The Girl with the Iron Touch
Page 19
Finley blinked. “Cartography?” She wouldn’t have thought that word would be part of Sam’s lexicon. It certainly wasn’t a word she would have said, but then she hadn’t been schooled alongside a duke.
Sam pointed at the St. Pancras location on this new map. Finley peered around Griffin so she could see. There, on the older, slightly faded map, was what looked like a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, great caverns and tiny burrows, plague pits and Roman ruins, train tunnels and sewer paths, all crisscrossing and lurking at different levels beneath London.
And in one of them, beneath the already underground rail line, Emily was being held hostage. Finley glanced at Griffin. This would be difficult for him, as he sometimes suffered great anxiety in enclosed spaces.
“If we access this sewer drain we might be able to sneak up on them,” Griffin suggested, pointing out a small tunnel. “Provided this map is completely accurate, and we’ve no reason to doubt it, Emily should be very close.”
It was at that precise moment that a metallic screech sounded not far from them. Finley actually jumped. Sam went white. He released the underground map, the ends immediately curling in on themselves like waves crashing onto shore.
“What was that?” Finley asked, dreading the answer.
The large bloke picked up what looked like nothing more incredible than a compass. “It’s gone,” he whispered.
“What’s gone?”
There was fear in his dark eyes when he raised them to meet her gaze. “Emily’s signal.”
“You’re not coming.” Sam tugged on a pair of fingerless gloves and flexed his fingers. Finley had a similar pair. They were reinforced with an incredibly hard metal across the knuckles, just in case she or Sam ever felt the need to punch, oh, say a train.
Griffin, she discovered, did not like being bossed about. He had followed Sam into the weapons room, and Finley followed him. “The devil I’m not.”
Sam scowled. “Pull rank if you want, you’re still not coming with me. You’re staying here.”
Griffin glared. If eyebrows were weapons the two of them would be bleeding profusely. “Bugger you, Morgan. You do not give the orders in this house.”
Sam ignored him and slid a wicked-looking dagger into the sheath on a leather strap around his hips. Finley silently applauded. Griffin was a good person, but he’d been born to privilege, and sometimes he needed a bit of that entitlement knocked out of him. He just assumed people would do what he told them because he was the Duke of Greythorne.
It was obvious Griffin despised being ignored. She would have to remember that. “Sam, do not piss me off.”
A wall of blades began to tremble, each weapon shaking in its hold. The lights inside the room flickered.
Sam was unimpressed. Finley was…well, Griffin might be a little petulant, but his power was exciting. Her insides shivered at it, which just proved that her dark half was alive and well.
Heedless of the possible danger to his own flesh, Sam plucked a small hatchet from the blade wall. “Griff, if the Machinist can make a mess of you from a distance, imagine what he can do when you’re close. There’s a very good chance he’s going to be where Emily is. I’m not going to worry about you as well as her. You’re going to stay at home with Finley.”
At one time she would have argued, as well, but not now. As much as she loved Emily, protecting Griffin was more important to her. Sam would find Em and bring her home. She knew this because it was stupidly obvious that Sam loved Emily just as she loved him. The lucky fools.
Griffin, on the other hand, simply didn’t want to admit he was vulnerable to the Machinist. And Finley didn’t mind watching over him. If Garibaldi came back she’d be ready for him.
The rows of blades quieted. “I don’t like you going down there by yourself. If Garibaldi is there, you’ll be in danger. At least if I’m with you I can distract him.”
“You don’t have to be with me to distract him.” Sam sighed. “This is wasting time. For years I’ve trusted your judgment and done whatever you asked of me. I was literally ripped apart, but I’m still here. That’s because I trust you and believe in what we do. Now, you have to trust and believe in me.”
Well done, Sam! It was so lovely to hear someone other than herself telling Griffin he needed to give the same amount of trust to his friends that he expected in return.
“I do trust you,” he mumbled. “I just don’t want you or Emily to get hurt.”
One of Sam’s large hands came down on his shoulder. “And I don’t want you to get hurt, so please, stay here. Snog with Finley, and if I’m not back by morning, I’ll expect the two of you and the cowboy to come find me.”
Griffin nodded. It was obvious he didn’t like the situation, but Finley suspected that had more to do with a sense of responsibility than control. Griffin was their leader, and he looked out for each of them. He hadn’t said much about it, but he probably felt responsible for Emily’s abduction in the first place. If he’d done a better job of protecting her she wouldn’t have been taken. If he’d done things differently Mei wouldn’t be dead. If he’d gotten rid of the Machinist the first time they wouldn’t be doing this now. If…if…if… It was a wonder he didn’t drive himself insane with all the responsibility he tried to take on.
