Island of Doom: Hunchback Assignments 4 (The Hunchback Assignments) (16 page)

Modo was a dark and quiet stone sitting at the end of his deck chair, or, more often, he could be found in their cabin staring out the porthole with that blasted netting mask covering his face, and his emotions. The bruises and cuts on
his face were healing quickly; inside his heart, though, she doubted things were going as well. Octavia did not pry.

Besides, she was not in much of a mood to talk. She had spent less than three days with Colette and had quarreled with her, yet her death was like losing a close friend, a mate. Such a blow. She was an equal.
No
, Octavia had to admit,
she was a better woman than I
. Colette could speak several languages, had risen to the top of her ranks despite fellow agents trying to undermine her because she was a woman and half Japanese. Even half mad, she had been formidable.

Colette had been broken by that bull, Typhon, as though she’d been a doll. The sight and sound of that would haunt Octavia. There’d been nothing she could do to prevent it. She’d been crawling from the wreckage of their carriage when Typhon lifted Colette over his head.

“It looks like it’ll be another boring day,” she said, pouring her tea. “But only four more to go before we’re back in Canada.”

She could only imagine how all of this was affecting Modo; he had given her little more than two-word sentences since their departure. She so missed the Modo she’d once known.

“Yes,” Modo answered, “same as the last.”

“What do you suppose Mr. Socrates has in store for us?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“With or without him I’ll find my mother and save her from those …” He shook his head as though he couldn’t find the words to describe the Clockwork Guild.

“Just like that?”

“I’ll find the hiding place of the Guild and I’ll break them.” He was bending his teaspoon in his wrath.

“Modo, the best way to do that is to work with Mr. Socrates.” She was surprised by her own words, and yet she knew they were the truth. “You know it too. After all, you’re on a ship returning to him.”

“It was the only course I could take.” He sighed. “I’m confused, Tavia. I am French. I am English. I was orphaned. I have parents. One is dead and the other doesn’t know me. They abandoned me and yet I must save my mother. And Colette is dead. Dead. Dead. My mind bounces from one dark moment to another. It’s all too much.”

“Nothing is too much for you, Modo.”

He looked up at her. Was this another gibe? But she returned his gaze.

“Why are you being so kind?” he asked.

“I cared for Colette too.”

“You did?”

“She was a beautiful, remarkable young woman. Truly heroic. I’ve come to think of her as a sister.”

“A sister?”

“Yes. She was an incredibly annoying and strong-willed she-devil. I would’ve been honored to call her sister.”

“She was strong. I am heartsick,” he admitted. He shook his head and smiled, looking out at the sea. “She would be laughing now if she could hear us.”

“We’ll go back to Montreal, Modo. You never know what ol’ Mr. S will have up his sleeve.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” she said. What was she doing? She was
thankful to Mr. Socrates for taking her from a life of pick-pocketing, but he often got on her nerves and always put the needs of Britain before the needs of his spies. Now she was actually talking him up to Modo. To Modo! This was how bad things had become. “And if he doesn’t have a plan for us, Modo, one that involves rescuing your mother, I’ll go with you. If she is that important to you, then she is that important to me. We’ll make certain Colette did not sacrifice her life for nothing. Come hell or high water, together we’ll find your mother.”

He stared at her for a long time. He was so hard to read with that mask on, but she thought she saw disbelief in his eyes. Or bewilderment.

“We will,” she added. “I swear this to you.”

He nodded. “Then the Clockwork Guild and whoever else stands in our way had better be ready to run.”

M
r. Socrates had been part of the great siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War. He remembered the backbreaking labor of digging trenches on one side of the Russian port city while their comrades, the French, dug trenches on the opposite side. Summer passed; fall, winter, spring. Then another summer, fall, and winter. The harsh weather and the long months had been horrible for morale. And then, when they felt Sevastopol had been truly weakened by shelling and starvation, they rose up from their trenches and charged the city.

Now it was time to rise again. Hiding in Montreal had been necessary, but it was time to act, to step out of the trench he had dug around himself and charge into the unknown.

