Chapter 98: The Addams Family

Chapter 98 -99: The Addams Family

Chapter 99: The Addams Family

For the first time in a long while, Axel Vance felt genuinely unsettled by someone who barely reached his waist. The pale little girl standing behind the partially opened door simply stared at him with dark, emotionless eyes, and somehow that silent attention felt more disturbing than several monsters he had already fought. Compared to her, even some of the supernatural creatures Axel had encountered seemed downright approachable.

Axel cleared his throat and decided somebody had to break the silence. He forced what he considered a friendly smile onto his face and gestured vaguely toward the woods behind him. “Hi. I’m your new neighbor. I just moved into the old house down the road.”

The girl said nothing.

She continued staring.

Axel maintained the smile for several increasingly uncomfortable seconds and began wondering whether he had already violated some strange local custom. Finally, with no other obvious option, he asked, “Are your parents home?”

This time, the girl reacted.

She slowly turned her head toward the darkness behind her. “Father.”

Her voice was as flat as her expression, without the slightest trace of excitement or curiosity. A moment later, crisp footsteps sounded from deeper inside the mansion, approaching with confident, almost theatrical rhythm.

A man emerged from the shadows wearing a perfectly tailored dark pinstriped suit. His hair was carefully styled, a neat mustache rested above his upper lip, and his face carried the warm expression of an old-fashioned gentleman who had just discovered an unexpected source of entertainment. There was charm in his smile, but also enough mischief to immediately convince Axel that this man was probably never boring.

The stranger’s gaze first settled on Axel.

Then it moved toward the chainsaw.

Finally, he noticed the bottle of Holy Water.

Any ordinary homeowner might have stepped backward or reached for a telephone after finding an armed stranger standing at the front door. This man did neither, and instead his eyes brightened with unmistakable delight.

“Good evening, my friend!” he announced warmly as he strode forward. “Welcome to our home.”

He placed one hand proudly on the girl’s shoulder. “I am Gomez Addams, and this lovely creature is my daughter, Wednesday.”

Wednesday accepted the introduction without changing expression.

Gomez spread his arms as though unveiling a stage production. “Welcome to the Addams residence!”

Axel stared at him.

Then at Wednesday.

Then at the Gothic mansion surrounding them.

A memory from his previous life suddenly clicked into place with almost embarrassing clarity. The strange little girl with two braids, the elaborate mansion, the macabre decorations, the theatrical father with the thin mustache—somehow Axel had managed to move next door to the Addams Family.

His tense grip on the chainsaw relaxed slightly.

So this was not necessarily another nest of murderous spirits waiting to ambush him.

Instead, Axel had apparently arrived at the home of a family whose definition of normal simply existed several miles away from everyone else’s.

That realization created a different problem.

Standing on their doorstep with an enchanted chainsaw and Holy Water, Axel suddenly looked less like a cautious police officer and more like the hostile neighbor.

He slowly lowered the weapon.

Gomez immediately noticed.

His smile became even broader, apparently interpreting the movement as a formal gesture of friendship. “Excellent! Please, come inside. There’s no reason for neighbors to stand outside freezing their joints in the night air.”

He stepped aside and made an exaggerated sweeping gesture toward the interior. Axel hesitated only briefly before entering, partly because leaving now would feel awkward and partly because his curiosity had already won. He wanted to see exactly what kind of household produced Wednesday Addams.

The moment Axel crossed the threshold, the heavy oak door silently swung shut behind him.

He glanced back.

No one had touched it.

Naturally.

The entrance hall immediately confirmed every suspicion he had about the family’s decorating preferences. The room was dimly lit by a combination of fireplace glow and scattered candles, while strange portraits covered the walls, their subjects wearing expressions ranging from severe melancholy to outright madness. A suit of antique armor stood near one corner, and Axel noticed fresh wear around several of its joints that suggested it might not be purely decorative.

A massive crystal chandelier hung overhead beneath a generous collection of spiderwebs. Instead of making the mansion appear neglected, the webs somehow looked deliberately preserved as part of the aesthetic. Everything around Axel managed to be gloomy, elegant, threatening, and weirdly tasteful at the same time.

“Your house is… distinctive,” Axel said.

Gomez looked delighted. “You are far too kind.”

He stepped toward a nearby stand with an almost guillotine-like design and retrieved a cigar. With casual familiarity, he lit it from the fireplace, took a satisfied puff, and looked back toward Axel.

“A little family taste passed down through generations,” Gomez explained proudly. “It would be terribly rude to let the ancestors down by decorating normally.”

Axel could not argue with that logic.