“Be careful,” Griffin advised. “And take one of these.” From a drawer he withdrew a small metal sphere about twice the size of a marble and offered it to his friend.
Sam took it, rolling the ball in his palm before dropping it into his pocket.
“What is that?” Finley asked when it became apparent that neither of them was going to offer an explanation.
“An Aetheric field generator disruptor,” Griffin told her.
She arched a brow. “Which does…?”
“It will interfere with the workings of anything automaton and sentient.” It was Sam who explained. “It’s useless against standard metal, but once the organites take hold, Aetheric energy is produced. The sphere is really only good against something caught between machine and human.”
She almost asked if it would work on him, but caught herself. Of course it wouldn’t. Sam was all human despite a few metal bits.
“What about machines that don’t produce Aetheric energy?”
Sam hoisted a large, double-headed hammer from a rack on the floor. There wasn’t a hint of fear anywhere in his expression, and part of Finley responded to that with a desire to do violence. His muscles bulged as he housed the weapon over his shoulder. He resembled the woodcutter in those fairy stories who was supposed to kill the heroine but helped her instead, or dispatched the big bad wolf.
“I can handle those on my own.”
And she believed him.
Chapter 13
Emily woke up when someone crawled into the cot with her, tipping the tiny bed to the side.
“Sam?” The moment she said his name she knew it wasn’t him. Sam would never do such a thing. Fear slammed hard into her chest. She was without a weapon, but she wasn’t defenseless. She flipped over, fingers curving into eyeball-raking claws.
“Who’s Sam?” Mila asked, catching Emily’s wrist as though her strike was no more effectual than a leaf on the wind.
Relief washed over her—more potent than the pain in her arm. Mila needed to learn a better sense of her own strength, but Emily wasn’t going to hold a grudge.
“A friend,” she replied, gently pulling free of the girl’s grip. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Sorry, but I had to wake you.”
Emily propped herself up on her elbow and peered into the darkness where she reckoned Mila’s head should be. “Is something wrong, lass?”
Light flared. Mila held a small lantern that looked to have been made out of a jam jar and various other bits of refuse. She set it on the bed between them and then opened her left hand.
In her palm were the remains of Emily’s spider—the very one she’d spied earlier. It was just a machine—she could build another—but she felt the loss of it keenly. Had it managed to send her location home before being destroyed?
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Because Her Majesty saw it and didn’t recognize it. I was afraid of what she might do when she realized what it was and that it was yours.”
She supposed she ought to thank Mila for her consideration, but she couldn’t find it within herself. By now the machines would have gathered the items needed to start the transplant. If her friends didn’t find her soon then she would have no choice but to start the process and then kill Garibaldi. The moment she did that her own life would be forfeit. She didn’t mind dying to prevent the Machinist from walking free…correction, she minded it well enough, but she was willing to sacrifice herself if she could take him with her.
“Get up and grab your things,” Mila instructed, climbing off the cot. “We’re leaving.”
This was an unexpected turn of events. “We are?”
In the lamplight the girl looked fierce—and a lot like Finley. “I may have been built rather than born, but I will eventually be every inch as real as you are. I have a heart that beats, lungs that breathe. I have a voice. A mind. The man in that vat is not my master and I will not be his flesh suit.”
The words flesh and suit were two that never should be used together, Emily thought with a grimace. But if Mila came with her, then Garibaldi would be vulnerable, and if he didn’t die on his own, he probably would once the proper authorities were called in. At the very least he’d be kept in a cell for the rest of his days.
The authorities would want to study Mila, which was another reason Emily couldn’t leave her. The girl hadn’t quite learned to lie, and she was too open for her own well-being. Anyone who talked to her long enough would find out exactly what she was, and then they’d find out about the organites. They might discover her connection to Griffin, as well. And that might bring people sniffing around King House, which was the last thing they needed.
But those weren’t the most important reasons to take Mila with her back to King House. The simple fact was that in this brief amount of time, Emily had formed an attachment to her. She felt responsible for her, as she might a younger sibling. She had to protect her.
Emily pulled on her boots. She’d gone to sleep in her clothes—she was safer that way—and grabbed some tools she couldn’t bear to leave behind. She had no problem stealing them, as they were top-notch, and more than likely had been used by Garibaldi himself.
“All right,” she murmured. “Let’s go. Do you know how to get us out of here?”
