The Girl With the Iron Touch

by Kady Cross

  It was Mei, the girl Jasper had once loved. The girl Griffin had accidentally killed. She glared at Finley with inky, iris-less eyes, a determined expression on her face.

  Was she a ghost? She had to be—her own imagination wasn’t nearly this powerful, and Griffin had seen her first.

  Blackness invaded her vision. Finley grappled for Mei’s arms, but her fingers went right through them. Her form was as insubstantial as fog. Dimly, over the roaring in her ears, she heard Jasper speak. He was pleading with Mei, asking her to stop. And Griffin was reaching for her…

  And that was it. The last thought Finley had as she sank into oblivion was how it would be just her luck to be murdered by a bloody ghost.

  The sleeping beauty in the fairy tale was awakened by the kiss of her prince. Finley woke up to the overwhelming and oh-so-not-delightful smell of vinegar.

  “Bloody hell!” she cried, lurching upright. Her voice sounded like the scratch of metal on cobblestone and her throat was tender to the touch. Would it bruise in the form of handprints?

  Griffin sat beside her. They were on the settee. Someone had elevated her feet and removed her boots and, from the feel of it, loosened her corset. Under ordinary circumstances the realization that she was partially disrobed on a sofa with Griffin would lead to heart palpitations, but not now. Not when he was looking at her as though her being attacked by a dead person was his fault.

  Because she had the sinking feeling that it probably was.

  Sam and Jasper lurked nearby. Sam held a small blue glass bottle and a handkerchief. He’d been the one to administer the foul-smelling restorative. No doubt he’d asked for the privilege to wake her so rudely.

  At least there was no sign of Mei. Other than a broken vase on the floor, wet carpet and trampled flowers, there was no indication that Finley had almost… well, given up the ghost.

  “What was that?” she demanded hoarsely. “It was Mei,” Griffin replied—rather unnecessarily. “I know that. Why was it Mei?”

  “Yeah,” Jasper joined in. “I reckon you’ve got some explainin’ to do, Griff.” The cowboy did not look happy, and why would he? He’d loved Mei once, been betrayed by her and then held her as she died. If anyone deserved answers, it was him.

  Griffin rose from the settee and walked a few feet away, then he turned to face the three of them. He looked annoyed, frightened and somewhat relieved. It was obvious he didn’t want to tell them, but also that he knew he had no other choice.

  “I’m being haunted.”

  They stared at him.

  “Haunted?” Finley echoed, coming up on her elbows. “By Mei?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “By someone, though it’s obvious Mei is part of it.”

  “Just part?” Sam asked. “Good Lord, man how many ghosts do you have chasing your tail?”

  “Mei’s the only one who I see clearly. The rest are black wisps—like shadows.”

  Sam again. “So this started in New York.”

  Griffin nodded. “In Tesla’s apartments. At first I thought it was something strange within the Aether, but after we returned to England I realized that Mei had returned with us. The wisps, too. I’m not sure why it’s happening or how to stop it. That’s why I asked for Isley’s assistance.” He glanced at Finley. “Mei won’t speak to me. She only attacks and screams silently at me. I hoped he could ascertain just what it is she wants, or find a way to give her peace.”

  “I don’t reckon peace is something she ever courted,” Jasper lamented.

  Finley ignored him. Mei had played Jasper for a fool and tried to get her killed. She didn’t care if the witch suffered eternal torment. There were more important things to address right now.

  “This has been going on for weeks and you never told us?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief, or the disappointment, from her voice. “I would have liked to have been prepared for the possibility that a ghost might try to strangle me to death!”

  “Just how did she manage that, anyway?” Sam asked. “I thought it was rare for ghosts to interact with regular people.”

  Regular people? There was nothing regular about any of them.

  “It is,” Griffin said with a slight sigh. “It’s as though she’s siphoning strength from somewhere. Isley believes she might be using my own affinity with the Aether against me.”

  That was bloody brilliant. Just wonderful.

  “You should have told us,” she admonished him. “You didn’t need to go through this alone.” And that was the real issue. It wasn’t that she thought he didn’t trust her—it was the fact that he thought dealing with this was something he needed to do by himself.

  “I thought I was the only one in danger.” Griffin confessed as he massaged the back of his neck. He looked like hell, but she wasn’t going to hand over her sympathy quite so easily. “Fin, if I thought for a moment she’d try to hurt you…”

  “She didn’t just try, Griffin. She almost choked the life out of me.”

  “I didn’t want you all to get involved,” he confided. “I knew you’d try to help and I was afraid you would get hurt.”

  She actually smiled. He was such a martyr at times. “That worked out well, didn’t it?”

  He returned the grin. He looked as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. “Rather brilliantly, I thought.”

  “Right, so the two of you have kissed and made up,” Sam butted in. “Then maybe you could help me figure out how to bring Emily home. We can deal with Griffin’s ghost after that.”

  He was right, of course. She was upset that Griffin hadn’t shared with her what he was going through, but she also understood that he didn’t want to involve them for fear they’d be hurt. Only now, she was involved whether either of them liked it or not.

