The Girl With the Iron Touch

by Kady Cross

  An automaton that looked like a stick with long, thin arms and legs and a narrow, heart-shaped head soldered a patch onto a small, dingy machine with a cage in its midsection, and pincerlike hands designed to catch rats. A narrow-faced rodent peered out from the slender bars of the cage and squeaked. Emily shuddered and turned away. She’d never much cared for rats. They were sneaky creatures who, if backed into a corner, would fight like mad to save themselves.

  Perhaps there was something to like about rats after all.

  The machines watched as she went by. Some of them were still metal enough that she could reach out, touch them and have them do whatever she wanted. Good. That would be handy when the time came to get herself out of there. Hopefully they wouldn’t evolve in the meantime to the point where her touch would be useless.

  A brass man turned his head as she passed, face blank except for two “eyes” and a slash of a mouth. Those were the kind that unsettled her more than the realistic machines.

  Finally they arrived at what Emily thought of as the laboratory—the room where Leonardo Garibaldi lay in a glass vat of viscous, life-sustaining fluid. She stood there a moment, studying the setup, trying to determine what part all the tubes and wires and mechanisms played in keeping this monster from an unmarked grave.

  She didn’t hate him just because he’d tried to kill them, or take over the empire. She didn’t hate him for the fact that he had murdered Griffin’s parents and played a hand in the death of Finley’s father. No, Emily despised Garibaldi because he’d tried to use Sam. He’d traded on Sam’s vulnerability and tried to turn him against his friends. Garibaldi had played him for a fool.

  For that she could cheerfully pull all the wires out of the fluid bath and let him flop around like a beached fish.

  But not yet.

  Her gaze settled on the bellows that kept the Machinist breathing. Electrical current kept his heart beating and blood flowing. He was like a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster.

  She turned to the Victoria automaton in one last attempt to bargain with it. “What you’re asking me to do is impossible. You can’t just cut open a person’s skull and muck about with their brain. I’m not a surgeon with years of experience. I could accidently kill him or destroy his mind.”

  “You speak falsehood, Emily O’Brien,” the machine chastised. “We know about the procedure you performed on that boy in Ireland. You have ‘mucked about’ before.”

  Hot pinpricks raced through her veins. How could they know? He’d fallen from a tree, and was delivered to her house because the doctor was away. She told them she had to relieve swelling on his brain, and they believed her because she was educated and they didn’t think sweet Emily O’Brien, whom they’d known her entire life, would lie.

  But she had lied, just so she could make sure he never forced himself on another girl.

  “I didn’t remove parts of his brain and replace it with parts from another. You have to be certain of compatibility between the two patients.”

  “Endeavor 312 was designed to contain sufficient genetic material to be a suitable receptacle. The Master made certain of that.”

  That was a surprise. “So, Garibaldi—your master— began work on 312 before the warehouse incident?”

  “Indeed. She was to be his finest creation—after me, of course.”

  “Of course.” But Garibaldi couldn’t know that the organites added to her genetic map. There might only be a small part of her creator left inside her, if any. Curiosity, or perhaps paranoia, made her ask, “What was her original intent?”

  “To infiltrate the household of the Duke of Greythorne, learn his secrets and vulnerabilities.”

  Emily’s heart skipped a beat even as her brow gave a dubious lift. “That’s a lofty goal.”

  “The chance of success was calculated to be much higher than the chance of defeat. It no longer matters— her purpose has changed. She has been given a great honor.”

  Tell that to 312, the almost-girl who deserved a name rather than a number. Never mind that she’d snap Emily’s spine like a twig if she tried to escape. No, 312 was as much a prisoner here as she was.

  Though, Emily wasn’t going to let empathy get in the way of saving herself. Making certain the Machinist did not succeed was top priority. Her own safety came second. If 312 came out of it with her own budding brain in her skull that would just be a plus. Emily would figure out what to do with her then.

