The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex

by Anne Cameron

  Indigo gasped. In the alarm and confusion they’d forgotten to rescue their sleeping friend. But it was already too late. There was a disturbance in the air behind them, the sound of more footsteps.

  Victus Bile had caught up with them at last. Blood was dripping from his shattered nose. He was still covered in powdered bone, and he was now carrying a gently snoring Dougal in his arms. Swarfe and Crevice appeared behind him two seconds later, and they had now been joined by a fourth figure.

  Indigo took a sudden quivering breath. Angus felt his last hopes of escape evaporate. Scabious Dankhart was striding toward them. A large black diamond glimmered from his eye socket, the deep scars on his face made more terrible by the shadows in the gloom around them.

  “Enough of this!” Dankhart snarled. “Get the boy. We need to return to the castle before the whole square is swarming with lightning catchers.”

  Swarfe grabbed Angus by the arm and wheeled him away from the door before he could make a run for it. Angus felt the fire dragon stir inside his chest. The creature was not prepared to give up yet.

  “So this is Etheldra’s daughter?” Dankhart was now circling Indigo with interest.

  Indigo met her uncle’s gaze defiantly, chin held high. In the flesh, the family resemblance was even more striking and showed itself in the length of their necks, the hollows of their cheeks. Indigo quickly pulled her sleeve down over the bleckles on her hand. But Dankhart had already seen what she was trying to conceal. He grabbed her wrist tightly and held it out for everyone to see.

  “You bear the mark of the Dankharts?” he said, surprised.

  “Get off me!” Indigo squirmed, trying to break free of his grasp.

  “Leave her alone!” Angus yelled, struggling against Swarfe’s tight grip on his arms. Dankhart ignored him.

  “Perhaps you are not quite as unpromising as your disappointing mother after all.”

  “My mum’s a Midnight now. She wants nothing to do with you!”

  “That may be true, but Dankhart blood flows through your veins, girl. You cannot escape it no matter how hard you struggle and writhe. It is who you are, and you should be proud.” Dankhart released her suddenly and lifted his sleeve to reveal an identical mark on his own hand. Indigo shivered away from it, looking utterly revolted. “You have seen with your own eyes what we Dankharts can achieve. You have looked upon the lightning tower, our most magnificent achievement. Can the Midnights claim such greatness? I wonder.”

  “The Midnights are a thousand times better than you’ll ever be!” Indigo yelled, all the resentment and anger she’d felt at her uncle’s existence suddenly bursting out of every pore. “The Midnights would never make razor rain or tumblewind or kidnap Angus’s parents!”

  Swarfe chuckled darkly. “Your niece shows some spirit, Scabious. I believe she is truly a Dankhart to the core.”

  Dankhart nodded in agreement. “I will admit she has more potential than I realized.”

  Indigo glared at them both with absolute loathing.

  “The boy McFangus will also prove useful in the months to come.” Dankhart turned to face Angus for the first time.

  Angus felt shivers of rage and hatred running through him. Once again Dankhart was the cause of all chaos and destruction, the reason behind the weather vortex, the lightning tower, the continued, heartbreaking absence of his parents, and Indigo’s extreme distress. The fire dragon burned against the wall in his chest, yearning to be set free.

  “Your time as a lightning cub has come to an end, Angus,” Dankhart said. “You will return with me to Castle Dankhart, where you will train with my finest monsoon mongrels. Your talents as a storm prophet will be allowed to flourish. We will waste no more time with history lessons and crypt tours, and soon there will be more storm prophets for you to develop your skills with. Storm prophets have helped us in the past, and now it is your destiny to continue that fine tradition.”

  “You’re lying!” Angus burst out angrily. “The storm prophets would never help you, and neither will I!”

  “But I am confident I can persuade you, Angus, just as I have finally persuaded your parents to part with some valuable lightning catcher secrets. They have been most helpful in the building of the lightning tower, their tongues loosened by their long stretch in the dungeons. They will make fine monsoon mongrels once they have completed their training.”

  “My mum and dad would never help you! They’d rather die!”

