The Girl in the Clockwork Collar (Steampunk Chronicles #2)(68)

Griffin only nodded and followed his friends down the hall. It would be better to have the element of surprise against Dalton. He wouldn’t expect Griffin to have come for Finley.

The girls stepped into the cell Finley had been in earlier, while Sam stood just in the entrance of it and Griffin out in the hall. He didn’t want to risk the door closing and shutting them all in. They’d be easy targets then.

His gaze slipped to the wall of the cell behind Finley. What the—? He shook his head.

“What?” Sam demanded, glancing over his shoulder.

“The wall. I thought it moved.” As soon as he spoke, the strange phenomenon happened again, only this time he was certain of it. The wall rippled.

“Bugger,” Griff muttered.

Dalton had arrived.

As if by magic, a figure literally stepped right through that back wall. It was a huge man Griffin recognized as one of Dalton’s men. Right behind him came another, then Jasper, then Dalton.

In the other part of the building, there was a commotion, and before Griffin could yell for Kirby, the door burst open and Whip came running in. Past him, Griffin could see a man lying on the floor. Obviously Dalton had sent a distraction for the marshal while he used Tesla’s device on the building’s outer wall.

Kirby pulled out his gun and aimed it at Dalton, but the criminal had already pulled a pistol of his own and had it leveled not at Kirby, but at Emily. “Put it away, Kirby, or the little redhead gets a haircut.”

Griffin stiffened. He thought he heard Sam growl. This feeling-helpless shite was getting to be a bit much. He could try to summon enough Aether to disarm Dalton, but he’d never tried focusing it down to a single bolt of energy. There was too much of a chance he’d seriously hurt his friends.

“Jasper, take Miss Finley outside, will you?” Dalton asked. Griffin’s gaze jumped to the fellow standing at Dalton’s side. Jasper’s face was pale, and when his friend’s gaze locked with his, Griffin saw anger and helplessness there. He knew the feeling.

“No one’s going anywhere,” Whip informed Dalton in a cold tone and pulled back the hammer on his pistol. “Least of all you, Dalton.”

Dalton responded by doing the same to his. “Don’t think I won’t kill her. Should I prove it by putting one in her leg first?”

Finley stepped forward, and from the look on her face, Griffin knew she would gladly snap Dalton’s arm in half. He shook his head ever so slightly, telling her not to give herself away. Dalton might just as easily shoot her—or use that damn machine—and he would never forgive himself if anything happened to her.

The second Dalton squeezed the trigger, Sam stepped in front of Emily, taking the bullet meant for her in the leg. He didn’t even stumble.

But he ripped the cot from the bolts that held it to the floor and threw it.

Startled—horrified—Dalton fired again and began pushing his people toward the back wall. “Go!” he shouted.

The second bullet hit Sam, as well. This time, in the shoulder. Still, the large lad did not falter. He kept moving toward Dalton, despite Emily shouting at him not to. One of Dalton’s men pushed the cot back at him from where it had fallen, trying to trip him with it. Sam grabbed the bed once more and used it to throw the man against the wall.

Dalton raised his gun again. The muzzle was pointing straight at Griffin. For a split second, Griffin felt his mortality slip, and the Aether pulled at him. If only he had something he could charge and throw. If only he was as physically tough as Sam.

Just as he braced himself, committed himself to at least attempt to bend the Aether into a single bolt of energy, Finley grabbed Dalton’s arm, lowering it. “We’ve got to go,” she told him. “Now.”

Dalton nodded. He backed toward the wall as Jasper shoved Finley through it, as though it was nothing more than fog. Only half of Dalton remained when he raised his weapon one more time and fired. Whip Kirby fell to the floor.

He’d been shot in the chest.





Chapter 14


Emily never traveled without her bag of “goodies,” as she called them—basic tools that allowed her to work on almost any type of problem, mechanical or organic. She also carried Organites, the primordial ooze from which all life was said to have sprung.

It was fortunate for Whip Kirby that the bullet went all the way through, just below his right collarbone. Sam placed the man on the mattress that had fallen off the cot and ripped open his shirt and leather vest, as though they were tissue paper.

After cleaning the wound, Emily was able to stick the nozzle of her special Organite syringe directly into the bloody hole and inject the unconscious lawman. Sam and Griffin helped her with bandaging and then took care of cleanup while Emily sat with Whip.

“So I guess we can say that Tesla’s machine works,” Sam commented as he washed the blood from his hands at the sink.

Griffin joined him and chuckled drily at the irony in his tone. “We can at that.” He glanced at his friend’s bloody pant leg. “Do you need medical attention?”

“I’m fine. Dalton pointed a gun at Em.” All trace of humor was gone from his voice, replaced by a hardness that froze Griffin’s insides. Dalton was lucky Sam hadn’t gotten to him, because Sam would have killed him.

“We’ll get him,” Griffin promised, even though he had no bloody idea just how to make that happen.