Chapter Text
“Aah! Yes! I’ve been waiting forever for this!”
Enid squealed and span Agnes around in her arms.
“Maybe literally?” She pondered.
Agnes wrenched free from her grasp.
“Have some decorum Sinclair!”
The short little redhead scolded the blonde.
“Sorry.” Enid folded in her wings apologetically as Agnes dusted off her horns and straightened her clothing.
“You’re going to the world of the living, not a birthday party.” Agnes warned.
“I know. But, I finally graduated!” Enid couldn’t hide her excitement.
“Graduated to lure human souls to damnation.” Agnes pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t have time for this though. Here’s your first assignment.”
Agnes was actually Enid’s junior, but they had arrived at a similar enough time to be in the same batch of souls for processing. Since Enid’s sole usable trait as a demon was her contagiously adorable personality, she was made a succubus. Whereas, Agnes slipped through notice in any other role and was ultimately defaulted to a Mammonic Demon. That is, a bureaucrat managing hell itself and the other demons.
“Just like any newbie, you’re being given an easy assignment to learn the ropes. In this case, an outcast university.” Agnes explained. “Since it’s full of students, hormones will be high and inhibitions low. Remember, just having sex isn’t evil, your job is to use sex to lure people into doing bad things. The atmosphere is so horny, you should rarely even need to manifest, just hang around and your energy will do the work. Two students who are with other people are hanging out? Stick with them and watch them cheat. A teacher is alone with a-“
“Ew!” Enid cut her off.
Agnes scoffed and glared at her.
“You are luring souls to hell! Not making sex friends.” She warned. “Just… go do your thing. Remember, flunk this and it’s processing in the soul pits.”
Enid shivered at the mention of the alternative fate to demon kind.
“Got it! Don’t worry! Soon you’ll be drowning in souls saying Enid sent them your way! I am WAY too cute not to be a successful succubus.”
Enid turned around, leapt into the air, and spread her wings to soar straight down into the portal sending her to earth.
Agnes facepalmed in her wake.
“Can I please just tell her? I mean, look at her, she’s going one way or another.” Agnes spoke, apparently to no one.
“Nope.” A much older and taller devil materialized behind her. “You know the rules. Remember; your fate relies on this too.”
“Yes, Ms. Capri.”
—
Enid soared through the skies in her spirit form, taking in the view of what would be her new home for at least the next few years.
Flitting between the crenelated towers and gothic spires, she felt more like a ghost than a demon!
Well, she was technically a dead spirit…
The old cobblestone paths, the warm colors of autumn leaves, it all had a nostalgia to Enid’s vaguely held memories of her previous life.
She wasn’t there for sightseeing and nostalgia though. She had a job to do.
Enid switched to floating close to the windows, or occasionally slipping inside and flying the halls. She had no need to rush; demonic work was slow. She had time to feel out targets and work her way into the fibre of the community.
“Ooh! Perfect!” She already felt a good option. Very horny, poor inhibitions, and best of all: a girl.
Her teachers, and Agnes, had informed her time and again that men were better targets, and so succubi were supposed to focus on them. However, she was allowed to find female targets too, and Enid would much rather do that, and this girl felt perfect.
She slipped into the girl’s room, sensing a strong energy of lust about the place. A cute goth girl was lying on her bed, beginning to play with herself while looking at something on her phone.
There were no available bad deeds to push her towards, so Enid’s directives were to nudge her to fantasize about bad things so she would associate them with pleasure.
Which wouldn’t be hard. Enid could already tell this girl had a LOT of fantasies.
Enid slipped close and got ready to start feeding her thoughts when she heard her dorm room door open.
“Yoko! You got started without me?” A brunette girl walked into the room.
“Mh, just what did you expect, teasing me with those selfies?” The goth grinned at the arrival of her partner.
The brunette girl smirked wickedly.
“Fair enough, but it still deserves a punishment.”
“Oh no! Please don’t tie me up, and whip me, and not let me cum all night!” The one called Yoko mock protested in a way that clearly proved that to be exactly what she wanted.
