The Lightning Catcher: The Secrets of the Storm Vortex (4 page)

They emerged through another door a few minutes later, and stepped directly into the noisy museum foyer, which was now even more crowded with chattering visitors. Angus glanced through the door of the gift shop as they hurried past it and almost choked. Several members of museum staff were trying to contain the same storm in a teacup that he'd opened earlier. It had now gone completely berserk, firing lightning bolts in all directions.

“Quickly, move those cuddly clouds before the whole display goes up in flames!” the tallest staff member shouted as the others jumped on top of the cup, which was starting to erupt with even greater force.

Angus raced after Jeremius keeping his eyes fixed
straight ahead of him, his head bowed low. He darted through a revolving door that led directly to the street outside and—

“Ooof!”

He'd plowed straight into the back of Catcher Tempest. The lightning catcher glared at him with obvious contempt before stomping off into the rain.

But instead of leading them through the soggy streets of London, as Angus had expected, he headed swiftly around the side of the museum, through another door, up a steep spiral staircase, and suddenly, they were standing on a balcony that ran around the outside of the museum's vast glass dome.

London, immense and bustling with life, stretched out before them. Angus gazed at the incredible scene as Catcher Tempest guided them along the narrow balcony. He could clearly see the Houses of Parliament in the distance, the river Thames, which snaked its way through the center of the city, and the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Catcher Tempest stopped abruptly and turned to face them, blocking the view.

“The extremely valuable pair of retrospectacles that
I'm about to give you is normally reserved for important foreign visitors and senior lightning catchers,” Catcher Tempestsaid, taking an odd pair of ancient goggles from his pocket. The goggles were thick and chunky with misty-looking dome-shaped lenses on the front and a wide rubber headband. There were several knobs and dials on the side. “A lightning cub has never been allowed to wear them before, and I am letting you to do so today against my better judgment. You will kindly treat them with extreme care and if they are returned to me with any damage—”

“Angus isn't planning to trample them, Trevelyan,” Jeremius said, sounding annoyed.

The lightning catcher sniffed. “That remains to be seen. If you will please take the retrospectacles and put them on . . .”

Angus wiped his hands on his pants, took the heavy goggles, and snapped them into place over his eyes. The headband dug into his scalp, pinching his skin. Two flaps extended downward, covering his ears.

London lay before them, magnified to several times its normal size, grand and impressive even in the rain.
He could now see the famous towers of Battersea Power Station and the flag flapping in the wind above Buckingham Palace. He swung his head around and twisted the lens at the front with his fingers; the retrospectacles zoomed in, allowing him to count the cracks in the pavement outside the Houses of Parliament and every pimple on the faces of the young policemen guarding the entrance.

“Now, observe if you will.”

Catcher Tempest bent down, adjusted the lens, and flicked a knob on the side. The image blurred for a second until it came back into focus again and—

“Wow!” Angus gasped. The Houses of Parliament had disappeared along with every other building he recognized. All skyscrapers and office blocks had vanished. There were no neon lights, cars, airplanes, or telephone wires. But a large city lay beneath them still; it had a strange hazy look about it now as if an old painting had been brought to life. A familiar dark river ran through the middle.

“What's happening?” Angus asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the incredible scene.

“What you can now see is the great city of London as it would have appeared over three hundred and fifty years ago. These images have been superimposed over the present-day skyline, giving you an accurate historical layout.”

Angus felt his stomach lurch as he suddenly understood. He was looking down on a living, breathing London just as it had been in 1666. He could smell woodsmoke as it drifted on the breeze; the cloying stink of city grime hung heavy in the air. Every modern city sound had faded away completely, thanks to his earflaps. All he could hear now was a pack of dogs barking in the distance.

Angus gulped. Instead of construction cranes and helicopters, he could see a collection of vast lightning towers. They were much bigger than he'd imagined. Skeletal and pyramid shaped, they dominated the old city skyline like a collection of giant leafless trees.

“If you look to the left and follow the green arrow you see on the lens in front of you,” Catcher Tempest instructed, “it will guide you to a narrow cobbled street called Lightning Mews, where we will begin our tour of London.”

A flashing green arrow appeared as he said it. Angus
allowed the arrow to direct his gaze across the city and then down into a narrow lane with higgledy-piggledy dwellings on either side. The arrow stopped outside an ancient-looking house with crooked timbers, sagging plaster, and tiny windows.

