The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex (10 page)

He jumped out of the way as a sliver of toxic-looking storm oozed onto the floor and drifted in an aimless manner around his knees. “We've got to catch it and stuff it back into a storm jar! If anyone finds it drifting about in here . . .”

“Quickly, it's getting away!” Indigo pointed.

The storm sliver, freed from its glass prison, was now on the move. Indigo reached out, making several unsuccessful attempts to trap it between her hands.

“Gotcha!” Angus pounced on top of it, crashing straight through the cloud and hitting the floor underneath. “Oh, no! Where's it gone now?”

They chased the weather sample helter-skelter down to the far end of the archive, desperately trying to grab it.

“How are you supposed to trap this stuff?” Angus said, attempting to ambush it unawares.

It was Indigo who finally came to their rescue, tying their sweaters together to form a thick, spongy net. She flung it over the escaped weather, which soaked rapidly into the woolen fibers.

“Quickly, wring it out into this jar!” Angus said, grabbing an empty container.

He pushed a rubber stopper in the top before the storm could escape again, and the jar was finally sealed.

They left the archive swiftly and ran back to the much safer room where Catcher Wrascal had left them half an hour earlier. Dougal returned from the paper archive just a minute later, his sweater bulging with lumpy objects.

“What did you find?” asked Angus, eager to hear some good news.

But Dougal shook his head. “I'll tell you later.” He hastily stuffed a number of mysterious items into his bag as Catcher Wrascal appeared in the doorway with a cheery wave.

They were forced to put all thoughts of Dankhart, archives and the weather vortex aside to tackle the storm jars after that. Transferring the weather samples wasn't nearly as easy as it sounded, even when they followed a sketchy list of handwritten instructions from Catcher Wrascal.

“Oops! Sorry, I should have given you those ages ago,” she said, passing a scrunched-up sheet of paper over to Dougal with an apologetic smile.

‘“Step one,'” Dougal said, reading the instructions
aloud when they finally got started a few minutes later. “‘Identify the weather contained within the storm jar.'”

“The weather in this one's gone all runny,” Angus said, examining the sticky-looking substance at the bottom. “How am I supposed to know what it is?”

“What does it say on the label?” Indigo asked.

“It looks like ‘night owls with beastly wiz,'” Angus said, trying to decipher the faded words.

“Er, I think that's supposed to be ‘light showers with easterly winds.'” Dougal grinned. “‘Step two, remove the rubber stopper from the old storm jar.'”

Angus and Indigo wrestled with it for several minutes before the stopper eventually gave way with a loud pop, causing Angus to fall over backward.

“‘Step three, fit a funnel in the neck of the new storm jar and transfer the weather sample by pouring slowly.'”

The jar was heavy and extremely difficult to maneuver into the correct position. It took all three of them just to lift it.

“Hold that funnel steady!” Dougal bellowed as the whole thing wobbled at a precarious angle.

“I can't!” Angus yelled. “It keeps sliding!”

“We've got weather trickling down the outside of the storm jar!” Indigo warned as a puddle began to form at their feet.

They left the weather archive at the end of the day feeling disheveled and ravenously hungry. Angus piled his plate high with extra spaghetti and meatballs at dinner, hoping that the next day would prove less exhausting. Indigo quickly filled Dougal in on their adventure in the Dankhart archive. Luckily, Dougal had had more success.

“I managed to find some weather reports from Castle Dankhart and some of those mechanical pigeon messengers.” He extracted one of the feathered birds from his bag to show them. “But they both contain some really complicated weather symbols that I've never seen before. So I'll need a good book on advanced weather icons if I'm going to decipher them properly.”

Instead of retiring to the lightning cubs' living quarters after dinner, therefore, Angus and Indigo followed Dougal straight up to the reference section of the library.

The library at Perilous was large, with a splendid spiral staircase leading to a balcony and an impressive
glass-domed ceiling at the top. It was also one of Dougal's favorite places to linger.

He disappeared quickly into a corner, where he immersed himself in a pile of dusty books.

Indigo wandered down the next aisle. Angus inspected a row of highly technical-looking books about creating a storm archive. It was only when he drifted into a different section a few minutes later that he caught sight of a familiar figure sitting at a study table.

“Hey, Germ!” he called quietly.

Germ looked up and waved. It was the first time Angus had seen him since their return to Perilous. Normally the noisiest center of any crowd, Germ was sitting quietly on his own for once, surrounded by piles of books and scribbled notes, ink smudged across his nose.