“That depends on just how well you can prove to me you’re sorry, doesn’t it?” The new arrival was dropping her skirt and panties as she closed the distance to the bed in a sultry slow-walk.
Enid sped out of the dorm. If she still had blood vessels, she would have already blushed herself to death.
“Nope! Not a target!”
Those two were clearly FAR too focused on each other to tempt. Although they were whatever the literal opposite of being pure of heart means, their (very) happy, monogamous relationship was not a route to hell either (although, if anybody could find a way to make it one Enid was sure those two could).
“Sigh. I guess it’s off to corrupt that lonely Gorgon boy.”
Enid swooped back to a student she had noticed earlier in the day.
He wouldn’t be near as fun though.
—
“I think you know the problem we are addressing here today.”
A middle-aged redheaded woman sat down opposite Principle Weems.
“I know what you wish to discuss, Ms Thornhill.” The stern blonde addressed her visitor without any nicety.
“We have an agreement for the good of all, especially your student body.” The visitor, Marilyn Thornhill, retorted.
Weems let out a slight sound between a scoff and a laugh.
“We have a three century old treaty that I am forced to continue to placate by no choice of my own. Lodge your complaint so that I may ignore it and be done with you.”
Marilyn bristled at the undisguised disrespect.
“There is a demon on your campus. A foul creature of darkness is corrupting your student body.” She warned.
“Corrupting it more than it already is, you obviously mean.” Weems sneered.
“I make no attempt to deceive as to my opinions on outcasts, but my sole concern is the banishment or eradication of this demon.” Marilyn continued to ignore the hostility directed towards her.
“Very good then. You have notified me. I will address the concern as is required. You may leave the premises. Now.” Weems looked back down at the papers on her desk.
“…what?” Thornhill questioned after a long pause. “We can find and solve this right away. There is no legitimate reason to wait.”
Weems rustled her papers, pointedly ignoring the woman for a full minute before glancing up.
“The reason is that I do not like you. And, I despise your people.” Weems slowly intoned. “You are puritanical, genocidal, fanatics. By the rules of your beloved treaty, I have a fortnight to find this demon myself. I will enjoy every minute of it. My predecessors might have given you leeway out of some misguided sense of expediency, but I will not. Now leave, or I will have every right to consider you in violation, and I would so relish that.”
“Fine.” Marilyn huffed. “I will be back in two weeks time.”
“I will be counting the hours, Dear.” Weems’ voice had a sarcastic lilt to it.
—
“THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA”
Thing signed out the words from his position perched atop Wednesday’s desk.
“It is a necessity. That renders the goodness or badness of the idea irrelevant.” Wednesday waved off his concerns.
“YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ATTENDING THIS SCHOOL AS A PROPER STUDENT.”
Thing reminded her.
“I am attending the school. I am a student. How I spend my spare time is my own choice.” Wednesday retorted, staring down Thing’s skeptical wobble. “I will not accept my parent’s insistence that I be the first of my line to forgo my family’s rites, and the power that comes with them.”
“THEY WANT WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU.”
“They want to control me.” Wednesday scoffed.
She rearranged the papers across her desk as Thing disapprovingly tapped.
Wednesday had spied at every piece of paper she could on every desk she could plausibly lean over and committed them to her very precise memory.
The most important fact that she had sought to gather were the names of every outcast breed potentially important to her quest.
Looking over her findings, and cross referencing them against her family history, one name stood out.
Rowan Laslow.
A DaVinci, but with Psychic ancestry. His student profile has a notice for staff to watch out for unstable visions. his distant ancestors had connections to the Addams.
If anyone could point her in the right direction, it would be him.
“This one.” Wednesday pointed to his name. “If he does not consciously know what I want, then I am sure it is inside of him.”
The goth stood up to leave the room.
“I will claim my birthright. I will free her.”
—
The crisp autumn air nipped at Wednesday as she crossed the many plazas and narrows pathways of Nevermore’s carefully curated yet crumbling grounds.