Gomez suddenly paused. “Forgive me, my friend. I have welcomed you into my home without even asking your name.”

“Axel Vance.”

“Axel!”

Gomez repeated it as though evaluating the title of a great opera.

“A magnificent name. Strong, dramatic, and just threatening enough.”

Axel opened his mouth to reply, but Gomez’s attention had already shifted.

His eyes had locked onto the bottle in Axel’s other hand.

“Aha!”

Before Axel fully understood what was happening, Gomez moved closer with open fascination. “And you brought a gift on your very first visit. Such manners are becoming tragically rare.”

Axel glanced at the bottle of Holy Water.

“That’s actually—”

Too late.

Gomez had already taken it.

Axel’s hand instinctively moved to stop him, then froze halfway.

The Holy Water was harmless to ordinary humans, but against the kinds of supernatural entities Axel usually encountered, it could produce immediate and violent reactions. Gomez looked human enough, but considering the family he had just walked into, Axel was no longer willing to assume anything based purely on appearance.

Gomez unscrewed the cap.

Axel prepared himself.

The Addams patriarch raised the bottle beneath his nose, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply like a wine expert inspecting an expensive vintage.

Nothing happened.

No smoke.

No burns.

No screaming.

Instead, Gomez’s expression became almost blissful.

“Mmm.”

He gently rotated the bottle in his hand, allowing the clear liquid inside to move.

“Pure. Sharp. A wonderfully sacred little bite beneath the surface.”

Axel stared at him.

Gomez opened his eyes and looked genuinely impressed. “My dear Axel, this is extraordinary. A treasure like this is difficult to find.”

Before Axel could explain that it was not meant for drinking, Gomez carefully replaced the cap. He carried the bottle toward the fireplace and placed it on the mantelpiece beside a polished human skull as though displaying a rare bottle from a private collection.

Axel decided not to correct him yet.

More importantly, Holy Water had done absolutely nothing to Gomez.

That was useful information.

Whatever the Addams family was, Axel’s purification methods apparently did not recognize Gomez as the kind of malicious supernatural creature he was accustomed to fighting.

A calm female voice suddenly floated down from the second floor. “Gomez, darling, have our guests arrived?”

Axel looked toward the staircase.

A woman slowly descended from the upper landing.

She was tall and elegant, with pale skin and long dark hair framing a composed, beautiful face. Her black dress followed the lines of her figure before flowing around her feet, and every movement possessed the quiet grace of someone entirely comfortable inside a mansion that would terrify most visitors.

Gomez transformed instantly.

“Morticia, my beloved!”

He practically abandoned Axel where he stood and hurried toward the base of the staircase. Taking his wife’s hand with theatrical devotion, Gomez bent and kissed the back of it as though they had been separated for months instead of possibly several minutes.

Morticia Addams smiled faintly.

Gomez turned toward Axel while still holding her hand. “Wonderful news, cara mia. We have neighbors!”

He gestured enthusiastically toward Axel. “This is Mr. Axel Vance, who has just moved into the old mansion beyond the woods.”

Morticia’s dark eyes settled on Axel.

Her gaze was calm and thoughtful rather than suspicious.

“Welcome, Mr. Vance,” she said. “It has been quite some time since anyone lived nearby.”

Axel nodded politely. “Thank you.”

Morticia glanced toward the hallway leading deeper into the mansion. “Dinner should be ready soon. I hope you won’t mind joining us.”

Gomez’s face lit up again.

“Of course!”

He immediately returned to Axel and placed an arm around his shoulder with the confidence of someone who had already decided they were friends. “Perfect timing, my friend. You absolutely must stay for dinner.”

Axel looked toward Wednesday.

She was still standing near the entrance.

Still expressionless.

Still watching him.

Gomez continued without noticing Axel’s hesitation. “I guarantee that an evening meal with the Addams Family is an experience no man forgets.”

That statement did not sound entirely reassuring.

Axel considered politely declining.

He had only come out looking for food, Lionel was probably already devouring the last crackers back home, and he still had an entire mansion of his own to inspect for supernatural problems. Rationally, turning around and finding a diner somewhere would be the simpler choice.

Then curiosity interfered.

Axel looked at the screaming doorbell.

The self-opening gate.

The gloomy mansion.

Wednesday.

Gomez.

Morticia.

He suddenly needed to know what these people considered dinner.

Axel lowered the chainsaw completely and gave a small nod. “All right. I’d be happy to join you.”

Gomez beamed.

Morticia’s smile deepened almost imperceptibly.

Wednesday remained Wednesday.

Axel glanced once toward the dining room and silently accepted that whatever happened next was entirely his own fault. “Thank you for having me.”

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