Lady Blackwing Earns Her Mask, A Struggling Superhero Fantasy/Science Fiction Mini: Lady Blackwing, #3

By Devorah Fox

The third drama in the exploits of Mercedes aka Lady Blackwing, a struggling young superhero.

With her words, she has the power to change the world. When bullies torment a fellow student, Mercedes hangs back. Remorse drives her to join Zorro, a campus safety club, where she falls for the leader. She uses her superpowers to win his affection only to discover he has a hidden agenda. Will she yield to desire and keep his secret? Or find a way to thwart his diabolical plan?
(Also available as a Kindle Vella story)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Devorah Fox
• Release date: Oct 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215944073

Devorah Fox

It’s said of Devorah Fox that she writes outside the box. Its feelings hurt, the box gets up and stomps off. So she writes about that, too. A multi-genre author, she has written a best-selling epic fantasy series, “The Bewildering Adventures of King Bewilliam,” as well as an acclaimed mystery and a popular thriller, and co-authored a contemporary thriller with Jed Donellie. She contributed short stories to a variety of anthologies, penned several Mystery and Fantasy Short Reads, and has several five-star ghostwriting projects to her name. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she now lives on the Texas Gulf Coast with rescued tabby cats ... and a dragon named Inky.

Book preview

Chapter One

The Club-A-Thon

Brooding clouds hampered the sunlight and threatened rain. Smokers huddled against the wall grabbed their last puff before entering the university's Student Union. Chilly Yankee-autumn gusts at her back, Mercedes darted through the cigarette-smoke cloud and ducked into the building. She had a few minutes to kill before her next class and it would get her out of the weather.

A constant flow of students paraded in and out of the entrance to Copernicus Hall. Some event or other drew a crowd. Mercedes wondered what could be the attraction. Outside Assembly Room C, a sandwich-board sign proclaimed Club-A-Thon. At first, Mercedes thought it could be some kind of mixed-martial arts exhibition. She then remembered it was a run-up to Homecoming.

Various student organizations staffed booths in the Hall to hand out information about their goals and missions and to recruit new members. Mercedes found herself intrigued, but she'd have to pass. School and work didn't leave her time to take part in clubs. Besides, she already had an extracurricular activity: writing.

Or, one could say, the activity had her.

Through no fault but her own, she once accidentally stabbed herself in the neck below her earlobe with a sharp pencil. Not any pencil. A Blackwing pencil, the favored writing instrument of none other than John Steinbeck. The graphite point remained embedded in her skin. The wound didn't become infected but that didn't mean the incident lacked repercussions.

At highly inconvenient times, an idea would seize her and overwhelm her with an irresistible compulsion to write about it. When the Lead in Her Head burned, her only choice was to excise the words from her fevered brain by putting them onto paper.

And not any paper. She would commit those words to a Moleskine notebook, acquired at the same time as the Blackwing pencil. Both notebook and pencil had been abandoned in the coffeehouse where Mercedes worked as a barista. Clearing the table she pocketed the items rather than throw them out.

The unpredictability and intractability of these bouts of creativity weren't the most troublesome aspects. No matter how fantastic her imagining, what she wrote ended up happening. When driven by her burning brain to do so, she couldn't refuse or she would go mad. If she used her special pencil and her special notebook, what she put down became reality. She hadn't figured out how to prevent that. All she could do was try to repair the damage. Like that story about the zombies ...

So while joining any club was out of the question, one word on the sign drew her to the assembly room: FREE. Something was being given away. As long as she was here she might as well check it out.

The giveaway offered a choice of gifts made possible by various sponsors. She suspected the gift certificate for a free latte would be popular but she didn't need it. At the Kaffeteria, she got all the coffee she wanted. More than she wanted, since she wound up drinking her mistakes whenever she practiced painting a new design atop a macchiato. This month she worked on oak leaves and acorns.

A second Club-A-Thon prize was a free music download.

The third option had the strongest appeal: two hours of paid parking in the shelter of the university garage.

To earn a freebie one needed only to stop at any of the student organization booths. Visit a booth, receive a token. Collect enough tokens and turn them in for a prize.

Mercedes glanced at her smartphone. Did she have enough time before class started to gather some tokens?

Chapter Two

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

The room buzzed with the clamor of a thousand conversations. Clubs focused on interests ranging from political to athletic to religious to vocational to cultural. A long line formed in front of the Computer and Technology Club table. Mercedes wondered if they were all earnest CIS students or mostly RPG enthusiasts seeking ways to hack into the next level. She had to admit, she knew tech majors who started that way before settling into serious scholarship.

She got into a short queue at a table for a club called Zorro. Despite the evocative name, the booth was manned by ordinary students. The only exotic thing about them was their logo tee-shirts, black with a stylized white Z across the chest.

Next to her, restless visitors awaited their turn at the Criminal Justice Club table. Criminal Justice always struck Mercedes like an oxymoron but OK, whatever. The students behind and in front of the table were nearly all guys. Sex discrimination was alive and well in Criminal Justice.

Striking a blow for gender equality was a young woman, so petite she stood shorter even than Mercedes. Mercedes couldn't tell if she was chubby or looked that way because of her oversized parka. Between the puffy steel-gray jacket and her gray watch cap, she resembled a beer keg. Standing slightly off-balance with a loaded backpack hanging from one shoulder, she appeared timid, intimidated even. Mercedes questioned what the girl was doing in law enforcement. She then chided herself for jumping to conclusions but that was the problem with first impressions.

Two guys got in line behind Parka Girl. Mercedes watched them give the young woman the once over. In an olive drab hoodie, one guy jerked his head in her direction. His buddy in a university sweatshirt snickered. Behind her back, they whispered. Their whispers grew louder. Audible to Mercedes, she had to assume that the girl heard them too.

Would you get a load of this? Hoodie Guy said to his buddy.

Wonder what she's doing here. You don't think she plans to be a lawyer, do you?

His sweatshirted buddy scoffed. Can you picture her in the courtroom? The jurors wouldn't be able to see her over the rail.

I hope she's not thinking of joining the police force. Uniforms don't come that big.

Maybe she's thinking of going into Corrections.

"Yeah, she could be the punching bag