  “Perhaps that can be arranged. Crevice,” Dankhart said, turning suddenly to the bone merchant, who had been listening to the whole conversation with a satisfied smile, “I believe it may soon be time to revive one of your treasured family traditions. Mummification will work just as well on two interfering lightning catchers as anyone else. Alabone and Evangeline McFangus will make fine specimens for your shop window, unless their son is willing to help us after all.”

  Crevice sniggered. Dankhart was pulling on his gloves, getting ready to leave the shop. Tumblewind battered the windows outside, rattling the door violently.

  “Indigo will return to the castle with us, naturally. I am anxious to discover if her Dankhart nature extends beyond the bleckles on her hand.”

  “I won’t go!” Indigo jerked her arm away before her uncle could grab it.

  The door clattered on its hinges again as a vicious squall of scarlet sleeping snow went whizzing past outside.

  “What about the Dewsnap boy?” Victus Bile asked. Dougal’s head was now lolling against his shoulder.

  “He is of no use to us,” Swarfe said without emotion, as if they were discussing the fate of a trash can. “Throw him outside and let the ice-diamond spores have him.”

  “No!” Angus yelled. But his words were drowned out as the shop door suddenly burst open.

  Bang!

  A gust of giant exploding icicles raced inside. Swarfe loosened his grip for a fraction of a second. Angus tugged himself free, the fire dragon now raging inside his chest.

  “Get the boy and bring my niece!” Dankhart ordered, backing warily away from the violent weather he’d helped create. “We must return to Castle Dankhart!”

  But Indigo was far too swift for the monsoon mongrel. She ran speedily for cover, skillfully avoiding his grasp. Swarfe turned and made a desperate lunge toward Angus instead. Angus swerved away from him, out of arm’s reach, ducking under a heavy bombardment of deadly exploding icicles.

  “Enough!” Dankhart roared, launching himself at Angus in a fury.

  But this time Angus stood his ground, fists clenched, eyes closed, concentrating hard. He pictured fire dragons soaring over a storm of ancient flames in the Great Fire of London; he saw rancid rain chasing Percival Vellum across the storm hollow; he thought of Moray McFangus, the Bodfish brothers, and their magnificent fire dragon coffins in the crypt. A scorching fire blazed inside his rib cage.

  BANG!

  The fire dragon erupted into the bone merchant’s, filling the cramped shop with its fiery glow.

  “Scabious!” Swarfe cowered as the icicle storm intensified. “What’s the boy doing?”

  But Dankhart had already turned and fled, leaving his monsoon mongrels to fend for themselves.

  “ARGHHHH!” Victus Bile dumped Dougal on the floor and ran, leaving a trail of dusty footprints behind him.

  Swarfe followed close behind, but the fire dragon was already soaring in blistering pursuit. It dragged the exploding storm of icicles, driving long shards of ice with each flap of its blazing wings at the fleeing monsoon mongrels. Display cabinets shattered and glass jars smashed, their contents mixing with the storm in a white wall of terror and ice. Angus clung to the vision of the creature, feeling each swoop of his fire dragon’s body rippling through his own, each drive of its immense burning wings until slowly, slowly the sounds of the terrible storm diminished. He felt the presence of the fire dragon fade, second by second, until he was sure it had disappeared once again.

  He sank to his knees in the wreckage of the shop.
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  18

  THE FINAL LESSON

  “What’s going on?” a groggy voice asked. “Why am I lying in a pile of ice splinters?”

  Dougal had finally regained consciousness. He sat up, looking pale and shaken, his glasses askew. But there was no time to explain.

  Angus helped his friend onto his feet, Indigo led the way through the smashed wreckage of the door, and they ran across the cobbles in the square without looking back. The worst of the weather had finally blown itself out. Cradget’s, the statue, and Brabazon Botanicals were beginning to emerge through the much weaker weather that remained. And through it all a familiar figure was now racing toward them.

  “Uncle Jeremius!” Angus called.

  “What happened? Where have you three been? We’ve been searching everywhere.”

  “It’s Dankhart!” Angus said quickly, cutting him off. He had to tell Jeremius exactly what they’d just witnessed before word reached Dark-Angel that they’d been found safe and well.

