Almost as if they were an intermingled reflection of their mothers, Day and Rissa's room was an exercise in contrasts.
Oh, not necessarily in terms of chromatism. It is true that on Rissa's side there were some extra notes of color, but black, gray and white did not make up the whole of Day's side either, where objects or items of clothing of a dark, woody green occasionally appeared. No, the contrast was marked by the order (or disorder) of the room.
Rissa's side of the room had an elegantly made four-poster bed, antique furniture, a small desk, a doll's house that was clearly cursed and an immaculate order: books on the shelves, toys and clothes properly stored, etc. Of course, following the Addams traditions, everything was covered by a fine layer of dust and the occasional cobweb in the corners.
Day's side had the same furniture, but the drawers were usually open or half-open, with clothes hanging out. The floor was littered with clothes, books, comics and magazines open and half-read, food scraps, etc. The bed was just a mattress topped by a pile of blankets and sheets tangled in a sort of nest. The desk was covered with scribbled papers, a spilled bottle of ink, colored pencils and several daggers stuck into the wood. And instead of a doll's house, there was a pole... no, a wooden log fixed to a support, full of scratch and bite marks.
Attie had already been to the girls' room on multiple occasions. It wasn't something to be nervous about... the concept of being nervous about being in the room of someone of the opposite sex was something that wouldn't hit him as a concept until he reached puberty.
No, what made him nervous were the daggers and axes flying through the air.
“Aha! One hundred points!” exclaimed Day as she watched her knife pierce the center of a target similar to those used in darts... except for its larger size and all the bladed weapons piercing through it.
Although the real peculiarity is that it was in the air, hanging from the ceiling with a rope and had a bull's-eye design on both sides. Day and Geraint threw their weapons from opposite ends of the room. The real challenge of the game was to resist their instincts and focus on hitting the target and not the opponent behind it.
Given the daggers, axes, swords and other sharp objects on the walls behind them, they didn't always make it.
“Pfff, you celebrate too soon,” Geraint replied.
Rissa, Attie and Varadi watched the competition sitting comfortably on the floor of the room on some blankets and cushions, enjoying various snacks. Attie turned to the older girl, “Shouldn't we think about stopping them for a bit?”
“Nah, they're both Addams, it's OK if they accidentally stab each other.”
“I'm more worried that they'll throw their weapons at the same time, they’ll collide in mid-air and one will fly towards me,” replied the boy, pointing to a huge axe stuck in the ground next to him, “Again.”
“OK... that's a good point,’ Varadi conceded.
The teenager stood up and clapped her hands twice, attracting the attention of the two aspiring human pincushions, “Hey! Let's change it up a bit, this game is starting to get a bit repetitive!”
“But I'm about to win!” Day protested.
“No! I'm about to win!” Geraint replied.
While the two rivals engaged in another verbal dispute (“No, me!” “Lies!”), Attie simply focused his attention on Rissa.
“How are their scores going?”
Rissa looked at him, still smiling and remaining silent, while making a gesture with her right hand.
“Tied? That can't be possible...” said Attie.
Rissa shrugged and pointed to her sister and Geraint with a nod of her head.
“Tied exactly at 1283 points if we count all the competitions from the beginning?” Attie asked incredulously. ”Do they always end in a draw?”
By this point Varadi already had to intervene and grab Day and Geraint by the scruff of the neck before they went from words to claws.
“Okay, that's enough. If you want a formal duel, I'm sure you can have one tomorrow morning. But now let's get on with the party,” said Varadi, “Who wants to watch a movie?”
“Oh, yes!” said Day, “We can watch...”
She stopped as Rissa stood before her with a stern look on her face.
“What do you mean none from my collection?!” exclaimed Day. Rissa simply pointed at Attie, who looked down in embarrassment.
“Sorry... but it was the latest scary movie from your collection that gave me night terrors for a week,” said the boy, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Aw... well,” said Day, “I guess we can watch something else...”
“Something with glorious battles!” Geraint proposed.
“You don't need movies for that, Ger! There's always one of those when your uncle visits!”
The boy laughed, “He almost deposed Father last year, but then Mother launched him through the air like a human javelin!”
