The Girl in the Steel Corset

Was she going mad? These spells had been coming upon her more often as of late. They’d started right around the same time she’d “become a woman” by biological standards. That had been three years ago, but never had she had an experience like these past few. She’d never lost herself so completely.

And yet … when she was in the midst of madness, it didn’t feel like madness at all. It felt right, like that awful part of her was as natural as breathing. But it could not be natural. It was something dark and wrong and—evil.

Was there anything that could save her? Anything short of death that could stop it from happening again? Felix had deserved the wallop she gave him, but the young man with the striking blue eyes and the thick red-brown hair, he didn’t deserve what she might have done to him when she leaped over the giant one to get to him.

She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, not really. Something had drawn her to him, and when she looked up into those amazing eyes, doing him harm had been the last thing on her mind. She had actually wondered what it might be like to kiss him.

It had to have been some kind of sorcery. What else could it have been? He had drained all of the fight out of her without lifting a hand. One glance had filled her with such peace and lethargy that all she had wanted to do was curl up and sleep. Which she had.

Had he—or any of them—done something to her while she slept? She couldn’t tell, as she was still somewhat tender from the tussle with Lord Felix. She didn’t want to believe the pretty gentleman capable of such violence, but she had learned the hard way that pretty gentlemen were often the worst of the lot.

But now what? She couldn’t stay here forever, and she had no idea if she could trust these people. It was obvious the others didn’t want her around. What if they turned her over to the police? Or worse, what if “Rich Boy” was a friend of Lord Felix?

A knock at the door made her heart jump. The knob turned and the door opened before she could call for whoever it was to enter.

The redheaded girl walked in. Her bright, ropey hair was pinned haphazardly on the back of her head, with thick coils hanging around her pretty face. She wore trousers tucked into high black boots, a white shirt and a tight leather vest. It had become fashionable for young women of independent thought to emulate the masculine fashion, but Finley hadn’t the nerve to do it herself. She much preferred the “Oriental” look that had come over from China. She hadn’t the nerve to copy that, either.

The girl glanced at her with large, intense blue eyes as she entered the room. Finley’s fingers went to her forehead where she’d been injured. The skin there was soft and smooth, not even a lump or slightest scab, even though she remembered tearing at it the night before. In fact, her cheek and lip felt better, as well. But then, she’d always been a fast healer.

“You … fixed me.” She couldn’t keep the awe from her voice.

The young woman’s expression was puzzled as she dipped a cloth in the washbasin on the stand near the dresser. Of course she would be expecting Finley to act as beastly as she had last night. “Yes. I did. I’m glad you left it alone this time.”

Finley smiled, hoping she looked friendly rather than demented. This girl was no threat to her and so that dark part of her was peaceful. “Thank you.”

“I’ve brought you breakfast.” She gestured to the doorway, where the large young man with longish black hair and rugged features stood holding a tray. Her dark self raised its head, but didn’t make a fuss. “And I would like to examine you, if that’s all right.”

So young and a doctor? It was impossible, of course, but that didn’t mean the Irish girl didn’t have a proper knowledge of medicine. After all, she had healed her wound. “Of course. Thank you for breakfast.”

“I’ll clean you up and we can talk while you eat.”

Finley’s smile was stronger now. She kept her attention focused on the girl while watching her companion from the corner of her eye. “I’d like that.” She felt something of a kinship with this girl. Girls didn’t normally like her, and young men tended to like her in ways she didn’t want. She didn’t understand why because it wasn’t as though she was uncommonly beautiful or anything.

The girl didn’t look like she was convinced of her sincerity, but she came closer all the same. “If you try to hurt me, he’ll stop you. Understand?”

The smile melted from Finley’s lips and slipped down her throat to form a hard knot. She nodded, not daring to glance at the grim-looking young man.

She sat still while her companion wiped her forehead and face, trying not to notice how much blood stained the cloth, turning it rusty. She was given another warm, wet length of linen to wash her hands. They were stained, as well.