Mila nodded. “Follow me.” She extinguished the lantern, but when the cell door opened and the dim light from the corridor filtered in, Emily detected a subtle glow in the girl’s eyes. They were like a cat’s. Was that left over from her construction, or something new the organites had given her? They were the beginning of all life, and responsible for the evolutionary mutations occurring in people as well as machines. With the amount of “evolved” organites that made up Mila’s genetic code it was no surprise that she might have begun to evolve in her own way.
Every mutation just made her that more dangerous, and that much more in need of protection.
Down the rough corridor they crept. There was just enough light for Emily to see one foot in front of the other. She held the leather bag with her few belongings close to her body in case a grasping hand came out of the darkness.
They had to skirt the chamber where Garibaldi slumbered. “Victoria” sat in her chair, “plugged into” the Machinist’s tube. Emily could smell the rank deterioration of her flesh, see the further evidence of decay.
Soon, her metal skeletal system would begin to show through the rotting skin. She’d feel for the creature if it hadn’t abducted her.
That made her think of the big spider with the awful doll head. Where was it? She raised her gaze and saw it—tucked into a corner in the ceiling. Had it seen them? No, it was sleeping; she could hear its snores— the only noise other than the instruments in the lab. The other automatons who were sentient must also be resting. The others would have been powered down.
Mila had moved ahead and Emily quickened her pace to catch up. The girl had longer legs and far more grace than she ever would. That was courtesy of Jasper, she reckoned.
A loud bubbling noise turned her head. Garibaldi moved in his tank, as though caught in the throes of a nightmare.
Mary and Joseph. Were his eyes open?
Her companion opened a door and hissed at her—a gesture for her to hurry up. Clutching the bag tight so it wouldn’t rattle, Emily sprinted over the threshold, heart hammering.
They were in the catacombs where she and Finley had come. She remembered passing by this very spot. As the door closed behind them, she turned to examine it. There was barely a seam in the wall, and a small grate at eye level that a person would miss if they weren’t looking for it. That explained why she’d felt as though someone was watching them—someone had been.
“Is this what the world looks like?” Disappointment practically dripped from her tongue.
Emily smiled. How could she not? “No. This would be just a wee part of it.” The girl was in for a huge surprise once they made it street-side. She reached out and took Mila’s hand in hers. “Come on then, the exit’s this way.”
Side by side they hurried down through the dark passage. They made a turn into a tunnel that was much brighter lit than the one they were currently in. “That’s our way out,” Emily said, squeezing Mila’s fingers.
Sam pointed at the St. Pancras location on this new map. Finley peered around Griffin so she could see. There, on the older, slightly faded map, was what looked like a labyrinth of corridors and rooms, great caverns and tiny burrows, plague pits and Roman ruins, train tunnels and sewer paths, all crisscrossing and lurking at different levels beneath London.
And in one of them, beneath the already underground rail line, Emily was being held hostage. Finley glanced at Griffin. This would be difficult for him, as he sometimes suffered great anxiety in enclosed spaces.
“If we access this sewer drain we might be able to sneak up on them,” Griffin suggested, pointing out a small tunnel. “Provided this map is completely accurate, and we’ve no reason to doubt it, Emily should be very close.”
It was at that precise moment that a metallic screech sounded not far from them. Finley actually jumped. Sam went white. He released the underground map, the ends immediately curling in on themselves like waves crashing onto shore.
“What was that?” Finley asked, dreading the answer.
The large bloke picked up what looked like nothing more incredible than a compass. “It’s gone,” he whispered.
“What’s gone?”
There was fear in his dark eyes when he raised them to meet her gaze. “Emily’s signal.”
“You’re not coming.” Sam tugged on a pair of fingerless gloves and flexed his fingers. Finley had a similar pair. They were reinforced with an incredibly hard metal across the knuckles, just in case she or Sam ever felt the need to punch, oh, say a train.
Griffin, she discovered, did not like being bossed about. He had followed Sam into the weapons room, and Finley followed him. “The devil I’m not.”
Sam scowled. “Pull rank if you want, you’re still not coming with me. You’re staying here.”
Griffin glared. If eyebrows were weapons the two of them would be bleeding profusely. “Bugger you, Morgan. You do not give the orders in this house.”
Sam ignored him and slid a wicked-looking dagger into the sheath on a leather strap around his hips. Finley silently applauded. Griffin was a good person, but he’d been born to privilege, and sometimes he needed a bit of that entitlement knocked out of him. He just assumed people would do what he told them because he was the Duke of Greythorne.
It was obvious Griffin despised being ignored. She would have to remember that. “Sam, do not piss me off.”
A wall of blades began to tremble, each weapon shaking in its hold. The lights inside the room flickered.