Rissa raised her hand and tilted her head. Day looked at her in disbelief.
“A musical??” she exclaimed, before beginning to simulate dry heaves.
“How about something with aliens?” said Attie, “Even if it's a scary one, I think I'll be able to handle it better than the films Day usually suggests.”
“Seriously, What's your problem with my movies?”
“In the last one we saw there were corpses eating other corpses!”
“That’s the one that gave you nightmares?? That was an educational documentary!!”
Rissa cleared her throat.
“An educational documentary from another dimension!” continued Day, “But even so…”
Before the debate about what to watch that night could continue, a tremor shook the house followed by a very loud noise coming from the floor below, like the crack of lightning. After a few seconds of silence, a growing scent of ozone began to take over the air.
“What was that?” asked Geraint.
Suddenly, Cousin Intruder's voice echoed through the walls, “Varadi! Come down right now!”
The teenage flesh golem ran to the door, but before leaving she turned to the four children, “You four are to stay here, understood?”
“But...!” Day began before Varadi interrupted her, “No, Friday!” said the teenager, “Stay here and don't leave the room until we tell you to.”
It seemed that the young werewolf was going to protest again, but her sister's hand resting on her shoulder stopped her. With Day calmer, Rissa nodded to Varadi. The teenager responded with the same gesture before leaving the room, leaving behind four bewildered children.
“What could have happened?” asked Geraint.
“It sounded like an electric shock, didn't it?” said Attie.
Day sulked, dropping onto the pile of blankets on her bed, crossing her arms, and saying nothing. Rissa just sat down next to her. An uncomfortable silence had fallen over the room, nobody seemed interested in resuming the games. Geraint approached the wall to see if he could hear anything, but even with his acute senses he could only perceive the murmurs of what seemed to be an argument between Varadi and Intruder, but without being able to make out the words.
What made him frown was that he only heard those two voices, no one else's. He was about to tell the others when...
Rissa jumped up. She did it so suddenly and with so much energy that she almost caused Day to fall out of bed. The girl had an expression of calculating alarm on her face.
Day immediately noticed that something wasn't as it should be because her sister didn't have her usual smile.
“Rissa?” asked Day, ”What's wrong?”
Larissa Tuesday Addams looked at her sister, a look that said it all. Day's eyebrows shot up in alarm.
“What do you mean you feel something coming?”
§§§
Sam L. Hilliard was fully aware of the hypocrisy inherent in his situation.
After all, he considered himself a normal man. A normal, sane and sensible person. A productive member of an organized and civilized society. That was all he had aspired to be in his life. Someone quiet, without weirdness.
A person like him would not normally find himself wrapped in a crimson cloak and hood whilst sitting around a circular table with other individuals dressed in a similar manner, almost as if they were part of a cult.
Individuals who did not even belong to the same reality.
“The new buffoon is late,” said the man sitting on his left.
Hilliard couldn't help but feel a chill at the sound of that man's voice, but he managed to keep himself under control enough not to give him a sideways glance. It was his personal norm to interact as little as possible directly with that individual.
Everyone believed in the cause, but that Joseph Crackstone did so with a fanaticism that considerably unnerved Hilliard.
“You haven't met him yet and you already consider him a buffoon like his predecessor?” asked the person sitting to Hilliard's right. She was an older woman, who still had the brown color of her hair and dark eyes in which a calculating and reptilian intelligence shone.
Her name was Abigail Craven, although Hilliard wasn't sure if it was her real name or just one of the many aliases of her criminal career. After all, when they met she had introduced herself as Doctor Pinder-Schloss.
“They're the same person, aren't they? Even if they come from different universes, Normanmeyers are always dimwitted,” replied Crackstone.
“You shouldn't talk about someone like that behind their back, you old bastard,” said another woman, a young redhead sitting to Crackstone's left, “At this point even a puritanical relic like you should know that the same person can be very different from one reality to another.”
“Silence, wench!
“And of course when a woman who is smarter than you replies to your stupidity, you resort to insults... how childish.”
