The Girl in the Steel Corset (20 page)

“I think that’s a hatch,” Sam said, noticing a slight incision in the stone. Those punctures in the dirt wall had been from someone—or something—climbing. “Finley, climb up on my shoulders and see if you can lift it.”

The girl looked at him as though she didn’t trust him. He sighed. “Fine, come here and let me climb up on yours. We
can’t be sure what’s up there, but I can be fairly certain that, whatever it is, you and I stand the best chance of surviving it.”

“Fair enough,” she replied. She managed to squeeze past Jasper and Emily to get to him. The two of them flattened themselves against the wall so she could get by. There wasn’t enough room for Sam to squat down, so he bent as far as he could and she climbed onto him using the wall for leverage. She was crouched on his shoulders as he slowly stood. The panel made a groaning sound as she lifted it, raining down dirt upon Sam’s head. He coughed.

“I’m beneath a carpet or something,” Finley told them. “I can’t see…”

There was a soft thump—the sound of a rug being tossed back—and then, “Oh, my God.”

“What is it?” Griffin demanded.

Sam tried to look up, but Finley blocked much of his view. He could see part of her face, however, as wherever she had popped up was well lit.

“Griffin King, is that you?” called an imperious female voice.

Griffin swore—very softly. “It is, ma’am.” Then he pushed his way back to where Sam was.

“Come up here this instant,” called the woman. “And, you, girl, get out of that hole.”

“Be right there!” Griffin called back, agitation and
mortification raising his voice an octave. “Sam,” he hissed, “I need to get up there.”

“Climb on up,” Sam offered. Finley had done as she was told, so Griffin had a clear path.

Griffin climbed agilely onto Sam’s shoulders and quickly pulled himself up through the hole.

Sam heard him talking, but his voice was low and he couldn’t hear if he called the woman by name or not. He didn’t hear anything at all until Griffin called down to the rest of them. “Sam, Jasper, Emily? Please come up.”

Sam was beginning to feel like a stepstool, but he kept his mouth shut as he helped Emily, then Jasper up to the world above. Then, he managed to climb up a bit using the rocks jutting out of the wall to propel him a few feet up until he could get a hand on either side of the hole and pull himself up.

He emerged in a large sitting room, so richly appointed it made Greythorne House look like a humble cottage. Finley, Jasper and Emily stood huddled together, staring openmouthed at Griffin, who was talking to an elderly woman dressed in black.

Brushing dirt from his coat, Sam ignored the wild-eyed looks the other three gave him. Surely a house like this had enough staff to clean up a little dirt?

“And who is this young man?” the old lady demanded.

Sam opened his mouth to reply, but froze when he saw just who the old woman was.

“May I present Sam Morgan, Your Highness,” Griffin said.

Bloody hell. It was Queen Victoria. They’d just burrowed their way into Buckingham Palace.

“I can’t believe I met the queen!” Emily gushed on the walk from the palace to where they’d left their velocycles.

“I would have liked to meet her when I didn’t have dirt in my hair,” Finley remarked. The horror of popping up into the queen’s parlor like some kind of rodent was a humiliation she would carry with her for the rest of her days.

Still, it had been pretty amazing to meet the woman who ruled the entire British Empire. She had thought Victoria would be taller.

Griffin had been quiet during their walk. Her highness had offered them a carriage, but Griffin declined the generous offer, saying they had already imposed upon the queen enough.

Of course they’d been forced to tell her how they got there. You didn’t discover a secret passage into someone’s palace and not tell them everything you knew about it. Lord, Victoria could have tossed them all in gaol if she’d so chose. So Griffin had told her how they’d found the passage and what they were doing in the tunnels to begin with. The queen was very concerned, to put it lightly, especially when Griffin told her that now that they had found the passage, he was convinced it had been The Machinist who stole her
hairbrush from the museum. He also asked the staff to alert him if they discovered anything missing, but in a place that size, who would notice?

By the time they left, workmen had already begun work on closing up the hole and repairing the floor. Finley didn’t doubt that the tunnel would be sealed by tomorrow. That was good—The Machinist would lose his way into the palace.

Now, after talking so much to the queen, Griffin was subdued, his brow furrowed as he walked, hands deep in the pockets of his long, gray greatcoat. It was a little stained from their adventure, but nothing a skilled maid couldn’t conquer. She couldn’t help but wonder what it was that had his mind so occupied.

She fell back to walk with him, leaving the other three talking about the palace. They were so amazed by what had just happened that none of them seemed to remember the tension between them. Sam actually laughed at something Jasper said! And of course, Emily walked between the two of them—a kitten between two toms.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

Griffin glanced at her, as though surprised to see her beside him. “Something I’d rather not contemplate, but has taken hold of my mind and will not let go.”

In their brief acquaintance, she had never heard him speak with such gravity. Whatever plagued him, it also disturbed him very deeply.

She would have pushed further if they hadn’t arrived where they’d left the velocycles. She started hers and followed the rest of them back to Mayfair. The streets were busy with aristocrats heading to Hyde Park as they did every day at five o’clock to see and be seen. They rode horses there, or drove horse-drawn carriages. It was a place to be leisurely. Modern vehicles moved too fast, and the whole point of the outing was to show yourself off.