Sam was unimpressed. Finley was…well, Griffin might be a little petulant, but his power was exciting. Her insides shivered at it, which just proved that her dark half was alive and well.
Heedless of the possible danger to his own flesh, Sam plucked a small hatchet from the blade wall. “Griff, if the Machinist can make a mess of you from a distance, imagine what he can do when you’re close. There’s a very good chance he’s going to be where Emily is. I’m not going to worry about you as well as her. You’re going to stay at home with Finley.”
At one time she would have argued, as well, but not now. As much as she loved Emily, protecting Griffin was more important to her. Sam would find Em and bring her home. She knew this because it was stupidly obvious that Sam loved Emily just as she loved him. The lucky fools.
Griffin, on the other hand, simply didn’t want to admit he was vulnerable to the Machinist. And Finley didn’t mind watching over him. If Garibaldi came back she’d be ready for him.
The rows of blades quieted. “I don’t like you going down there by yourself. If Garibaldi is there, you’ll be in danger. At least if I’m with you I can distract him.”
“You don’t have to be with me to distract him.” Sam sighed. “This is wasting time. For years I’ve trusted your judgment and done whatever you asked of me. I was literally ripped apart, but I’m still here. That’s because I trust you and believe in what we do. Now, you have to trust and believe in me.”
Well done, Sam! It was so lovely to hear someone other than herself telling Griffin he needed to give the same amount of trust to his friends that he expected in return.
“I do trust you,” he mumbled. “I just don’t want you or Emily to get hurt.”
One of Sam’s large hands came down on his shoulder. “And I don’t want you to get hurt, so please, stay here. Snog with Finley, and if I’m not back by morning, I’ll expect the two of you and the cowboy to come find me.”
Griffin nodded. It was obvious he didn’t like the situation, but Finley suspected that had more to do with a sense of responsibility than control. Griffin was their leader, and he looked out for each of them. He hadn’t said much about it, but he probably felt responsible for Emily’s abduction in the first place. If he’d done a better job of protecting her she wouldn’t have been taken. If he’d done things differently Mei wouldn’t be dead. If he’d gotten rid of the Machinist the first time they wouldn’t be doing this now. If…if…if… It was a wonder he didn’t drive himself insane with all the responsibility he tried to take on.
“Be careful,” Griffin advised. “And take one of these.” From a drawer he withdrew a small metal sphere about twice the size of a marble and offered it to his friend.
Sam took it, rolling the ball in his palm before dropping it into his pocket.
“What is that?” Finley asked when it became apparent that neither of them was going to offer an explanation.
“An Aetheric field generator disruptor,” Griffin told her.
She arched a brow. “Which does…?”
“It will interfere with the workings of anything automaton and sentient.” It was Sam who explained. “It’s useless against standard metal, but once the organites take hold, Aetheric energy is produced. The sphere is really only good against something caught between machine and human.”
She almost asked if it would work on him, but caught herself. Of course it wouldn’t. Sam was all human despite a few metal bits.
“What about machines that don’t produce Aetheric energy?”
Sam hoisted a large, double-headed hammer from a rack on the floor. There wasn’t a hint of fear anywhere in his expression, and part of Finley responded to that with a desire to do violence. His muscles bulged as he housed the weapon over his shoulder. He resembled the woodcutter in those fairy stories who was supposed to kill the heroine but helped her instead, or dispatched the big bad wolf.
“I can handle those on my own.”
And she believed him.
Chapter 13
Emily woke up when someone crawled into the cot with her, tipping the tiny bed to the side.
“Sam?” The moment she said his name she knew it wasn’t him. Sam would never do such a thing. Fear slammed hard into her chest. She was without a weapon, but she wasn’t defenseless. She flipped over, fingers curving into eyeball-raking claws.
“Who’s Sam?” Mila asked, catching Emily’s wrist as though her strike was no more effectual than a leaf on the wind.
Relief washed over her—more potent than the pain in her arm. Mila needed to learn a better sense of her own strength, but Emily wasn’t going to hold a grudge.
“A friend,” she replied, gently pulling free of the girl’s grip. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”
“Sorry, but I had to wake you.”
Emily propped herself up on her elbow and peered into the darkness where she reckoned Mila’s head should be. “Is something wrong, lass?”
Light flared. Mila held a small lantern that looked to have been made out of a jam jar and various other bits of refuse. She set it on the bed between them and then opened her left hand.
In her palm were the remains of Emily’s spider—the very one she’d spied earlier. It was just a machine—she could build another—but she felt the loss of it keenly. Had it managed to send her location home before being destroyed?
