Empire of Ruins (12 page)

The man slid back his chair and, before Modo could react, pulled a revolver from under the pillow behind him. Modo recognized it as a Galand, small enough to be easily concealed.

“I think we should continue our conversation,” Carpenter said.

Modo’s heartbeat remained steady and he didn’t blink. He even managed to smile. “I’m amenable to that,” he said. “You choose the topic.”

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“What’s yours?”

“May I remind you I’m the one with the pistol?” Carpenter waved it nonchalantly.

Modo was hoping he’d come closer so he could swat the gun away.

“My real name is Robert Helmont.” A character from a French novel Modo had recently read. He drew pleasure from dropping literary references before the likes of Carpenter.

“Can you change your appearance, Mr. Helmont?”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.” Modo hoped he didn’t look surprised.

“It’s important to me. If you can change your appearance, your shape, I won’t kill you. If you can’t do so, I will.”

“You mean don a disguise?”

“No. I mean a transformation of your actual face and body. I’ll count down from ten.” He cocked the hammer. “Ten. Nine. Eight—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Modo exclaimed. The man was counting far too quickly.
Think, Modo! Think!

“Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two—”

“Wait,” Modo said. “I—I’ll do it.”

Carpenter’s eyes lit up with curiosity. Modo cast about in his memory for the right face. The Knight, perhaps?

“I’m growing impatient, Helmont.”

The perfect answer hit Modo and he nearly smiled. He began to shift and change, staring intently at his opponent. He made his nose grow longer, his face grow thinner, and his hair darken.

“Why, that’s unbelievable … it’s …” The gun began to waver, as though Carpenter was becoming weak.

Sweat was dripping down Modo’s forehead by the time he put the final touches on his new face. He’d expended so much energy that his hump was starting to protrude from his back. He ignored it.

“Why … why … you’ve become
me
!”

Carpenter’s eyes were wide with shock. More importantly, he’d lost his focus.

Modo moved quickly, splashing whiskey in Carpenter’s eyes and knocking the pistol toward the cabin door; then he jumped forward, aiming a fist at the man’s head, a blow intended to knock him out. Carpenter grabbed Modo’s arm and yanked, throwing him off balance. Modo struck the bed and the cabin wall beside it. In the moment it took to right himself, he saw that Carpenter had leapt to the opposite side of the cabin, dragging his portmanteau with him.

His portmanteau? Why hadn’t he gone for his gun?

Leering, Carpenter clicked open the portmanteau and a blur of flashing metal shot toward Modo’s face. He threw up his arms, bashing at the spread wings, but the talons ripped through his clothing and into his flesh. The poisoned talons! How long before the poison took effect? The falcon’s razor-sharp beak went for his eyes as it let go an ear-shattering screech.

He clamped onto its neck and threw the bird to the floor, so hard that pieces flew off and it lay still. Modo was bleeding, but he didn’t feel woozy. Perhaps he hadn’t been poisoned.

“Admirable,” the man said as he finished winding up the remaining falcons with a key. He snapped his fingers and they attacked.

O
ctavia saw Modo leave the ball and guilt overtook her. But she was in the middle of a long quadrille, and propriety demanded that she stay on the dance floor. Lieutenant Boddle, her dance partner, spun her around, and as she turned she glimpsed Modo halfway down the deck. He appeared to be listening at a cabin door. Then the lieutenant took her hand and spun her again. The next time they danced within sight of the walkway, Modo was gone.

The lieutenant demanded one more dance and, because she couldn’t think of an excuse, she was forced to endure another polka. The man had two lead feet. No, steel, she decided after he had twice stomped on her left foot.

When the polka was done she pressed her hand to her forehead and said, “You’ve twirled me so quickly and with such strength that I’m feeling light-headed.” He seemed to
take this as a compliment. “I’m sorry, I must return to my cabin.”

She declined his offer of accompaniment and hurried down the deck. Where had Modo been standing exactly? A metallic screech released a wave of fear inside her. She knew that sound! It was coming from a cabin a few doors away. She ran to it and heard the struggle going on inside.

Yanking open the cabin door, she found a man dodging two metal falcons; the third bird was on the floor. The man’s face was unfamiliar, but he was wearing the same suit that Modo had worn. Modo had changed his face again!

A man with the same face—the real face, Octavia assumed—was on the opposite side of the cabin, waving his arms about. The falconer!

She spied a pistol on the floor. She scooped it up: a Galand. She leveled it at the falconer and shouted, “Stop your birds!”

The man regarded her calmly. He made a clicking noise in the back of his throat and one of the falcons turned in midair and darted in Octavia’s direction. She swung the pistol over and pulled the trigger, and the bullet struck the bird’s head and glanced off, sparks flying. The falcon shot past her, smacking her with a metal wing.