“What are you doing here?” Angus asked, sitting in a chair opposite.

“St-st-studying.” Germ stretched his arms high above his head, yawning. His brown hair looked as if it hadn't been brushed for days. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Old Fleagal reckons I'm ready to sit my first medical exams. I'm reading up on boils, blisters, and spotty bumps
this evening.” He showed Angus the front cover of a book with the same title. “Listen to this bit; it's really revolting,” he said, opening the tome just as Indigo joined them. “‘Belching blisters, thin gas-filled bubbles of skin, caused by rubber boot chafing, usually form in clusters on the soles of feet, emitting a loud burping noise when popped.'”

Germ grinned. Indigo rolled her eyes at her brother. Angus swallowed, wondering if simply hearing about the symptoms of belching blisters could cause them to spontaneously erupt all over his feet.

“‘Secondary symptoms include—' Hey, what's wrong with your skin?” Germ flung his book aside and grabbed Indigo's hand before she could pull it away. “Whoa! That's definitely not normal,” he said, inspecting her rash gleefully. “Five red spots in a triangle formation. There are signs of inflammation, possibly even infection. It's bound to be something incurable, or contagious, or both. It's also the perfect case study for my spotty bumps exam.”

“No! It's just a stupid heat rash.” Indigo pulled her hand away and hid it behind her back.

“Suit yourself, little sis,” Germ said, shrugging, “but
don't be surprised if your fingers turn purple in the middle of the night and start dropping off.”

Dougal appeared a second later, clutching several thick books. But before he could show them exactly what he'd found:

BOOOOOOM!

Everything inside the library shook, causing several startled mice to scuttle across the floor in front of them. The glass roof above their heads rattled. Small puffs of ancient dust rose from the shelves, forming tiny, grimy-looking clouds.

“It's a frost quake!” Dougal dropped his books all over Germ's study notes in a panic.

“But it's only September,” Indigo pointed out as the library continued to shake and vibrate alarmingly. “There hasn't been any frost yet!”

“Then why in the name of Perilous is the whole library trembling?”

“Maybe Valentine Vellum's finally vaporized himself in the Lightnarium,” Germ suggested with a hint of hopefulness.

The shaking slowly subsided and finally stopped less than a minute later. An eerie silence fell, broken only by
the sound of whimpering coming from the next aisle.

“Come on, let's find out what's going on,” Angus said, helping Germ stuff his books into his bag.

They hurried toward the staircase only to find the librarian, Miss Vulpine, racing toward them in a flap.

“Everyone must leave the library immediately! The ceiling could shatter at any second!” she said, rushing a group of frightened-looking first years toward the stairs.

“But, miss, what's going on?” Angus asked, standing his ground.

Miss Vulpine, however, was far too frantic to answer any questions and dashed off, herding more groups of lightning cubs toward the exit.

“Is it my imagination or has it suddenly got darker?” Germ said, gazing upward.

Angus stared at the glass-domed ceiling above their heads. The skies had darkened to a murky gray. A storm was about to break over Perilous. But this was no ordinary storm, Angus realized, hiccuping in surprise. Thick rain, giant snowflakes, and small silvery fish were suddenly raining down on the roof. Giant hailstones hammered against the glass panes, along with a smattering of garden snails.

“Oh, no,” Dougal said, turning pale. “This is exactly the kind of stuff Gudgeon makes us tramp through with our weather watches for practice.”

But for once Angus knew that Dougal was wrong. He felt the contents of his stomach lurch. Rogwood, Gudgeon, and Jeremius had described this exact weather to him the other day in Dark-Angel's office.

“Those snails and hailstones have come from the weather vortex,” he said, suddenly feeling certain. “There's been another explosion at Castle Dankhart!”

  
6
  
THE STORM HOLLOW

S
trange showers of garden worms and moss-colored rain continued to fall throughout the night, making it almost impossible to sleep. Angus, wrapped up in his comforter, sat hunched beside his bedroom window, watching as the weather raged outside. Had there now been a genuine accident at Castle Dankhart? How was he supposed to find out what was really going on? He had no idea how to get in touch with Jeremius. Did his uncle even know about the second explosion?

Angus watched a cascade of goldfish fall past his window, feeling sick with fear and worry. Would he ever see his mum and dad again?