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Because Her Majesty saw it and didn’t recognize it. I was afraid of what she might do when she realized what it was and that it was yours.”
She supposed she ought to thank Mila for her consideration, but she couldn’t find it within herself. By now the machines would have gathered the items needed to start the transplant. If her friends didn’t find her soon then she would have no choice but to start the process and then kill Garibaldi. The moment she did that her own life would be forfeit. She didn’t mind dying to prevent the Machinist from walking free…correction, she minded it well enough, but she was willing to sacrifice herself if she could take him with her.
“Get up and grab your things,” Mila instructed, climbing off the cot. “We’re leaving.”
This was an unexpected turn of events. “We are?”
In the lamplight the girl looked fierce—and a lot like Finley. “I may have been built rather than born, but I will eventually be every inch as real as you are. I have a heart that beats, lungs that breathe. I have a voice. A mind. The man in that vat is not my master and I will not be his flesh suit.”
The words flesh and suit were two that never should be used together, Emily thought with a grimace. But if Mila came with her, then Garibaldi would be vulnerable, and if he didn’t die on his own, he probably would once the proper authorities were called in. At the very least he’d be kept in a cell for the rest of his days.
The authorities would want to study Mila, which was another reason Emily couldn’t leave her. The girl hadn’t quite learned to lie, and she was too open for her own well-being. Anyone who talked to her long enough would find out exactly what she was, and then they’d find out about the organites. They might discover her connection to Griffin, as well. And that might bring people sniffing around King House, which was the last thing they needed.
But those weren’t the most important reasons to take Mila with her back to King House. The simple fact was that in this brief amount of time, Emily had formed an attachment to her. She felt responsible for her, as she might a younger sibling. She had to protect her.
Emily pulled on her boots. She’d gone to sleep in her clothes—she was safer that way—and grabbed some tools she couldn’t bear to leave behind. She had no problem stealing them, as they were top-notch, and more than likely had been used by Garibaldi himself.
“All right,” she murmured. “Let’s go. Do you know how to get us out of here?”
Mila nodded. “Follow me.” She extinguished the lantern, but when the cell door opened and the dim light from the corridor filtered in, Emily detected a subtle glow in the girl’s eyes. They were like a cat’s. Was that left over from her construction, or something new the organites had given her? They were the beginning of all life, and responsible for the evolutionary mutations occurring in people as well as machines. With the amount of “evolved” organites that made up Mila’s genetic code it was no surprise that she might have begun to evolve in her own way.
Every mutation just made her that more dangerous, and that much more in need of protection.
Down the rough corridor they crept. There was just enough light for Emily to see one foot in front of the other. She held the leather bag with her few belongings close to her body in case a grasping hand came out of the darkness.
They had to skirt the chamber where Garibaldi slumbered. “Victoria” sat in her chair, “plugged into” the Machinist’s tube. Emily could smell the rank deterioration of her flesh, see the further evidence of decay.
Soon, her metal skeletal system would begin to show through the rotting skin. She’d feel for the creature if it hadn’t abducted her.
That made her think of the big spider with the awful doll head. Where was it? She raised her gaze and saw it—tucked into a corner in the ceiling. Had it seen them? No, it was sleeping; she could hear its snores— the only noise other than the instruments in the lab. The other automatons who were sentient must also be resting. The others would have been powered down.
Mila had moved ahead and Emily quickened her pace to catch up. The girl had longer legs and far more grace than she ever would. That was courtesy of Jasper, she reckoned.
A loud bubbling noise turned her head. Garibaldi moved in his tank, as though caught in the throes of a nightmare.
Mary and Joseph. Were his eyes open?
Her companion opened a door and hissed at her—a gesture for her to hurry up. Clutching the bag tight so it wouldn’t rattle, Emily sprinted over the threshold, heart hammering.
They were in the catacombs where she and Finley had come. She remembered passing by this very spot. As the door closed behind them, she turned to examine it. There was barely a seam in the wall, and a small grate at eye level that a person would miss if they weren’t looking for it. That explained why she’d felt as though someone was watching them—someone had been.
“Is this what the world looks like?” Disappointment practically dripped from her tongue.
Emily smiled. How could she not? “No. This would be just a wee part of it.” The girl was in for a huge surprise once they made it street-side. She reached out and took Mila’s hand in hers. “Come on then, the exit’s this way.”
Side by side they hurried down through the dark passage. They made a turn into a tunnel that was much brighter lit than the one they were currently in. “That’s our way out,” Emily said, squeezing Mila’s fingers.