  “The liquid he’s suspended in, what is it?”

  A faint whirring came in response—the machine weighing whether or not it should share that information. “A compound derived from the organic material your kind refers to as organite, minerals, nutrients and amniotic fluid.”

  Disgusting, but brilliant. “How can you be certain his brain is intact? The injuries he sustained might have very well left him an invalid.”

  “Victoria” lifted her chin proudly. It only pronounced the disturbing angle of her crooked neck. “Thanks to the Master’s designs we were able to construct a device to communicate with him via the Aether. We cannot do it often, but he is there.” She stroked the tank containing her creator in a loving fashion. “He speaks to us. It was he who told us how to bring about his resurrection.”

  Resurrection? Faith and begorra. This man was no saint or savior, but it made sense that he was guiding his machines. Obviously all efforts were being put into keeping his brain as healthy as possible—to the further detriment of his body. The organites could heal just about anything, but even they had limits. They couldn’t give life where there wasn’t any, and Garibaldi hovered on the brink of death. The organites kept his blood flowing, but everything they did was for his brain. God only knows how advanced his mind was at this point, after months of organite exposure. If he managed to have a presence on the Aetheric plane he would be able to influence their logic engines and any signals they received. He’d be able to travel the Aether as a being of pure energy.

  Griffin believed that the Aether was a place of souls—the energy of every creature who ever lived. It was everywhere, and even had its own dimension. A person needed only to know how to see it to traverse in it. Of course, Griffin could also channel that energy into raw power.

  If she could only get a message to Griffin he could use his abilities to search the Aether for Garibaldi. He could stop this.

  Of course there was no way to get a message to Griffin. She didn’t have her portable telegraph, and even if she could find the necessary pieces to construct a new one, she didn’t have the time.

  Unless…unless she could figure out some way to contact Griffin through Garibaldi’s Aetheric connection. It would be tricky—possibly endanger her life if the bounder alerted the machines to her perfidy—but it was a chance she had to take. She’d never thought of herself as particularly brave, but when she’d agreed to work for Griffin, she knew there could be consequences. That there could be real danger.

  Still, she wanted to make a difference. She wanted to protect the weak and fight those who took joy in hurting others. Garibaldi was one of those sorts of people. So, as soon as she figured out how to do it, she’d contact Griffin and tell him where she was—to her best estimation. They’d find her.

  “Here are our Master’s notes, computations and designs.” “Victoria” offered her a stack of journals almost a foot tall. “They will instruct you how to better understand the procedure. He was very successful with his own experiments in brain transplantation.”

  The man had no decency. Bad things came to those who tampered with Mother Nature, God, whatever you wanted to call the vast wonder that made up the world, the cosmos and life itself. She had no idea what else she might find in those papers. If she was lucky there would be something about Aetheric projection. Worst-case scenario, she would determine the precise way to sabotage Garibaldi’s plans.

  She took the papers—the pile was heavier than it looked. “I will begin reading immediately.” Did she sound too keen?

  “Victoria” nodd
ed. At least it looked like she tried to nod. It really wasn’t much more than an inch of forward motion from her neck and head. Just when Emily thought she might be getting used to the disturbing visage that was a horrific parody of the Queen of England, something else happened to remind her of just how terrifying it actually was.

  “You will start reading now. You have two days to locate the correct procedure and begin work.”

  Two days? That was it? Wait. Two days to locate the procedure? “I thought you already found instructions within his notes?”

  Whirl. Click. Crackle. Click. Click. Thin lips opened, moved. No sound came out except the sound of a logic engine working over a problem. Then, “We are programmed to learn, to adapt. We recognize numbers, logic. We can speak, but we have not learned to identify the written word.”

  Emily stared, jaw loose. “You can’t read?” On one hand it made perfect sense that they wouldn’t recognize letters and words. On the other, why the hell hadn’t Garibaldi given them the ability through their logic engines? Maybe such complex work was outside his comprehension, or perhaps he thought he’d be around to teach them personally. Regardless, it was something she would use to her advantage if at all possible.