“This is the house where Philip Starling was born,” Catcher Tempest explained. “It is also the spot where, many years later, he was introduced to Edgar Perilous by a mutual acquaintance, and they quickly become firm friends. According to journals and letters written at the time, it was here at number forty-two that the earliest lightning catchers met to discuss their groundbreaking ideas and experiments and where the first lightning towers were designed.”

Angus stared at the house, flabbergasted. A candle burned low in the grimy window. He was certain he could see shadowy figures moving behind the rippled glass. Was he looking directly at Philip Starling, a strange distant shadow of the past?

“Is the building still standing, Trevelyan?” Angus heard Jeremius ask behind him.

“It survived the Great Fire, but ironically, it was
destroyed some years later after a lightning strike. Now, if you would follow the green arrow once again, you will note that many streets and grand houses in London were also named after the lightning catchers and their brave experiments. Indeed, many of these locations still exist to this day.”

The green arrow took Angus on a convoluted tour down a short street called Storm Tower Alley and then into a tree-lined avenue with a large dwelling called Edgar Perilous House. There was Thunderbolt Snicket and a poky-looking inn called The Lucky Lightning Strike, where the green arrow settled and finally disappeared.

“Now, if you will allow me to make a small adjustment.” Catcher Tempest twiddled a knob on the side of the goggles so that Angus could once again see the whole of seventeenth-century London before him, with the lightning towers stretching up to the sky.

“All reference to the towers was forbidden after the Great Fire by the rulers of London and systematically removed from those books that had mentioned them. All paintings and pictures depicting the towers were destroyed or were burned in the fire itself. A heavy fine
was imposed on anyone disobeying. All trace of the towers was extinguished, in fact, until Edwin Larkspur's important discovery.”

Angus remembered it well. Edwin Larkspur, an archaeologist, had uncovered some twisted scraps of metal beneath an old paint factory, the only remains of a lightning tower ever found. Unfortunately, the remains had then been stolen by Adrik Swarfe in order to revive the lightning heart. Angus suddenly recalled where he'd heard Catcher Tempest's name before. Tempest had been sent to the museum where Edwin Larkspur worked to quiz him for details about the theft.

Angus zoomed in for a better look at the lightning tower closest to him. Complicated metal struts and stairways ran through the open structure. A large lightning rod reached straight up into the clouds to attract any stray electrical storms. The whole thing looked incredibly real.

“As you can see, the lightning towers were a masterpiece of engineering and vision. They were built soon after Starling and Perilous joined a group of scientists who had begun to conduct some revolutionary experiments to capture the explosive force of lightning, to use it for the good
of all humankind. As they quickly discovered, however, these forces were violent and unpredictable and could not be controlled. The whole experiment ended with the Great Fire of 1666.”

Angus swallowed hard. The skies suddenly darkened to an early-evening gloom.

“What you are about to observe is a reconstruction of the fateful night that London was destroyed,” Catcher Tempest said. “Watch carefully as the storm approaches from the west. The images that follow are based upon accurate reports and observations from the time but have been sped up for your convenience.”

There was a sudden rumbling of thunder and a streak of golden lightning to the west. Angus swung his head around to the left and fiddled with the goggles until a full panoramic view of London emerged before him again. An immense storm was gathering in the distance and moving rapidly toward the outer edges of seventeenth-century London. He was about to witness the terrible events that had led to the Great Fire and the destruction of the lightning towers.

He watched, transfixed, as bright lightning lashed out, illuminating ancient houses, church spires, and lightning
towers in the distance. He could almost feel the dangerous quiver of ancient electricity in the air. He could sense the mighty storm approaching, even though he knew that it wasn't real, that it had happened hundreds of years before he'd been born.

CRASH!

One of the tallest towers had been struck! The flames took hold quickly, spreading to the structures around it, and then: Angus held his breath as the Great Fire swept rapidly across London with an intense glow like a blazing orange sunset. He watched in horror as everything before him was consumed by the frightening inferno that leaped and tore its way through the helpless city.

