The Girl with the Iron Touch

Mrs. Dodsworth entered the dining room. “Mr. Isley, His Grace requests that you join him in the blue parlor. If you would follow me?”

The young man dabbed at his mouth with his napkin and rose from the table. “It was lovely to meet you, Miss Jayne.”

“You, as well, Mr. Isley.”

He stopped in the door, and partially turned to look at her. “Miss Jayne, would you have known a young blond man with blue eyes and a small brass bar in his left eyebrow?”

Finley swallowed hard, her toast lodged in her throat. Lord Felix. He was the son of her former employer, and the last time she saw him he’d tried to force himself on her. She’d knocked him senseless. He was also dead. “I’m not sure.”

He smiled slightly. “Perhaps my vision showed me the wrong person. It has been known to happen. I thought he must mean something to you.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because the spirits showed me his murder when I touched your hand.”

“I’m not letting you go alone.”

Emily put down the hammer before she could be tempted to use it on Sam’s metal-enhanced skull. Slowly, she turned from her workbench far below King House and faced the infuriatingly overprotective, overbearing, overly gorgeous mutton head standing a few feet away.

Not long ago in this very room she’d saved his life for the second time when a fight with Finley turned bad. He was so very concerned with her life that he seemed to forget he was the one who had almost died. Twice.

“Are ye volunteering to come with me, then?”

“No. I’ll go by myself.”

She didn’t try to hide her annoyance. “Oh, right, Mr. ‘I’m not afraid of anything.’ What happens if you encounter a chunk of metal intent on beating you into the ground?” It was unfair of her to bring it up, but he’d almost been killed by a machine once, and he’d been deeply afraid of them ever since.

So had she, and it wasn’t made any easier by being able to communicate with the logic engines in the things.

“Better I face it alone than have to worry about you,” he retorted.

All thought of unfairness went out the bloody window. “You foolish, ridiculous, backward—” Her tongue seized when he grabbed her by the arms and hauled her close.

“Seeing you fight that Kraken almost did me in, Em. I can’t go through that again. The thought of losing you…” Sam’s gaze locked with hers. “I can’t live in a world without you in it.”

Oh. Oh. A few pretty words and her heart melted. Her resolve, however, didn’t waiver. “You’re going to have to accept it, boyo, because I can’t wait here for you to return, wondering if I’ll be able to put you back together again. You’re not going without me.”

“Stubborn wench.”

“Thick-skulled jackanapes.”

“That’s your fault, isn’t it? You put metal in my head, no wonder it’s thick!”

She stared at him a second, fighting the laughter bubbling up inside her. It was no use; it poured out from her belly until she had to wipe her eyes, and even then it was difficult to stop.

“This is funny to you, is it?” Sam demanded.

There had been a time when he would have laughed, as well. Finley and Jasper wouldn’t believe her, but Emily remembered a time when consternation and anger weren’t etched into his handsome face. A time when he didn’t take everything as a personal insult. A time when he hadn’t treated her as though she were made of the thinnest glass.

She took his hand in his. “Smile a wee bit, Sam. Please? Just for me.”

“I don’t think your safety is anything to smile over.” He made it sound like something nasty.

“You don’t find much worth smiling over anymore.” She tried to keep the disappointment from her voice, but he stiffened at the remark, regardless.

“No, I don’t.” Hesitation turned his expression from anger to uncertainty. “I don’t like being like this, Em. I can’t seem to stop it.”

Was that her fault? When she put him back together the first time, had it been a mistake? She refused to think of it like that, but there was no denying that he had changed.

She swallowed. “Do you blame me?”

He started. “No. You saved me. I wouldn’t be alive if not for you.”

“You wouldn’t be partially metal, either. You wouldn’t be so unhappy.”

“Do you regret it? Do you ever wish you’d just let me die?”

Pain pierced her heart. “No, Sam. Lord, no.” She reached up and took his rugged face in her hands. He was so big, so strong. So vulnerable. “I would give anything for you to be happy again.”

