had ended up sharing these adventures with him. When all that was done, she’d had to return to the city with her dad.

Life was quieter without Emmie. He missed her. Not that he’d admit that to her.

Finn stared out of the school window for a while. There wasn’t much to see. No Legends. No gateways. Darkmouth had not been attacked by a single Legend since and was becoming just like any other town. His family was in danger of becoming just like every other. And even the Savage twins sitting here in his class, two bad attitudes and one chewed ear between them, had stopped bothering him and instead treated him with as little interest as they did the rest of the kids.

The collapsed section of the cliffs, where the gateway to the Infested Side had been opened and then dramatically closed, was covered now with tall green grass, bringing a sense of new growth following destruction. The people of Darkmouth wondered if their town might join those others around the world that used to be plagued by Legends, but which were now free from that blight for the first time in a thousand years.

Finn’s birthday was approaching. His thirteenth. A big one, especially for an apprentice Legend Hunter like him: it was the age at which he could finally become Complete. That was something Finn had always dreaded. But, as he gazed out of the school window, he let his mind dwell on dangerous questions. Would he now live an ordinary life, free of the responsibility of being a Legend Hunter? Was the war actually over? Was it this from now on in? No destiny. No prophecies. Just life. Ordinary, everyday, Legend-free, unexciting life.

He might have dwelled on these questions some more except he had to sneeze.

“Bless you, Finn,” said his teacher.

Finn quietly blew through his cheeks, relieved he hadn’t set off the school bell.

What he didn’t realise was that three rooms away the sprinkler system had burst into life, drenching twenty-five panicked kids, one surprised teacher and two very twitchy class hamsters.

The hotel room was quiet and still, untouched for years by anything but the light that sliced through the torn curtain. Its sheets bleached of colour, a bed stood in the corner. It had not been slept in for a very long time. Over the sink, a thin green line of slime hung from the tap. A chair sat at an awkward angle by the wall; a snuffling silverfish carved a track across its layer of dust.