Such Wicked Intent (32 page)
Read Such Wicked Intent Online
Authors: Kenneth Oppel
“Of course she does,” I said, wondering if he still harbored ambitions to win her heart. And then I added, “You’re practically a brother to her.”
I clapped him on the shoulder, and he looked at me wryly. Then we both smiled, as two friends do before a fencing match.
The rain came harder, pockmarking the lake. The wind picked up, and I felt the great cool drops against my skin. Light flickered behind the clouds.
“You should come in now,” Father said, joining us on the balcony. “You’ll be soaked in a minute.”
“That lightning,” I asked him, “what form of matter is it?”
“Electricity,” he said. “A discharge of energy between oppositely charged particles. It’s a relatively new science, a potent and promising one.”
A great fork suddenly impaled the lake. From the sky came a deafening crack, like someone taking a chisel to the very heavens. There was another flash, and about fifty yards along our
shoreline a massive oak erupted in a stream of blinding fire. When the light vanished, the tree was nothing more than a blasted stump.
“Come inside, Victor,” Elizabeth said from the doorway, and held out her hand to me. But I hesitated.
“Yes,” I said, “in just a moment.” And I turned back to the storm and thought:
Such astonishing power.
© JIM GILLET
KENNETH OPPEL
is the author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold more than a million copies worldwide and been adapted into an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award and the Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for children’s literature; its sequel,
Skybreaker
, was a
New York Times
bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the London Times. Born on Canada’s Vancouver Island, he has lived in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Canada, and in England and Ireland and now resides in Toronto with his wife and children. Visit him at
kennethoppel.com
.
Jacket design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
Jacket photography © 2012 by Michael Frost
Simon & Schuster · New York
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Book design by Lucy Ruth Cummins
The text for this book is set in Deepdene.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oppel, Kenneth, 1967–
Such wicked intent / Kenneth Oppel.
p. cm.—(The apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein; bk. 2)
Summary: When his grieving father orders the destruction of the Dark Library,
Victor retrieves a book in which he finds the promise of not just communicating with the dead, but entering their realm, and soon he, Elizabeth, and Henry are in the spirit world of Chateau Frankenstein, creating and growing a body.
ISBN 978-1-4424-0318-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-4424-0320-8 (eBook)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Dead—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Brothers—Fiction. 5. Alchemy—Fiction. 6. Geneva (Republic) —History—18th century—
Fiction. 7. Horror stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.O614Suc 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011042843
