The Girl in the Steel Corset

by Kady Cross

  “Regardless of his intentions to begin with, they’re no good now,” Griffin informed his friend. “Let’s not forget that he could very well be a murderer, as well. It was because of him that the digger attacked you and those workers. And he may be the person responsible for my parents’ death, and the deaths of many of their colleagues.”

  Sam looked away, his jaw tight. Griffin regretted having to bring up the digger, but there could be no sympathy for The Machinist. Not now, not ever.

  “Aunt Cordelia,” he said. “We need to alert Buckingham Palace right away. Since my latest visit was unorthodox to say the least, may I trust you to inform Her Majesty of this unfortunate situation?”

  His aunt nodded, silver chains jingling softly. “I shall go directly.”

  He turned to Emily next. “Em, I need you to equip us for any possibility. Find something to take down an automaton quickly and effectively.”

  Ginger eyebrows shot up. “You’re not askin’ for much, are you, lad?”

  “We have to assume the worst,” he replied grimly. “Garibaldi is obviously mad. There’s no telling what he might do, treason could be the very least of it.”

  “What about me?” Jasper demanded. “Now that I’m involved in this mess, you don’t expect me to just sit around, do ya? Or Miss Finley and Sam?”

  As usual, Griffin found Jasper’s allegiance to a country that wasn’t even his humbling. “Practice,” he said. “Train. I need you ready and able to control your abilities, new or otherwise.” He knew Jasper was amazingly fast, he had seen it for himself. He had also been treated with Emily’s Organite salve, enhancing that speed. “All we have on our side otherwise is the element of surprise. Emily’s created some amazing weapons. She’ll outfit you and you can practice with them.”

  The cowboy nodded sharply. “Will do.”

  Griffin turned his head. “Finley, Garibaldi knows of you. He knew your father. It stands to reason that he has some idea what you’re capable of—it’s imperative you learn to control yourself. I want you to work on the meditations I taught you. Later today, we’ll work on it together.”

  He turned his head again. “Sam, you’re our secret weapon. Garibaldi might know you’re strong, but there’s no way he can know how close to invincible you are. I need you rested, fully healed and ready to fight.”

  It was odd, but Griffin thought his friend’s face paled. Was that guilt he saw in the larger fellow’s dark eyes? Sam nodded. “I will be.” It had to be paranoia, but Griffin was certain there was an extra edge to the words.

  “I’m going to find out what I can about Garibaldi through the Aether,” he confided. “I’ll update you all later.”

  His companions recognized the dismissal and followed one another out of the room. Only Sam seemed to hesitate on the threshold, but Griffin ignored it—for now. He had more important things to worry about.

  Left alone in the study, Griffin closed the door and immediately set to work. He removed his fine dark gray wool coat and cravat as he sipped a potion he had concocted a while back. It contained a small amount of laudanum to help relax him and lower his natural defenses so that the Aether could come more easily. He had become so good at keeping it out that sometimes it didn’t always come when he tried to access it.

  He didn’t like to take the potion, as laudanum was derived from opium poppies—something Aether addicts were often also addicted to. It made the veil so much thinner, easier to traverse. The drug was every bit as dangerous, if not more so, than the energy it called forth.

  He unbuttoned his collar and lay down on the rug in front of the fire. The warmth relaxed him and he tried to release the maelstrom of thoughts flying about his head, but there was one thing he held on to—his rage. It was deep within him, so cold he doubted his friends had even noticed it, but it was there. Festering.

  He tried to let it go as he opened himself to the Aether. Warm energy rushed at him, but he held it at bay with more ease than he ever had before. He controlled how much of it filled him, and when he opened his eyes, it was as though he was within two worlds at the same time. He saw the real world as it was, and then another, secret layer on top. He was in the spirit realm, part of the Aetheric plane that didn’t so much require control as it did concentration. He stood up.

