Thank you all for your amazing reviews!

Here's a comparatively short chapter, but don't worry, larger ones in the works.

As always, heed the rating ~M~, this gets a bit bloody.

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Enjoy~

~TLD

Part Twenty-Four: Into the Dark


It had been a miracle, really. Or Fate. Or luck. Or whatever the force that puts exactly the right thing in the right place at the right time. Whatever that thing is, this was most definitely it.

If Lurch hadn't gone down into the front yard to battle the remaining flames with the garden hose, he'd never have been in the perfect position to catch her.

He'd looked up at the sound of a scream. And then he saw her – her graceful body, twisting and twirling like a fluttering flower of black fabric, her hair flapping around her face like bat wings, and her beautiful mouth opened slightly in a silent scream.

He'd never forget that look on her face. It wasn't frightened. It was – well, he couldn't find the words to describe it. Somewhere between fascination and pain, awe and ease, dread and exhilaration, Morticia's expression was like none he'd ever seen.

And although it fascinated him, it didn't keep him from positioning himself just right, and catching his falling mistress in his arms.

Of course, falling into Lurch's arms was a little like falling into the grasp of two steel girders.

Morticia's avid eyes had closed upon her fall.

And they had yet to open.

She woke to a startling darkness. She blinked, not quite sure that she'd really opened her eyes to such a complete and utter blanket of black.

She drew a deep, but shaky breath, before she was pierced with the horrible stabbing pain of two, maybe three, cracked ribs. Her body shook in response and the blackness seemed to blur as her eyes filled with tears. She tried to range out with her senses – listening intently despite the ringing in her ears and the frantic thumping of her own heart. But she could hear nothing aside from the distant echo of her own breathing in a cold, empty room.

Her vision swam and she got the horrible feeling that she was not alone in the blackness – that something lurked mere inches from her face, somehow hidden in the impenetrable darkness. She longed to bring her hands up to shield her face, or to explore the space in front of her, but she couldn't move them.

With a horrifying shock, she realized she couldn't feel them at all!

Her breathing hitched as her brain raced through conclusions too ghastly for her conscious mind to accept. Had they cut her hands off? Why couldn't she see? If they'd cut off her hands, could they have plucked out her eyes as well?

But amid her panic, she made out a tiny sound, distracting her from her distress.

It was a low, muted chuckle, coming from somewhere in the black.

Wednesday froze in her shuddering. She wasn't alone after all.

Despite it all, this fact served to calm and center her. And as her panic subsided, she found that she could focus.

I can move my eyes. I can feel them under my eyelids. She went through a mental inventory, her mind working clinically now that it was free of the gut-wrenching terror.

Fingers? No feeling. Toes? She tried wiggling her toes in her boots. Nope. No sensation.

She took another deep breath and the pain in her ribs sliced through her again. Focusing now, she concentrated on the shooting pains, noting where and when they stopped. Just the extremities then, she noted. The paralysis is wearing off.

Immediately her brain ran through all the sedatives, tranquilizers, and anesthetics that she'd utilized throughout her long and bloody career of experimenting on her brothers, her pets, and any child stupid enough to incur her wrath. Based on the dose in the dart, Wednesday estimated she could have only have been unconscious for a few hours – most readily available tranquilizers burned out of the bloodstream in only a handful of hours – and that, at most, it would only be another hour or so before the sedative wore off completely.

Her mind raced on trying to put a name to the sedative in her veins, but her calculations were interrupted by a new sensation – tingling in her wrists and fingers. At the same time blackness in front of her eyes thinned slightly as her vision began to return. She felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a smile at the change.

But then, as the seconds ticked by and still she lay, helpless, immobile, and blind, Wednesday's smile fell. Like a pressure on her lungs, Wednesday felt her enemies looming. Her thirst for vengeance flared and she longed for a weapon, or even a snarky comment, to throw at her captors. But she grit her teeth in defiance. Patience, she told herself.

I'll have my revenge. Soon.


For Joel, consciousness came slowly. And painfully.

Long before his vision returned, Joel was tormented by a crushing pressure on his wrists and a throbbing in his head that sent shock waves down his spine, over his broken ribs, across bruised and broken skin, and down to his toes, which were – rather troublingly – numb. Although he couldn't see, Joel felt his darkness spinning slowly, amplifying his pain with a sickening wave of nausea.

He passed the hours debating with himself which was worse – the pain or the nausea, distracting his brain from the more terrifying thought – that he AND Wednesday were now prisoners of Lilith – whose sadistic capacity for inflicting pain made the Marquis de Sade look like a childish prankster. The only comforting fact to grace Joel's tortured mind was, that Lilith must want them alive for something, otherwise she'd have killed them both outright.

But, even as the thought crawled through his brain, Joel knew – whatever it was that Lilith wanted him for, or wanted Wednesday for – Joel shuddered at the thought – it could very well be far worse than death. A wave of foreboding washed over him, drenching him in a fear unlike any he'd ever known.

Abruptly, Joel was distracted from his mental anguish when he felt a new presence in the room. He didn't move, forcing his body to remain limp and lifeless. He kept his breathing even, scenting his visitor, while still looking unresponsive. An odor of thick vampire blood reached him, and the familiar hints of hair gel, leather, and the faint musky smell that always clung to…

WHAM!

Ethan threw a heavy, if not slightly sloppy, punch HARD into Joel's already broken ribs.

