Chapter 253: Luke’s reputation

Inside the Marlowe estate, the tension was thick.

Mr. Marlowe was breathing heavily. A deep gash on the left side of his abdomen soaked his shirt with blood, barely allowing him to stay upright. Beside him, his wife trembled, her face pale, a shaky hand clutching her son’s arm.

The son, in his early twenties, had a face swollen from beatings, split lips, and eyes burning with restrained fury. He held his younger sister close with one arm: the girl, more injured than the others, had a deep cut on her forehead and a severe burn on her left shoulder that made her clench her teeth to avoid screaming.

In front of them, seated with offensive calm on the main room’s armchairs, were the Spellman twins: Anna and Jane. Both had ashen-blond hair, straight like wet wires, mercury-gray eyes, and black dresses of an old-fashioned, almost ceremonial style. Their faces were identical, as were their smiles: thin, venomous, devoid of any empathy.

“Come now, Mr. Marlowe,” said Anna, crossing her legs with feigned elegance, “That answer was wrong… again. Do you want to die with your whole family?”

“My answer won’t change,” Mr. Marlowe spat on the floor with contempt. “I won’t help filth that makes pacts with demons. You’re not leaders, you’re trash with lineage.”

A cold silence fell over the room.

Jane narrowed her eyes. Her smile vanished instantly, replaced by a look of icy disdain. She stared at him as one would a bug that dared speak.

Without breaking her gaze, she slightly turned her head toward the servant standing near the fireplace.

The man needed no words.

He was tall, robed in a dark garment with no markings, his face completely deformed: no eyes, no nose, just skin cracked like dry bark, two breathing holes, and a mouth full of crooked teeth. Something between human and abomination.

He advanced silently, like a mental command made flesh. Without hesitation, he struck Mr. Marlowe with the back of his open hand. The crack was immediate. Three teeth flew through the air, and the man’s head snapped to the side from the blow, releasing a muffled grunt of pain.

“FATHER!!” the son screamed, filled with visceral rage, trying to lunge forward.

But he couldn’t.

Though there were no visible ropes or restraints, his body didn’t respond. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move an inch. The veins in his neck bulged from the futile effort.

“Don’t try it, boy,” came a deep voice.

It was Margaret Spellman, standing by the fireplace. She dressed soberly, like a noble matriarch who had refused to grow old in spirit. Her white hair was tied into a perfect bun, her face sharp, her hands gloved. She was the mother of Elliot and Gabriel, the surviving matriarch of one of the main Spellman branches.

Alongside Anna and Jane, her granddaughters, she was one of the last survivors of Elliot and Gabriel’s line. Luke had taken care of most of the others.

She was the one holding the boy and his family motionless. Her aura hung like an invisible net over them all.

“You’re within my domain. You can scream all you want, struggle all you like, but you won’t move a single inch. You’ll only hurt yourself,” she added in a monotone.

Anna then stood slowly from her seat and began walking toward Mr. Marlowe. Her right hand began to distort, as if evaporating: the fingers turning into a greenish, dense mist that bubbled softly like poison.

“Ruining the face of this proud, wise old man might be fun,” she said with a dangerous smile.

She was half a step away from touching his face when Margaret spoke, without raising her voice, “Anna, stop.”

The twin froze. Then she turned on her heel with a grimace, hiding her hand as the venom dissipated.

Margaret turned to Mr. Marlowe. Blood dripped from his mouth, but he looked at her with stubborn dignity.

“We’re not idiots,” said the old woman. “We know you sent a signal. That’s exactly why we didn’t kill you right away. You’re the bait.”

“I see,” Mr. Marlowe replied with a bitter grimace. “That’s why you’re so chatty, strutting around and sitting like this were your home. Otherwise, you’d have executed us already for refusing.”

“And what if no one comes?” he added, wearing a defiant smile despite the pain. “Even you must admit this reeks of a trap from the very entrance. Maybe no one will fall for it.”

Margaret didn’t flinch. She walked slowly until she stood in front of the fireplace, her back to the group, gazing into the flames as if they spoke to her.

“They will come,” she said at last, her tone icy. “Because the balance is in a fragile state. Even a family like yours, not among the oldest, matters right now.”

She turned slowly. Her grayish gaze fell upon Mr. Marlowe like a sentence.

“I admit it, Donovan. I respect you. Not for your ideals, those are outdated, but for your strength. If you weren’t wounded by my hand, you could defeat several of the outcasts who now serve us. You could even beat one of my granddaughters in a fair duel. I won’t deny it.”

The twins, off to the side, exchanged an uncomfortable glance for the first time. Though they were powerful and talented for their age, they knew the old woman didn’t speak lightly.

Margaret leaned slightly toward him, a venomous curiosity in her voice. “Who will they send? The circulating outcast houses are too weak to attempt a rescue mission. No… if anyone comes, it will be from Nevermore. They’re close enough.”

She straightened slowly, letting her gaze wander over the wounded members of the Marlowe family. Her tone became almost didactic.

“Most likely professors. And they’ll send the funeral star… Wednesday Addams, with her little werewolf pet.”