  He didn’t have to do anything but wait and think of his parents. A few moments later they were there, standing before him, looking just as he remembered them before their deaths. His father, tall and strong with eyes exactly like Griffin’s and long sideburns barely touched with gray. His mother, small and slender with thick auburn hair, green eyes and rosy cheeks. They looked so young, but they hadn’t changed. Griffin was only getting older.

  His mother smiled at him, even though her eyes were serious. “You shouldn’t be here, dearest. It’s not good for you to travel in the spirit realm.”

  “I won’t stay long,” he assured them. “I promise.” Bloody hell, but it was good to see them. After they had died, he would come and visit them too often and for too long. He hadn’t been able to let them go, and they had seemed so real to him. Finally he realized that he was keeping them from doing what they needed to do in the afterlife. It hadn’t been easy, but he let them go. This was the first time he contacted them since.

  Now, it was so strange to see them almost as bright and vibrant as they had been. But not quite. They weren’t flesh and blood. Perhaps he noticed this because his grief for them, while still sharp, had eased somewhat.

  “What is it you need, son?” his father asked. “You would not be here were it not of great importance.”

  “I want to know about Leonardo Garibaldi,” he told them. “I believe he was responsible for your deaths. And I think he’s using Organites to build an automaton doppelganger of the queen.”

  As he expected, his parents were shocked. Garibaldi had been their friend.

  “Leonardo never forgave Victoria for commanding the Organites stay hidden,” Helena remarked absently.

  Edward looked at her. “And he never forgave you for marrying me.”

  This was news to Griffin. “And now he’s directed that anger at the queen—and at me.” The Machinist might have used him only to get to the Organites, but Griffin took it personally.

  His father nodded. “Be careful, Griffin. Leonardo isn’t mad, he’s driven by righteousness. He truly believes he’s doing the right thing. Those kinds of foes are always the most dangerous. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating him.”

  “If you need to, remind him of me,” Helena suggested, a determined set to her jaw. “If he hurts you, I will haunt him to the ends of the earth.”

  Griffin started. He’d never heard his mother use such a tone before. Her words sent a chill down his spine because he knew she would keep that promise and drive Leonardo stark raving mad.

  “Can you help me find him?” he asked.

  His father shook his spectral head. “You know we can’t, son. There are rules about spirits interfering in the world of the living.”

  “In this case I’d break them,” his mother surprised him by saying. “But even so, we could only show you where Leonardo lived during our life, not now. Even the dead have their limitations. For us to locate him he would have to reach out…” She stopped, frowning.

  “What is it?” Griffin demanded. A strange sensation assaulted him—like a finger of ice sliding down his back.

  His parents shared a glance. “Do you feel that?” his mother asked.

  Edward King nodded. “A summons.”

  “What sort of summons?” Griffin’s gaze ricocheted between the two of them. “Why does it feel as though we are being watched?”

  Ghostly eyes turned toward him, so real and yet so intangible. “Because we are. We are being summoned, as though to a séance. Whoever it is, they have something that was personal to each of us, and they’re focusing on it to call us to them.”

  His mother’s gaze was worried. “But not away from you. Griffin, you must go. You cannot be wi
th us when—” But it was too late. The environment around Griffin changed, swirling mist replaced his study and he felt dizzy. There was nothing to hold on to as he felt himself torn away from the safety and grounding of his own home. It was all he could do to remain standing as his head swam and the mists finally began to clear, revealing a small, dark parlor.

  A man sat in a wingback chair, one leg slung casually over the other. In his hand, he held an earring. Griffin recognized it instantly as belonging to his mother. She had been wearing the pair when they died. He knew this because when he saw their bodies she wore only one, the mate believed to be lost in the crash. The only way this man could have it was if he had been there. The realization that this was Leonardo Garibaldi—his parents’ murderer—should have filled him with rage, but all he felt was cold inside. Dead.