Finley swallowed. “I must apologize for my behavior last night. I was not myself.”

“No?” A high, red brow arched against the girl’s pale forehead as she took both cloths away. “Who were you, then? A Changeling perhaps?” She had a beautiful, lyrical Irish accent.

“I’m not sure,” Finley replied with a frown, watching her walk away. Was she teasing her, or did she honestly believe she might be a Faerie trying to pass as human?

The girl dropped the soiled cloths back into the basin, turned and walked to the dresser. She rummaged through a small leather kit and pulled out something that looked like a perfume bottle. “I’m going to give you another treatment, just to make sure you continue to heal. I promise it won’t annoy you like it did last night. You can eat, as well.”

Finley blushed, unable to contain a rush of humiliation. “Of course.” She pushed herself up farther on the pillows to be more accommodating and so she would be able to eat. The movement apparently startled the girl because she jerked back and dropped the bottle. It landed on the floor with a loud thump.

“Ah, blast! It went beneath the dresser.”

Before the girl could bend down to stick her hand underneath the piece of furniture, the dark-haired young man was there. He set the tray on the bed and then went to the dresser, bending down. How he expected to find the mechanism with those big hands of his, Finley didn’t know. But then she realized he had only reached underneath to get a good hold. When he straightened, the large, heavy piece came with him, held between his two hands with ease.

No man was that strong. Even in her “altered” state she couldn’t come close to that kind of easy strength.

“Astounding,” Finley whispered, staring at him in open awe.

The other girl smiled then, as though she couldn’t help herself. “This coming from a girl who tossed a footman like a sack of potatoes.” Quickly, she bent down and retrieved the item. “Thank you, Sam.”

He said nothing, merely glanced at her before setting the furniture back in its proper place. The girl made a point of not looking at him, but her pale cheeks turned red.

“My name is Finley,” she said when once again her nursemaid attended her. “Who are you?”

The girl hesitated, her fingers wrapped around the depression bulb of the atomizer. Whatever the reservoir contained, it smelled of rosemary and something earthy—like dirt. She didn’t quite meet Finley’s gaze as she applied a light, cool layer of mist to her forehead. She was still wary of her. “Emily.”

Finley held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Emily. Thank you for being kind when I was such a wretch.”

Emily looked down. For a moment, Finley thought maybe she’d reject the offer of friendship and she held her breath. But just when she was about to drop her hand, Emily switched the contraption to her left and accepted the handshake. The Irish girl’s hands weren’t smooth like a lady’s. They had a little roughness to them, like Finley’s own. They were the hands of someone used to working, and it made Finley like her even more.

More so, it made her want to trust this small girl with her strange red hair and old eyes.

“You’re welcome … Finley.” Emily gestured over her shoulder. “That’s Sam.”

Finley managed to smile at the large young man. Him she wasn’t so eager to trust, nor, from the stony expression on his face, was he about to trust her. “Hello, Sam. My apologies for leaping over you as I did last night.”

“You’re fast,” he allowed grudgingly, lifting the breakfast tray and setting it across her lap. “But I caught the footman when you threw him, and next time I’ll catch you.” It wasn’t said in a threatening manner but Finley knew beyond a doubt that he would crush her like a bug if he caught her.

“There won’t be a next time,” she said hoarsely.

The brute actually grinned. He had big, white teeth and he would have been handsome if he wasn’t so bloody frightening. “Good.” Then to Emily, “We should go. Griff will want to see us.”

“Griff?” Finley froze in the middle of reaching for a slice of toast. They spoke of him like he was their leader, and she knew exactly who Griff was. Rich Boy.

Emily nodded. “This is his house. He would like you to come down to the library when you’ve finished breakfast. Just push the maid button and someone will come and help you dress.”

He wanted to see her. Suddenly Finley didn’t have much of an appetite, not when her fate would be so soon decided.

To her surprise, Emily reached out and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry yourself, lass. All will work out as it ought. Now, eat. You need to put some meat on your bones.”

