Chapter Text
The house at the edge of the forest seemed quiet at first, but dim lights flickered behind its curtained windows. The owner appeared to be home, as a green pickup truck was parked outside, covered in rust and bumper stickers from a local tackle shop. If an onlooker had taken a closer look, they might have noticed the front door was ever so slightly ajar. A guest was expected. Expected, but uninvited.
The uninvited guest, dressed in black, crossed the driveway with calculated nonchalance and slipped inside. The front hall was dark, but a sliver of light from the living room door illuminated a collection of shabby coats and enormous, muddy boots. A pair of binoculars hung on a hook next to a dusty mirror. The guest paid these little attention. Instead, they crossed over to the living room door with unhurried steps, treading just heavily enough to make a little sound, as if to wordlessly announce their arrival.
The door was swung open. The man in the room was not surprised by the intruder—expected, but uninvited—but turned his head to acknowledge their arrival before sinking into an old armchair with a sigh. At his right elbow was a small side table with three items. A bottle of brandy, an empty glass, and a shotgun, all gleaming in the light of the fireplace.
”Cousin Vigo told me you’d be coming, Miss Addams,” the man began, stroking his grizzled jawline with short, stubby fingers.
Before him stood Wednesday Addams, clearly prepared for an even frostier reception. The girl held a small crossbow in one hand, pointed down but the handle grasped tightly enough to leave no doubts that it represented a subtle threat, not an empty one.
”And how is dear Vigo? I am afraid our interview was cut short,” Wednesday replied, taking a few steps inside the door and off to one side, careful to face her back away from the entrance.
”You broke his arm.”
”He was discourteous and unforthcoming.”
”And set fire to his house.”
”I needed a diversion. Considering how tacky his decor was, I did your family a favor. Our discussion afterward benefited from a certain… burning urgency.”
The man poured himself a drink. He pointedly avoided moving his hand closer to the shotgun than necessary.
”Ah yes, a discussion during which my name was mentioned, and to which I owe this midnight visit.”
”If it makes you feel any better, he did not volunteer your name until after his arm was broken. For the second time.”
The man—whose name, incidentally, was Gregor Sokolov—did not seem delighted at this display of dubious familial loyalty from Cousin Vigo. Instead, he took a sip of his brandy and peered down into the amber depths of his glass rather than the terrifyingly intense eyes of his guest.
”I know of your family, Miss Wednesday Addams. Ancient and terrible, at once magnanimous and merciless. I do not wish to make an enemy of them. I expect neither does poor Vigo, however attached he was to his house.”
Gregor took another sip before continuing, finally raising his eyes to look on Wednesday’s again. In the catalog of terrible things she’d stared down, the old werewolf sipping away at his cheap brandy did not rank particularly highly. His face was weathered by a lifetime spent outdoors, and there was something particularly paw-like about his hands, his short fingers topped with thick, unkempt nails. The wolf and his sad, slightly dilapidated house seemed both well matched to each other.
”Vigo also told me why you sought us out,” he said. ”You’re hunting wolves.”
”One wolf. I wish to capture the blonde alpha.” Enid Sinclair. ”You know of the one I mean.” I want her back safely. ”And you know something about that,” Wednesday replied, leaving unsaid the depths of her involvement in the matter, determined not to show anything that could be construed as weakness. But the truth was there nevertheless, so close to the tip of her tongue she could almost feel it slithering behind her teeth.
The werewolf exhaled loudly as he put his glass back down. Twisting his head back and forth, he was again unwilling to look Wednesday in the eye, but also seemed to deflate in his posture, hunching down as if ashamed or discouraged.
”To capture, hah! Try catching lightning!”
”Capturing her is the first step. Forcing her back to her human form is the second,” Wednesday replied, to which Gregor only scoffed, his murky gray eyes flicking to challenge hers for only a moment.
”The moon-cursed alpha, or the dread wolf as we used to call them, is a terrible and tragic thing. A savage anomaly, stronger and more devious than any of Nature’s own creatures. It swims in the same moonlit waters as all wolves do, but it can no longer find its way back to the shore. Back to its own skin.”
Here Gregor rubbed his hands together, as if desperate to reassure himself that they were still hands and not the gnarled paws they resembled. Wednesday tamped back her rising annoyance. She hadn’t come for sentimental moon-poetry, and under her calm exterior, unfamiliar undercurrents of worry grew stronger again.
”That’s why we fear and hate it. We think such an alpha represents something having gone fundamentally wrong in the world. We love the wolves inside us, you see,” Gregor continued, with a sentimental smile. ”We write songs about them, of running free across forests, prairies, and snowfields. We relish in the hunt and the kill, howling our love for tooth and claw to the stars themselves.”
”To the point, Gregor,” Wednesday snapped.