  Garibaldi leaned his head against the back of the chair, eyes closed in meditation. He wore some kind of strange contraption on his head—a ring of metal with prongs that seemed to dig into his skull. Small gears clicked and whirred, causing the ring to slowly undulate, pressing into different areas of the man’s scalp in a careful, measured pattern. It was very similar to those used in Aether dens to summon spirits. Garibaldi had summoned his mother. Griffin and his father were there only because they had been with her at the time.

  He watched as a shadow rose over Garibaldi’s body—a ghost. It was the man’s Aetheric self. It was a strong projection—indicating that Aether travel was not new to the villain. Unease settled in Griffin’s stomach, though he knew he shouldn’t be surprised. Garibaldi knew all about him, and all about his friends. He would be prepared for whatever assault any of them had to offer.

  His only pleasure was seeing the surprise on Garibaldi’s spectral face. He hadn’t expected to get the whole family.

  “Would you look at this,” he commented in accented English, swarthy face breaking into a smile. “The King clan. My dear boy, you’ve grown since I last saw you.”

  Griffin’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, but before he could open his mouth, his mother spoke. “What do you want, Leonardo?”

  The Italian’s expression changed as he turned to look at Griffin’s mother—it softened. “I wanted to see you, Helena. I hoped we could talk.”

  Her face was hard. “Whatever could you and I have to discuss? You killed me. You killed my husband and now you endanger my son. I want nothing to do with you.”

  A pale hand reached out and touched her cheek. She flinched and Garibaldi recoiled as though struck. “You were not supposed to die, Helena. Never you. You always supported me and my research. I had hoped to help you recover from the loss of your husband, and perhaps take his place.”

  Helena paled, the translucent flesh of her cheeks going noticeably white. “I never would have married you.” As if to further prove her point, she took a step back toward her husband. Garibaldi reached out and grabbed her by the arm. His ghostly fingers held fast as she tried to pull away.

  Griffin’s father moved forward. “Unhand her, you scoundrel.”

  Garibaldi held up his hand—it was metal and glowed with runes etched into its surface. There was a flash of light from his palm that zipped across the space to engulf the former duke. The glow overcame him and then collapsed into nothing but a pinpoint, leaving an empty space where Griffin’s father had been.

  A gasp tore from his mother’s lips. Garibaldi shushed her. “Hush, my dear. He’s not destroyed, merely exiled from this place.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Griffin told him quietly as a familiar sensation began swirling in his chest.

  Garibaldi turned that strange hand toward him. In his other, he held an object that sent a chill right down to Griff’s feet. A spirit box. Such things were rare—prisons for spirits. The ghost’s essence could be captured and bound to the box—and whoever owned it—forever.

  The bastard was going to imprison his mother, bind her to that box and keep her as his.

  “I see you recognize what this is.” Garibaldi held up the box and waggled it mockingly. “You also know I have power here. Power I intend to use. Now, be a good boy or I’ll use it on you.”

  Griffin laughed, warmth rushing through his Aetheric self. Unlike Garibaldi, he was bound to his body even in this realm. He wasn’t a spirit, and no one—no one—had power like his. The worst Garibaldi could do to him was send him back to his body. His mother, however would become a prisoner, and even Griffin would be unable to save her then.

  The villain had him and he knew it. A slow smile curved the man’s lips. “Now that we understand one another, you’ll run along if you ever want to see your mother again. If not, when I wake up, I start with your friends. Want to wager on whether or not I can pull their spirits from their bodies?”

  He didn’t think such a thing was possible, but no, he didn’t want to wager the lives of his friends on it. He didn’t want to lose his mother, either—not to this monster. She belonged in Heaven—the spirit realm—with his father.

  The thought of his father brought Griffin’s anger to the foreground. How dare Garibaldi involve his parents—hadn’t he done enough to them? And how dare the man meet Griffin in this place and make threats?

  He couldn’t rush him, because he’d use the box on his mother. He couldn’t use his own abilities against him, because his mother might get caught in the cross fire.