  Sam turned to Jasper. “I mean no disrespect to Mei’s memory, Renn, but my priority is finding Emily and keeping her alive.”

  The American shrugged. “I’m with ya, my friend.” He looked at Griffin. His golden-green eyes were troubled. “The Mei I knew wouldn’t torment anyone like that.”

  Griffin nodded, expression grim. “She’s angry, and I don’t blame her.”

  “Huh.” Jasper shook his head. “I do.”

  Finley couldn’t contain her surprise. Since coming back to London, Jasper hadn’t said much of anything about what happened in New York and said even less to Griffin. Maybe his move to King House should’ve been proof enough that he held no ill will toward them.

  Griffin looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He merely smiled a tight, stretched smile. “I blame myself.”

  “Did you know she’d get trapped in the wall?” Jasper asked.

  “Of course not!”

  “Then there’s no blame for you to take. I shouldn’t have left her with Dalton. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but none of them make a lick of difference now.”

  “No, they don’t,” Sam interjected. “Mei’s dead and she’s pissed, I get it. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about Emily, who is still alive and doesn’t blame anyone for anything. I’d really like to find her if you’re all done with your own little dramas.”

  That put them all in their places, didn’t it? Thoroughly chastised, Finley replied, “You said we couldn’t go charging in because the machines might detect us. But would they detect another machine?”

  Griffin shot her a glance that made even her toes shiver. He might be a maddening, frustrating, stubborn bit of bone, but he was so very, very fine. “What do you have in mind?” he asked.

  Oh, she had a list. But he was talking about rescuing Emily, so she put her mind to that instead. “Well, surely Emily has some automaton or device we can send into the catacombs to spy for us.”

  “The cat?” Griffin asked, looking to Sam.

  The big lad looked surprised to be consulted. He was normally called upon for his strength, not his wits. Finley pushed that thought away. That was unfair. She’d hate to be treated as though she
hadn’t much intelligence just because she was strong.

  “Not the cat,” he said. “It’s too big and too flashy. It’ll be noticed, nabbed and probably stripped for parts or, worse, turned against us.”

  “Emily would never forgive us if it was destroyed,” Finley added.

  Sam nodded. “Exactly. She’s got some smaller automatons in the lab. I’ll check and see if there’s anything we can use.”

  “I might be able to alter the device’s Aetheric frequency,” Griffin threw in. “It would make something small all that more difficult to detect.”

  “I’ll go down there now and see what I can find.”

  “I’m with you,” Jasper said, casting a glance first at Finley and Griffin. “We’ll leave the two of you to continue your conversation.”

  Finley’s brows shot up. Griffin looked surprised, as well, and when the door closed, leaving them alone in the room, they turned to face each other awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” he began. “I’m not used to explaining myself and even less accustomed to having anyone who cares.”

  “I care.” And it didn’t matter how embarrassing it was to admit it.

  “Yes.” He made the word longer than it ought to be. “Yes, you do. I’m not sure why. It’s not as though I’ve been a charming, attentive suitor.”

  She tried not to smile—she should be angry with him, blast it. “Are you my suitor?”

  “Do you have someone else in mind for the position?”

  “No. But we live in the same house. There are some who might call you my protector.” It was a joke. Sort of. Many rich men lived with or set up houses for ladies with whom they spent time but were not married to.

  Griffin’s jaw tightened. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever talk about yourself, or me, that way. I would never treat you like that.”

  “I know that. It was a stupid joke.”

  He looked like he didn’t quite believe her. “Do you think I intentionally keep things from you to hurt you?”

  In a rare moment of clarity, Finley stopped to consider her words. “I know you don’t. I know you want to protect those you care about, and it drives you mad when you feel you’ve failed to do so. What you don’t seem to realize is that you’re mortal, and you need friends watching your back as much as the rest of us. Maybe even more.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “I was raised knowing that many people would depend on me for their safety and their livelihood. Regardless of what Jasper says, I am responsible for Mei’s death. Nothing can change that.”

  “No, it can’t, but rather than letting her punish you— and punishing yourself—maybe you should concentrate on giving that peace you mentioned. Make amends and stop flogging yourself. It’s not terribly attractive.”

  To her surprise he laughed. “What would I do without you to give me clarity?”

  “I imagine you’d suffocate yourself by shoving your head too far up your own backside.”

  He looked sheepish, but he was smiling, so he knew she was teasing. “I’ve never had to answer to anyone. I’ve never really had anyone else I can depend upon other than Sam. As duke it’s my job to take care of others, not to let them take care of me. I’ll try, though, for you.”

  Oh. That was exactly the right thing to say. It thrilled and scared her at the same time.

  But there was more. “I can’t promise that I’ll never be an ass, or that I’ll never make you cry. I can’t promise that I won’t make you so angry you want to cosh me over the head with a brick. I can’t promise you forever, Finley. I’d love to, but I can give you right now. I can give you me in all my defective glory.”

