The Girl With the Iron Touch Read Online Free Page B

suggested, perhaps a bit condescendingly.
    Dark eyes turned to her. “That’s what I told myself— before I touched her. Skin and hair. I fancied I could see lungs beneath her metal ribs. One eye socket was empty, the other had an eyeball in it—it was the color of amber.” He swallowed, and set his cup and saucer on the low table at his knees.
    Finley reached out and put her hand on his arm. She’d never seen him so rattled, but then she’d only known him a few months. “It must have been a frightening sight, but it was just a machine, Jack.”
    He stared at her, then at the hand on his sleeve. It was as though a curtain was pulled back into place, and he was once again the Jack Dandy she knew. “No, Treasure. I don’t fink it were.”
    She removed the hand he seemed to find so offensive. If he hadn’t called her “Treasure” she’d start to wonder if he was angry with her. “Why not?”
    Jack’s jaw tightened. “It… she spoke to me.”
    She had asked the handsome man not to put her back in the dark, but the fleshy stub in her mouth didn’t move the way she wanted and refused to form the words, so all that came out was a moaning noise.
    He had looked at her in horror, as though she were a…monster. That was the word. She didn’t quite know what it meant, but she knew it was right. He was disgusted by her. That made her sad, even though she wasn’t sure why, except that he had looked so very pretty to her.
    But then, everything looked pretty when your eyes were brand-new, as hers were. She had two now. The second one had started to appear the day after the man opened the ceiling on her wooden domicile.
    Domicile. That meant home. She lifted her chin and looked around the room. The other machines had put her here after removing her from the crate. Was this to be her home now? It was ever so much nicer than the hot, smelly box, even though they had set her inside a casket of iron. At least the casket allowed her to stand upright. If only they hadn’t shackled her inside, she might move about a bit. Perhaps that would ease the incessant pressure in her abdomen. It was almost unbear…
    Oh.
    Hot, wet liquid splashed against her feet. It was coming from inside her. Was it oil? Some sort of chemical for her inner workings? It smelled funny, but at least her belly didn’t hurt. In fact, the release of the liquid felt wonderful. Whatever it was, she’d had a surplus that obviously had to be evacuated. Would this be a regular occurrence?
    The door to the room she was in opened, and in scuttled two automatons. One had a shiny porcelain doll head perched atop its squat metal body, and eight reticulated limbs that made it move like an insect. The other appeared as an elderly woman in a tattered gown. It appeared as though her head had been removed at one time and reattached by a clumsy child. It was pitched forward and slightly to the side.
    She tried to draw back from them, their monstrous countenances frightening, but there was nowhere for her to go while trapped in the lead box.
    “I told you it was going to be female,” the spider said to the woman. Its voice was like the clattering of discordant notes on a piano keyboard.
    “We must find some clothing,” the other replied in a voice that was almost human, but with a slight hitch. Whoever had put its head back on hadn’t aligned the voice box correctly. “It would not be proper for her to be seen naked, but we can no longer keep her restrained now that biological function has begun. Bring someone to clean up her mess.”
    The short one made a skittering sound. It wasn’t any kind of language her logic engine could identify, but she understood it, regardless. It was the language of metal, and the spider didn’t like being ordered about.
    A clawlike hand lashed out from the “old woman” and struck the other. “You will do as told, or face the wrath of the Master.”
    The Master. The mention of him made the gregorite vertebrae of her spine cold. Part