Dorian laughed at his silence. Then he turned and grabbed the redheaded man, setting him by his side. “I’d like you to meet Dr. Henry Jekyll,” he said. “This is the man who will change your life today.”
Abraham glared at the man with the anxious face.
Turning to Henry, Dorian said, “And, Doctor, I’d like you to meet one of the most dangerous men I know: Abraham Van Helsing.”
Henry stared at him wide-eyed. “Dorian, you’re telling me that he’s dangerous and you want me to inject him?”
Dorian shrugged, nonchalant. “Maybe it’ll kill him.”
Henry looked back and forth from the celebrity to Abraham. “Or maybe he’ll kill me!” he said through his teeth.
“I don’t think Edward would allow that,” Dorian said. “Besides, when I saw Abraham, it was Edward who encouraged me to bring him here. We don’t want to disappointed Edward, do we?”
Who is Edward? Abraham had never heard of an Edward before. He glanced around the room but didn’t see another person. Does the Countess have a new recruit? He turned back to the men.
Henry shook his head. “Listen, I’ll do the others but not this man. I know you can deal with the others, but the way you talk about Van Helsing doesn’t quite leave me feeling at ease about your capability to handle him.”
“That’s because he can’t,” Abraham interjected.
The doctor gulped.
Dorian’s eyes dimmed and his smile fell, but he tried to maintain composure. “Trust Edward, if not me.”
“Trust Edward?! You’re insane if you think anyone should trust him,” Henry snapped.
Dorian frowned at “insane.” He stormed over to the table by Abraham’s things and grabbed three more loaded syringes. He nudged Henry away with his foot. “If you won’t do him, I will.”
Henry scurried over to the end of the row and glanced up at Dorian.
“You do those two,” Dorian snarled, tossing him a syringe.
Henry flinched and caught it, only to flinch again when it clanked against the syringe already in his hand. He hesitated but nodded at the celebrity, getting to work on the fourth person who was still out of view.
Dorian leaned in briefly to the hunter’s face and spat, “Let’s see what you’re in for.” Then he pulled away.
Abraham watched as Dorian made his way over to the woman and tightened the band on her with no issue. His jaw clenched and unclenched as he stared intently at the elastic yellow piece, his thoughts no doubt swimming. Abraham saw the frustration in his eyes and chuckled once.
Surprised, Dorian met his eyes with a challenge. “What?”
“You worry too much about what people think of you—the Countess, more importantly,” Abraham jabbed. “That was one of your many flaws. It’ll be your downfall. Mark my words.”
Dorian’s face turned red and his upper lip began to curl, but he quickly pressed his mouth into a hard line. He inserted the needle into the crook of the woman’s arm and stepped back.
Her mouth fell open and she struggled for air, but she did not wake. Abraham watched as a glowing blue light crawled across her body from the veins of her arm, slithering its way along until it encircled her throat and looked like it almost strangled her. When it finally covered every inch of her, it faded away in a dull blue and she let out a soft sigh.
The pompous celebrity threw the empty syringe down and walked up to Abraham.
“Get away from me!” Abraham snarled.
Dorian, anticipating some sort of struggle, yanked up another yellow piece and wrestled to get the band around Abraham’s big arm. After managing to get it on, Dorian leaned heavily on Abraham’s chest and started for his arm. Abraham jerked and bucked as much as he could, forcing the star to bear down harder. When Abraham felt the needle in his skin, he grunted and forced his arm to move. There was a snap and Dorian came up with a red face and a broken needle. Annoyed, he moved to stand above Abraham’s head where he used his elbow and forearm to force Abraham’s head down and to the side. Dorian stabbed the remainder of the needle into Abraham’s neck and released the blue toxin.
Abraham cringed. He could feel the horrible chemical slithering through his body, demanding entry to every part of him, gripping wherever it reached in a painful vice. As it encapsulated his lungs, he struggled to make them work and began suffocating. When it reached his heart, it pumped the venom painfully. He fought to hold in his cries of agony and watched as everything grew hazy until he couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. Each inch the liquid crawled filled him with more and more disgust.