  She looked up at him, eyes burning with tears she refused to shed. “Don’t you ever shut up?” she demanded.

  And then tossing frustration and vexation to the wind, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  That was the end of any and all conversation.

  Chapter 10

  Leonardo Garibaldi was fragile, vulnerable. He was no threat to her safety whatsoever, and would be incredibly easy to kill if Emily could just get close enough to do it without a bloody piece of metal watching her.

  She hadn’t lost her nerve, nor did she think she would be able to do the deed without it changing her forever. Anyone who could kill and not feel the gravity of it was probably not right in the head. It was why opposite sides in a war were made to think of each other as enemies that would kill them if they didn’t shoot first. They were taught to think of each other as evil, because no sane man or woman could walk up to another and put a bullet in their belly without the justification of doing it to protect themselves, their loved ones, their country, or their cause.

  Emily looked at it as preventing someone truly evil from walking the earth, but more importantly, she would do it to protect her friends. She would do it for Sam, and she would gladly bear the weight of her actions. She would bear it without regret, and that was as disturbing as it was comforting.

  She didn’t court death, nor was she happy about having to take a life, but it was Garibaldi, and if ever there was a man who needed killing, it was him. She could accept the responsibility that came with it, she could almost convince herself that it was something she would happily die to accomplish. That was a lie, of course. She didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to die without seeing Sam one last time.

  But, this was the man responsible for the machine that killed Sam. If she got the chance, she would make certain Garibaldi never hurt anyone again.

  She stood in front of the tank, staring at the Machinist’s broken body as it floated in the viscous fluid. The wounds and bones had healed, but the machines that put him in this…soup didn’t have much more than a working knowledge of the human form and how it reacted to organite. She supposed that the automatons believed putting him in the tank would be enough to heal him, but they hadn’t set his bones or assessed internal damage.

  He would make a fortune for a freak show were he to be exhibited. Perhaps one would purchase his corpse once his brain was removed from it.

  “Victoria” checked the oxygenation levels of the fluid and the input/output stations. The machines “fed” their master through a tube that traveled from a cask of mush into the tank, into his mouth and down into his stomach. Waste material was collected by other tubes and disposed of in a small cauldron with a sealed lid to prevent stink. Sometimes she curled her nose at the smell when new waste flushed through the tubes, but for the most part it was easy to ignore, having grown up with an outdoor privy.

  “I’ve been reading the material you gave me,” she told it. It was easier to think of it as machine rather than a living thing because its organic composition was starting to break down. The organites had managed to keep the decay at a minimum, but eventually the old gal was going to rot away, leaving nothing behind but her internal metal workings and pieces of the glass eyes Garibaldi had given her that hadn’t been taken over by living tissue.

  “I’ve been reading the material you gave me, ma’am,” it corrected her. “We did not expect that you would not.”

  Was it part of the automaton’s programming that made her believe she was some sort of monarch, or was it a side effect of the injury it had sustained and the slow decay that followed? Regardless, sometimes it reminded her of her great-grandmother, Brigit, who thought she was the queen of Ireland.

  “You do realize that all of this may be futile, right? We very well might not succeed.” In fact, it was almost certain that “they” wouldn’t. She spoke as though they were coconspirators in the hope that she might eventually win over the insane bucket of flesh and bolts.

  Its short, round frame groaned as it moved around the tank to check another valve. “We are aware of the lack of success. We are also confident that we will not fail.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “We have you, and you have great motivation to see this endeavor to the end.”

  Motivation—a passive way of reminding her that her life was on the line. “There i
s no guarantee the organites will be able to engage and keep his brain operating.”

  “Endeavor 312’s brain is almost fully formed. She possesses the Master’s genetic biological material. His tissue will bond with hers, and return him to his flock once more.”

  “But you’ll kill 312 in the meantime.” It was still a ridiculous name. And it was ridiculous to expect that the brain of one being would automatically assimilate tissue from another’s, no matter how much biological similarity they might share or how many organites you soaked them in.

  Still, she wasn’t going to argue about it, because right now that misconception was all that was keeping her alive.

  “It was for this purpose that 312 was formed. It would have been preferable if the organic material had made her male, but that is of little consequence. She is well aware of the reason for her design and the honor that comes with it.”

  That was another point Emily wasn’t about to argue, because arguing with machines never amounted to anything. This…thing talking to her might look vaguely human, but it wasn’t, and it wasn’t ever going to be, now. It had perhaps half a soul, if that, while 312 was well on her way to becoming the first organically manufactured human.

  The scientific community would go mad to get their hands on her. For that matter, Emily herself would love to study 312’s biological and mechanical construct. She was the first true example of Deus ex machina—God from the machine. The church would condemn her as a blasphemer, and say she had no soul, but 312 could reason and feel. Indeed, 312 was so close to human the line was practically nonexistent.

  Emily would not take the brain out of a living person so that another could take its place. There was no contest. However, she could not allow 312 to run free in the world. She would be like a child who hadn’t been told how to behave.

  Odd, she was having more of a moral dilemma over 312 than Garibaldi.