“I’m happy when I’m with you.”

Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “Oh, lad.”

He picked her up as though she weighed no more than a child and set her on the workbench so that they were practically eye to eye. His size and strength should frighten her—men often did frighten her—but with Sam she never felt anything but safe. He treated her with tenderness when she was used to violence.

He was the first—and the only—male she ever thought it would be nice to have touch her.

“I have to go,” she explained. “If we run into an automaton that hasn’t learned language I’m the only one who can communicate with it. We’ll have a device that interferes with mechanical armatures. I don’t know if it will affect you or not.” Meaning that this was one time when she was the best person for the job and he was not. “Finley will be with me. You know she won’t let anything hurt me.” Though, if metal went berserk, she was just as capable of bringing it down as Finley, perhaps more so.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said in a soft tone. “I don’t want to boss you around. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

She brushed a thick lock of hair back from his brow and lightly touched the furrow there. It dissolved almost immediately. There he was. There was her Sam. “Sometimes people get hurt,” she told him. She’d been hurt before, but she was still alive. She was still able to feel love and physical attraction despite what had been done to her.

“But I can’t put you back together,” he whispered.

Mary and Joseph, but he broke her heart. “You already have, Sam.” And it was true. “I can’t begin to count the ways you’ve mended me.”

He kissed her then. Her heart leaped—not in fear but in joy. Butterflies tangled their wings in her stomach. Sam’s kiss and touch made her feel things she thought had been taken away from her by rough, cruel forces.

Sam cupped her face as he pulled back just enough to look her in the eye. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t. You won’t ever lose me, I promise.” And she meant it. “And someday, I’m going to make it so that all you want to do is smile.”

He kissed her again, and it was a long time before either one of them spoke.

Emily caught her skulking around outside the blue parlor, the horn of an ornophone against the door as she tried to listen to the conversation taking place on the other side.

Mr. Isley and Griffin were discussing ghosts, but she was having the devil of a time hearing the full extent of their conversation. Something they were doing created a low-grade noise that partially drowned out their voices. Blast it all. How was she ever to know what was going on?

“What are you doing?”

Finley jumped. Fortunately she did so quietly. She could only hope the device made it just as difficult to hear what was going on in the corridor. She tiptoed toward her friend, her finger to her lips so Emily would shush. If Griffin caught her it was going to make it that much more difficult to find out what he was keeping from her.

The library wasn’t far, so Finley gestured the other girl inside and then closed the door.

“I was trying to eavesdrop on Griffin’s meeting.”

“That much was obvious,” Emily replied disapprovingly. “Why?”

The redhead’s wariness was to be expected. As good friends as the two of them had become, Emily’s loyalty belonged to Griffin first. And Emily favored a more direct approach than Finley did.

“Because the bloke he’s talking to says he saw Lord Felix’s murder when he touched my hand.” She folded her arms over her chest. “And I want to know if he is what he seems, or if he’s a charlatan.”

“A male medium? How interesting. Woman tends to be the more sensitive sex when dealing with the spirit realm.”

Finley shrugged. “He seemed to find Jasper quite attractive.”

Emily shot her a censorious look. “That doesn’t make him any less male.”

Not physically obviously, but perhaps his preference gave him more of a feminine sensibility where the dead were concerned. Or maybe the whole thing was bollocks. “I don’t care what he is. I just want to know if I killed the bastard!” She slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late; she’d said too much.

The color drained from Emily’s already pale face. Just as quickly her expression went from surprise to annoyance. “Of course you didn’t kill him. Scotland Yard said you were no longer a suspect. You could never kill anyone.”

“Your confidence is appreciated, but you don’t know that. I don’t know that. I have no memory of that night, and it was before Griffin started helping me amalgamate my two selves.” Plus, Scotland Yard thought a man had done it, but only because an “ordinary” girl wouldn’t have been physically strong enough.

Finley was stronger than most men.