She did not precisely know where to find Rowan Laslow, but she trusted her seer instincts to guide her. In the meantime, she would acclimate to her environment. It would be useful for the future to know the different routes around the school.
After around ten minutes of slowly strolling around the grounds, she saw him. The skinny bespectacled boy was creeping around on his own. Wednesday could empathize with his desire to avoid the exhaustingly loud crowd of teenage ignorance.
Could have. Wednesday didn’t have time for empathy.
“Rowan Laslow.”
Her firm monotone cut across the courtyard like a knife.
He jerked to face her like it was a nervous twitch. Rowan was unused to being called out. Nobody was interested in him, and he preferred it that way.
The moment he saw who called him, though, his eyes went wide.
“You!” His voice came out in a broken shriek.
“Me?” Wednesday questioned. “I have never met you.”
This was not the response she was expecting. She knew any attempt to interrogate him on the topic she needed might be difficult, but not that he would react so strongly to her in particular.
Had he had seer visions of her? That was an unexpected turn.
“I need to know what yo-“ she tried to continue her investigation.
“No! No! No!” The boy broke down screaming. “If you’re here, then they were real! She’s here! And it will all happen!”
Rowan lurched backwards and stumbled over himself before scrambling away.
Wednesday just stared.
That was an absolutely unexpected turn. Rowan knew something about her. He had seen visions of her future, and they terrified him.
That was not entirely something she hated to know. She was Wednesday Addams; others SHOULD fear her. It did, obviously, mean she needed to tread carefully though. If Rowan knew, others could as well. And who was this her? Did he know what Wednesday was after?
It was too much for Wednesday to resolve in her head while standing there. She went to class while trying to unravel the meaning of his outburst.
Rowan was only the first target of her interest. There were other students Wednesday knew could help her. Others had powers relevant to her goals.
Wednesday was not sociable by nature, but she was calculating. And she would do anything that she needed to in order to succeed.
Her next target? Eugene Ottinger. She shared a class with him. That made the approach easy.
He was not social either, but more out of weakness and nerves than Wednesday’s complete lack of need for other people.
“Eugene Ottinger.” Wednesday approached him as they left class.
“Huh? Oh. Wednesday was it?” The short, pudgy boy turned to her.
For the second time in the same day, Wednesday was caught off guard. Just how many people already knew about her?
“You know my name?” She openly asked.
“Oh, uh, yeah?” The boy looked at her nervously. “You kind of stand out. A lot. The not wearing school colors thing? And your family. People talk.”
Wednesday glowered in annoyance.
“As incredibly distasteful as the idea of gossip about me is, I have no time to murder the perpetrators. I know about your connection with bees. You can help me investigate someone.”
“Rowan Laslow?” The boy immediately guessed, then recoiled at Wednesday’s glare. “Uh, people are talking about that too. A lot.”
“Can you help me or not?” Wednesday gritted out.
“Sure.” The boy easily responded. “Come along to Hummer’s Club and help out with the bees and I’ll ask them to look for whatever you want.”
Wednesday thought about it for a moment. As undesirable as the overall thought was, she had obviously known that she would need to do something. People do not just help out for free.
“Very well.” She agreed. “Bring to the bees.”
—
Hummers Club was as Wednesday expected.
Eugene was less intolerable than the average person, and bees-as noisy and repetitive as they are-are at least not humans.
Eugene agreed to keep an eye on Rowan. Leaving Wednesday to return to her dorm and continue her studies.
Her family’s connections and her own fervent protestations had let her have her own room, at least for the moment. It was a loft with an admittedly splendid window dominating the entire outer wall.
Wednesday went to her desk and settled into her writing for the evening.
Her peace did not last long though.
The left half of her window shattered, pulling her away from the soothing clacking of her typewriter.
Only a flash of seer instincts saved her, Wednesday leaned her head forward, barely dodging a stone flying precisely where her head had been. The stone lodged itself in the far wall.
Wednesday said nothing. She calmly stood up and walked to the now destructively opened window. Gazing out, she caught the briefest view of Rowan fleeing across the dim cobblestones.