He was beginning to feel at home in Montreal: the food,
the newness of the buildings, the energy of a colony. He could comfortably spend his last years here, away from the hurly-burly of London. But being comfortable was wrong. He had to live with the heart of a soldier, moving from camp to camp, and be ready to charge the enemy at a moment’s notice.

Above all, it was time to follow his instinct.

And so he sent several telegrams, packed a kit bag and luggage, and had Tharpa order a carriage to the docks. He left Mrs. Finchley to keep Montreal House in good order. “Guard it with your life,” he said. “You’re the last bastion of our part of the Association.”

She nodded and smiled sardonically. “I shall fight the cobwebs and the mice until my final breath.” They looked at each other, smiling grimly. How many years had he known her? Twenty? Then she said, almost defiantly, “You give Modo and Octavia my love.”

“I most certainly will not,” he said. “They are agents, not our children. Your children.”

Her smile was curious. “They belong to us, either way. And you know that.”

He stomped away from her. Women! He could not fathom the pathways of their minds. A minute later he and Tharpa were in their carriage, rolling toward the docks.

He took the wireless telegraph and folders of reports with him. He had received updates from Cook and Footman, and the latest was the most exciting: a telegram saying that they’d discovered a mysterious hidden shipyard on the coast of China. It flew no flags of any country and most of the
workers were European. It was most likely a Clockwork Guild shipyard.

But how to deliver the Guild a hammer blow? He did have one ace in his deck, an experiment that, from all reports, was coming to fruition. It was waiting on Vancouver Island on a patch of land deeded to the Association by a retired general. It had been part of Mr. Socrates’ long plan.

Intuition told him he was making the right decision. This new weapon—these new weapons—would be a saber through the heart of the Guild.

He thought again of the siege of Sevastopol. Of how he and his regiment had charged those walls under harrowing cannon and rifle fire. It had been a failure on the British side, he remembered with a bitter laugh, but the French broke through on the other side, and by nightfall they were all in the quarters of a dead Russian general, drinking his vodka.

M
odo was so impatient to get his feet on land that he stood by the gangplank with their luggage long before they had docked in Montreal, next to several tall-masted ships. Octavia stood beside him, using her umbrella as shade from the sun. It was colder here in Canada: the early October wind chilled Modo. Or was he shivering with nervousness? He had assumed the Doctor persona again. The moment the sailors lowered the gangplank Modo scurried down it. He and Octavia were the first to have their papers stamped at Customs House. He strode up a ramp to the street.

“Wait, Modo! I’m not a gazelle!” Octavia blurted. He slowed down, and once she had caught up, she hissed, “You should try running in a dress. It’s abominable!”

“I’ll leave that to my imagination.”

He was just about to wave down a calèche when he saw
Tharpa standing outside an ornate carriage, beckoning them over. Modo placed the luggage in the carrier on the back and shook Tharpa’s hand. He wanted to hug his weapons master. He hadn’t done that since he was a child, but he needed it now. Instead, he held on to Tharpa’s hand longer than usual.

“You have returned, young sahib, and young Miss Milkweed,” Tharpa said, slapping Modo’s back. “Old sahib awaits you inside, as you have likely surmised.”

“I have. It’s good to see you, Tharpa,” Modo said. A well of emotion was rising up in him, so he bit the inside of his cheek.

“Mrs. Finchley sends her regards to both of you,” Tharpa said.

Modo nodded, a little confused. Wouldn’t he be seeing her in a few minutes? He reached for the carriage door.

“Modo! You help the lady in first!” Octavia reminded him.

“My apologies.” He bowed to her, then opened the door with a flourish, took her hand, and helped her step into the compartment. He followed, sitting across from Mr. Socrates, who wore a long coat trimmed with fur. Modo was surprised at how happy he was to see his master again. How he wished he could lay all of his problems at Mr. Socrates’ feet and have them solved.

“Welcome to your home away from home, both of you,” Mr. Socrates said as the carriage began to roll down the street. Tharpa was riding with the driver. “I hope you rested well on your journey.” He leaned back in his seat, his walking stick across his legs. “We’re about to travel west by train, all the way to the coast.”