And then the sensation stopped.
Desperate for air, he opened his eyes and stared at the lab equipment in confusion. He was alive? But how? And why?
Dorian moved his hand from Abraham’s face and walked away.
Abraham turned and looked over at the two men. Henry stared at the Italian man, hesitating. Dorian marched up to the scared scientist’s side.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Do it.”
Henry’s fingers twiddled on the syringe. “But Frankie wouldn’t like it,” he said. “What would he say?”
Impatient, Dorian rolled his eyes. “You saw what had happened to Franklin Stein! He doesn’t care anymore!”
The redhead did not move.
His partner pushed him and he stumbled forward a bit. “Do it,” Dorian ordered.
Henry hesitated but began to bring the needle up.
Suddenly, Abraham’s vision blurred and quickly refocused. Only now he could see the young Italian man, not strapped and unconscious on a table, but all alone in an abandoned house, head down, eyes on the ground. The walls around the young man suddenly caught flame in a loud roar, and all he did was sit there in the middle, his knees tucked up to his chest. He didn’t seem at all concerned with the fire that moved toward him at an alarming rate.
Abraham took a step toward him and was surprised to find he was unbound and could move. He hurried over to the kid and tried to kneel down and look at him. “Hey, get up!”
The young man remained motionless.
“You’re going to burn!” Abraham snapped.
Still, he did not move.
Aggravated, Abraham grabbed the man’s arm.
The kid looked up at him then, his eyes glowing with the fire that surround the two of them. It was filled with some darkness that left Abraham feeling sick. The odd sight made him step back. The flames grew closer until they consumed the man, but he did not move. Then the fire was upon Abraham.
The pain was anguishing, too horrible for words. He writhed but he was granted no deliverance from the wicked fire. He just wanted it to end and—
Abraham jolted and opened his eyes, Dorian and Henry coming back into view. Abraham was once again strapped to the table but safe from the raging fire that was nowhere in sight. It felt like a new world. The only burning he felt now was from the actor’s overpowering cologne. He could hear each person’s individual breath and even the crickets outside. He began to look around, but as his eyes caught the light above him, he cringed. He didn’t remember it being so intense. He shook his head and looked back over at the two men, pausing a moment to take in the view. Even from twenty feet away, he could make out each of the celebrity’s eyelashes. He could almost count the number of clogged pores on his partner’s face. It was almost as if Abraham sight had upgraded to high definition. Incredible, he thought.
Henry still had the needle in the young Italian man’s arm but was having trouble pushing the plunger.
Abraham tensed. “No—don’t! Not him!”
Surprised, Henry stared up at him.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Abraham warned.
Henry’s hands began to fall away from the needle.
“Stupid, ignorant—!” Dorian pushed him out of the way and mashed in the plunger. Taking the needle out and marching away, he spat under his breath, “I would’ve rather worked with Hyde!”
Abraham watched as the young man groaned
in pain. He convulsed and choked. Once the chemical had passed through his body, he let out a long breath and stopped completely. After a moment, the man’s eyebrows furrowed and he began to twitch ever so slightly.
As if sensing that something was wrong, Henry slowly backed away and watched from behind a table.
Abraham’s fingers twitched. I need to get out of here.
The young man’s head rolled from side to side and his fists clenched and then stretched open. Sweat began to form on his skin.
Abraham balled his hands into fists and jerked up, snapping the straps in half with ease. He stopped for a moment, shocked at the lack of effort required, but quickly shook his head. Then, he unhooked his chest and then his feet.
When Dorian noticed, he darted over to the table of weapons, grabbed one of Abraham’s knives, and hurried over to him.