“It seems that things have accelerated more quickly than expected.”
—
The next day saw Wednesday ready to continue her case. The fact that Rowan was apparently out to kill her added an urgency to her investigation.
Not that she feared him succeeding, obviously. However, it was far more difficult to keep a low profile with cobblestones flying through your windows.
Wednesday was prepared to push herself farther in the coming day, only to be pulled aside and directed to principal Weems office nearly the moment she left her dorm.
Wednesday sat straight and unflinching in the chair opposite Weems.
“There are… alarming incidents to address.” The older woman started.
Wednesday could see that beneath her stern facade was concern. Weems was a hard woman to rattle. Wednesday was prodding at something deeper than fraying Rowan Laslow’s already tense nerves.
“Regardless of how little I feel the need to defend myself, I will say that I did not get past saying Rowan’s name before his meltdown. If anybody is to blame then it is him.” The goth spoke up.
Weems slightly hummed in acknowledgment.
“Well, that is a problem that need not be worried about.” She answered.
“Rowan Laslow is dead.” She added a moment later.
A slight raise of her brow betrayed Wednesday’s surprise in spite of her otherwise passive face.
“It appears that somebody finished him before he could finish me then.” Wednesday commented.
Weems just stared at her for a second, a slight look of shock flitting across her own face.
“Explain.” She finally spoke.
“I am certain you have been informed of the state of my window. Unfortunate, as it was perhaps the only feature here I was admittedly rather enamored by. It became the avenue by which Laslow made an entirely crude, emotionally driven attempt on my life.” Wednesday calmly offered.
“And you felt no need to report this?” Weems’ expression plainly communicated her displeasure at Wednesday’s decision.
“I had better ways to spend my evening than navigation university bureaucracy over such a wholly inadequate attempt at murder.”
Weems leaned back and took a breath, plainly trying to keep herself calm in the face of Wednesday’s absolute mastery of passive aggression.
“I am going to ask this question plainly: have you contacted a demon?”
Wednesday was somewhat taken aback by the sudden change in topic. She frowned, even deeper than usual.
“Do you think I used a demon to kill Rowan?” She retorted more fiercely even than intended.
“No. I already know what could and could not have killed Rowan. There is more than one trouble plaguing this campus. I repeat, have you summoned a demon?” Weems calmly crossed her fingers and stared intently into Wednesday.
“I know that my parents asked you to prevent me from pursuing my family destiny.” Wednesday held her stony gaze, even as she seethed.
“‘Family destiny’?” Weems scoffed. “I owe your parents nothing. Unfortunately, I have a responsibility to this school. Wednesday Addams, ‘Hell’ is not a metaphor, and demons are not a tool. These are creatures that embody the very concept of evil, and this is eternity you are playing with.”
“Well then, fortunately for you, I have not contacted a demon. My parents have carefully denied me the resources needed to attempt such an action.” Wednesday tersely answered.
She then stood up to leave.
“I can accept that as the truth.” Weems put in a final word as the goth left. “However, I know what you are trying to do, and I have to tell you; it is wrong. Nothing good can come from pacts with Hell.”
“Know what I am trying to do?” Wednesday didn’t turn around. “You don’t even know the half of it.”
—
Wednesday didn’t bother to go back to classes after her conversation. Instead, she crept down, into a deeply hidden room far beneath the school.
It was a small, square stone chamber with only a small stone square in the center.
Wednesday sat down cross-legged just inside the entryway. She just sat there, eyes closed and focusing, for many long minutes. Eventually, she opened her eyes to shapes forming out of the shadows in the corners of the room. They slowly coalesced into a human form.
A form that looked almost exactly like herself, but with silvery white hair.
“Have you found her?”
The sound was more like the suggestion of a voice speaking in her head than real human speech.
“No, but I am close.”
Wednesday ran her fingers across the relief on the stone form in the center of the room. The features were too worn to make out in precise detail, but it was a young woman’s form, and not the one she was speaking to.