  Meanwhile, she had a lot of reading to do if she was going to protect the world from the Machinist again. Maybe she’d get lucky and she wouldn’t have to murder him at all.

  Chapter 9

  “You should have told me you were going to see Dandy.”

  Finley’s hands went to her hips. He sounded jealous. “You were off checking the security system around the house. Besides, Sam was with me to make certain I didn’t throw myself at Jack.” It was shrewish and uncalled-for, and she was sorry the moment the words left her tongue.

  Griffin scowled—he was becoming more and more like Sam every day and it wasn’t attractive. “I’m not jealous, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “No?” She smiled at him. This was not going to escalate into a stupid fight just because they were both on edge. “Tell me honestly—are you more bothered by the fact that I didn’t tell you where we were going, or the fact that it was Jack I went to see?”

  He looked as though he’d rather eat worms than answer her. “The fact that it was Dandy. I see how he looks at you.”

  “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” She arched a brow. “Maybe next you can tell me why you look like you haven’t been eating or sleeping? What keeps you locked up in your rooms, passing out when you use your power and having mediums over for breakfast?”

  Griffin’s jaw set mulishly. “What bothers you more— the fact that I’m doing these things, or the fact that you don’t know why?”

  Leave it to him to throw her own childishness back in her face. “That I don’t know why, of course.”

  She expected him to gloat a little or perhaps brush it off, but he did neither. “I won’t share you, Finley. If you want to be friends with Dandy, fine, but you have to know that he doesn’t want to be just friends.”

  “I know that,” she replied. “I also know that he would never try to force the issue, and I know that Jack isn’t going to waste time pining for me, either.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “This is ridiculous.” She decided to borrow a page from Emily’s book, and go for complete honesty. It was the only way to stop this conversation from becoming more of a habit than it already was.

  She walked up to him and placed her hands on either side of his face so he would be forced to look at her. “I might take Jack soup if he was ill, maybe even sit with him. I would not bathe him. I would not wash his hair, and when I look at him I do not think about kissing him.” Impulsively, she traced the bow of his lower lip with her thumb. “There’s only one mouth I think about kissing.”

  Griffin’s gaze warmed beneath his heavy lids. He had a way of looking at a girl that made her want to toss propriety and virtue to the wind. “Whose mouth is that?” His voice was low and rough as his fingers hooked into the front lacing of her corset and pulled her closer.

  “Yours, you great daft article. Not Jack’s, only yours. Will you stop being jealous of him now?”

  “He’s rich, handsome and dangerous. You like that.”

  She smiled at the uncharacteristic lack of self-confidence in his tone. “My dear duke. You are rich, handsome and dangerous.”

  His lips lifted on one side. “I would never describe myself as dangerous.”

  “Could you maybe stop talking? I’d like to kiss you but your lips won’t stay still.”

  Eyes twinkling, he pressed his lips shut. Finley smiled and guided his head down to hers.

  Then, like a scene in a comedy—their lips but a breath away from touching—the door to the library burst open and Sam charged into the room like a bull, a map in his hands and Jasper hot on his heels.

  Bloody hell, they had brilliant timing. She could’ve cheerfully strangled the pair of them—all three of them, really.

  Sam didn’t even appear to notice that he’d interrupted something—again. “I found the maps of the Metropolitan system and the catacombs.” He used one big arm to wipe the desk completely clear of papers and unrolled the maps on the polished surface, oblivious to the debris floating to the floor around him.

  Griffin shot Finley a glance. He looked annoyed to have been interrupted—as was she—but there was something there that told her he planned to continue their conversation later. She would make certain of it.

  They gathered around the desk to look at Sam’s findings. He pointed out the St. Pancras station where Jack had delivered the crate with the automaton.

  “That station gets a lot of traffic,” Griffin said, stating what Finley had already thought. “A crate couldn’t just sit there for long.”