  Angus grabbed Jeremius by the sleeve of his coat and pulled him into the shadows.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Angus quickly described their terrifying ordeal in the bone merchant’s and everything Swarfe had told them about the lightning towers. Jeremius listened silently, his face becoming paler by the second, his knuckles balling into tight fists.

  “He’s going to use the dragon scales,” Angus explained. “They’re going to mix them with storm particles that they capture with the lightning tower. We saw—we saw Principal Dark-Angel.” He finally managed to spit the words out. “She delivered the scales to the bone merchant. She stole them from the crypt of Moray McFangus and gave them to Dankhart.”

  Jeremius stared at him in disbelief. “But you must be mistaken. Delphinia and I rarely see eye to eye, but she would never betray—”

  “We saw her. It was definitely her,” Angus said, remembering her face in the gloom as she hurried out of the creepy shop. “We saw her talking to Crevice ages ago, too, that day we came into Little Frog’s Bottom with you and Mr. Dewsnap; only we didn’t know it was her then.”

  “And you’re absolutely sure? You couldn’t be mistaken?”

  Angus shook his head. “Crevice told her which scales were the best ones to steal. We heard them discussing it. She mentioned something about a special arrangement with Dankhart.”

  Jeremius ran a hand over his tired face. He turned to stare over his shoulder at the lightning catchers, who were busy organizing a swift retreat back to Perilous now that the worst of the weather had blown itself out. Dark-Angel was having an animated conversation with Catcher Sparks and Gudgeon. She was dressed in her usual leather jerkin. Jeremius stared at her for several seconds and then nodded.

  “We can’t talk about this now,” he said quietly. “Our trip to Feaver Street will have to wait, I’m afraid. Everyone is being taken back to the Exploratorium. You, Dougal, and Indigo must join the other lightning cubs. Tell no one else about Principal Dark-Angel, understand? Not even Gudgeon. I doubt he’d believe Delphinia is capable of such a dreadful act. If anyone asks you where you’ve been, don’t mention the bone merchant’s.”

  Angus nodded, feeling relieved that Jeremius believed him, that he and his friends would not have to keep such a grave and terrible secret on their own.

  “I will talk to Rogwood,” Jeremius said, already turned away from him. “We’ll come and find you as soon as we return to Perilous.”

  Their journey back to the Exploratorium in the open-topped coaches was chaotic, with every lightning cub discussing the weather vortex and the dramatic appearance of the lightning tower over Castle Dankhart.

  “What if Dankhart’s planning to build more lightning towers?” whispered Millicent Nichols, looking panic-stricken.

  Jonathon Hake nodded. “What if there’s an accident and he sets it on fire?”

  “He could sink the whole island if we get a big storm,” Nicholas Grubb said loudly over the top of two first years who were arguing about which one of them had spotted the tower first. “He could destroy Little Frog’s Bottom, just like the Great Fire of London.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Grubb,” Catcher Sparks said sternly from the far end of the coach. “Nobody is going to burn anything down.”

  “I bet that’s exactly what they thought in London before it actually happened,” Nicholas mumbled under his breath. Edmund Croxley nodded vigorously in agreement.

  As soon as they arrived back at Perilous, they were crammed into the gravity railway and then herded swiftly inside the Exploratorium by Catcher Sparks.

  “Straight down to the lightning cubs’ living quarters now, no dawdling!” she ordered.

  Angus and Dougal headed down to the Pigsty, where Indigo joined them only a few minutes later, and they quickly filled Dougal in on everything that he’d slept through in the bone merchant’s.

  “If I’d known your dear old uncle Scabby was going to make an appearance, I would have stayed in the statue head with the murderous stinging fog!” Dougal said.

  Indigo shivered, looking exhausted by the dreadful experience. “Uncle Scabious is ten times worse than I ever imagined! I couldn’t believe it when he said he was taking us back to his castle.”

  Angus still felt sick at the thought of it. They’d had a very narrow escape. If the fire dragon had failed to appear at the last desperate minute, if he’d been unable to control its actions . . .