Angus gasped as several fire dragons suddenly soared above the rooftops. He twiddled the lens on the retrospectacles, quickly zooming in to see the creatures close up. There was a flash of red, a brilliant swoop of burning yellow, a glimpse of shimmering scales.

“I can see fire dragons!” he said, shocked, unable to take his eyes off the dazzling display. “But I don't understand. Nobody else can see mine. I thought they were just a vision, a warning of danger.”

“The dragons are not real.” Catcher Tempest reminded him tartly. “You are simply seeing a series of images, created by the retrospectacles, giving you an idea of the events that occurred on that fateful night.”

Angus knew that this was what Catcher Tempest had brought him here to see: the beginnings of his own history, the very earliest days of the storm prophets, when their fire dragons had soared high above the ruined city. Each one was larger and more impressive than his own, each one unique with its own distinct colors and form. For one brief moment the dragons lingered, wings blazing in the dark sky above the flames, before they swooped down and disappeared into the fires below. He felt a strange, uneasy stirring in his chest, a twitchy feeling in his fingers and toes, as if some hidden part of him that he'd never even felt before had suddenly stirred at the sight.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it was over. The burned city, devastated, smoldering in a choking haze, lay before him.

“Angus?” Jeremius was gently trying to loosen his grip on the retrospectacles. “It's over now.”He lifted the goggles carefully off Angus's head.

Angus rubbed his eyes and blinked, staring out across
the city. He was extremely relieved to see that modern-day London was still standing exactly where it had been just a few minutes before. There were no burned ruins or charred lightning towers, no leaping fire dragons. He'd been looking at a phantom of the past, nothing more.

“I hope you realize how extraordinarily lucky you are to have seen this,” Catcher Tempest said, staring down his nose at Angus.

Angus wasn't convinced that “lucky” was the right word. The startling images of a fire-ravaged city had been burned into his memory as if he'd witnessed it with his own eyes, as if he'd stood at the top of the tallest lightning tower in the middle of the very storm that had transformed London into a blackened carcass. His heart was still pounding inside his rib cage.

“You have witnessed the earliest beginnings of the lightning catchers and the storm prophets, just as Principal Dark-Angel requested. Now, I really must go and help sort out Greenland,” Catcher Tempest said, glancing impatiently at his weather watch. “Good day to you both.”

He disappeared around the curve of the domed roof without a backward glance.

  
3
  
CREVICE AND SONS

A
ngus spent the rest of the day in a strange sort of daze. Scenes from the retrospectacles flashed before his eyes as he and his uncle left the museum and stopped off at the cartographer's, where Jeremius picked up some old maps of Canada, and an antiques shop, where Jeremius rummaged around for rare fossilized hailstones. It was only at the end of a very long day that they finally headed for a private pier to catch a ferry to the Isle of Imbur. After a swift dinner in the ferry's packed dining room, Jeremius led him straight down to a small, comfortable cabin where Angus fell asleep almost instantly. His dreams were filled with magnificent fire dragons that swooped and soared
above the roar of ancient flames. He tossed and turned as London burned before him again and again, as something unfamiliar, something that longed to break free and join the creatures in their fiery dance, stirred inside him.

When the ferry arrived at Imbur early the next morning, he stumbled out of bed and followed Jeremius into the dark, where they climbed aboard an open-topped steam-powered coach. It took them directly to 37 Feaver Street.

“What are we doing at Dougal's house?” Angus asked sleepily as his uncle shuffled him inside. “I thought we were heading back to Perilous?” But Jeremius refused to explain anything at such an early hour of the morning, and before Angus was fully conscious again, he was climbing into another soft bed at the top of the house, where he fell asleep still wearing his socks and shoes.

When he finally woke up for a second time, feeling groggy, it took him several moments to remember where he was. The cramped ferry cabin had gone; curtains were drawn across a tall window; his socks and shoes had been removed and laid neatly on a chair, and—

“Oh!” Angus jumped, banging his elbow on the bedside
table. Someone was staring at him through a half-open door. Deep green eyes blinked from behind a pair of small, round glasses. Angus recognized the familiar face immediately.

“Good! You're awake at last!” Dougal came bounding into his room and perched on the edge of the bed, grinning. It was obvious that his jet black hair had been trimmed recently with the aid of some blunt scissors. He'd also grown several inches over the summer and looked slightly less round through the middle than the last time Angus had seen him. “It's about time, too. I thought you were going to sleep through the whole day.”