Griffin never did such things, but then he wasn’t like any other peer of the realm she’d ever met. Why didn’t he go to parties and balls like other young men his age? From what she had heard of him—and seen for herself—he wasn’t much for society at all. Wasn’t he expected to be out and about? Someday he’d marry a woman worthy of becoming his duchess and have a family of his own. And then she, Emily, Sam and Jasper would be out on the street.

Lord, what maudlin thoughts! They served no purpose, so she pushed them to the back of her mind. She’d go off and get married herself eventually, so what did it matter? It didn’t matter at all, and she certainly wasn’t upset about it. It wasn’t like Griffin could ever marry her. That was a joke!

By the time they arrived back at the mansion, she’d put all thoughts of Griffin and marriage out of her head. Lady Marsden had returned from Devon and wanted them all in the study. They went to her immediately, not even bothering to clean up first.

The elegant lady was waiting for them, pacing the length
of the carpet, the silver chains running from ear to nose gleaming in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows. She took one look at the lot of them and her mouth fell open.

“Whatever happened to the lot of you?” she asked. She had a way of always sounding put out, even when she wasn’t.

Griffin explained what had happened. His aunt didn’t seem to know whether to be horrified or amused at their barging in on the queen. It didn’t take long for her expression to turn grim, however, when Griffin told her that he suspected The Machinist had dug the tunnel.

“But why would he take the figure from Tussaud’s?” Sam asked. “He was right there in the palace. He could have taken anything he wanted.”

“It would be difficult to do that without being noticed,” Finley told him. “You can’t just shove a gown under your shirt or in your pocket. He might have been brazen enough to walk right into the palace, but he was careful not to get caught.”

“He would be very careful not to be noticed,” Lady Marsden agreed. “Because if he were, it would be highly likely Victoria would recognize him.”

Griffin’s head jerked up. He stared at his aunt—they all did. “You know who he is?”

“I believe so. Your steward described him to me, and it fits other accounts I’ve heard, but your steward mentioned
one thing no else did. The Machinist has a metal hand. He lost his in a professional accident years ago—an accident I believed he blamed on your father, Griffin.”

Griffin’s eyes narrowed. “So he did know my father.”

“He was part of the expedition,” his aunt replied, holding out a photograph to him. “Leonardo Garibaldi. He was one of my brother’s closest friends—and the only member of the expedition to have died whose body was never found. Obviously that was because he never actually died.”

Finley peered at the photograph over Griffin’s shoulder. There were his parents, looking beautiful and happy, along with several other people, one of whom she recognized as her father. Was it foolish of her to feel sad at the sight of him even though she’d never known him?

Her gaze fell upon Garibaldi. Beside her she thought she heard Sam gasp, but before she could turn her attention to him, Lady Marsden began talking again. “Garibaldi was the one who wanted to go public with the Organites. He thought they could change the world. He was furious when Victoria told them to keep it a secret. She thought there was too much potential for evil if mankind got its hands on something so miraculous.”

“She was right,” Griffin agreed. “It would be awful, especially now that we know the Organites are responsible for all of our special abilities. But Garibaldi already knows what they’re capable of, especially their remarkable ability to replicate human tissue.”

Everyone was staring at him now. “What have you discovered?” Lady Marsden demanded.

Griffin glanced at Emily. “It was Emily who discovered it, really. She saw what the Organites could do when she rebuilt Sam’s arm. And recently we saw how the Organites have become part of Sam’s physiology. If Garibaldi had samples of a person’s skin or hair, he could conceivably construct a copy of that person. A doppelganger—at least, in the flesh. He would have to build some kind of skeleton to support it—like an automaton.”

The awful truth of what he was saying finally sunk into Finley’s bewildered mind. The Machinist had stolen the queen’s brush, and other personal items, as well, probably. He had pieces of her, and he had Organites. And there had been caliper marks on the wax Victoria, along with those empty eye sockets.

Her gaze swung to Griffin, and she saw the truth in his expression. Her heart stopped dead in her chest. Emily’s announcement solidified her fears. “He’s going to replace Queen Victoria with an automaton twin.”

An automaton Victoria.

The idea was almost too preposterous to entertain, but much too awful to ignore. There were all manner of nefarious schemes The Machinist—Leonardo Garibaldi—could get up to with a mechanical matriarch. Griffin didn’t even want to try to think of them all.

If their theory was correct—and he and Emily were seldom wrong when they agreed with one another— Garibaldi was either building or had almost completed the most lifelike automaton the world had ever seen. Metal with a flesh suit and an Organite-augmented logic engine that would allow the machine to actually
think.
A sentient creature—or as sentient as Garibaldi allowed it to become. One that didn’t just look like the queen from a distance, but one that would be an exact physical replica. Garibaldi would
have entry anywhere and everywhere, including many of the upcoming jubilee celebrations.

“Garibaldi has to be stopped,” he said. “Regardless of his intent, we cannot have a Victoria doppelganger loose in London, or anywhere else.”

“Do you reckon Garibaldi would have done it if Victoria hadn’t been so harsh to begin with?” Sam asked. The others turned surprised gazes on him, and he held up his hands. “It was just a question.”

“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 with 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.