Small, warm hands came down upon Finley’s shoulders as her friend met her gaze intently. “Do you honestly believe you are capable of murder?”

“I’d kill if I had to.”

“If you didn’t kill that slimy bastard when he attacked you, there’s no reason to believe you could do so in cold blood. You’d never be capable of such a thing.”

“That doesn’t mean that someone else didn’t do it for me.”

Understanding dawned in Emily’s eyes. “You think Dandy did it.”

Finley nodded. She didn’t have even the slightest doubt that Jack would kill for someone he cared about, and Lord Felix had been part of the gang of young men who followed Jack around like he was their new messiah. If he wanted to send a message about what would happen to his followers who stepped out of line, it would have been the perfect opportunity.

“I’m not afraid he did it, Em. I’m afraid he’ll get caught. I don’t want Jack to go the hemlock chair for me.” The idea of Jack being stuck by all those needles, poisoned and left to die a slow death made her feel sick.

“Oh. Aye, I understand. But maybe he didn’t do it, either. Lord Felix was an arse. I have to think he had many enemies.”

“True.” Finley glanced toward the closed door. “I should have just made Isley tell me, but I was too shocked to stop him.” And afraid. She had no idea what sort of man Isley might be. Had no idea if he might come back at another time to blackmail her, or use the information against her somehow.

If she had killed Felix she wasn’t going to be sorry for it, but she’d hate for Griffin to think less of her. That was her true fear, and she was a foolish twit for it.

“Well, that tells you that the killer wasn’t you. No one would be stupid enough to admit to a murderer that they know all about it.”

“No, I reckon not.” Blast Emily for being so smart and rational. It made her feel all kinds of foolish. But honestly, she’d been more afraid for Jack than for herself. Not by much, but still her worry was mostly for him.

And a little bit afraid of what it said about his feelings for her, were her fears true. You didn’t kill for a casual acquaintance. Afraid because no matter how much simpler it would be to choose Jack Dandy, crime lord, over Griffin King, Duke of Greythorne, she couldn’t. She chose Griffin.

Though, right now with him being all secretive and standoffish, even though everyone knew something was wrong, she sometimes wished she didn’t choose him. She was good enough to be kissed but not good enough to be trusted. At least she wasn’t alone there. He wouldn’t confide in any of them. He might say they were all a team, but this sort of behavior made it perfectly clear that he was lord and master in this house and the rest of them just lived there.

And just who was this Silverius Isley to be given breakfast and a private audience?

“You won’t hear anything,” Emily told her, gesturing to the ornophone. The brass horn-shaped instrument was in need of a polish. “He uses an Aetheric amplification transducer whenever he wishes to have a completely private conversation.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.” What the devil was an Aetheric whatever-it-was?

“It turns Aetheric energy into sound waves,” Emily explained as though reading her mind. “Basically he uses it to make just enough noise that no one can eavesdrop. I wonder who he thinks might listen at doors?”

Well, she felt fifty different kinds of ridiculous now. “I reckon I’ll put this useless thing away then.” She lifted the ornophone. “It made me feel like an old woman anyway.”

Emily smiled—a sly quirk of her lips. “I do have a device that can dissipate Aetheric sound waves.”

Of course she did, clever chit. Finley’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you didn’t like me eavesdropping?”

“I don’t, but I don’t blame you for it. And if this continues much longer I’ll give you my device with my blessing. Better yet, I’ll make one for all of us. Regardless of what Sam says, Griffin will not tell us if there is something wrong until it’s verging on too late. Sam’s so caught up in worrying about me that he can’t see his best mate’s in trouble.”

She didn’t want to think about what “too late” might include. “Had a chat with Mr. Morgan, did you?” She began walking down the corridor and Emily fell into step beside her. Intentions of eavesdropping were forgotten for the time being.

“Yes. I think we’re finally beginning to understand each other. I just wish…”

“What?”

Emily looked away. “That I could make him as happy as he makes me.”

“Happiness is an individual pursuit, Em. He has to let himself be happy first. You spend far too much energy worrying about him.”

