Blind World (The Onyx Fox Saga Book 1)

by H. M. Rutherford

  She laughed. “Be a hero!” she repeated. “Goodness gracious, your generation doesn’t know how to listen!”

  A woman came in, middle-aged, with tidy blonde hair and a serious, wise look in her pale, blue eyes. She scrutinized Suzette, baffled by her presence, no doubt.

  Lady Augustine smiled and turned to the maid. “Callie, go get the sewing kit; we’re going to take measurements of this young girl,” she explained.

  Callie blinked a few times and nodded. “Of course.” She left the room.

  “Measurements?” Suzette repeated. “What for?”

  When the old woman turned to Suzette, she was gleaming. “As a thank you for saving a precious part of me, I will provide you with a disguise and any gadgets you require.”

  Suzette’s blood turned cold, her fingers twitching at her side. A disguise? Needing a disguise meant she’d have to protect her identity. She’d have to protect her loved ones. She didn’t want to endanger them. And she knew that none of them—Dante especially—would ever allow her to carry on with the crazy notion. She shook at the list of piling reasons why she should reject the old woman’s offer.

  “My husband was friends with plenty of technological specialists. They will find something suitable for you,” Lady Augustine declared. “Discreetly, of course. And if there is anything else you might need from me after that, I will gratefully help you get it.”

  All this talk of being a hero made Suzette fearful—mostly because she doubted her own ability. And why was she, of all people, chosen for such a risky task? “Ma’am,” she sighed, “Why do you have so much faith in this—in me?”

  Lady Augustine smiled, taking a few steps closer. “I had a daughter once. She died very young—barely a teenager.”

  Suzette paused. “I’m sorry.”

  But the old woman’s smile remained. “Child, I saw something special in your eyes the first moment I saw you. You had the same compassion and zeal that twinkled in my dear Lily’s eyes. And if I know that gleam, it means that you want nothing more than to walk out the path that God’s called you to. It means you won’t pass up an opportunity to help someone in need by whatever means necessary. This is by far the most unique circumstance I’ve seen, but it does not change that desire within you. Your story is so different, so set apart, that you can’t deny this event is from God, that your power is a gift from God meant for His service. Why else would He give you this strange ability?” she reasoned. After that, she gave a sheepish grin. “Now, tell me, how could you so easily reject all that?”

  Suzette stared at Lady Augustine and waited for her own mouth to form words. When it fell short of her expectation, her eyes fell to the ground. She had no argument.

  “Just as I thought,” the old woman chuckled. “Now let’s go get your measurements, shall we?” She took Suzette’s limp arm and led her out the door.

  Canto VI

  Beep, beep, beep!

  The sound of the alarm clock jolted Suzette from her short-lived sleep and she swatted the snooze button. Sighing, she fell limp against her pillow, her heart filling with dread as she remembered her science paper. She was grateful the teacher had changed the assignment for her, but that didn’t motivate her to actually write it, not when considering the circumstances of the past two weeks. And now the due date inched closer. Why the heck had she stayed out so late? What crazy notion told her that it would all be okay? She recalled the many times Dante had scolded her, telling her to be more responsible. Maybe he was right. She sat there, hoping she could fall back asleep.

  But Suzette knew she had to get up and get started, so she sighed and forced herself to stand up. Her eyes fought to stay open, but she gathered up her clothes and got in the shower to wake her up. While she stood under the hot water, she stared at the pale white mark on her arm, wondering how it was already nothing but a scar. No one would ever be able to see it unless she pointed it out. Running her hand across it, she thought about Lady Augustine.

  Could I really become a hero? The thought scared her. What would it mean to be a hero? Could the world trust her? It seemed like it would be a burden.

  She tried to convince herself that the crazy event at Lady Augustine’s was a one-time thing. It wasn’t like anyone else would hear about the attempted robbery.

  Once Suzette was out of the shower and dressed, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen. Her dad read the morning paper as her mother piled his plate with food.

  Suzette hurried over to the empty seat and started shoveling food down. She dreaded the thought of having to sit in a library. Who knew how long she would be there? All day, probably.