The backs of Finley’s eyes burned. That sounded just like something her mother would say. Oh, how she wished she had her mother! “Thank you,” she rasped.

Emily gave her another squeeze, and dipped her head to look her in the eye. “I mean it. You needn’t worry.”

Finley nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She might burst into tears and she had already humiliated herself enough in front of these people. She managed to hold out until they had left, closing the door behind them. Only then did she allow a tear to run down her cheek.

She had attacked her employer. She would rather live on the streets than let her mother know how she had shamed herself. She would never work for any decent family again once word got out. She would have to find some other kind of employment without reference and hope that word of her disgrace didn’t spread to the shops. And she was either going mad or was possessed by a demon.

What did she possibly have to worry about?

The brick wall shuddered under the force of Sam’s left fist.

It crumbled under the force of his right.

Bricks broke loose of their mortar. Those that weren’t smashed into dust toppled to pile at his feet. He choked and stumbled backward, coughing, eyes watering. “Bloody hell!”

He was in the ballroom of Greythorne House. Since the death of Griff’s parents, the large space had become less and less for entertaining and more and more of a training ground for the lot of them.

He’d started spending more time in here over the past couple of months. As soon as Emily said he could start training again. Well, maybe a little before. Emily didn’t know everything, even if it seemed like she did.

Once his vision and the cloud of dust cleared, Sam lifted his arms, putting his forearms side by side in front so he could study them. There was no discernable difference between the limbs. They were the same relative size and tone. When he flexed his fingers, he could see tendons moving beneath the skin.

But the two were not the same. Sometimes he fancied he could hear a faint squeaking or creaking sound coming from his right arm. It was rubbish, of course—his arm never made any noise at all.

He’d probably feel better if the damn thing did squeak, if it felt somehow different from the left. At least then he could properly resent it. Hate it. Emily had saved his life and turned him into some kind of freak. He hated her almost as much as he was grateful to be alive.

He’d been born different, just like Griff. They’d grown up together, as Sam’s father had been the old duke’s steward, and had discovered early on that they had abilities other boys did not. Over the years Griff developed different theories as to why that was. Maybe it was something in the water. Maybe they’d been exposed to some kind of toxin. Or maybe, as Mr. Darwin apparently once predicted to both Griff’s grandfather and father, they were simply examples of man’s natural evolution into something more.

Whatever they were, there had been no denying they were more than human. Anyone who had ever witnessed one of Griff’s “fits,” when his eyes did that terrifying thing, would call him anything but normal.

As for Sam, he had realized his own differences around the age of six when a cart lost a wheel and toppled onto his father, pinning him to the ground. Instead of running for help as he was told, Sam lifted the cart enough for his father to crawl out. His father didn’t say a word, but later that night he went up to the big house to talk to the duke, and after that, Sam and Griff were raised almost as brothers, enjoying the same education and many of the same benefits. Many of the same trials, too, because it was very important to find out what Sam was capable of doing.

While he had learned to hone his abilities, he also learned to conceal them. That was the one rule—to never reveal your true nature. There were people out there who wouldn’t understand, who would be afraid. For some reason that made Sam think of the book their tutor had made them read. Frankenstein or something. It had been about a man who created a monster who was feared and hated despite his desire to be part of the human race.

It hadn’t been intentional, but that was the day that Sam secretly began to think of himself as something of a monster.

And now Emily—the one person he never wanted to see him as such—had turned him into even more of an abomination. Rationally, he understood that she had saved him. In some ways she had even improved him. He was certainly stronger now, but at what cost? Underneath the flesh rebuilt by her little “beasties” were fingers, wrist and other bones no longer made of bone. He was metal there.

“It’s your flesh, Sam,” Emily had said, touching his new arm lightly with her clever fingers. “The Organites copied your cellular design. The skeleton might be metal, but the rest of it is all you.” Her eyes had pleaded for him to understand, to forgive, but he hadn’t been able to do that then and he couldn’t do it now—not entirely. Not like she wanted.