”The point is this: We embrace the wolf, but we always yearn to come home. This... this house, this fireplace, this brandy --” He paused to take another sip. ”These are just as real to me as the hunt or the crack of bones between my fangs. You’d never get most of us to admit it, but we love the were just as much as the wolf,” he murmured, chuckling at what was frankly quite awful wordplay.
”That’s something the moon-struck alpha can never do," Gregor continued. "They’re creatures thrown forever out of balance, their connection to their true selves ever fading. It’s like rabies, an inevitable, terminal decline that drives them insane, especially towards other werewolves. Even in their fading minds, they can sense that we can still do what they cannot. We can turn back.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Wednesday mentally filed the philosophical musings about the werewolf psyche for later. She was having difficulty reconciling what she knew about Enid with Gregor’s mournful words. She could not imagine her exuberant roommate as this haunted, embittered creature. The notion of her fangs at the throat of another werewolf seemed completely impossible. Wednesday was much more worried about the hunters she knew were already making preparations. The other reason she’d set fire to Vigo’s house was that she’d seen the maps, supplies, and rifles they’d already started stockpiling. Better to throw those plans into disarray even if for just a little while, she’d thought as she struck the match.
She got the impression Gregor was turning his next few words in his mouth, trying to figure out how to tell the story, and with uncharacteristic patience, she let him.
”When I was young and foolish,” the old wolf finally continued, setting down his glass again and pushing it further away as if to eliminate a distraction, ”I hunted an alpha, with some equally young and foolish friends of mine. We thought ourselves prepared, and perhaps it was that which damned us, in the end. That we took too long. I visited sages, witch-doctors, and fools across the continent. Bargained with things that scarcely have names, accruing debts it will take to the end of my days to repay. All that for a plan, which we then put into action. By the time we reached our quarry, though, there wasn’t enough of him left to save, just a hollow shell full of blind rage where love used to reign.”
”I do not have the luxury of time on my side,” Wednesday snarled as the perfect veneer of her composure tore under the strain. She switched the crossbow to her left hand, idly shaking the right to alleviate the constant itching feeling under her sleeve. Careful not to scratch or reveal her weakness.
”Indeed not. My notebooks,” Gregor said, gesturing towards the top of the fireplace, where a stack of untidy papers lay wedged under a small paperweight. ”When I heard you were coming, what you sought... I thought about burning them and telling you to go to hell,” the old wolf muttered with a meaningful glance towards the shotgun.
”Nice to hear the Addams family name still instills some dread,” Wednesday replied, before briskly stepping to the fireplace, grabbing the sheaf of papers, and clutching it against her chest.
”No, it’s not that. I suppose… I suppose I feel sorry for you, Miss Addams,” Gregor replied, moving his glass back within easy reach. ”To hunt for a tormented creature in the vain hope you’ll be able to save them from both themselves and their own kind, that’s the kind of stupid I can understand.”
”Yours was a brother.”
”Yes. Poor Anton. We chased him across three states and two provinces before we caught him, but the last time I saw him, I had to pry his fangs off my throat. There wasn’t enough of him left behind the beast’s eyes. We had to commit him… to his grave.”
The old wolf’s eyes, now wet with emotion, fell back on his glass and he moved to take another drink, but was interrupted by a metallic sound. Where the notebooks had been, Wednesday Addams had carefully placed a large gold coin and replaced the paperweight on top of it. Her expression was once again unreadable, the earlier cracks papered over with newfound resolution.
”If you’ve not led me astray, then perhaps the next time we meet, my family will be in your debt and this is just a small advance payment. If you have, this gold will not be sufficient to keep you out of our reach. As for Vigo and the rest of your family, they should consider themselves warned. If they try to go after my prize, I’ll break something more precious than one arm.”
The girl turned to leave but Gregor spoke up before she crossed the threshold.
”This young alpha, what’s she to you? Why are you doing this?”
”I made a promise.”
And with that, she left.
Some way down the road, a heavily laden motorcycle started up as Wednesday approached. Uncle Fester, seated in the saddle, donned his helmet as she slipped into her seat in the sidecar. The sheaf of notebooks and papers was carefully secured, safe from the elements.
”So, Gregor didn’t give you any trouble?” Fester’s tone was cheerful as he pulled the bike into traffic. ”Shame, really. That looks like such a lovely, flammable house.”
Seeing that his niece wasn’t in a jovial mood, Fester happily continued the conversation on his own.
”What’s next?”
”Back to the motel. It appears I have… homework.”
As she spoke, Wednesday thoughtfully rubbed her aching right wrist. Content that she was not being observed, she carefully rolled up the sleeve of her coat. Across her wrist, incongruous in its brightness, irritating and blistering her pale skin with its bright colors, was one of the ribbons Enid loved wearing in her hair. A constant, painful reminder of a promise unfulfilled.