“Why, what time is it?” Angus asked, feeling extremely disoriented.

“Eight forty-five. Jeremius tried to wake you up an hour ago, but you were still snoring your head off.”

Angus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and grinned. It was brilliant to see Dougal again. It had been impossible to contact his friend over the summer using telephones or computers, because of the volatile nature of the work carried out at Perilous and the strong interference it created.

“Dad says you're staying here for five whole days; then
we're going back to Perilous together,” Dougal explained. “He only told me last night. But never mind about that now. What's been going on?” He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Jeremius keeps mumbling stuff to Dad in the kitchen about weather museums. But every time I get anywhere near them, they change the subject and start talking about boring Perilous stuff instead. And why do they keep mentioning Trevelyan Tempest?” he added, frowning. “I thought he was that lightning catcher who worked at the London office.”

“He is,” Angus said. He settled himself back against his pillows and told Dougal everything about the surprise trip to the Starling Museum of Storm Science.

“So you actually saw London burning? Wow!” Dougal shook his head, looking deeply impressed. “I thought when Dark-Angel said it was time for you to learn more about the storm prophets she meant you'd be reading books and diaries and stuff.”

“Yeah, me too,” Angus said.

“I wonder what else Dark-Angel's planning to show you. I mean, it must be something pretty amazing, or dangerous, if she's starting you off with retrospectacles.”

Angus shifted uncomfortably in his bed. Was Dougal right? Was learning about the storm prophets going to be far more hazardous than he'd realized? He definitely hadn't been prepared for the powerful images he'd seen through the retrospectacles or for the strange effect they'd had on him. He could still feel the spot, hidden deep inside his chest, that had been disturbed by the sight of so many fire dragons and the burning of phantom fires, something that was reluctant to curl up and return to the slumber from which it had been shaken. It felt oddly like indigestion.

“Are you all right?” Dougal asked, frowning at him. “Only you keep rubbing the same spot on your chest.”

Angus stopped immediately and let his hand fall to his side.

“Anyway, Dad's taking us into Little Frog's Bottom this morning,” Dougal said. “And Mrs. Stobbs came in early and cooked you and Jeremius a huge breakfast.”

Mrs. Stobbs, the Dewsnap family housekeeper, had been helping out at Feaver Street ever since Dougal's mum had died. The rest of the time, she worked for Principal Dark-Angel at Perilous, where Angus and Dougal had often
seen her bustling about with furniture polish and trays of tea.

“You're lucky; she's already gone into town to do some shopping,” Dougal said, hopping off the bed, “or she'd be up here right now, fussing about and trying to force you into an extra undershirt.”

Ten minutes later, after a quick wash and a change of clothes, Angus followed Dougal down the stairs. The rest of the house at Feaver Street had a ramshackle, uncared-for feel about it, with peeling wallpaper, faded rugs, and flickering gas lamps. The kitchen, however, was always warm and cozy, and the smell of freshly baked muffins made Angus's mouth water as they entered the room. Just as Dougal had warned, Jeremius and Dougal's dad sat huddled together in the far corner of the kitchen, talking quietly.

“Ah, Angus!” Mr. Dewsnap stood up and shook him cheerfully by the hand. “'Tis a great pleasure as always, my fine young fellow. Welcome back to Feaver Street.”

“Er, thanks very much, Mr. Dewsnap.”

Mr. Dewsnap was short and rather stout, with the same round glasses and jet black hair as Dougal. He was dressed
in his favorite patterned housecoat, which reminded Angus of a bedspread.

“Jeremius has just been filling me in on all the details of your fascinating lightning tour of London”—Mr. Dewsnap continued in a melodious voice— “although I'm not convinced that introducing a young lightning cub to a pair of retrospectacles was entirely appropriate. They're well known for causing nightmares. I remember seeing a famously fierce fognado through some once.” He shivered suddenly. “It gave me a severe case of the collywobbles for weeks.”

“You've never mentioned that before,” Dougal said, staring at his dad in surprise.

“There are a great many things I have not yet told you about my life.”

“Like the time you almost got yourself killed in an ice maze, for instance, when you came to stay at the Canadian Exploratorium,” Jeremius said as he stood up and stretched.