The twins reacted instantly. Anna smirked to the side. “Oh, the adorable goth girl… remember her, sister?”

“Yes,” Jane replied with a chilling sweetness. “Her robot face was so cute. And how she cried when we killed her pet scorpion. What was his name? Nerón?”

“No. Nero,” Anna corrected with a nostalgic air, as if recalling a happy childhood memory rather than a cruel act.

Mr. Marlowe looked at them, lips stained with blood, his voice dry but with a mocking grin, “Of course… you want revenge. That’s normal after Poe and the Addams girl slaughtered so many of yours.”

There was a biting truth in his words. Luke carried the weight of many Spellman deaths. During the Blood Moon at Nevermore, he killed Ingrid and Sebastian, Margaret’s grandchildren, in a battle that marked the beginning of his legend.

That same night, he also eliminated Atlas, one of the family’s oldest and most respected servants, known for his silent brutality and unwavering loyalty.

A short time later, Wednesday and Luke came back and killed Crackstone. Then, with Fester’s help, they killed Dolores Spellman.

Many believed Fester played a more important role in eliminating the Spellman matriarch, but everyone knew Wednesday and Luke had been weakened, since they fought Crackstone together.

Later, in Sunnyvale, the reputation of Luke and Wednesday as Spellman bloodline hunters was sealed.

They assisted in the deaths of Elliot and Gabriel, or so the official version says, since the credit was given to Gomez and Fester. Not because they wanted to steal recognition, but to make sure Luke and Wednesday would be underestimated by their enemies.

However, the Spellman family didn’t believe this false information. They knew Gomez and Fester had been intercepted by elder Spellmans, which left only one possibility: Luke killed Elliot, and Wednesday, with Enid and the others, killed Gabriel.

Margaret gave Donovan a dangerous look.

But he, far from backing down, offered a crooked smile. The atmosphere grew heavier. Even the shadows seemed to crush the air.

“And what if the Poe boy shows up?” Donovan asked, like someone wondering if a storm is coming, “What will you do then? Pray? His girlfriend can call for him, remember, he’s a telepath. And also a telekinetic. He could come flying like a rocket.”

The twins, heirs to the purest hatred, said nothing. But the tension in their faces was impossible to hide.

Because they knew Luke wasn’t dead. He had returned.

After Elliot’s death, it became known that Luke had been unconscious and was taken to the Addams mansion. He didn’t participate in the trial that marked the fall of the Spellmans, which made it obvious he had fallen into a coma after the fight.

But he hadn’t died, months ago, there had been news of him. He had reappeared briefly in Centralia. A dead city, burning beneath the ground. The Spellmans had sent Mortimer, along with a mid-level demon capable of tracking his scent, to hunt him down. A force even Elliot and Gabriel would’ve been cautious to face.

Considering that Luke had nearly died against Elliot and ended up in a coma, they believed this formation was more than enough. Mortimer’s telekinesis was far superior to Luke’s, or so they thought.

But nothing came back from Centralia. No report. No sign. Just an eloquent absence.

Which meant one thing: both of them were likely killed by Luke.

In Centralia, there was a massive gash in the earth, as if an earthquake had split the land, but the cut was clean, flawless. To the Spellmans, that could only mean one thing: the Poe Weapon.

Which makes sense, otherwise, how could Luke have killed Mortimer and Zarvok?

“It’s possible the boy will come… and if he does, this time it won’t be so easy to get out of here alive,” said Margaret, looking Donovan in the eyes.

He held her gaze, but felt a pang in his gut. Something wasn’t right. Margaret wasn’t someone who spoke without weight. If she said it like that, with such certainty in her voice, it was because she had something prepared.

A contingency plan. An invisible web he couldn’t yet see.

’Did more of those bastards come?’ Donovan thought, tense. ’But I don’t sense any of them…’

At that moment, Margaret smiled. A cold, restrained smirk, barely curving her lips. “They’re already inside,” she whispered with satisfaction.

She moved one of her hands with elegance, and the dark ring she wore shimmered with a red rune.

An invisible shiver ran through the house. Something had been activated.

Donovan barely had time to glance toward the fireplace when the air’s temperature shifted. The previously heavy atmosphere turned suffocating.

Margaret turned her head to the twins and the servant. “Go ahead. You can kill now. We don’t need them anymore.”

Mr. Marlowe looked up in disbelief. His body could barely hold itself upright, but his survival instinct flared like a dying flame resisting extinction.

“What are you doing…?”

“Why do you think we kept you alive?” Margaret replied, her tone bored, as if explaining something painfully obvious. “If we had killed you and waited, it wouldn’t have worked. Not with Charles. He would’ve realized you were all dead and we were just waiting. He would’ve known it was a trap. And they wouldn’t have crossed.”

She paused right at the back door, ready to begin the main slaughter, then turned slightly toward Donovan.

“But if there’s a chance to save someone… if they believe you’re still breathing, they’ll come. And now that they’re within range, they can’t escape.”

Outside, in the garden, a faint hum, imperceptible to a normie, began to emanate from the runes buried beneath the soil.

The trap was closed.

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