The Girl in the Steel Corset - By Kady Cross Page 0,112

the petite girl wasn’t the ax so much as where it would have struck Sam. Even he couldn’t recover from decapitation.

When Sam went to press on, seemingly unfazed by his close call, Emily stopped him and pointed at her mechanical cat. Griffin gave her the thumbs-up. Emily pushed up her left sleeve to reveal a long, leather cuff covered by metal panel that curved around her forearm. It opened like a locket to reveal the controls for the cat. She made a few adjustments, turned a few knobs, and when she was done, the metal feline took over Sam’s position as point. Any more traps and it would be the one to set them off.

Torches, similar to the handheld devices Emily had made, burned from within the cat’s eyes, lighting their path and enabling all of them to keep their hands free. They moved quietly through the desolate interior. It was obvious that this space hadn’t been used in some time, but footprints in the dust on the floor told another story. Finley frowned, realizing that someone had tried to conceal the tracks. Emily toyed with the controls on her arm again and the cat crouched, exhaling a fine puff of air that lifted the “new” dust to reveal boot prints pressed into the layers beneath. Whoever made the tracks—no doubt Garibaldi—had stepped in oil or something, and the dust stuck to the floorboard where he’d trod.

Bloody brilliant. Genius, Finley thought rather caustically. Garibaldi might be smart, but she was convinced he was no match for Emily.

The tracks led to a door, well concealed toward the back of the warehouse. The cat sat and waited for Sam to open it—and they all pressed themselves against the wall so if anything came flying out it would miss them. Nothing happened, and the cat slowly descended the stairs within. The metal beast was as quiet and stealthy as its wild counterpart.

Single file, they made their way down into the dirt and wet. A faint whiff of fish clung to the air, and there was something else she smelled over the lavender. Finley sniffed again. “Machine oil,” she whispered, alerting the others that they were on the right path.

The cat reached the bottom of the stairs. Finley watched as its right front “paw” struck something on the floor. Suddenly, the space filled with lights, the gas jets in the sconces on the wall igniting with such brightness it was almost blinding.

When her eyes adjusted, she saw Jasper had both pistols drawn, but there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger.

Well, at least not yet.

Standing like an army waiting for orders was row after row of silent automatons. Some looked like the metal man they’d fought before, and sure enough, there was the one they had fought there in the far corner. Others were small, like dolls or children. They were the most disturbing to Finley because of their garish, painted faces that looked nothing like the innocence of childhood. Not even the spiderlike creature with a doll’s head unsettled her quite so much. Others were nothing more than bits of rubbish put together. Some had feet, some had wheels. Some had faces and some didn’t have anything resembling a face. But one thing was for certain, they were metal, and they were strong.

But this mechanical army paled in comparison to their general.

Standing at the front of the ranks was an old woman, plump with a bit of a jowly look to her, dressed all in black, her white-and-gray hair back in a severe bun.

It was Queen Victoria. Not an automaton simply painted to look like her—it was the very image of Her Majesty right down to the flesh that glowed with vitality.

“Mary and Joseph,” Emily whispered on a breath. As though compelled, she moved closer to the…thing, her good hand outstretched. No one seemed capable of moving to stop her, they were so in shock.

If Emily was a genius, what the devil was Garibaldi to have conceived and built such a thing? No one, not even the queen’s own children would look at this figure and think it anything but their mother.

Emily’s fingers touched the thing’s face and then snatched back, as though burned. “It’s skin,” she whispered. “Real skin. He managed to do it. He’s made an organic automaton.”

Finley wasn’t quite sure what that was, but she knew it wasn’t good. She also knew it wasn’t good when “Victoria’s” eyes snapped open.

“Intruders,” it said in a perfect imitation of the queen’s voice.