“You're kidding!” Dougal said, surprised. “What were
you
doing in an ice maze?”

Mr. Dewsnap chuckled. “Not all research for my books
involves sitting about in libraries and reading ancient, dusty tomes. It sometimes calls for a more . . . direct approach. I found a fascinating document that talked of hidden wonders buried in an old, abandoned ice maze from which no one had ever returned. I hired a local guide who was willing to risk rumors of sudden spontaneous snow swamps, and we set off at three-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon in January. You and Angus are not the only ones capable of having thrilling adventures.”

“But what happened?” Angus asked, enthralled.

“We heard nothing from Aloysius for a whole week,” Jeremius said. It took Angus several seconds to realize that Aloysius must be Mr. Dewsnap's first name. “We thought he'd been eaten by a polar bear, or worse.”

“The truth was far more mundane, I'm afraid. The ice maze is famous for the vicious snowstorms that rage through its passages in the winter months, and we were pinned down by a particularly nasty specimen for some days, before we could continue our search.”

“But how did you survive?” Dougal asked, staring at his dad, flabbergasted.

“Luckily, I'd had the good sense to pack plenty of
reindeer furs and a small camp stove. We survived by making meltwater lichen soup, which was surprisingly tasty with a pinch of salt.”

Angus exchanged shocked looks with Dougal. He found it impossible to imagine Mr. Dewsnap, with his comfy slippers and portly frame, trekking through remote ice mazes.

The corners of Mr. Dewsnap's mouth began to twitch, then. . .

“You're making the whole thing up!” Dougal declared suddenly, pointing a finger at his dad.

Jeremius roared with laughter. Mr. Dewsnap smiled over the top of his glasses at Dougal and winked. “I may have embellished a few of the finer details, just to add to the excitement of the tale, you understand.”

“Or you might have stolen the whole story from an old copy of the
Weekly Weathervane
you've been reading,” Jeremius said, grabbing a dog-eared magazine from Mr. Dewsnap's chair in the corner of the room. The cover showed a large picture of the famous ice maze.

Angus grinned. The
Weekly Weathervane
was a private weekly news journal for the inhabitants of Perilous.
It reported on everything that happened inside the Exploratorium, from explosions in the experimental division and the achievements of its lightning catchers to nasty outbreaks of snow boot boils.

“Typical, nobody ever tells me the truth around here,” Dougal grumbled, folding his arms across his chest as Jeremius continued to smile. “I thought you'd been on a real trek!”

Mr. Dewsnap chuckled. “Sadly, any such expedition would play havoc with my chilblains.”

Dougal's bad mood didn't last long. Mr. Dewsnap guided them over to the kitchen table, where Mrs. Stobbs had laid out a substantial breakfast. There were steaming pans of porridge, a large plate of muffins, toast, and pastries the sight of which made Angus's stomach growl with hunger.

An hour later, after four extra rounds of toast and some genuine tales of adventure from Jeremius, who had once been forced to share an igloo on Svalbard with a family of arctic foxes, Mr. Dewsnap hurried them all out of the house for a trip into Little Frog's Bottom. They caught another steam-powered coach, which chugged slowly through a deep swirl of cobbled lanes and deposited them
in a lively square at the very heart of the spiral-shaped town.

Angus had been looking forward to exploring Little Frog's Bottom ever since he'd first visited Feaver Street last year in the middle of a treacherous winter. He gazed around the square with interest. There was a row of very crooked-looking shops, all leaning to the left, as if they'd been caught in a stiff breeze for hundreds of years. Cafés, bookstalls, and gift shops spilled out onto the cobbles with tantalizing offers of freshly baked cookies and the latest comic featuring Louie the Lightning Hero. At one end of the square, towering over the roofs of the nearby buildings, stood an imposing statue of two men, bearded and spectacled, wearing long leather jerkins emblazoned with lightning bolts. It took Angus several seconds to realize he was staring at Philip Starling and Edgar Perilous. In the distance, sitting high above the town on a tall tooth of rock, was the Perilous Exploratorium for Violent Weather and Vicious Storms. The stone walls and ornate steel and glass weather bubbles looked magnificent in the soft morning sunshine. Angus felt his heart leap. It was the first time he'd seen it in months. He turned to Dougal and grinned.