Unbidden, a scream of agony crawled up his throat.

"Oh good," Ethan hissed, "You're awake."

Joel kept his eyes closed, knowing his vision still hadn't returned. He didn't want to give Ethan the satisfaction of seeing his blind eyes wheel in his head. He held still and clenched his teeth, vowing silently that, no matter the pain, not another scream would escape his control.

"Joel?" Ethan called, mock concern coloring his tone. He waited for an answer, clicking his tongue impatiently.

Joel remained silent.

WHAM!

Joel felt his body spinning, tears, blood, and spit flying from his face, as Ethan cracked his jaw with a sickening crunch.

Gasping and unable to clench his jaw, Joel heard his own breath whooshing out of him in heavy, sobbing, gasps. The pain was unimaginable. Every pain from before laced through him anew, magnified a thousand times. Though he never screamed, the gasps racking his chest became hacking coughs as his broken ribs scraped against his lungs, filling his lungs with blood.

Finally, after long moment of terrifying struggle against the crushing pain and the suffocating pressure of his own blood in his throat, Joel's body calmed.

With forced nonchalance and his face contorted in utter disgust, Joel spit out a mouthful of blood onto the cold, stone floor.

Ethan laughed outright.

Joel felt his rage mounting, heightening his senses of the room around him. He was underground, that much was clear – the cold coming off of all the walls was strong and unfettered – no sunlight or wall coverings to temper it.

Finally he understood the pain in his wrists, the sickening spinning, and the numbness in his toes. He was suspended, hanging from the ceiling. Probably on some kind of meat hook, he thought.

So a slaughterhouse then, Joel mused. Appropriate venue, he thought venomously.

But his musings were interrupted. He could sense Ethan preparing another blow.

Instinctively sensing that this blow would knock him out – or worse, Joel tensed, trying desperately to focus on the attack and somehow, somehow protect himself.

But as he fought for control, he felt his strength failing – his consciousness slipping away. And he knew, in any second, he'd be gone.

Ethan smirked with vindictive pleasure as he drew back his fist. Here was the reason he'd lost his arm, here was the man responsible for dragging them into this silly war – he should never have been allowed to exist, and now he was going to pay for it. Ethan took one sidelong glance at the bloodless stump that used to be his arm, grit his teeth in renewed rage, and –

"STOP!"

Lilith's cold, commanding voice crashed through the mounting tension – freezing Ethan in his place.

Joel tried not to shudder, but the malice and the barely-contained wrath laced in Lilith's voice made his skin crawl. He could no longer control the instinct of self-preservation and his eyes flew open in an attempt to protect him from the danger he couldn't see.

He expected blindness, so he was shocked to see Lilith's, slightly blurry, but still blazing red eyes boring into his own. A small, startled gasp escaped his lips before he caught his breath and hardened his face.

Lilith's features softened slightly, and she smiled. There was a warmth in her eyes, the likes of which he hadn't seen since the night of his initiation.

It made his stomach curl.

He dropped his eyes from hers, the sudden intimacy of her gaze making him nauseous.

And so he didn't see her bring her hand up to his face.

But suddenly, he felt her cold caress on his bruised and broken face. He winced slightly.

And then, like lightening, her hand was gone.

Joel's eyes whipped up, but even so, by the time he saw Lilith, she was across the room, crouching over Ethan's thrashing body – his stump of an arm crushed under her heel and his face contorted in agony and gasping for breath as she crushed his windpipe in her hard, clawed fingers. Lilith's eyes burned with rage and her fangs glinted in the darkened room.

Her voice screamed out in a torturous hiss. "He's damaged!!" she shrieked.

Ethan's response was indecipherable, but his eyes wheeled around the room and his body jerked in sharp, panicky movements.

"What did I tell you?" Lilith continued, "What did I command you?" Her voice hitched up another octave, scraping against the walls like nails on a chalkboard.

Ethan's face was turning blue and pools of blood formed along his neck from Lilith's claws puncturing his skin.

"M-m-my Qu-qu-" Ethan choked out. "Ple-" But before he could finish, his eyes rolled into his head as unconsciousness swallowed him.

"Ugh!" Lilith dropped his limp body in disgust. She stood slowly, her back turned to Joel. She paused and drew several deep breaths before turning back to him, slowly.

When she turned, her smile glinted subtly, her blue eyes sparkled like diamonds, and her face bore a sweet, serene expression so expertly applied that she could have fooled any man into believing her a saint.

Almost.

Joel's eyes narrowed. Something was horribly wrong. And he had a feeling he was about to find out just how wrong it really was.

Pubert paced outside of his parents' bedroom, his tiny head bowed with grief and worry. Gomez had insisted that Pubert and Pugsley remain outside the room as he, Mama, and Lurch had carried Morticia up to her bed. They never came back out.

So instead of spending what could be the last moments of his mother's life with her, he was relegated to waiting in the hall wondering how bad it really was.

It was his fault, he knew. His father had entrusted his mother's safety to him, and he'd blown it. He'd obeyed his mother and had hidden away like a coward as that horrible witch had thrown her off the roof.

Thrown her, possibly, to her death.

While he hid.

Pubert drowned in self-disgust. Tears of shame and grief and anger and fear poured down his cheeks as if they'd never stop.

And as the minutes ticked away, he waited in the hallway. And he paced.