Just like Victor Frankenstein’s monster, he wasn’t one complete human body. Some of his humanity had been lost. But as much as it scared and angered him, part of him liked being even stronger. He liked knowing that the next time he went up against one of those damn machines he could give it a little taste of its own.

Something was happening in the mechanized world. Something that enabled metal and gears to revolt against humans. The machine that ripped his arm off hadn’t been the first to go against its engineering. It had simply been the worst.

And now its remains lurked deep beneath the house, in a vault for which only Emily and Griff knew the combination. He hated her being so close to the abomination, but he couldn’t stand to be there with it—or Emily.

His cowardice was why Griff had replaced much of the mechanized staff with flesh and blood, because his friend knew how much metal terrified him now.

What if the machine hadn’t been destroyed? Griff claimed its power supply had been removed, but what if there was something else? He had Emily working on the thing, and even though Griff often worked with her, he wasn’t little and fragile. Griff had his magic to protect him. Emily was brilliant, but she would be as delicate and as easily broken as china in the hands of a machine like the one that had nearly killed him.

Rage. Despair. Joy at still being alive. These emotions and more warred within him, filling him with restless energy, so much that he thought he might explode. He had to get it out. He had to stop thinking.

He smashed what was left of the wall. Bricks exploded as the wall itself actually lifted off its foundation. A slab of stone and mortar flew up and struck him in the face before he could dodge out of the way. It hit hard across his cheekbone. A clanging sound reverberated in his brain as the projectile shattered.

Stunned, Sam lifted his hand—his real hand—to his face. There was some blood—he could feel the warm wetness, but there was little pain. It should have hurt more, even though pain didn’t affect him like it did others.

What if …? No, it couldn’t be. But the idea was already taking hold in his stunned brain as he crossed the room to a wall of mirrors they often used to analyze fighting techniques.

Sam came up to one of the mirrors, putting his face close. He lifted both hands to the wound on his cheek. He ignored the blood as he pried his skin apart, digging his fingers into the bleeding gash. His stomach rolled at the sight, but he kept going, widening the wound, digging until he found the hard ridge beneath. He peered through the blood. Please, let it be bone.

It wasn’t.

He dropped his bloody hands from the gore that was his cheek, stumbling backward as shock overtook him. He trembled, felt as though the world had been ripped out from beneath him.

Pain pierced his chest. What was this feeling? This hollow burning? Betrayal. It fed the rage within him, driving him from the room with great strides. He ran down the great staircase, ignoring the startled servants who gasped in horror at his appearance. He tore down the corridor to the door that led to the cellar, nearly taking it right off its hinges as he yanked it open.

The lift was too bloody slow. It was all he could do not to punch through the floor of it and jump clear to the bottom like the freak he was. Making himself wait for this damn box to take him underground was the only thing keeping him human at the moment.

Emily was alone, as she usually was, blindly believing this was her haven—her safe place. There was barely a foot of empty space anywhere. A clockwork monkey, its gears exposed, sat on a shelf next to a model rocket and a stack of punch cards. On the workbench there were designs for a gun—something for Jasper Renn no doubt. She was always making new weapons for the American, a fact that annoyed Sam. It wasn’t as though Renn was one of them, regardless of how chummy he was with Griffin.

Emily stood at another bench on the opposite side of the room. Electric lights flickered on the walls and from supports hanging from the ceiling, illuminating her workspace. She was working on her pet project—something that had been her goal for almost a year now—her cat. A mechanized beast she could control.

She looked up from her project, lifting the magnifying goggles that allowed her to do delicate work. For a second, her pretty eyes looked as big as silver dollars behind the lenses.

“Oh, my God, Sam!” She slid off the stool with an expression of horror. “What happened?”

He took a step forward before stopping himself, but he couldn’t stop her. She foolishly, trustingly, came toward him, worry etched in her every feature.

“How much?” he demanded as she approached, fists clenching at his sides.