Abraham snatched the blade away with no difficulty and then decked Dorian in the face, sending the actor flying farther back than usual. When he saw that Dorian was out cold, Abraham grabbed his things and quickly strapped them on. Turning back, he watched as the young man continued to squirm. Henry also stared, now on the complete other side of the room, bracing himself against the wall.
The young man’s eyes burst open. “What’s going on?!” he gasped. “Where am I?!” In an instant, his hands burst into flames. He saw and shouted in surprise.
When Abraham saw the fire burn through the leather straps on the young man’s wrists, he knew it was time to go. He hurried to the woman. She’s still asleep. Odd. But when he took in her frail physique, it made sense. He ripped off the straps, not bothering with stupid buckles. He cradled her in his arms and hurried toward the door.
“Wait!” Henry gasped.
Abraham turned but the only thing he could see was the fire that crawled across the young man’s body as he himself stood up. The last experiment, a darker man, still lie on the end, just barely catching Abraham’s attention. The odd sight of fire in front of him was what forced his feet to stay firmly planted, against all his instincts.
The young man on fire continued to cry out in horror, which only seemed to make the flames on his arms burn brighter. He threw himself to the ground and began to roll, but to no avail. He stood, ran toward the lab’s sink, and reached to turn it on.
Abraham watched in amazement as the handle melted under his touch.
With a shout, the blazing man stumbled back, bumping into a table full of chemicals and equipment. They ignited in a flash and began popping and exploding.
Abraham shook himself out of his daze at the sound of the glass bursting, each pop shooting painfully into his ears and making him cringe. He turned to the double doors and with a swift, hard kick, busted through the door and into the darkness with the woman thrown over his shoulder.
—
Henry’s chest constricted as the hunter kicked open the doors with an extraordinary strength and darted away, the impact of the blow causing the two shelves to cave in on top of each other. There was no exit. Henry stared around at the flames that surrounded him in horror and watched as the boy rolled and clawed in confusion, setting everything around them ablaze. “Dorian!” Henry yelled. But when he looked, the actor had not moved from where he lay on the floor. Swiftly, Henry turned to the only victim left, still sound asleep, and started fumbling with the buckles, hoping to save them both.
But the boy’s arm materialized through the strap and grabbed Henry’s hand.
Startled, Henry gasped and stared down at the boy—Jack, if Henry remembered—who’s eyes shot open. Jack took in the blaze around them and began to hyperventilate, his hands gripping at his chest. His frantic eyes found Henry. “What’s happening?!”
Despite the danger, Henry found himself amazed. How did he do that?
Jack released Henry and stared at him with bulging eyes. “Do what?!”
What? Henry thought.
“I said: do what?!” Jack replied, desperate for answers.
Henry felt his eyes nearly fall out of his head as he stared at the boy.
Jack stared back, a curious look flashing across his face. Then Henry watched as the boy began to fall through the table.
Henry peered underneath, only to find Jack glancing around, startled that he was on the ground. But then he saw Dante stumble toward the chains around the back door, engulfing the last possible exit. Jack screamed and Henry quickly remembered the movie star. He darted to Dorian, scooped him up under his arms, and tried shaking him awake. “Wake up!” But the movie star remained unconscious. What was he going to do? How could he pull Dorian out? The doorway was consumed in fire. The other exit was blocked by equipment. There was no way out. He tried to lift Dorian, but his tight chest hindered his breathing. His limbs trembled, drained of all energy. He dropped to his knees, the actor’s weight bringing him down.
This is all Dorian’s fault! If it wasn’t for the actor, Henry wouldn’t be in this mess! With that thought, his rage boiled to the top and suddenly, Dorian had vanished from his grasp. Shocked, Henry looked around, only to find the flames a barely visible, metallic color. As he looked up, the building crumbled away, the flames slowly vanished, revealing the pitch-black sky.
No, not the sky. There was no moon, no visible trees. It chilled him because he had been there before. The blackness was all too familiar.
It was darkness.
A foreboding chuckle filled the entire air and made Henry jump.