  “Jack said he left the letter D carved on the wall near the spot where he deposited the crate,” she informed him. “Emily and I were in the catacombs, though. Not in the station.”

  Sam nodded and pointed to a spot on another map. It was a detailed drawing of the catacombs that noted London landmarks and metro stations. “This is the area around St. Pancras where you and Em were looking about.”

  “Is that a stairwell?” Jasper asked, leaning in for a closer look. When Finley and Griffin moved, their shoulders brushed and Finley’s foolish heart gave a jump. Stupid thing.

  Warm fingers entwined with hers, blocked from Jasper and Sam’s view by the desk. She closed her hand around his.

  “Exactly.” Sam’s finger slid over to the spot on the map. “This was one of the documents we managed to recover from Garibaldi’s warehouse. It marks several underground stairwells and doors that link to other parts of the system but that aren’t on any official maps.”

  Griffin glanced up. “Garibaldi constructed them?”

  “Em thought so.” Sam shrugged. “It makes sense. It also stands to reason that the metal that almost killed me was one of Garibaldi’s machines. He’d been using organites in his inventions, so it would explain the machine breaking its programming.”

  It did make sense, and if it was true then Sam had all the more reason to hate the Machinist.

  “So you reckon whoever wanted the crate collected it from the station and then took it into the catacombs via Garibaldi’s secret exits?” she asked.

  Sam’s gaze met with hers, confident and determined. “I do.”

  “It supports the theory that the Machinist is alive and behind this.” Griffin’s expression was suitably grim.

  Finley frowned. “It could be someone who worked with him. Someone who knew him.”

  There was a pause, as though Sam and Jasper were wondering which theory to support.

  “Finley’s right,” Sam said finally. “We shouldn’t assume it’s him until we have more proof.”

  “It sure seems like it might be him,” Jasper added, surprising her by joining the conversation, “but I also have a hard time believin’ he walked away from that building fallin’ down around him. Besides, if it was the sc
oundrel, wouldn’t he have sent word that he had Miss Emily by now? Seems he’d take some pleasure in letting you know he had her.” He looked from Sam to Griffin—the two most important men in Emily’s life.

  Griffin’s expression was tight. Finley felt for him—a little. He wasn’t used to being questioned. He was a duke, after all. He was also decisive, perceptive and usually right. Still, it seemed his personal fears and feelings might be clouding his judgment. “Fine. We’ll treat this as though it might not be Garibaldi, but that it may be related to him.”

  “You seem pretty keen on layin’ this at the Italian’s feet,” Jasper commented. “Anythin’ you want to share?”

  Finley turned her gaze to Griffin to see his reaction, but he was staring at a point over Jasper’s shoulder, his eyes and expression hard. “The three of you need to leave this room. Now.”

  What the devil? Finley followed his gaze. There was nothing there. “Griffin…”

  “Finley, get out. Now.” His jaw was clenched, face etched with something that looked like a combination of hate and fear.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” she informed him, pointing a warning finger at Sam as he started gathering up the maps to do what he was told.

  “I’m not going argue with you,” Griffin ground out. “Get the hell out of this room.”

  Finley opened her mouth to disagree, but not a sound came out. Suddenly there was a terrible banding around her throat, cutting off her breath. She tried to suck in air, but it was impossible, and the invisible hands around her neck squeezed tighter.

  Hands. Yes, it felt like hands. Her vision began to waver.

  Griffin swore. Out of the corner of her eye, with what vision she had, she saw him grab Jasper by the arm. “Sorry, my friend, but I need your help with this, and I don’t have time to explain.”

  Jasper blinked. “What the hell… Oh, no. No.”

  Finley gasped for air as she turned her gaze forward once more. Suddenly, as the world grew more narrow, she began to see a figure before her. Long black hair. Almond-shaped eyes. As her lungs strained for air, the face of her assailant became clearer.