The Girl In The Clockwork Collar (24 page)

A small hand settled on top of his. “She’s all right, lad. You know she’s tougher than most men.”

He nodded. Physically, Finley was one of the strongest people he knew next to Sam. She was strong in other ways, as well, but they were in a country that wasn’t their own, up against an enemy they really knew nothing about.

A charming, handsome enemy who made crime seem exciting and fun, something he feared she wasn’t strong enough to resist. Finley liked danger. He could offer her danger readily enough. Perhaps not a steady stream of it, but the work they did wasn’t without risk. But Finley was drawn to the darker side of it—her friendship with Jack Dandy was proof of that, as was how deeply she’d thrown herself into this mess with Dalton.

He had known when he saw her fight all those people to get close to Dalton that this might tip her toward her more base nature. He knew, because there had been a moment where unadulterated joy had shone on her face. He’d been jealous because she never looked like that with him.

His thoughts were thankfully interrupted by Sam. He couldn’t waste any more time worrying over Finley’s morals, because which way she went was nothing he could control.

“What happened?” he demanded when his friend sat down on the other side of him.

“Finley’s been taken by Kirby. He led her off in irons.”

Emily gasped, drawing a cross look from a lady in the box next to theirs. Emily frowned at her before turning back to Sam. “Why would he do that?”

Sam leaned closer so as not to earn them more dirty looks. “That Astor-Prynn bird set some gentlemen on Finley. I wager Kirby took her with him to keep her safe. Either that, or he fed us a line of shite and he’s going to use her to get to us.”

“I believe he was sincere when he spoke to us,” Griffin argued. “Taking Finley serves no purpose except to keep her from trouble.”

Sam offered him a folded bit of paper—yellowed and stained. “She dropped this.”

It unfolded to reveal a schematic of a machine. Griffin wasn’t stupid, but he couldn’t generally tell what a machine was just by looking at it. This needed Emily’s attention. She took it and tipped it toward what little ambient light there was. “It looks like some sort of oscillator, but what kind, I’m not certain.” She raised her head with a pinch between her brows. “It looks like Tesla’s work.”

“Tesla?” Griffin echoed. “Is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but it looks like his signature smudged at the bottom. If we show him this drawing, perhaps he can identify it.”

“And tell us how Dalton managed to come by it in the first place.” Had Jasper brought it to New York from San Francisco? Or had Dalton stolen it right out from under Tesla in his home?

“Does this mean we can go back to the hotel now?” Sam asked.

“Yes.” Griffin rose to his feet. “Let’s go.” He needed to start planning. He needed to get in touch with Kirby and maybe try to get some sleep.

As they approached the foyer, Mrs. Astor-Prynn and Lydia stopped him. “Your Grace. You will be happy to know the girl who accosted you at our party has been arrested,” the older woman told him smugly.

At that moment Griffin was tempted to summon enough Aether to send the woman flying across to the other side of the theater. Perhaps farther. Somehow he managed to incline his head toward her. “Indeed.” That was all he could say. He didn’t care if it was rude. He turned and walked away from them, leaving the two ladies staring after him in shock.

He didn’t care if he’d behaved badly. He didn’t care what they thought of him or if they told their friends. He just wanted Jasper safe and Finley back. And he wanted to punch someone. Hard.

Perhaps he and Finley weren’t that different after all.

Jasper was woken up at five o’clock the next morning by a gunshot. He bolted out of bed, grabbed a pair of trousers from the floor and made for the door. He’d kick it down if he had to. Oddly enough, it was unlocked for the first time since his arrival. This would be the perfect time to make a run for it, and yet he ran downstairs instead, wearing only his trousers, toward the sound of the shot.

He stopped in the doorway of Dalton’s study/library. Dalton stood over the desk at the back, which had been converted into a worktable. On it were the pieces Jasper had collected, fully amalgamated into one machine. On the floor beside the desk, there was a dead man, blood soaking into the carpet around him from what appeared to be a gunshot wound in his chest. He was facedown, so Jasper couldn’t tell for certain, but it seemed to be the most likely answer.

