The Lightning Catcher (21 page)

“You don't think he's—oh, he's not dead is he?” Indigo gasped.

“I think he's just unconscious.” Angus inspected a large lump on the librarian's forehead. “One of us had better go for help, though. We'll never be able to carry him on our own.”

“I'll go!” Indigo volunteered, getting swiftly to her feet.

“Just—be as quick as you can, will you?” said Angus as she began to pick her way across the debris. “He looks really bad.”

With Indigo gone, it was eerily quiet. Angus looked down nervously at the librarian, who still showed no signs of movement, his arms and legs spread-eagled over a large pile of books. It was obvious that he'd been trying to save some of the rarer ones from being damaged by the storm. Among the books that were poking out from underneath him were several on how to create your own thunderstorm, and some extremely risky reading material about hurricanes that Angus would never normally have been allowed to see.

Angus picked up another volume, glancing at the title on its faded cover . . . and suddenly he felt the blood drain from his face.

The book had been bound in plain brown leather and was quite unremarkable in every way, except for the ten words that were printed across its front cover.

Angus read the title slowly, hardly daring to breathe, hardly noticing the tight lump of excitement that had suddenly formed in his throat. Because finally he knew . . . he knew exactly what his parents had been searching for on their secret assignment; he knew what the missing map would lead them to, if they ever managed to find it; and he understood why Indigo's uncle was so desperate to get his hands on it. It all made perfect sense. He took a deep, steadying breath and read the title once again.

A Holographic History of the Lightning Vaults,
by Philomena Whip-Stitcher.

  
12
  

THE FOG FIELD TRIP

I
t was only after Indigo had returned with Catcher Sparks, two additional lightning catchers, and a stretcher that she and Angus were finally free to leave the library. They quickly discovered that it wasn't the only room at Perilous to have been hit by a wave of storm globes, and they picked their way through the soggy tunnels and passageways with difficulty.

Storm globes had burst through almost every window and glass ceiling, causing chaos at every turn. Angus caught a brief glimpse of four lightning catchers fending off a blizzard with some flaming torches at the end of a long tunnel, and a mini tornado had wrecked the entrance to the lightning catchers' living quarters.

“We were extremely lucky they didn't do even more damage,” Catcher Howler, an expert on wind, explained to a group of fellow lightning catchers as Angus and Indigo slipped their way past. “Winds of up to three hundred miles per hour, violent columns of rotating air, totally out of control. I dread to think what would have happened if it had broken into the experimental division and grabbed hold of the cloud-busting rocket launcher.”

The kitchens were awash under three feet of water, with tables and chairs bobbing about like fishing boats in a harbor. And it wasn't until the waters had subsided a bit and they were helping themselves to a hot dinner, a few hours later, that Angus finally got a chance to tell Dougal and Indigo of his amazing discovery.

“It all makes sense, when you think about it,” he said as they waded their way across the kitchen in their rubber boots. “What's the one thing that Dankhart would love to find? What's the one thing that could make him more powerful than anyone else?”

“The lightning vaults!” said Dougal.

“Exactly!”

“But the lightning vaults don't exist,” Indigo hissed, checking over her shoulder for eavesdroppers, as she always did before they discussed her villainous uncle. “They're just a myth, a story made up by old lightning catchers to frighten their grandchildren.”

Angus raised an eyebrow at her. “Says who?”

They found an empty table and wiped it dry with some fresh napkins, and for the next few moments none of them spoke as they tucked into plates heaped with roast potatoes and chicken pie. Now that he had actually found something that might help lead him to his parents, Angus suddenly had his appetite back, and he shoveled another slice of pie onto his plate before he'd even finished the first one. Indigo however, merely picked at her dinner.

“Wha's up wiv you?” Angus asked, potatoes and gravy dribbling down his chin.

“Nothing. It's just, well, nobody's ever seen the vaults, have they? So how can you be so sure they exist all of a sudden? I mean, Principal Dark-Angel's—”

“Principal Dark-Angel's hardly likely to run around Perilous shouting about it, is she? And anyway, she told your dad about it, remember?” said Angus, turning eagerly to Dougal.

“Yeah.” Dougal nodded. “She told him not to go blabbing to everyone else about it.”

“And what if she only said that because she knew all along that the lightning vaults were real? Look, this book's got something important in it,” Angus said, patting the holographic history, which he'd smuggled from the library and concealed beneath his sweater. “Why else would the librarian have been trying to save it?”

“Oh, dear,” Indigo said, biting her lip.

“What now?” Angus and Dougal both asked together.

“It's nothing, really, but, well—I feel a bit guilty, actually,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “We've all been a bit unkind about Mr. Knurling, but he must really like being a librarian after all. I mean, look at the way he tried to save those books from the storm. What if he notices that the holographic history is missing when he recovers?”

“He won't,” said Angus. “That library's totally waterlogged. Plus it's going to be weeks before anyone sorts through all those soggy books on the floor.”

Dougal nodded in agreement. “Knurling will just think it got destroyed in the storm.”

As soon as they finished their dinner, they headed straight up to the deserted weather bubble to hear what the holographic history had to say for itself. As no girls were allowed into the boys' corridor, it was impossible to invite Indigo into the privacy of the Pigsty.

Thankfully, the large steel-and-glass bubble had escaped the ravages of the storm globes and was one of the few rooms left at Perilous that was still warm and dry.

“A real holographic history,” said Dougal when Angus finally removed it from his sweater. “My dad's told me all about these, but I never thought I'd actually see one. They're really, really rare, you know.”