By the time he went up to the kitchens the following morning with Dougal, he'd already decided to find Gudgeon or Rogwood and ask him directly about the explosion, just as Jeremius had told him to. The weather had finally cleared, and a weak sun was hiding behind a high cloud. The snow, ice, and hailstones had melted long ago, but the strange storm had deposited piles of flotsam and jetsam across every inch of the courtyard outside the main entrance.

“Whoa!” Dougal gasped as they stared out through the open doors. “It looks like there's been a shipwreck.”

There were metal cogs, long splinters of wood, balls of knotted string, and something that looked like a rusty old bicycle pump. Fragments of shattered glass, fish scales, and acorns were being swept up and collected in large buckets by a dozen or more lightning catchers.

“McFangus! Dewsnap!” Catcher Sparks marched toward them through the wreckage, armed with a bucket and a broom. “Lightning cubs are forbidden from entering the courtyard until this mess has been cleared away.”

“But, miss—” Angus began, desperate for some answers.

Catcher Sparks cut him short. “No buts, McFangus. Unless you two are volunteering to sweep up this rubbish, I suggest you make your way into the kitchens for breakfast immediately.”

Angus scoured the courtyard, looking for any signs of Rogwood or Gudgeon, but as Catcher Sparks was now flaring her nostrils angrily at him, he decided it was safer to leave.

“Have you found anything in those weather reports from Castle Dankhart yet?” he asked Dougal as they hurried away from the courtyard.

Dougal shook his head. “Catcher Plymstock wrote all the reports in the two weeks before the first explosion. She mentions some abominable snowstorms and a brief scattering of pale pink snow, but there's no unusual activity, no dangerous weather experiments or machines, and most of the mechanical pigeons have had their messages removed. I haven't given up yet, though,” Dougal said, plucking a stray pigeon feather from his hair. It was obvious he'd fallen asleep using one of the messengers as a pillow.

They hurried on into the crowded kitchens where new
“Coming Soon!” posters had appeared overnight. Nobody was showing the slightest interest in the mysterious notices, however. Instead, all talk centered on the weather explosion, and a nervous buzz filled the air like the distant humming of bees. Indigo was already sitting at their usual table with a stack of toast lying half forgotten in front of her, her head bent over the pages of a glossy magazine.

“What are you reading?” Angus asked as he and Dougal both sat down.

Indigo flinched, looking up in surprise. “Thank goodness it's only you two.”

“Were you expecting somebody else?” Dougal asked, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Germ keeps pestering me about the rash on my hand,” Indigo said with a sigh, scratching it absently. “I've been avoiding him.”

“So what are you reading?” Angus asked, helping himself to a slice of Indigo's toast.

“It's the latest copy of the
Weathervane
.”

The
Weekly Weathervane
had proved an invaluable source of information last term, when it had revealed interesting details about Adrik Swarfe and the Lightning
Catcher of the Year award. Most lightning cubs had never read a copy because of the general belief that it was rather boring and nerdy. But Dougal devoured each edition with relish.

“How come you've got a copy?” he asked, frowning.

“When I came up to breakfast this morning, everyone was talking about it, so I ran up to the research department and grabbed one before they all disappeared and— Oh! You'd better take a look at it for yourselves!” Indigo pushed the magazine across the table.

In the center pages was a picture of the weather vortex hanging over Castle Dankhart. Angus felt his stomach clench. Even seen from a safe distance it was a deeply shocking sight. The vortex was monstrous, far larger than he'd imagined. It engulfed the castle in a whirling shroud of lightning bolts, fognadoes, black rain, and collections of far more solid-looking objects.

“It's like someone's smashed a thousand storm globes and let them run riot,” Dougal said, looking pale and shaken. “I can see giant snowflakes, thunderclouds, and icicle storms.”

“This must have been taken before yesterday's
explosion,” Angus said, studying the photograph in detail.

“I wonder what it looks like now,” Indigo said, biting her lip anxiously.

No part of Castle Dankhart was visible through the weather vortex, but it was clear that the castle was vast. It was flanked on either side by impressively large snowcapped mountains. It was the first time Angus had seen any image of it. He stared at the picture hard. Somewhere beneath the violent layers of weather his mum and dad were trapped in a dungeon.

“What if there really has been an accident this time?” Angus said, voicing the concerns that had kept him awake long into the night. “I mean, what type of experiment could have caused such a huge explosion?”

Dougal shook his head. “And if it wasn't an accident, if Indigo's dear old uncle Scabby really is doing this on purpose,” he added, lowering his voice, “what's he doing it for? It doesn't make any sense.”