Jasper’s mouth went dry, and his chest squeezed tightly. He’d seen dead bodies before, and it was always sad and shocking. But to see someone who had been murdered, and their killer standing right beside them … It made him think of that day when Mei had shot Venton. He could see her so clearly in his head, a fine splattering of blood on her face and clothes. Years from now, he would remember this moment just as clearly.

The only difference was that Mei had done it in selfdefense and Dalton was just a monster.

Drawing a deep breath, he summoned his courage, straightened his spine and strode into the room with a bored look on his face. “What happened? Did he insult your waistcoat?”

Dalton looked up and smiled. “Did you kick the door to your room down to get here?”

“It was unlocked.” He made himself move closer and tried another tactic. “You all right?”

His companion wiped his hands on a black handkerchief. Blood didn’t show on black. “Thanks for the concern, but the good engineer didn’t attack me. He simply made the mistake of giving in to his curiosity. He wanted to see what the machine did once he put it together for me.”

“And you couldn’t let him live once he saw that.” Jasper’s tongue was thick in his dry mouth.

Dalton tossed the handkerchief aside. “Exactly. Word might get around, then everyone would want my new toy.” Jasper turned his head. If he hadn’t given Finley the schematic, this man would still be alive. Dalton wouldn’t have needed an expert to put the pieces together, and this man would be with his family right now. Instead, he’d no doubt be fished out of the harbor later today or tomorrow.

The sound of heavy footsteps signaled the arrival of little Hank. Jasper wasn’t surprised to see the giant. What did surprise him was that Mei hadn’t come down. Surely she had heard the shot? Then again, she might figure it was safer to stay in her room. At least she didn’t have to see the corpse on the floor.

“Where was she taken?” Dalton asked, glancing up from admiring his machine.

Hank wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sniffed. Jasper grimaced. “Kirby took her back to his place. Some bounty hunter’s setup. Couldn’t tell which cell.”

“We’ll have to figure that out.” Dalton rubbed a hand over his jaw. There was gunpowder on his fingers. “How many guards?”

“Just Kirby, far as I could tell. Could be more.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He stroked the assembled machine on the table before him. “This sweet little contraption will make everything all right.”

“Are you sure of that?” Jasper asked, moving closer. He made an effort to avoid touching the body on the floor.

Dalton’s light eyes twinkled as he shot him a sharp glance. “Dead certain.”

* * *

Nikola Tesla was not known for being particularly gregarious, but when Emily, Sam and Griffin showed up at his lodgings early in the morning with the schematic Finley had dropped for Sam, he became almost animated.

The inventor paced the rug with the paper in hand, as though committing every bit of it to memory. Then he seemed to remember his company and begged their pardon. “Please, sit. May I offer you tea?”

Personally, at that moment Griffin would have preferred something stronger, but he accepted their host’s hospitality and seated himself on the slightly worn sofa. He felt as anxious as Tesla appeared. Once they knew what the machine did, they would be better prepared to stop Dalton.

“Please, forgive me,” Tesla went on. “It has been many months since I last saw this invention. It was stolen during a trip to San Francisco. You believe it is here in New York?”

Griffin nodded, ignoring that the inventor had a habit of compulsively adjusting the items around the tiny stove where he set his kettle to boil. “We do. Please, can you tell us what it does?”

“Of course. It is a Matter Transmutation device.”

“It moves matter?” Emily inquired.

Tesla shook his head, looking momentarily frustrated with her. “Not in the way you think. It does not move matter from one location to another but allows matter to be moved.”

Sam glanced at Griffin. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

He was given an exasperated look by Emily. “He means that it makes it possible for matter to be displaced. Is that correct, sir?”

“Yes,” Tesla replied with a nod. “If you directed the device at a wall, it would displace the particles of that wall so that they would no longer be tangible.”

Griffin shook his head, uncertain he heard him correctly. “You mean that I could use this thing to walk through walls?”

The inventor nodded. “Precisely. As well as human flesh, if the machine is properly tuned. It was designed for warfare.”

“Good Lord,” Emily breathed as she and Griff exchanged horrified glances.

The machine would allow Dalton to walk into any vault he wanted. Locks would no longer be a problem.