  “Hey, honey,” her father began, eyes locked on the newspaper. As he read more, his eyebrows began to knit together. “Did you see the headline this morning?”

  “I’m afraid not,” her mother sighed, dishing herself up a plate. Without even a glance, she continued with her food.

  “It says, ‘Criminals Cut Short: Hero Swoops In,” he explained.

  “A hero?” she asked, scoffing.

  “It says that some bandits went to rob Lady Augustine’s home here in the state,” he read on. “Luckily, she wasn’t home. But some vigilante—some ‘kung-fu chick’—barged in and took them down.”

  Suzette froze.

  After her mother had her food all prepared and buttered, she turned to him and gave a cynical smile. “And does this superhero have a name?” she challenged.

  “The Onyx Fox,” her father laughed, pointing to the paper.

  “Sounds like a superhero name to me,” her mother said.

  Suzette couldn’t believe her ears. “Onyx Fox?” she wondered.

  “Yeah, pretty silly,” her father said. Noticing that his paper was folding over, he whipped it straight. “I don’t get it. Is this some April Fool’s prank?”

  “It’s the beginning of September, honey,” his wife reminded him.

  He stared intently at the paper for a long time then shook his head. “This paper’s gone down the drain… Silly…”

  Silly? Maybe. But the more Suzette thought about it, the more she liked it. “I think it sounds pretty cool,” she said. “The Onyx Fox.” The very idea made her smile.

  Her father gave her a quizzical look from over the paper.

  When she spotted this, she rubbed her eyes. “Sorry,” she yawned. “I got in late; I’m not thinking straight. You’re right; it’s totally silly.” Before either parent could say anything, she jumped up from the table and hurried toward the door. “Hey, I have to go. I need to finish my paper for school. I’ll be at the library—probably be a while,” she finished. After yanking up her father’s black hoodie out of the hall closet, she turned and left the house.

  She didn’t want to do the stupid paper, but she had to. She just wanted to blow it off and explore the extent of her newfound abilities. While that desire tugged her one direction, the anxiety of her paper, and reality, tugged her in the opposite. She knew what answer Dante would press for. Letting out a sigh, she continued on to the library.

  —

  Dorian and Henry stood in the middle of the old, dusty building that the star had purchased for their endeavor. It was set up to mimic a lab, but there was no hiding the fact that it was a poorly kept warehouse, out of use for God knows how long. Not exactly an ideal workspace. Together, they stared at their creation. Dorian bore a look of wicked mischief on his face, but Henry only stared at the disgusting thing with uncertainty. It had been clear after the first bit of sutures that neither was very good at sewing. The result turned out rather pitiful, but it was the best they could manage.

  “What next?” Henry asked, ripping his eyes away from the body. How on earth were they going to make it move?

  The smile Dorian gave him was unsettling and Henry was quick to look away.

  “I’ll be right back,” Dorian whispered, a dark promise in his voice. With that, he left the building, disappearing out into the storm.

  The only sound was the rain as it tapped against the
windows of the building. Every now and then, the lightning would flash, illuminating every ugly detail on the corpse. Henry continued to stare, refusing to move, unable to look away from the sheer grotesqueness of the body. Whenever the thunder rolled, he trembled, nervous as he tried to contemplate the consequences of what might happen.

  To distract himself, Henry decided to look around the unfamiliar lab. With his eyes, he followed the dangerous array of wires up to the ceiling where beams hung down and pointed at the creature. It looked like something from a science-fiction movie. Against the wall was a machine with about a hundred dials and two big levers. Jammed into the creature were tubes that were just waiting to pump in the awful toxin Henry had created. Funny how he had this place set up with all the proper mathematics and formulas and instruments, all to no avail; he knew it wouldn’t work.

  There was only one thing Henry didn’t orchestrate in the room. Sitting in the corner, propped up against a chair, was a poster-sized portrait Dorian had provided of himself. But for what reason it was there, Henry knew not.