“I lo—I care about him.” She gestured at Finley. “I may not be listening at doors, but I worry about him.”

“Meow. Retract those claws of yours. I don’t care if you write sonnets about his eyes and rhapsodize about his hair. I’m just suggesting that maybe if you stopped trying to make him be happy he’d find happiness on his own.”

“How?”

“Well, maybe he’d realize that you accept him as he is. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe part of the reason he’s unhappy is that he thinks you’re unhappy with him?”

Emily stopped—obviously she hadn’t considered that at all. “And perhaps Griffin keeps secrets from you for the same reason you’re afraid of him discovering yours—that you’ll think less of him.”

Now there was a thought. “I hadn’t entertained that possibility.” She hadn’t thought that perhaps Griffin had insecurities of his own. She was too busy second-guessing herself and worrying that he might not like her if he really knew her.

Sometimes she did reckless things just for the sheer joy of it. And sometimes she fought the urge to get into street brawls with men twice her size. Other times she felt guilty about keeping books from Griffin’s library in her room because no one else could read them. It was no more fun being too good than it was being too bad. But would Griffin still want her if she was sometimes bad? He never seemed to do the wrong thing, while she sometimes deliberately set off in the wrong direction.

Although, that blatant display of his abilities at the dock had been incredibly daring.

“You want to see if cook’s made any cakes?” she suggested, tired of thinking. Did blokes have any idea just how much of a bother they were? “We could make some tea and eat ourselves silly.” That was the “good” option. The bad was jumping on their velocycles and driving into the east end for a little danger and excitement.

“Actually, I have another idea.” Emily stopped and turned to face her. “Let’s go to the St. Pancras station.”

“I thought we weren’t going to go until we discussed it with Griffin?”

Emily tilted her head to one side. “How long do you reckon it will be before that happens?”

She had a point there. Besides, it was something to do that would take not only her mind off Griffin, but Emily’s off Sam. Lord knows they could both benefit from that!

Finley shrugged. “Why not?” She had nothing better to do. “Can we have cake first, though?” She was starving.

Her friend grinned. “Of course. One of us needs to take a por-tel with us. I told Sam I would.”

Emily had created portable telegraph devices for all of them that made communication so much easier. They were also very helpful if one of them found themselves in a spot of trouble and needed help.

They stopped by the kitchen for cake and tea—Finley made a pig of herself while Emily watched with amusement. Then, they grabbed jackets and whatever supplies each needed for poking about the station. They were going to look for clues as to where the mysterious automaton-girl had been taken, and by whom. They met at the stables—where the velocycles were kept—ten minutes later.

Finley appraised Emily’s various items. She looked prepared for anything. “Just what are you hoping to find there, Em?” Sometimes she wondered at the many devices and weapons her little friend made or possessed. What had happened to her that she was obsessed with making certain she and everyone around her was as safe as possible? It went beyond ordinary preparedness.

Emily swung her leg over her machine and gripped the steering bar as she kicked the stabilizing bar out of the way. “I don’t know, but I promised Sam I’d be careful, so I want to be prepared for any eventuality.”

That was sweet. Respectful. Finley tried to ignore a stab of jealousy as she climbed onto her own machine. Would Griffin worry about her? Would he even notice she was gone?

She wasn’t certain she wanted to know the answer.

Chapter 4

She woke up with a start, a strange pounding in her chest. Was one of her parts defective? A cog off its pattern? No, it was that organic thing—that lump of muscle that pumped blood through her system.

What was blood again? Oh, yes. It was essentially the oil that kept human organisms running smoothly.

She touched her head. Inside her skull felt odd—as though her logic engine had somehow changed—had become more. Information assaulted her at an alarming rate.

She understood it. All of it.

She was learning. She was evolving. Her heart—that’s what it was called—gave another jump.