By the time she had her wits about her again, Modo was throwing one of the falcons through the porthole and the man was rushing at her. She raised the pistol, but he knocked her over before she could get a shot off. She rolled on the deck and aimed the gun again, just in time to see the man jump over the railing.

She ran and looked over the side of the ship, but he had disappeared into the ocean. It was too dark to see him in the water. The falconer was gone.

Turning, she saw Modo in the doorway of the cabin, his sleeves bloody and tattered—but he was alive. The orchestra was still playing and people continued to dance. No one had noticed the battle.

Modo stumbled to her, trying to fasten the button on a shredded shirtsleeve.

“You’re wounded!” she said, taking his arm. “Good Lord, you might be poisoned.”

“If I were I’d be dead now,” he said, finally getting the button to work. “Assuming it was the same poison he used on Fred Land. Did I really see him jump ship?”

“Yes. He’s in the water, soon to be shark food, I hope. How did you flush him out?”

“With whiskey,” Modo said with a laugh. It was so odd to hear his voice coming out of a stranger’s mouth. Despite his flippancy, he was leaning over and obviously tired. She thought he might have a hunch in his back. “Let’s take a quick look through his room before anyone notices anything.”

In the cabin, Modo placed the broken clockwork falcon in the portmanteau along with the sketchbook. Octavia found a tin box with three clockwork spiders inside. She snapped it shut.

“We must inform Mr. Socrates,” she said. “He’ll want to see this.”

As they made their way to his cabin, Octavia felt that familiar exhilaration that made her love her life as a secret
agent. She could have been killed at any moment during the struggle, and yet she had won again!

“My dear Modo,” she said, “I must point out to you that for the third time I have saved your life.”

“No, no, no,” he said, “I had everything under control!”

Then they began to laugh.

V
isser landed with a splash in the darkness and immediately kicked off his shoes to begin the long swim toward the coast. The decision to take to the water had been made for him. Perhaps he could have killed one of them, but taking both down at the same time would have been extremely difficult. Inevitably, he would have been captured.

So into the water he went, performing a rather spectacular dive from that height, if anyone had been watching. He was pleased that he had angled it well so he didn’t go too deep; he still had plenty of air in his lungs when he hit the surface. He flipped onto his back, floating in the darkness and staring back at the
Rome
. The two agents were standing at the railing, searching for him, backlit by the ship’s lights.

A good fight. It had been a long time since anyone had tested his skills so thoroughly. Modo had destroyed one of the birds with his bare hands, which Visser found particularly
shocking. He’d been told the falcons were nearly indestructible. His masters wouldn’t be pleased that the technology was now in the hands of the enemy.

At least he hadn’t lost all of them. He made a short whistling sound and two falcons descended on him, one landing on each of his wrists, wrapping their metal-scaled toes around his arm and digging their talons into his skin. The salt water made the wounds burn. He winced only momentarily, then made a
cluck cluck
sound, and they flapped their wide wings and began pulling him toward his destination. He kept his head above the water. The birds weren’t powerful enough to raise him into the sky, but with their help he moved along with amazing speed.

Just a temporary setback. There were Dervish tribes near Cape Horn who sympathized with the Clockwork Guild. He would find them and receive his orders at the next port.

Visser had been employed by the Clockwork Guild for over ten years and had lost count of the men and women he had killed in its service. Each time he completed a mission he demanded something outlandish as part of his payment. A gold stiletto. A red ruby the size of his fist. He would have to think hard to surpass his last request: a human heart. They had brought him one. He didn’t ask whose heart it was, but it had tasted good with enough salt.

Perhaps he would ask for Modo’s heart. He laughed fiendishly as he sped through the dark water. The Guild had asked only for a sample of the changeling’s body. Would they really need his heart?

M
r. Socrates examined the ruined pieces of the clockwork falcon, amazed by the intricacy of the device. No, it was more than a device. There were actual blood and brains in the falcon, as though some living beast had been dipped in metal. But the thing seemed dead. He eyed a metal tube that ran from a container inside the bird’s chest to the middle talon of each foot. So that was how they loaded the poison.

It was disturbing how advanced the Clockwork Guild’s technology was—it gave them an advantage over the British. Mr. Socrates and his fellow Permanent Association members had been trying to discover their base now for months, to no avail. The Guild could strike whenever it wanted, could build whatever it wanted, and the Association still had to act within the confines of secrecy. They could not call on all the might of the British Empire
without filling out far too many forms. It was leaving them behind.

Mr. Socrates was pleased—no,
impressed
—by Modo and Octavia’s work, though he gave no outward sign to either of them. Modo had uncovered the enemy agent, and both had subdued him without alerting anyone else on the ship.