The Wrath of the Lizard Lord Read Online Free Page A

button eyes of the shark. He pushed the red button next to the crank handle.
    Thousands of volts of electricity pulsed blue around the sub and Dakkar watched as the shark thrashed and writhed in the storm he’d created. The charge died and, still twitching, the shark drifted to the depths below. Dakkar pressed his head against the glass and watched it vanish into the darkness.
    ‘Oginski!’ Dakkar yelled, spinning round and dropping down to the prone figure of his mentor on the floor.
    Blood pooled from the count’s shoulder and he looked paler than before, if that were possible. Dakkar lifted Oginski’s shoulders up but his head lolled back. He’d stopped breathing. Dakkar shook Oginski but the big man appeared lifeless. He patted Oginski’s face, struggling to remember what he’d been taught about resuscitating those who had stopped breathing. Oginski had taught him a lot as they sat by the sea after their swimming sessions back home in Cornwall. In fact, Dakkar recalled one day when Oginski had timed how long Dakkar could stay underwater – Dakkar had nearly drowned. Remembering what Oginski had done then, Dakkar pulled his mentor’s arms up above his head and brought them down again rapidly.
    Again, he pumped Oginski’s arms. Nothing.
    He pressed an ear to Oginski’s chest, not noticing the blood that smeared his own cheek. No heartbeat!
    Dakkar felt numb. Oginski was dead.

Chapter Five
    Life or Death?
    Dakkar stared at the lifeless form of his mentor. Tears stung his eyes and he stifled a sob. How can he be dead? Dakkar thought. It can’t happen .
    ‘I won’t let it happen,’ Dakkar snarled, grabbing Oginski’s body and dragging it down to the lower cabin of the Nautilus .
    The man weighed heavy in Dakkar’s arms and exhaustion made Dakkar weak. He winced every time Oginski’s head accidentally bumped against the walls of the sub or on a step. As he struggled, he remembered an experiment Oginski had once shown him. An experiment first carried out by an Italian called Galvani. He had made a frog’s leg twitch with life by passing an electric current through it.
    ‘Galvani believed that animals’ muscles have electri­city coursing through them,’ Oginski had said. ‘He may be right. I have conducted many experiments on animal tissue. I even set a pig’s heart beating for the briefest amount of time. If it’s true then, with a strong enough charge, could we not start a dead man’s heart?’
    ‘Oginski, that is monstrous,’ Dakkar had objected. ‘One must respect the dead. Experiment with human bodies? It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
    ‘Don’t worry, my prince.’ Oginski had laughed. ‘I’m not about to go skulking around graveyards at night, looking for fresh corpses. It’s just a theory . . .’
    Dakkar banged his head on the doorway to the engine room at the rear of the Nautilus , snapping himself back to the present. The engine room hummed with power and Dakkar’s hair lifted from his scalp as he entered. A blue light filled this chamber even though the Voltalith lay housed in a round flat case in the centre of the engine. Under Oginski’s tuition, Dakkar was beginning to understand the function of each of these machine parts, but at the moment it looked like a confusing bird’s nest of wire, cogs and levers all ticking and buzzing with energy. Two thick tubes coiled from the case that held the Voltalith. This was how Oginski harnessed the power of the electric rock somehow; it flowed through copper wire wrapped in thick Indian rubber.
    ‘If I can use the power of the Voltalith . . .’ Dakkar murmured, slipping on thick rubber gauntlets. Oginski insisted that they wore these whenever they handled the engine parts. Dakkar had already witnessed the destructive power of the Voltalith and the protective qualities of the gauntlets.
    Dakkar disconnected the two thick rubber hoses from the flywheel of the engine. The whine of the Nautilus ’s engine slowly died and Dakkar felt his