  Using the time he had, Henry took a few steps closer to the creature lying on the table that was suspended with chains from the ceiling. The thing was marred and misshapen. Hardly any of the pieces were Frank’s. All of the skin was new, but they managed to keep pieces of Frank’s rib cage, arms, and legs. It had been so difficult to find all two hundred and six bones—and not all of them were the same size. One hand was bigger than the other. One leg was longer than the other; poor fellow would have to walk with a limp. And worse than retrieving usable bones was finding slabs of muscle and flesh that were still fresh. Henry felt sick as he thought of Dorian gathering the pieces, raiding the hospital morgue, picking up the scraps in funeral homes. Such an array of specimen. The creature was decorated with several different colors from different races. Some patches on his head still had hair; one section had a soft tuft of blond near the forehead while another had curly black, just behind his left ear. Its mouth hung agape, slacked to one side.

  As Henry checked the two bolts in either side of its neck to make sure they were tightened, he sighed. It didn’t look anything like Frankie. If this was what his friend was going to look like, was it even worth it to try bringing him back in this mutilated vessel? Frank had always been a good-looking guy, so why did he have to suffer the misery of such a body?

  No, I need Frankie. Henry couldn’t make it through this new predicament without his best friend. Frank was his voice of reason—his calm in the storm.

  But this wasn’t Frank. Frank was gone. Dead. This thing was…something else. Whatever this was, it would have to deal with the new body it was given.

  At that moment, Dorian came back in with a book and a can of white spray paint. “We’re almost ready,” he chuckled. It was a corrupt kind of laughter. As he set the tome on the podium in front of the creature, he pushed his sopping wet hair back away from his face.

  Henry stared at all he himself had brought in compared to the tiny bit Dorian had contributed. He could feel the dubiety spread across his features. “That’s all you brought back?” he interrogated. How was he supposed to bring back his dead friend with a book and spray paint?

  “Yes,” Dorian snapped.

  Henry squirmed, beginning to feel like this was all just the star’s way of playing a cruel joke. “Really?” he challenged.

  “Yes,” Dorian repeated, more hostile.

  Sighing, Henry grudgingly accepted Dorian’s shortness. He knew that Edward didn’t approve of his questioning the actor, nor did he want Henry to have anything to do with the final step in the experiment. “What do I need to do?” he grumbled.

  “Do the experiment like you came up with in your notes.” Dorian gestured to the switches near the back. “When I point to you, pull the first switch,” he ordered, though it was hard to catch over the loud clanking of the spray paint can he was shaking. “I’ll point to you a second time and that will be for the next switch. Easy enough for you, Henry?”

  Ignoring his rude sarcasm, Henry turned and walked over to the levers like instructed, though he wasn’t happy about it one bit. He could feel his nerves threatening to send tremors through him. “What are you going to do?”

  Without looking at him, Dorian popped off the spray paint lid and answered, “I’m going to summon his soul.” Then he turned and winked, giving a cocky smile. With that, he began to spray a symbol onto the creature’s chest. It was an upside-down star inside of a circle.

  Henry tilted his head and glared at him. “Are you serious?” he asked, incredulous.

  Dorian stopped and glared back. “What exactly did you think was required for bringing someone back from the dead?”

  Henry shook his head. Nonsense, he thought. Souls didn’t exist. Science had told him that much. All of Dorian’s spiritual mumbo-jumbo was further proof that the actor had looks and money, but that was about it.

  Seeing that he would receive no answer, Dorian continued, “Now, I’ll need silence. He wasn’t religious at all, was he?”

  “No,” Henry sighed. Tired of hearing all this supernatural hocus-pocus, he turned toward the machine—toward logic. He checked once more to make sure all the dials had been fixed to their proper settings and all wires were lodged in place before turning back to the star.

  “Good.” Dorian laughed menacingly as the can clanked onto the ground and rolled away. With the greatest of care, he opened the old book. It crackled under the strenuous command of his hands and rested once its contents were exposed. Dorian kept flipping the stiff pages until he found the right spot. He gave a deep inhale and released it all in one short, big huff. As to prepare one last time, he cleared his throat. Then his hand fell on the paper and he began to read, his finger following along.