  Glancing at Garibaldi’s body in the chair, an idea occurred to him. He turned on the villain with a smile. “Have you an effect on the tangible world in this form, sir?”

  Garibaldi scowled. “Of course not.” Only against other spirits did Aether travelers have form. But Griffin was not an ordinary traveler.

  “I do,” he said. And to prove his point, he moved—teleported, for lack of better term—to the chair and wrapped his hand around Garibaldi’s throat. The spirit of the man caught his breath, his metal hand going to his throat.

  Griffin looked at his mother as he squeezed harder. “Go.”

  She shot him a worried glance, but didn’t argue. She simply disappeared, set free by Garibaldi’s loss of concentration.

  It would be a lie if Griffin were to say he wasn’t tempted to end this then and there, but he was not a murderer. He would not make himself into the very thing he was so tempted to destroy at that moment. That didn’t stop him from holding on just a little bit longer. Garibaldi’s face began to turn blue as his spirit waned and sputtered.

  A little reluctantly, Griffin let go. While the man sputtered for breath, Griffin reached down and grabbed his mother’s earring from the hand made of flesh rather than metal. For now at least, Garibaldi would have no power over his parents.

  His actions cost him, however. As Garibaldi’s shocked body pulled his spirit back to it, his Aetheric self raised the metal hand and blasted Griffin with the same energy it had used on his father. Griffin’s fingers curled around the earring just as he was sucked back into his own body in his own house.

  He bolted upright on the floor of his study, the warm gold in his palm digging into his flesh. He had saved his mother, but for how long? He still had no idea where Garibaldi was hiding or of his plans for his automaton. He was exactly where he had started.

  Perhaps not exactly. He knew now that Garibaldi had power in the Aether, and he would be better prepared for that the next time around. He also knew that his mother was the villain’s weak spot. He’d use that if he had to. Regardless, he would make certain he knew more about Garibaldi than the man even knew about himself. The next time they met he’d destroy that Aether oscillatory transference device he wore around his villainous head.

  And he would make certain Garibaldi could never hurt his parents, or threaten his friends ever again. Even if it killed him.

  When Finley met Griffin in his study early that evening before dinner, she took one look at him and gasped in dismay. “What happened to you?”

  He smiled wearily at her. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin had a slight grayish
cast to it. “Headache,” he explained. “Spent a little too much time in the Aether earlier and now I pay the price.”

  She sat down on the sofa next to him. “Are you all right?”

  He nodded. “I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

  She wanted to believe him, but he looked so ill. “You did something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you?”

  Another tired smile. “Let’s just say I pushed the boundaries of Aetheric etiquette, and leave it at that. I didn’t send for you so we could discuss how much sense I may or may not possess.” He gestured to the table in front of them.

  A small pot of ink sat on a stained but laundered square of linen. With it were a few other items that made it look as though Griffin was about to write a letter. But there was one thing that did not fit.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing at a wicked-looking needle-on-a-pistol contraption.

  “That’s a tattoo needle,” he replied, taking the stopper out of the ink. “Em made it for me. I’m going to tattoo you.”

  She shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

  He smiled. Oh, so her fear amused him, did it? “It won’t hurt much at all. Look, I’ve got some.” He pulled aside the collar of his shirt to show her part of a celtic knot on his chest with strange symbols around it. The ink on his flesh had a slight blue cast to it, no longer fresh and black. “I did those myself. I’ve some on my back, as well, that one of Pick-a-Dilly’s tattooed performers was kind enough to transfer for me.”

  For a moment she thought to remind him that showing off his naked skin to a young woman was highly improper, but then another part of her told her to keep her mouth shut and enjoy the view, so that was what she did. This other part of her was also keenly interested in this tattooing business, so she moved closer for a better look.

  “Why did you decorate yourself this way?”

  “A couple are personal, but the rest come from my father’s research—and my own. The runes help me control and focus my abilities, plus keep my mind and soul sharp.”