Before anyone could come up with any answers, Angus spotted a familiar figure striding across the kitchen toward them. Gudgeon was dressed in a battered leather jerkin that appeared to be made entirely out of repaired rips and
scars. He was also wearing a deep scowl.

“I thought you three might have your heads buried in the
Weathervane
,” he said, nodding toward the magazine, still spread out on the table before them. “I've just come to tell you what we know about this latest explosion so you don't go skipping off after monsoon mongrels or dangerous lightning hearts. Besides, I promised Jeremius I'd keep a special eye on you three.”

“What's going on? Has the vortex disappeared?” Angus asked, unable to contain himself. “Is Castle Dankhart visible now?”

“Does it look like there's been a real explosion?” Dougal chipped in.

“Or a horrible weather catastrophe?” Indigo added, looking just as anxious for news as her friends.

“If you shut up for a minute and let me get a word in edgewise, I'll tell you!” the gruff lightning catcher said, trying to keep his voice low. “It was impossible to see anything until first light this morning, but it looks like the weather vortex is still hanging over Castle Dankhart.”

“But what about all the stuff that fell over Perilous last night?” Angus asked.

“The force of last night's blast blew a small portion of the debris over to this side of the island. The rest of it's still swirling around the castle and looking more violent than ever. In fact that blowout seems to have stirred things up a bit.”

“Do you think it was a real explosion this time?” Dougal asked.

“It wouldn't surprise me if those monsoon mongrels blew themselves to smithereens one day. But I reckon this is all part of Dankhart's plan. He's got something big going on, and no mistake, so you three had better keep your wits about you.”

“But what about my mum and dad?” Angus asked, swallowing a lump in his throat. “How can anyone be sure they're still safe?”

“Now you three listen to me.” Gudgeon folded his arms across his chest and fixed each of them with a stern glare. “That leaky old castle's got more secret passageways and tunnels than Perilous. If there had been a real weather catastrophe, those monsoon mongrels would be fleeing in all directions like a bunch of stinking water rats abandoning ship. And there's been no sign of any fleeing yet. If
there's been a real accident at that castle, I'll eat my own vest.”

Angus stared at Gudgeon, startled, not sure if the gruff lightning catcher was simply trying to stop him from worrying about his mum and dad or if he was telling the truth.

“Oh, no!” Indigo jumped up suddenly. She stared around the kitchen, which had almost emptied out while they'd been talking to Gudgeon. “We'll be late for Catcher Wrascal.”

“Sit down, you three. You're not going anywhere.”

Indigo frowned. “But we've got to get up to the weather archive.”

“You're not doing anything with archives today. You're coming with me.”

“But what for?” Angus asked warily.

Gudgeon checked his weather watch. “Meet me in the Octagon in ten minutes in your full wet-weather gear, and you'll find out.” And he marched out of the kitchen without explaining any further.

“I definitely don't like the sound of that.” Dougal gulped. “The last time Gudgeon took us for a lesson we ended up in the Rotundra, and look how well that turned out.
I mean, we almost got killed by ice-diamond spores and snowbombs.”

“I wonder what he's got planned for us this time,” Indigo said, looking eager to find out.

Angus crossed his fingers under the table, hoping that just this once it wouldn't involve something treacherous or life threatening.

Ten minutes later they reached the marbled Octagon to find the rest of the second years waiting anxiously. Millicent Nichols, who was already allergic to fog, snow, and heavy rain showers, was biting her fingernails in a state of advanced nervousness. Jonathon Hake and Nigel Ridgely were talking with serious expressions. Pixie and Percival Vellum were standing to one side, separate from the rest of the group.

“Those two look more like a pair of gargoyles every time we see them,” Dougal said as they hovered behind Georgina Fox.

Angus grinned. “Maybe Dark-Angel will throw them out of Perilous this year for being extra thick.”

“Yeah, or extra ugly!”

Gudgeon appeared a few moments later, and a tense
hush fell around the marbled hall.

“Right, you lot. Due to recent weather events here on Imbur, Principal Dark-Angel has decided that all lightning cubs, from the second year and up, need some special additional training.”

Angus glanced sideways at Indigo.

“Training will take place with me inside the storm hollow, which you won't have heard anyone talking about, even though it's one of the oldest parts of Perilous.”

“What on earth's a storm hollow?” Dougal whispered as a low murmur swept around the Octagon. “And why isn't anyone allowed to talk about it?”