They’d given her a name—Endeavor 312—which she didn’t like, and clothes, which she did. They’d also given her access to a water closet should she need to expel fluid again. And they’d given her food and water—things that would act as fuel in her changing system. Things she would have to expel later on, only to continue taking more in. It seemed wasteful to her, but she understood the necessity.

It had been explained to her that she was the first of her kind, that she would notice changes. The spider had told her not to get emotional over them. She wasn’t quite sure what emotions were, but she knew it was linked to this pounding beneath the cage that protected her internal workings.

Voices. That’s what had brought her system to wake. The machines had gone to gather supplies, leaving her alone. They told her that soon others would join them. Was this them?

She rose from the horizontal rest bay. No, that wasn’t what it was called. It was a bed. An odd term. Rest bay sounded much more accurate. Slowly, she walked across the dirt floor—it was cold against the bottom of her bare feet. She was much more aware of temperature fluctuations now, and anything else that engaged her sensory inputs. Her endoskeleton was now completely covered by the pale membranous material that was sensitive to everything around it, including a breeze that seemed to blow through the cavern.

It smelled of age and dirt and metal down here. She knew she was underground because of how muted the noise of the city was. And this was a city, because she felt the rumble of trains, both above and below street level.

Slowly, on limbs that felt awkward, she went to the door of her room. It didn’t want to open at first, but one good yank solved that problem; the entire metal and wood slab came free. She propped it against the wall and slipped out into the main chamber.

There were boxes and crates everywhere, and more slumbering automatons, too, though none seemed to have the same covering that she did. They didn’t wear clothing, either. Some of them looked battle-scarred and patched together while others gleamed with the brightness of new metal.

Normally she would stop to inspect them all, but she wanted to see their guests. There was another door on the far side of the room and she moved toward it. There was an odd-looking glass-front box mounted on the wall—it showed the catacombs beyond the door. She knew this because part of her was still machine and she understood.

A photographic camera had to be positioned somewhere near the ceiling out in the catacombs, not far from the door. Harnessed Aetheric energy fed the images seen through the lens of the camera to the receiver in the box with the glass front.

The visitors appeared on the glass. She grinned and hurried toward the door. Halfway there, she came to an abrupt and unanticipated stop.

Scowling, she looked down at the limbs that refused to move. She pulled and strained but to no avail. She could not move. It was then that she became aware of a humming noise and realized that she was more prisoner than guest herself.

The spot where she stood was home to a powerful magnet, one that froze the metal inside her to the spot. This was why the others felt they could leave her, leave the other slumbering machines—because there was little chance of escape.

And if there was little chance of escape, logic insisted that she was to be kept there regardless of her own thoughts on the matter.

She stared at the girls on the grainy surface of the glass, and then through a small slit in the door. There were two of them—one tall with light hair streaked with dark and another shorter one with hair that looked like ropes.

Part of her reacted to the sight of them. It was her heart again, kicking up a fuss in her chest cavity. She knew them. She didn’t know how, but she had seen them before. The little one especially.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and jerked her head around. For a moment she was terrified of the strange girl staring at her from just a few feet away. The girl had curly red hair, honey-colored eyes and pale skin. She was tall and slender and dressed in ill-fitting clothes.

The girl was her. It was nothing but her own reflection staring back at her from the scuffed surface of a long, framed mirror. She reached up—it took real effort to lift her arm under the magnet’s pull—and touched her hair, then looked back at the girls outside. They walked past the door to where she was as though they didn’t even see it.

But she saw them. Or rather, she saw her; the red-haired girl. Her mother.

Somehow, in what was left of her logic engine memory capacitors, she recognized a physical connection between herself and that tiny girl. She recognized another connection with the taller girl, as well, but not as strong. She reached forward, but the two couldn’t see her. She opened her jaw to cry out, but only a low keening noise filled the room. The fleshy thing in her mouth still didn’t work properly.

To her left yet another door opened. The old woman stood there, and she did not look amused. Her disapproval was made disconcerting given the odd angle of her head. She looked like a corpse that had been reanimated after its neck was broken, though how she knew that was an apt description was a mystery.