The Girl in the Steel Corset - By Kady Cross Page 0,113
“We are not amused.”
“Well, well, well,” came a voice from the far end of the room. Finley turned her attention toward that voice, keeping the automaton in her peripheral vision. There, just inside an open door, was a dark and swarthy man of about average height and build. “Look who set off the imperceptible auditory alarm. Sam! How lovely to see you still alive.”
Beside Finley, Sam said nothing, but she could see the muscles in his jaw clench.
“This isn’t going to work, Garibaldi,” Griffin said in a firm, clear voice. Finley mentally cheered for him, knowing how hard it must be for him to keep his emotions under control.
“I think it will,” Garibaldi taunted. “I’ve worked long and hard to get here, Your Grace. I’m not about to let a bunch of children stop me now.” Finley jumped as his cold dark gaze met hers. “Much of this started with your father, you know. It was my carriage he tried to steal that night. He came to me, begging for help and as his friend I tried to help him, but then he changed right before my very eyes. He attacked me, otherwise I never would have shot him. That’s when I knew the Organites had to be revealed to the world. No more secret experiments left to go so drastically wrong.”
Rage, somehow both hot and cold, swept over Finley. Darkness flooded her and she let it, but instead of giving into it, she let it trip through her veins, drawing strength from it. Garibaldi spoke as though he had done the right thing—as though he had committed a service for her father rather than killing him without mercy and in cold blood.
“Do you mean that?” she asked calmly. “Or were you just put out that Greystone trusted my father with the experiments and not you?”
Garibaldi’s face flushed so dark, she could see it from where she stood. She’d struck a nerve.
“Edward went to Thomas Sheppard because Sheppard wasn’t bound by any promise to the queen. Edward knew that if Sheppard was caught there was little way to link his experiments to our discovery. How highly do you think of the heroic late Duke of Greythorne now?”
Finley glanced at Griffin, whose cheeks were also dark. He hadn’t known this about his father. She turned back to Garibaldi. “It doesn’t appear that you kept your promise to keep the Organites secret, either, sir. The duke tried to help my father. He was a true friend, which is more than you did for him.”
“My dear girl, it was self-defense. Your father was in such a feral state I feared for my life, as your friends should fear for theirs with you under the same roof. By the way, I must apologize for that incident at Pick-a-Dilly. The server automaton was not supposed to attack you or anyone else. You certainly made short work of the poor thing. Perhaps you have your father’s murderous tendencies.”
Heat rushed up from Finley’s feet to her face, but she didn’t look away. She would not be ashamed of herself. “You talk a lot.”
Garibaldi smiled. “Quite right. A flaw, to be sure. I will be quiet now, and let my children talk for me.” He threw a large switch on the wall. “Wake up, my dearests!”
The floor beneath her feet seemed to hum and vibrate as clockwork gears clicked into place beneath the machines. Suddenly every automaton raised its head, the room filled with a dull roar as each and every one of them was brought to life—even Victoria. He had put start mechanisms in the bottom of them, making it difficult to shut them down.
Finley moved first, followed by the cat and then Sam. She did exactly as Emily had told her to do; the first machine she grabbed had a headlike attachment lit from within. She tore that from the metal shoulders and threw it to the floor where Sam stomped it with his heavy boot, crushing it like a vegetable tin. Then, she reached into the chest cavity, grabbed hold of as many wires and guts as she could and pulled. The light in the thing’s chest sputtered and died as the machine fell to the floor.
One down. Twenty-five to go. Around her she watched as Sam ripped some of the lesser automatons apart with his bare hands. Griffin took on some of the smaller ones, as well, and helped Emily shut down others with her abilities as Jasper used the augmented guns Emily made