So, kind of a BIG chapter, but very dramatic. Hopefully those of you who feel my Addams' are too tame will eat your words ;) (in a good way)
A little steamy, a little bloody, alot bit morbid and dramatic - all in all ~ M ~
Please Review! (Don't worry, MUCH more to come!)
Enjoy!
~TLD
Part Fourteen: An Offer She Can't Refuse
Her smell was overwhelming. So close.
So… mouthwatering.
He breathed her in, tasting her mounting adrenaline on his tongue, letting the gathering shockwaves from the racing beat of her heart wash over him, and inhaling the swirling scents of elderberry and henbane rising off her skin.
His eyes burned, mirroring the burning ache in his throat and the gut-wrenching desire in his stomach. His muscles groaned and flexed with the need to pounce. His mouth watered in anticipation and his fangs scratched against his soft lips.
He watched her – unnaturally still despite her hammering heart, her face, unusually stoic despite her fear. She turned her eyes on him – wide, but steady, liquid, but intense. Searching.
Joel gasped.
His vision cleared, the reddish tint snapping away. The grey, drizzling scene returned to him in stark contrast. He noticed the tension in his body, the stiff clench of his fists with a shock. Oh no, he thought. With a sinking feeling of dread, doubt crept in.
Thought was erased as a searing pain pierced his heart. He grit his teeth against the pain, his head bowing beneath the onslaught as she filled his head and set fire to his insides.
Take her.
The burning desire consumed him again. Raising his eyes to his prey, he prepared to spring.
Suddenly she was there. Her hands were on his face, her mouth raised to his, her body pressed against his chest. The hunter smiled at his good fortune, his body aching for the kill.
"Joel." Her wide, liquid, eyes pierced him, glowing onyx in the dimness, raindrops glittering like diamonds on her eyelashes.
Shock. The hunter's glare faltered.
In his moment of confusion, she pressed her lips to his, clinging, twining her fingers in his hair, and pressing against him with a ferocious intensity.
Joel's body stiffened, suddenly aware of Wednesday's body so close to his. In a distant corner of his senses, he felt the tension in the surrounding vampires, watching them with baited breath. The faint scent of lilacs reached him and he was aware of Lilith's presence, looming to his right. He tensed involuntarily.
And then he felt her, really felt her – soft and warm in his arms, trembling slightly from the chill, dripping from the rain, gripping tightly, pressing her chest against his, as if to break through directly to his heart. He noticed his jaws were tightly clenched, and, with a sigh, released them. He wrapped his arms around her more tightly, delicately entwining his right hand in the hair at the nape of her neck. Lifting her slightly up onto her toes, he kissed her fully, savoring the sweetness of the strange moment, his heart leaping as she moaned softly in response.
Setting her back down, letting her heels drop back onto the sodden ground, Joel drew back slowly, relishing the moment when Wednesday's eyes fluttered open, and their gazes held. Her eyes were warm and open, glinting with a mix of desire and victory, before her expression hardened. A steely look of determination overcame her features, not altogether erasing the victorious glint in her eyes, giving her a face a slightly wicked expression.
A small remnant of that lazy, cocky smile curled Joel's lips in response.
They turned in unison to face Lilith. Wednesday cracked a small, sardonic smile at Lilith's look of dismay, accentuating the wickedness of her expression. Lilith rearranged her features accordingly, her red eyes glaring at the pair, fangs slipping out from between smiling lips.
On a silent signal, Lilith and the assembled vampires slid into identical crouches. Joel mirrored the gesture, his eyes scanning the circle, body tensed, a fierce scowl contorting his features as he searched for the most imminent threat.
Conversely, Wednesday stood relaxed, arms held loosely at her sides, her weight shifted on one hip, in a cavalier posture. Her dark eyes held Lilith's red ones, and she spoke.
"Power," Wednesday whispered, her face alight with triumph, her wicked smile glowing in the filtered light. The rain was thinning into a slight mist, the sun starting to build behind the grey, blanketing clouds.
"I'll make you an offer," said Wednesday, her smile becoming more pronounced.
Shock crossed Lilith's face before her glare broke into an amused smile. She straightened out of her crouch.
"You?" she giggled, "My dear, what could you possibly offer me? Have you decided to join our ranks after all?" she added, with fake innocence.
Wednesday scoffed. She shot Lilith a knowing smile, mocking her.
"Actually, I'd like to offer you what you offered me – Bend to my will, or… suffer my displeasure." She said this last word with relish, caressing it, delighting in the anticipation of unleashing her sadistic imagination.
Lilith laughed, but it was stilted. "Silly child. In what world could you possibly be a match for me? For us?" Her eyes raked her minions, resting subtly on the redhead, who nodded slightly in response.