Tesla obviously didn’t share their concern. “But you say the device has been dismantled?”

Griffin nodded. “Yes. Into several sections.”

“There are no instructions for the device. Unless this person knows how to put it together correctly, he will not be able to make use of it.” Tesla took the boiling kettle from the stove. “Your Grace, I should very much like my machine back.”

It was all Griffin could do not to laugh. “I will do my best to retrieve it for you, sir.” He didn’t bother to ask the man why he had invented such a contraption in the first place. There wasn’t any point. Men with brilliant minds like Tesla did things because they could, because that was the way their genius worked. They were driven by their visions and compulsions to create.

Unfortunately, Griffin didn’t share the older man’s conviction that no one would be intelligent enough to put the machine together correctly. He wasn’t about to underestimate Dalton.

Mr. Tesla offered him a cup of tea, and he took it, even though it would not be the same as the tea he was accustomed to. Tea abroad never tasted as good as what he had at home, even if it was the exact same tea.

Sam accepted a cup, as well, his big fingers circling the rim rather than attempting to hold the delicate handle. He had his gaze fixed firmly on Emily, as though gauging his own reaction on hers. Emily looked worried—more so than Griffin. Of course, she was a lot like Tesla in the way her mind worked. To her thinking, it wouldn’t be that difficult to put that machine together and quickly figure out what it did.

Tesla joined them a moment or two later, seating himself on the opposite end of the sofa from Griffin. They sat in silence as they drank. When he turned his head, Griffin noticed that Tesla was watching him with a curious expression on his narrow face.

“Is there something you wish to say, Mr. Tesla?” he asked. Like, what the hell they were supposed to do now? There was only one thing to do—go to Kirby and get Finley back. She was the only one who could tell them if Dalton knew how to use the machine.

“Yes.” The strange but brilliant man leaned forward, as though by taking a closer look he might discern what made Griffin work—as though he was the inner guts of a clockwork stripped bare. “Your abilities, they allow you to interact with the Aether, correct?”

Griffin nodded. “That is correct, yes.”

“I have seen you use Aetheric energy to power my machines and to render them inactive, as though you emit some sort of mechanical-disruption field. Tell me, when you do these things, are you actually channeling the Aether through your body?”

“If you are asking if I’m a conduit for Aetheric energy, I suppose the answer is yes. I think of myself as something of a stone placed in a hearth—I will absorb the Aether just as that stone absorbs heat.”

Tesla crossed his legs. “And like that stone, will you also explode if you absorb too much?”

Unbidden, thoughts of blowing all the water out of the pool in London and the destruction of The Machinist’s lair flashed in Griffin’s mind. “I assume so.”

“So when you release the Aether, I assume it has to go somewhere. What happens then?”

If it were anyone else asking these questions, Griffin would tell them it was personal. He was normally suspicious of curious people, often assuming that they would inevitably want something from him if they knew too much about his abilities. Once, when he was a child, an old friend of his grandfather’s had wanted to use him to contact his dead wife. Griffin had done so out of kindness, but then the old man kept coming back, slipping further and further away from his life, until communications with a ghost was all he had. When his father told the old man that Griffin would no longer work as a medium for him, the old man had gone mad and had to be escorted from the estate. He died shortly thereafter—by his own hand.

Griffin took a sip of tea and pushed the past to where it belonged. “I find water to be the best receptacle, though it has the unfortunate tendency to render everything rather damp.”

“What if you were to direct it into a structure?”

He cleared his throat, uncertain if he should reveal more. “I would most likely raze it to the ground.”

Tesla’s eyes were bright, his face lit with excitement. “Aetheric oscillation,” he said in a slightly reverent tone, moustache twitching. “You inspired me, Your Grace. I have recently begun work on a machine that I believe will absorb Aetheric energy much like you and then expel that same energy.”

“To what end?” Griffin asked. “I could see it being used to replace the treacherous practices now in place for blasting out railway lines or in building demolition, perhaps.”

“Or in war,” Tesla added. “Imagine if an army marched on New York, one could Aetherically destroy the Brooklyn Bridge to prevent penetration of Manhattan Island, but without the risk to life or other property that comes with explosives.”