“Yeah? Well, I've already seen one in Principal Dark-Angel's office, and they're also really, really noisy, so we'd better close the door or we'll have half of Perilous in here wondering what's going on.”

Dougal closed the inner door quickly, sealing the bubble tight. They then found three seats at the far side, placed the book in front of them where they could all see it, and began at chapter one. As soon as Angus turned to the first page, he was surprised to find it occupied by the familiar figure of Oswald Blott. Oswald had abandoned his fancy pantaloons and was now wearing a straggly blond wig and red velvet dress that failed to conceal his hairy chest. He was obviously trying to pass himself off as the Philomena Whip-Stitcher named on the front of the book, but he had merely managed to make himself look ridiculous instead. His voice, however, remained the same, and it echoed magnificently around the empty bubble.

“Beware the power of the mighty lightning bolt!” he boomed with a dramatic flourish that made all three of them jump. “Beware the dark and rumbling skies and take cover in your potting shed, or in your chicken coop—unless you be wearing boots made of the finest Indian rubber. So warned Edgar Perilous when he first came to the fair Isle of Imbur, saving the smelly peasants from their slovenly ways. For it was here—after watching London burn to a crisp—that he and Philip Starling, determined that some good should arise from the smoldering ashes of the Great Fire, decided to master and control this most vicious force of nature. And they began to build the only lightning vaults known to exist in the world.

“Greater than the mystical pyramids of Egypt, more wondrous than the ancient gardens of Babylon, nobler than the mighty Greek Acropolis . . .”

“Goes on a bit, doesn't he.” Dougal grinned.

“. . . more bewitching than the great stones of Henge, the lightning vaults were carved deep within the rock of Perilous, and noble experimentation began within. Lightning bolts, violent and mighty, transformed the ground in the vaults into sheets of magnificent glass that sparkled like melted emeralds. Others were split, vanquished, captured and hung from the ceiling like giant bats, their secrets plundered and their power overcome for the good of all mankind.”

Oswald beckoned them closer and lowered his voice to a faint murmur, as if he too was afraid of being overheard.

“But dark days were ahead. Not all men who faced the power of the lightning bolt could be trusted to honor it, and a tragic incident occurred one bleak and stormy night. Crimson blood flowed through the mighty vaults, and Edgar Perilous ordered that they be sealed forever. And their location was slowly forgotten in the pearly mists of time.”

Oswald adjusted his wig, which had slipped over to one side of his head, and then hopped to the center of the holographic square before continuing. “Many have tried to find the lost vaults since those desperate days, but without the secret map to guide them, none will succeed,” he concluded in a superior tone.

“The secret map!” Dougal stared at Angus, his mouth hanging wide open. “I don't believe it. You were right, that's got to be what your mum and dad were looking for.”

Angus felt excitement surge through him.

Oswald Blott took a deep breath before he continued. “To learn more about the map and hear what terrible secrets lay within the fabled vaults, I suggest you turn to the beginning of chapter two immediately—unless you be a filthy peasant, and then I demand that you shuffle off back to your turnip growing, and release me from your beer-stained grip!”

Angus turned hastily to the beginning of chapter two, but the holographic square was filled with water and the only thing they could hear coming from it was a strange sort of gurgling noise, as if Oswald was attempting to continue his narrative from the bottom of a fish tank.

“I don't believe it,” Angus wailed, flicking quickly through the remaining chapters. “The rest of the book's the same. The storm ruined it!”

He held the book on its edge and gave it a shake, hoping that the water would simply trickle out by itself, but nothing happened.

“What are we supposed to do now?” he groaned, his head whirling. “How are we going to find out what happened to the map without Philomena Whip-Stitcher to help us?”

 

Angus listened to Oswald/Philomena's narrative each night before he went to sleep for the next week, muffling the storyteller's booming voice under his bedclothes and hoping that the rest of the chapters might miraculously dry themselves out, but it was hopeless. Except for chapter one, Oswald's voice remained nothing but a fishy gargle.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the Exploratorium, the cleanup operation had begun in earnest. It took a full five days before they could go to the kitchens without their rubber boots. All lightning cub duties in the experimental division were temporarily suspended until a particularly stubborn hurricane could be pried out of it using great numbers of emergency storm bellows. In the Octagon, the door to the Inner Sanctum of Perplexing Mysteries and Secrets, which had received quite a battering from a mini typhoon, was being repaired with extra locks and lengths of wood.

Mr. Knurling was making good progress and had suffered only a mild concussion—which was more than could be said for the library itself. Now that the floors had been mopped dry and the remains of the storm globes removed, the full scale of the devastation was plain for everyone to see. And the ancient collection of books was almost beyond repair.

Dougal, who was particularly upset by this destruction, quickly volunteered all three of them to help clear up the mess, which also gave them an excellent opportunity to discuss everything they had learned from the holographic history.

“Dankhart must have found out somehow that my mum and dad were looking for the map of the lightning vaults, right?” Angus said one evening as he shoveled up a pile of mushy dictionaries. “So I bet you anything he waited until they'd actually discovered where it was before he kidnapped them.”

“Hang on a minute, though,” said Dougal, frowning. “If Dankhart did manage to steal the map from your mum and dad, why haven't we heard about it?”

“Actually, Dougal's got a point,” said Indigo, who was on her hands and knees flattening out a pile of historical newspapers. “If Dankhart had broken into the Exploratorium with the map and uncovered the lightning vaults, there'd be a huge rumpus. Not even Principal Dark-Angel could keep something like that quiet.”