“Welcome back to my home, Jekyll,” Edward’s voice echoed through the evanescent air.
Henry glanced around, fearful of the darkness that was closing in. He remembered this place from before. Edward’s mind was not something one easily forgot.
“Edward, let me out!” he ordered.
No answer.
“Edward!” he shouted.
Edward ignored Henry’s yelling and turned to the unconscious movie star, hurrying against the inching flames. As he hoisted Dorian up in his scrawny arms with his otherworldly strength, he cackled madly and moved to a safer position.
—
Jack continued crawling under the tables, the flames all too real for him now. He couldn’t collect his thoughts. All he could see was the burning man. He watched in horror as the man consumed in fire darted all around, thrashing at himself as he screamed. He would veer in one direction and then get dangerously close to Jack, only to stumble away again, looking for a way to put out the flames, growing exhausted with each step. His cries of terror could be heard from over the vicious roaring of the flames both around him and on him and he was, for some odd reason, still moving even after all the burning.
The man went to the unscathed double doors and tried ripping away some of the heavy equipment blocking them, but he stopped, took a few staggering steps away, and stumbled to his knees. Then he fell onto his face and was quiet, the fire dancing off his form in a constant flicker, as if it couldn’t figure out how to consume him.
Jack finally breathed. Is this it? he thought, perplexed. Is this Hell? The man on the ground was still there as if unable to turn to ash, just like one of the horrible punishments people talked about. What if Jack burst into flames next?!
The terrifying thought propelled Jack off the ground. He looked around the wide room and found the flames left no escape—none except the last blocked door that the man lay in front of.
Jack chanced it. He ran around the burning man and started tugging at the now-hot equipment. Suddenly, the flames behind him began to pulsate. Confused, Jack glanced over his shoulder and watched as the fire that engulfed the man started glowing brighter and brighter. Jack’s eyes widened and he stumbled away from the door and against the wall.
—
Abraham set the woman against the trunk of a tree, between a pair of large roots. When she was secure, he turned to the building, now a substantial distance away, and stopped, seeing the fire now bursting through the thick, once-veiled windows. The roaring of the flames and the popping of the glass, even from the distance, pri
cked at his eardrums.
There’s still one more experiment, Abraham remembered. Could he make it in and back out? The chemical had clearly changed him, but to what extent? Should he risk running in? Well, of course he should. There was, after all, a victim left. And he wouldn’t let the Order steal another life. He took a step.
It’s going to blow up.
Abraham stopped and stared at the building, the uninvited thought confusing him. He vacillated between his desire to help and his desire to live when a loud boom filled the air, sending the flames higher.
Abraham ducked and darted back toward the trees, more startled by the abnormally loud sound. He was right! But how did he know? Can I make it back in?
Looking back at the inferno, he decided better against it. There was no chance of anyone surviving that now. Resigned, Abraham ran and checked the woman once more to make sure she was at a safe distance from the fire. Once he was reassured, he darted deeper into the forest. The authorities would find the woman and take her to safety. He, however, could not risk anyone else getting a hold of him.
—
As the man exploded, Jack’s body was propelled against the wall. But he felt an aesthesis of mist creeping across his skin and the vague sensation that he was falling, breaking through some unseen barrier into a dark and cooler world. He landed on his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The heat of the flames were behind him now and he could feel cool grass poking his face and crunching under his hands.
Confused, he opened his eyes.
To his surprise, he was outside. A couple of trees stood off in the far distance, more than likely to remain untouched by the fire. The shadows of the forest danced from the flickering light behind him. The knee-high grass gave the illusion of convulsing as well. The moon sat in the lower horizon of the sky, shining down on him, giving way to the morning.
Glancing back, he saw the burning building, with the wall perfectly intact and the metal shelving still blocking the only exit. Terrified again and desperate to get away, he darted into the woods, not bothering to question what had happened to him or how he’d gotten out, only thankful he did.
Blind World (The Onyx Fox Saga Book 1) Page 17