She actually frowned—like she didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do you mean? What did you do to yourself?”

He grabbed the hand she raised to his face. Her wrist felt so tiny inside his fingers. He could snap it so easily, but he didn’t want to hurt her. It didn’t matter what she had done to him. He would never hurt Emily.

Still, she gasped at the pressure of his grasp. He shook her, on the edge of madness. “How much of me is bloody machine?”

She went white—even more than usual—but she was not afraid. He didn’t know if she was stupid, or if she truly knew him better than anyone else, but she wasn’t afraid of him. For him, but never of him.

“Your right arm,” she whispered, blue eyes locked with his. Was that shame he saw there? And relief. She was relieved to finally reveal all to him. Whose idea had it been to lie? Hers or Griff’s? “The left side of your skull and most of your ribs have been reinforced because the bones were severely shattered.”

Sam’s grip on her wrist eased as nausea blossomed in his stomach. He started to step back but her voice stopped him. “Your left shin and your right femur were both grafted and plated. And your right clavicle.”

He stared at her in horror. All of that? The machine had done all of that? How had he survived? And then he looked deep into her eyes and he saw the truth there. He hadn’t.

He hadn’t survived.

“What else, Em?” His voice was a ragged whisper. “What else did you replace?”

She lifted her chin, not the least bit sorry for what she had done to him. “I’d do it again, Sam. I don’t regret savin’ you, no matter how you might hate me for it. I’d do it again.”

“What else did you replace?” His shout reverberated through the room, seeming to shake the very foundations of the house. Emily winced, but she did not cringe. She straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye.

“Your heart,” came the unapologetic reply. “I replaced your heart.”

Chapter 4

Finley was tying the sash on the embroidered red-silk kimono a maid had brought her when there was a loud bang and the entire house seemed to quiver. A quick peek out the window showed the big fellow—Sam—stomping across the garden toward the path leading toward the stables. A few moments later as she slipped her feet into matching slippers whilst simultaneously shoving pins into her hair, she heard a loud rumbling. Another glance out the window revealed Sam charging out of the stables on one of those heavy two-wheeled contraptions that he and Griffin had been driving last night.

What had happened to make him so angry? And just how strong was he that he could make a house this size tremble by slamming a door? She wouldn’t stand a chance against him, even if her darker self took over.

The thought made her uneasy. This house, these people and this situation were just too good to be true. In her experience, no one was ever kind for no reason. They always wanted something.

But she couldn’t hide in this room forever. And since someone had absconded with her own clothing, she would have to play along. At least for now. Better she play along and find out what they wanted from her than sit around and wait. Although a naive part of her wanted to think the best of the handsome Rich Boy. Griffin, that was what Emily called him.

He intrigued her, this young man who managed to calm her beast with nothing more than a few words and his heavy-lidded eyes. He had helped her last night and, that she could tell, no liberties had been taken with her person. And the door to her room was unlocked from the outside. Surely that was a good sign?

As she left her room, she was struck by the grandeur of the house, seeing it in the full light of day. He must be very rich indeed.

A small sweeper automaton the size of a toddler cleaned the Axminster carpet that lined the corridor and staircase, its thick brushes scooping up debris and depositing it in the removal dust tray. It was one of the few machines she’d seen since her arrival—not that she had seen much of the house. Still, there seemed to be more human servants employed than mechanical ones—a fact proven by the chambermaids she spied farther down the corridor.

Portraits ranging from centuries ago to present day lined the stairs as she slowly made her way down, trying not to gawk at the white-washed walls and incredibly high ceilings. This place made the August-Rayneses’ house seem a shack.

“May I help you, miss?” asked an older lady, when she reached the bottom. The woman’s black-and-white uniform and mobcap gave her away as the housekeeper. She seemed somewhat … wary.

Someone else who was afraid of her. Lovely. “I’m supposed to go to the library,” she explained.

“Ah, yes,” the housekeeper replied. “His Grace no doubt wants to speak with you. Down the south corridor, second door on the right.”