“We won’t be stopping at Montreal House?” Octavia asked. “I need a bath. And my clothing needs a wash.”

“There’s no time. We’ll have the clothing and you laundered along the way.”

Octavia frowned and turned to stare out the window with a huff.

“And what of Mrs. Finchley?” Modo asked.

“She’s in charge of Montreal House.” Mr. Socrates raised an eyebrow. “You’ll see her when this next phase of our battle is over, Modo. If that is your worry.”

It was. He had wanted to tell her about what he’d seen, to be held in the safety and comfort of her arms like a child. Of all his teachers, she would be the one to understand his pain. There was no point in mentioning this to Mr. Socrates. Perhaps, Modo decided, he could write to her.

He felt time pressing on him. Thirteen days had already passed since his mother’s capture. She could very well be dead. He couldn’t help imagining how she must have cowered in the car of the airship.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“First, Modo, I need to hear in your own words what happened in France. Every detail. Of course, I’ll want your version too, Octavia.”

Reporting was a skill Modo had perfected during his years of childhood training at Ravenscroft, so he spoke calmly from that place in his mind where he remembered every pertinent detail. He didn’t even tear up as he described Colette’s death and his mother being hauled away. Octavia followed with her own observations.

“I’ve read files on this Lime,” Mr. Socrates said. “Several agents have fallen to his blade. Typhon is someone new.”

“Larger than any man I have seen,” Octavia said. “And he smelled.”

“Smelled?”

“I was in the carriage with him. He stank like rotting flesh and formaldehyde. And he had stitches along his neck and face and arms.”

“From wounds?”

“No. The pattern was more like a surgeon had, well, stitched him together.”

“Curious,” Mr. Socrates said.

“He was impressively strong too,” Modo added, “but he was cold, sir.”

“Cold?”

“His flesh was like ice. And he was impervious to bullets and Colette’s blade, which struck his heart.”

“You are certain she hit him there?”

“Yes.” Modo remembered it so perfectly. Colette, his savior, standing between him and the monster. She had paused in disbelief when he didn’t fall.

“Do you know the origin of the name Typhon, Modo?”

“I … I hadn’t thought about it, sir.”

“Come now. You know the Guild has a penchant for Greek names. Who was Typhon?”

Because Mr. Socrates’ teachings had centered on military tactics and history, Modo had not spent much time on various mythologies, though he had memorized every tale he’d read. The Greek and Norse stories of how gods and Titans had once walked the earth were too fanciful for Mr. Socrates.
But Modo was pleased to be able to dredge up the answer from memory.

“Typhon was the father of all monsters in Greek mythology,” he said. “His hands reached east and west. He had a hundred dragon heads, and massive snake coils for legs. He had wings, and fire flashed from his eyes. Even Zeus feared him.”

“Your brain is a great big book, ain’t it, Modo?” Octavia said. “If we cracked open your skull we’d just find pages and pages of words.”

“I’m glad I impressed you.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” But he could tell that he had.

“The Guild picks certain names for a reason,” Mr. Socrates said, “and in those names perhaps we’ll discover something about their plans. Why this name for this man? You said he had stitches.”

“And a very tiny little finger on his right hand,” Modo added, almost forgetting the detail. His own finger tingled when he spoke of it. “It was pink, like normal flesh.”

“What kind of man survives so many wounds? So many surgeries? Who knows what they’ve done to make him this resilient, this powerful. They must see the man as being very important. Any sign of his cerebration?”

“His what?” Octavia asked.

“How smart he is,” Modo explained. Octavia stuck her tongue out at him and he nearly laughed—how he needed a good laugh. “He spoke in short sentences. Very gruff. He seemed to do whatever Lime asked of him. But there was one order he didn’t obey. He was told to break me and could have easily snapped my spine. But he only dropped me.”

“Very curious,” Mr. Socrates said. He took his walking stick and leaned forward. “But we haven’t asked the important questions. Why do you think the Clockwork Guild wants Madame Hébert? And what do you suppose they will do with her?”

“I … I can’t.”

“Don’t hold back, Modo. This is of the utmost importance.”