Kady Cross: The Girl in the Steel Corset

They were their own “Special Branch.”

“There’s something not right about her,” Griff said finally, frowning as he studied the sleeping girl.

“She’s come to the right place then,” the redhead replied with a touch of a smile as she pushed her ropey hair out of her face. “There’s not one ‘right’ amongst the lot of us.” And then, “She must have jumped out of your way and struck her head on the ground. If you had hit her, she’d be more seriously injured.”

Griff kept frowning. “I did hit her. That’s part of what’s not right.” The girl had practically leaped onto his cycle, hadn’t she? He shook his head, uncertain whether his memories were real or imaginings.

Other than remaining unconscious and the gash on her head, there was nothing wrong with the girl. Nothing at all—except for the bruising on her face, which he could now see bore the imprint of a signet ring.

“Someone beat her,” Emily remarked. “You probably saved her.”

“Or saved whoever was after her,” Sam commented from the doorway.

Griff flashed a quick glance in his friend’s direction. He practically filled the door frame with his broad shoulders and height. His longish black hair was damp, but he’d changed into dry clothing. His dark gaze was intense as it fell on Emily. Angry but admiring.

Griffin shook his head. “You should have seen her, Em, like something out of one of those gothic novels you’re always reading.”

Finished with her patient, Emily tucked a chunk of bright red hair behind her ear, revealing a line of golden hoops that stemmed from lobe to high on the cartilage, and rose to her feet, atomizer in her hand. “Are you implying she’s a monster, then, Griffin King?”

He arched a brow at her challenging tone. “No, but she could have escaped from someone’s attic. I’m told these things happen more often than you might think.”

She actually smiled at that. Emily’s love of gothic novels was no secret, and she took a lot of teasing for it, being the only girl in the house. The only girl until now. There was Aunt Cordelia, but she was away more than she was home. He looked again at the sleeping young woman—who couldn’t be any older than Emily’s own sixteen years—before motioning them both out of the room. When the door closed behind them, Emily asked, “What happened at the museum?”

Sam caught Griff’s eye with a questioning look. Griff shrugged, indicating that he didn’t care what information he shared. Sam seemed to have this old-fashioned notion that women needed to be protected. Some of the most devious people Griff had ever encountered had been female. He didn’t share the sentiment.

Sam’s lips tightened. “Griff found a small glob of oil.”

“Oil?” Emily shot him a frown. “What kind of oil?”

Sam shook his head. Griffin said what he could not. “We took a sample. It’s in your lab. Em…” He ran a hand through his hair. “It looks like the kind of oil used to lubricate exposed automaton joints.”

The implication of that froze Emily on the spot. “An automaton robbed the museum?” Her crystalline blue eyes were wide as they turned to Griff. “Was it The Machinist?”

“It looks that way,” he replied, seeing Sam continue on without them. Recently there had been a few crimes around town seemingly perpetrated by automatons acting against their programming engines, none of them particularly dangerous. Except for one. That one had been enough. It had almost cost them one of their own. The authorities suspected a criminal calling himself The Machinist was behind the incidents.

The thought called to mind a vision of blood and smoke. Of a broken body close to death, held in the clutches of a metal man. Griff remembered leaping onto the machine’s back, tearing open its panel to reach the controls inside. He knew Sam must be reliving a few memories of his own. After all, he had been the one the thing almost killed.

They’d been chasing similar, though less violent, incidents for almost a year. Griffin figured they were looking for a man with superior mechanical knowledge, particularly that of automatons. Thus far, Emily had found nothing in the programming of the two specimens they had to even suggest they’d been tampered with.

The automatons’ power sources were the same as all standard androids—the same compound that powered most of London. Griff was a bit of an expert in this, since the compound was derived from the ore discovered by his grandfather. He owned the patent on it, owned the rights, too. So Griff knew that the small nugget inside each machine was just as it should be.

So how did the villain make the automatons act against their programming?

“We should assume that any mech involved was accompanied by a human master until we know otherwise.” He fought the fear coiling around his heart. Machines that could think for themselves. Surely it was impossible?

Emily was paler than usual, and Griff knew she was thinking of what had happened to Sam, as well. He should comfort her, but he didn’t know how. Give him a problem to solve and he would jump in with both feet, but he didn’t know how to give comfort, and he hated it.

Sam was waiting for them as they entered the library, where they took all their group meetings. As his gaze fell upon his friend, whom he had known for almost the entirety of his life, Griff couldn’t help but feel surprised that anything had ever managed to hurt him. Sam was so strong. He was a little taller than Griff and certainly more powerfully built. His rugged features only added to his intimidating demeanor. He hadn’t always looked so fierce. Less than a year ago, he’d been quick with a grin or a naughty joke.

Six months ago, an automaton had attacked him in the middle of a routine assignment and tore Sam apart. It had been brutal, a shock for them all to see their strongest member taken down like that. It had been Emily who’d saved him. Emily who’d put him back together. And sometimes when he looked at her, Griff suspected Sam had never quite forgiven her for it. In fact, when he looked at her now, the fingers of his right hand—the hand she’d repaired—twitched.

Emily saw it, too. Griff could tell because she quickly looked away, purposefully focusing on anything but Sam.

“We should have taken the girl to the hospital,” Sam muttered, leaning against the corner of a sofa. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand. “Bringing her here puts us all at risk. What if she’s a wanted criminal?”

Griff tilted his head. “I don’t think it would have been safe to take her to the hospital, for her or the staff.”

His friend raised a heavy brow, sarcasm written all over his face. “So you decided, ‘hell, why not bring her home with me?’ Well done.”

His doubt irked Griff, who wasn’t accustomed to being questioned. Still, he could understand Sam’s misgivings. “You said so yourself—she was scared of something, or someone,” he replied. “I’m certain that’s the August-Raynes crest on her corset.” It was common now for domestic servants to wear their master’s crests on their clothing, like the livery worn by footmen.

“He’s one of the richest men in England!” Sam’s tone was incredulous. “Are you sure he’s someone you want to cross?”

Griff smiled. “Don’t you read the scandal sheets, Sam? Supposedly I am the richest man in England. Surely that makes me more formidable? Besides, I’ve a notion it’s not the father I’d be crossing.”

“Who, then?”

Griff’s own blue gaze locked with pitch-black. “Remember that girl in Whitechapel last winter? The one who had been raped by her employer and tossed out when he discovered she was pregnant with his child?”