Joel was distracted by a slight movement to Lilith's left. At some unheard signal, one of the male vamps at Lilith's side lunged at Joel. Joel caught him around the throat and the two grappled, quickly becoming a struggling heap on the muddy ground.
Within moments of the struggle Joel's eyes widened in horror as he realized Lilith's plan. As the male, Joel knew him as Ethan, grappled with Joel, the redheaded female, Melody, flew at Wednesday's exposed back.
Joel struggled with Ethan, realizing with a start that he wasn't trying to kill him, just to restrain him – to keep him from protecting Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Melody launched herself at Wednesday. Wednesday remained immobile, smiling at Lilith. At the last second, as Melody reached a clawed hand out for Wednesday's throat, Wednesday spun, grabbed a handful of Melody's hair with inhuman speed, and kicked her feet out from under in the same movement.
When Joel looked up through a barrage of punches, he saw Wednesday standing over the prone body of Melody, her foot on the back of her neck, pressing her sputtering face into a puddle of mud.
As he looked, Wednesday pulled Melody's head out of the mud by her hair, and said, calmly and evenly, "Call him off" her eyes gesturing toward Joel and Ethan.
Lilith glared and growled. Wednesday raised an eyebrow.
She pressed Melody's face back into the mud, holding the girl's struggling form down by her neck. Melody's hands searched for purchase, but couldn't touch any part of Wednesday's body. Wednesday looked back to Lilith. Her face betrayed her annoyance but she made no move to follow Wednesday's command.
Wednesday decided to up the ante.
Removing her knife from her pocket (suddenly fiercely glad she'd stowed it - and not dropped it - before her desperate kiss with Joel), she brought the glinting blade down to the back of Melody's neck.
"One puncture here," she whispered seductively, pressing the tip of the knife along Melody's exposed spine, "and she'll drown herself," she finished, smiling.
The other vamps were growing anxious for their chance to join in the fray. It seemed as though Lilith was hesitant to allow more within harm's reach. Wednesday could hear the growling coming from the darker female, who was dying to come to the rescue of her last remaining sister. The male at Lilith's side was twitching with imagined moves as he watched Joel and Ethan.
"What about your 'family'," Wednesday mocked, "you'll stand by and watch them crumble to ash?"
She lifted Melody's head out of the mud. She sputtered and choked, gasping for breath.
"Save her, Lilith," Wednesday whispered. For a moment, the girl's mud-stained face searched for Lilith, her eyes alight with that blind hope that her mother-figure might come to her rescue after all.
Lilith's face was stone. Her eyes shone hatred at Wednesday, tinged with what looked like jealousy, and completely devoid of anything related to love or distress over the fate of her so-called daughter.
"So be it," said Wednesday softly.
She forced Melody's head back into the mud. Her struggling was more forceful now, and she ripped up the grass under her feet, her fingernails digging frantically into the mud.
Wednesday slid the blade between the vertebrae in her spine with one forceful stroke.
Immediately, her struggling ceased.
In the sudden silence, a cry that was somewhere between a scream and a sob rent the air. Wednesday raised her eyes to Lilith's once more.
Lilith looked past Wednesday as the smaller female launched herself across the clearing.
Lilith shouted, "Veronica, No!"
Wednesday stood, pulling the knife from Melody's body as she rose, and threw it with deadly accuracy into Veronica's forehead. The girl crumpled to the ground.
While the wound was not fatal, Wednesday knew it would at least knock her out cold for a while.
Despite the commotion of the side battle, Ethan had witnessed the maiming of the girls. With renewed vigor, he smashed a fist over Joel's head, throwing him off balance. Breaking free of Joel, he raced toward Wednesday.
"Stop!" Lilith shouted, sternly. Ethan froze as if suddenly paralyzed. A look of dismay crossed his face, but he quickly replaced it with a mask of hatred and duty. After a moment, he moved again, back to Lilith's side.
Joel rejoined Wednesday, breathing heavily. Wednesday glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He appeared unhurt. She turned back to Lilith.
"So," said Wednesday, "back to my offer." She crossed her arms across her chest.
Suddenly Joel tensed, feeling the weather shift. The other vamps felt it too. With a slight nod from Lilith, the vamp to her right left her side, heading back toward their car. The other, Ethan, drew out his umbrella again and held it over Lilith's head.
With a sudden smile, Lilith spoke.
"Ah, yes my dear. Actually, I have a counter-offer for you."
A high-pitched screech filled the air as Lilith's car careened up the hill. With a quick swerve to the right, it took out Joel's motorcycle, sending it toppling down the steep, rocky incline and into the graveyard below. As the car reached the top of the hill, it smashed into Wednesday's beautiful Mercedes, busting up the glass and driving the rear end nearly up into the front seat.
At the same instant, Ethan unearthed a dagger, and hurled it at the distracted pair.
