The Girl With the Iron Touch Read Online Free Page A

another sandwich. “Fanks. So, as I were sayin’, about a fortnight ago I was contacted by a bloke about circumnavigating a transportation dilemma ’e ’ad discovered.”
    “I thought you said it was last Thursday?” Sam demanded, stuffing a biscuit in his mouth.
    Jack gave him a patently condescending look. “I’m setting the stage, chum. Creatin’ a mood, if you will. Listen carefully and our pretty little ginger will explain the words you don’t understand.” What sort of fellow deliberately baited a creature such as Sam?
    Apparently a fellow much like herself.
    Sam opened his mouth to respond, but Jack cut him off. “I’m just ’aving a bit of fun. No need to get all red in the face and cosh me over the ’ead with those meat ’ooks you call ’ands. As I were saying, I was approached by a bloke who offered me enough coin to keep me mouth shut and just do the job.” He plucked another sandwich from the tray.
    “Which was?” Finley prodded. Honestly, he was being deliberately difficult.
    Jack chewed and swallowed. He hadn’t even gotten any crumbs on himself. He’d been taught proper manners, she’d bet her left arm on it. “Transportin’ a crate from the docks to an underground station on the Metropolitan line.”
    “Which station?” Jasper asked. Finley hid her surprise that he was even paying attention. He never used to be so quiet or distant. Granted, she hadn’t known him well prior to going to New York, but he had changed when Mei died, and this was not that same fellow she considered a friend.
    “St. Pancras. It were a fairly large crate, weighed at least nine to ten stone. I ’ad to ’elp load it onto the carriage.” He shuddered, as though the thought of manual labor was beneath him, but Finley didn’t buy it.
    “Where on the docks?” she asked.
    “Not far from where that building collapsed a few months back.” His gaze traveled to each one of them. “I reckon you’re all familiar with it.”
    Finley’s blood froze in her veins. He meant the building Griffin had brought down with his power—the building the man known as the Machinist had used as his automaton workshop. The Machinist was a man named Garibaldi, and his corpse hadn’t been found when authorities searched the wreckage.
    “The man who hired you, what did he look like?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emily’s tense expression and knew her friend had the same thought she had.
    “Blond and blue-eyed,” Jack responded.
    Emily glanced at her, sharing relief that it wasn’t Garibaldi. There was no way he could have survived that building coming down on top of him. Was there?
    Jack continued, “Looked almost Albinese. Great big fat ’ead. I didn’t get the feeling ’e was new in town, but I weren’t familiar with ’im. Bit of a Geordie, if my knowledge of dialects is up to snuff.”
    Finley didn’t doubt he could identify a person’s regional origin with three miles. “You didn’t ask what the cargo was?”
    He looked affronted. “Course not, but somefin about it felt off, right? I’ve survived on luck, intuition and not being a bloody idiot. Every instinct I ’ave told me this weren’t good. So, before I delivered the crate I opened it.”
    He’d lost some of his swagger and the sparkle in his eyes. That couldn’t be a good sign. He took a drink of tea and made a face. Perhaps he really wanted something a bit stronger. That didn’t bode well. Dandy was not easily disconcerted.
    “What was in the crate, Jack?”
    “An automaton. I think.” His accent lost much of its affectation. “Unlike any metal I’ve ever seen.”
    The unease pooling at the base of Finley’s spine intensified, but it was Emily who asked, “How so?”
    Jack chuckled, but there was little humor in it. “She—and it was definitely a girl—was naked, and she—” he swallowed “—she had bits of skin on her, like she was a patchwork quilt without all its pieces.”
    “It must have been a waxwork,” Emily