She herself was a perfect example of what she had just stated. In many realities, the woman known as Laurel Gates was a devoted follower of Joseph Crackstone, of whom she was also a direct descendant. But this particular Laurel harboured a constant, visceral hatred for the man, which materialised in continuous exchanges of insults and other verbal spats.
The sound of a whistle prevented the argument from escalating.
Another of the participants at the table had stood up, lowering his hood and revealing a smiling face with a whistle between his lips. When he took it out to speak, his voice resonated with a kindness that oozed condescension to almost insulting levels.
“Come on, guys!”, he said, as if addressing children, ”We're all on the same team, we shouldn't be fighting each other!”
Hilliard considered Gary Granger the closest thing to a friend he had in this particular group. In his home universe, the poor man was a camp counselor, friendly and polite, although he occasionally suffered bouts of paranoid mania and rage, no doubt as a result of the death of his wife at the hands of...
...Them.
But it's best to think about other things.
“Fuck, Gary! Shut your mouth and stick your whistle up your ass!”
The voice that had so rudely risen belonged to a young woman with golden hair whose attractive features and physical attributes were weighed down by an expression of boredom in which occasionally flashed glimpses of barely contained homicidal rage. She could be warm and charming if she wanted to, but Debbie Jellinksy was the other person at the table with whom Sam Hilliard tried to have as little contact as possible after Crackstone.
“Debbie! Darling, mind your language!”
A problem that the other blonde woman at the table next to her did not have. She was one of the few people present who seemed to interact willingly with the serial killer. Of course, Margaux Needler had her own collection of skeletons in the closet. Someone capable of turning a housing development into a mini police state was someone who should be watched carefully.
The interaction between the two women was joined by a snort of derision from the last member present: a brown-haired man who seemed to be making a conscious effort to ignore everything around him as he ... fixed his hands with a manicure kit. Harry Palmer was obsessed with his hands. He had worked as a hand double in Hollywood, in films as well as in series and advertising. He was considered to have the most photogenic hands in the world...
…at least until that position and honor was taken from him by another one of...
Another one of Them.
The reason they had come together, the reason Hilliard was willing to ignore his own hypocrisy.
“Ahem,” a voice cleared its throat.
All focused their attention on the newcomer who had just entered the dark room and approached the empty seat at the table. They all already knew Norman Normanmeyer. Or at least they had known a Norman Normanmeyer.
“Welcome,” said Sam cordially, “We were just about to start.”
“And I am eager to serve,” said Norman.
“Tell me, how does it feel to be the new Norman Prime?” asked Laurel, half interested and half mocking.
“It's... disconcerting,” said Norman. “The Mistress barely gave me any details about the end of my predecessor, only that he decided to carry out one of the hunts in person and that...”
“Yes, yes, his stupidity is one of the things we are going to examine in this session,” interrupted Crackstone, “Let's hope you have more common sense, but given that you were selected as the new Prime because you are the variant that most closely resembles your dead counterpart, allow me to cast doubt on that.”
Norman simply smiled nervously and swallowed, trying to make himself smaller in his chair under the wrathful stare of the puritan.
“Well... as my first act in my new role, I have taken the liberty of sending some of my other variants to the scene of the incident to see if they can find anything. My predecessor's final transmissions were a bit confusing.”
Crackstone merely gave a quiet “Hmm” while Gary Granger applauded effusively, “Oh, what initiative! I can already see excellent leadership skills in you!”
“Please, someone stomp on my head,” growled Debbie.
The discussion continued. The Nine discussed the steps to follow, the progress of their mission and how to deal with that particular episode that had resulted in the first death of one in their inner circle. Hilliard knew that the possibility was always there, that one of his variants would have to take over his position if one day one of his personal hunts went wrong.
Such was the system that The Mistress had arranged when she gathered them all together, rescuing them from worlds and lives shattered by Them, giving the nine a new purpose.
Save the world.
Save all the worlds. At least those that could still be saved.
Those that deserve to be saved.
Eradicating the cancer of weirdness, strangeness and spookyness that was spreading throughout the multiverse.
Exterminating any reality in which the Addams Family existed.
In one form or another.
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