Joel saw the dagger just a second too late. In the first instant he spotted it, he was sure it was headed for Wednesday. He reached out to her, taking his eyes off the blade as he turned to grab her and pull her out of harm's way.
Because of this, he didn't notice the slight bend in the blade's trajectory.
Wednesday's jaw dropped as Joel fell to his knees. Her wide eyes swam with horror as she saw the knife's hilt protruding from the side of Joel's neck, his warm blood pouring down his chest and shoulder.
His eyes held hers for a moment before they rolled back into his head and his body collapsed to the ground.
Wednesday turned burning eyes back to Lilith. The force of her glare was staggering, but Lilith smiled.
"My offer, dear, is this: come with us now. We'll patch up young Joel, you can join our little family and, well, we'll leave your family alone. Doesn't that sound fair? Or, you can refuse, of course, and well, we'll see you again. Of course, with the sun about to come out and poor Joel's bike ruined, we'll likely not see him again. Shame. What a waste," Lilith added with fake remorse.
"What is your decision?" she asked, her smile looking more like a snarl.
Wednesday's retort was interrupted by a sudden movement behind her. Veronica began to stir, and she rose, pulling the blade from her face as she did so. Upon seeing Wednesday, she almost pounced again, but Lilith called, "Veronica, no. Not now. You'll have your revenge. Pick up Melody and get in the car. We're leaving."
Veronica stalked past Wednesday, shooting her a glare of utmost hatred, and picked her sister's broken body up out of the mud before stalking off up to the car.
"Now Wednesday, last chance. Coming?" said Lilith, sounding bored.
"Bite me," said Wednesday.
To this, Lilith smiled hugely, "Soon dear, very soon." She swept off after the other vampires toward the car.
Wednesday returned her attend back to Joel, who was rapidly losing blood. It was mingling with the mud now, creating red-brown spirals in the sodden earth.
She ripped a sleeve from her jacket, removed the knife and wrapped the jacket around his neck, trying to staunch the bleeding without suffocating him. Looking up to the sky, she saw that the grey blanket that had covered the afternoon sky was breaking apart. With a sudden surge of panic, she realized that in a matter of minutes there wouldn't be a single bit of cloud cover left and her field dressing would be of little importance once Joel went up in flames like a human torch.
There was no shelter on the ridge save for the weeping willow, which wouldn't provide adequate shade in full sunshine. She ran to the edge of the ridge, looking down into the graveyard. At the far edge, a bit of forest lined the graveyard, but it was probably more than 100 yards away. Lilith was right, without Joel's bike, they weren't getting far.
Panic hitched her breathing as she scanned for something, anything. Suddenly, she saw it. If only she could get him that far.
She ran back to Joel.
"Joel? Joel? Can you hear me? Wake up, Joel, please wake up!"
Nothing.
"Dammit, Joel," she growled.
She looped her arms under his arms and started to drag him, resting his head on her chest, as she walked backwards toward the ridge.
The sky was already morphing from the cool grey into a dirty yellow as the sun burnt away the remnants of the thunderstorm.
Once she reached the ridge, Joel's body was significantly easier to drag, but now she had to worry about the large rocks that littered the slope and the smaller rocks that slid away when she stepped on them.
Won't do either of us any favors if I break my neck on this stupid slope, Wednesday thought bitterly, but she kept dragging.
At the bottom of the slope, Joel stirred. He couldn't speak, nor did he open his eyes, but he twitched slightly.
"Joel? Can you stand? Joel, can you hear me?" Wednesday gasped into his ear, hoping against hope that he'd answer. He didn't.
She only had maybe 20 feet to go, but her strength was failing and time was running out. "C'mon Joel, you gotta help me a little," she managed through gritted teeth, sweat pouring down her face.
As the first rays of sunlight peeked through the clouds, she reached it. Muscles screaming, she dragged Joel's body the last few fet up to the mausoleum. It was the biggest tomb around; maybe 8 feet tall, in marble, with a small enclosed chapel area at its center. She wrenched open the wooden door, and pulled Joel into the dark space.
The inside was small. The two of them nearly filled the entire space. She leaned Joel up against the small altar in the middle and searched for matches to light the candles adorning the walls. Either side was adorned with a coffin, a husband and wife by the looks of it, but the center was left open for family to come in and pray. Wednesday heaved the door shut with a groan, slid an old candleholder into the door handle to serve as some form of lock, and collapsed unceremoniously onto the floor.
She knew she should probably go back outside and search for water, or better yet, a phone – hers was probably still in her car, whatever was left of it. But she found that her body wouldn't move. Instead, she dragged herself over to where Joel lay, wrapped him in her arms (using her body heat to help prevent shock), and fought a losing battle against her drooping eyelids.
In the end, she lost.