  “I still can’t believe Dark-Angel’s a traitor,” Dougal said, shaking his head sadly. “She must have been planning the whole thing for months, asking Crevice to come in and repair those tombs so he could advise her about which fire dragon scales to steal, sneaking into the Inner Sanctum with her own set of keys.”

  “And when I caught her in the crypt and Catcher Coriolis marched me up to her office and she asked me all those questions, she was checking to see if she’d got away with it, to see if I’d recognized her,” Angus said, suddenly understanding.

  “Then she let everyone believe it was Crevice,” Indigo added.

  They stared into the comforting fire for a few moments without speaking.

  “I bet that’s why my mum and dad sent the map of the lightning vaults to me,” Angus said, thinking aloud. “They must have found out that Dark-Angel couldn’t be trusted. They didn’t want her getting into the vaults and helping Dankhart steal the never-ending storm.”

  “She was pretty angry when she found out we’d crept down there by ourselves,” Dougal said.

  “That’s why she sent me home, you mean?”

  “But she seemed so relieved when you stopped Swarfe from reviving the lightning heart,” Indigo pointed out.

  Angus frowned. “Then how do you explain what we’ve seen tonight?”

  “I can’t.” Indigo shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Nobody will believe us,” Dougal said, thinking it over. “Dark-Angel’s the principal. We’re just three second-year lightning cubs.”

  “Jeremius believes us,” Indigo said.

  “Yeah, but what can he do about it?” Angus said. “If he confronts Dark-Angel and tells her what we’ve seen, she’ll just banish him to an ice shelf in Alaska or somewhere, so he can’t cause any trouble.”

  Indigo frowned. “But we can’t just let her get away with it. What if she’s planning to help Dankhart with the lightning towers, too?”

  “Do you reckon Dark-Angel and Vellum are in it together?” Dougal asked after several seconds of silence. “I mean, none of the other lightning catchers like him, he’s always poking his nose into stuff that doesn’t concern him, plus he knows everything about Angus’s being a storm prophet.”

  They talked into the small hours of the morning until Dougal finally fell asleep mid-sentence, and they returned to their own rooms. Angus lay staring at the ceiling wide awake, unable to get rid of the image of Dark-Angel’s betrayal, of the lightning tower finally revealed, of Dankhart, Swarfe, and Victus Bile plotting to creat
e cataclysmic storms that would defeat every lightning catcher on the planet.

  At 4:15 a.m., there was a quiet knock on his door. Angus scrambled out of bed to find Jeremius and Rogwood in the corridor outside.

  “Angus, I’m sorry to wake you.” There were dark circles under Rogwood’s eyes. His voice was barely more than a whisper. “May we come in?”

  Jeremius slumped into a chair by the fire. Rogwood remained standing as Angus clambered back under his covers to keep warm.

  “Angus, as this might be the only chance your uncle and I have to talk to you in the next few days, we would like you to tell us again exactly what happened this evening,” Rogwood said.

  Angus hugged his knees to his chest, trying to decide where to start. He told them quickly how they’d followed the figure in the coat across the square, believing it was Valentine Vellum.

  “An easy mistake to make,” Jeremius said grimly. “I’ve never met a lightning catcher who looks so much like a criminal.”

  Angus then described the events in the bone merchant’s: how they’d witnessed Dark-Angel handing over the dragon scales to Crevice, the chilling moment when he and Indigo had run straight into Adrik Swarfe and Victus Bile, and the details of Swarfe’s plans for the lightning towers and the fire dragon scales.

  “Sir, none of the lightning catchers knew about those early experiments in 1777, did they?” he asked Rogwood.

  Rogwood shook his head. “I’m afraid I believed the only danger the dragon scales faced was from Mr. Crevice and his desire to obtain a celebrated bunion cure. Had I known what Delphinia was planning . . .” He shook his head again, staring into his beard. “It may well have been Delphinia herself who blacked out all research and reports regarding the events in 1777, covering her tracks so we would not discover her intentions.”

  It was the sudden appearance of Scabious Dankhart that Angus found the most difficult to describe. He quickly explained about Dankhart’s plans to take him and Indigo straight back to the castle and the final spectacular appearance of the fire dragon.