  None of the words made sense to Henry, who only stared in skepticism. It must have been some old language that he did not recognize—a dead one, clearly, because he would have at least pin-pointed a few words otherwise. But he watched in silence as the movie star hurled the words at the corpse, gesturing wildly with his free hand. Henry wondered if any of it was necessary or if the actor was just playing, maybe hoping to win an Oscar.

  Finally, eyes still locked on the book, Dorian pointed to Henry and continued to rant in gibberish.

  Caught off guard, Henry jumped up and threw the first switch.

  Lightning struck nearby and nearly rocked the whole building as the lights flickered over them. Visible waves of electricity danced around the beams above the creature until they burst, throwing themselves against the metal rods on its neck.

  The body convulsed on the table but Dorian continued like nothing happened, almost as if he were locked in a trance. After a moment, the monster’s hands and feet twitched and something that sounded like a loud moan spilled out of its mess of a mouth.

  Henry stared in wonder, not believing what he saw. There was no way any of this was possible, that it could actually work!

  Dorian pointed at him again.

  With an equal amount of horror and fascination, Henry’s excited hand fumbled around to find the second switch while his eyes lingered on the creature thrashing on the table. But his hand found it and he jammed it down, jumping as sparks lit up next to his face.

  A glowing blue liquid flowed from the machines, corkscrewing here or there through the mass of tubes, snaking its way into the mauled body. The creature’s eyes flew open in an eerie blue flash of light. His mouth stretched open and a silent cry of alarm and pain shot out. Its whole body convulsed as the chemical seeped through it.

  Filled with awe, Henry trembled as he watched the corpse’s body bulge. As it flexed its fingers, a horrible popping filled the air and his hands grew bigger. Next, his shoulders stretched away from his torso. The rest of his body followed suit, all of it swelling, filling like water into a balloon. The creature screamed in agony and arched its back, clawing at the air with its now-beefy fingers.

  Dorian slammed the book closed and glanced over at Henry, a succe
ssful smile on his face.

  Henry found himself smiling back and he ran toward the creature. “It’s alive!” he cried in amazement. He watched in joy, soaking in the creature’s evidence of life—in Henry’s success. It didn’t matter if the thing was in agony; he had done it!

  “Turn it off!”

  Henry looked at Dorian in shock. Snapping out of it, he ran over, pushed up both switches, and hurried back over to the creature which had fallen limp again. Joy drained from Henry as he stared at the unmoving body. Marveling at its gargantuan size, he asked, “I thought it worked. What happened?”

  The monster opened its beady eyes, almost in response to Henry’s question. Gritting its teeth, it grabbed hold of the tubes in his arms and jerked them out, yelling madly.

  Henry jumped back, surprised.

  Dorian, still wearing a look of awe, took a cautious step to the side of the room.

  The monster thrashed around on the table until its feet found the floor. Then it stumbled forward, roaring with an inhumanly deep voice. Staggering around on his uneven feet, rubbing at his eyes, he made his way around the room.

  Henry stared at the strange new muscle it had gained. How could such a feeble being grow fresh, strong muscle? There’s no way it was possible.

  It was supernatural.

  “Oh, God!” Henry cried in response to his own thoughts as he fell backward. He didn’t know what to think! Should he be terrified or should he be thrilled? But when his mind came back to the moment, he found himself trying to crawl away, filled with an odd mixture of both.

  The monster heard his cries and turned its attention to him. Angrily, he shouted at Henry and started in his direction, quaking with rage.

  Henry looked into the creature’s vile, wild blue eyes, took in its large frame, and knew the creation had been a mistake. It wasn’t Frank—it wasn’t anything but a shell of a man, filled with violence. Frank couldn’t have existed in such a specimen, not one as monstrous as this. What Henry stared at was nothing but a disgusting, evil mockery of life. He jumped up and ran out of the building, into the rain, leaving Dorian to the monster’s mercy. His heart pounded like a jackhammer and he could hear it throbbing in his ears. He threw himself into his car, flipped the key, and revved the engine.