“Will it work this time?” Luke asked, arms crossed, standing in his house in Shadyside as he watched Wednesday sitting in a chair in the middle of the living room.
In her pale hands, Wednesday held a worn-out vinyl record player.
A month had passed since Luke had checked the coffins in the cemetery, which, instead of containing corpses, were filled with dirt.
When he returned that night, Wednesday had already come back from her incursion into the police station. Although she had expected to find altered records, hidden missing persons files, or some other incriminating clue, her investigation had yielded nothing. Everything seemed perfectly normal.
However, when she learned from Luke that the graves were filled with dirt, she knew they had to keep following the trail of this minority of people who had vanished from Shadyside without a word. They also needed to investigate the elderly individuals who had been falsely declared dead of natural causes.
Luke took charge of the latter and had been working on it for the past month. He visited the families of these people, their friends, doctors, and even the coroner who had supposedly declared them dead.
He used his mind-reading ability in every encounter, searching for incriminating memories, acts of corruption, or any strange detail that could explain how someone could falsify a death certificate and bury dirt instead of a body.
But he found nothing. Every person he interrogated was a normie, completely unaware of any crime. Their thoughts were routine, devoid of malice or conspiracy. Even the police officers whose minds he read weren’t corrupt or evil.
Meanwhile, Wednesday focused on investigating the people from the list who had simply disappeared without a trace. The only explanation their friends and acquaintances could give was that “they left town.” There were no goodbyes, no letters, no clues about where they had gone.
So she changed her approach and decided to use her violet aura to investigate: her psychic visions.
Her visions were triggered by touching objects or people, showing fragments of the past or near future, almost always charged with violence or sinister undertones. It was a technique that, while useful, was also exhausting and unreliable, as it depended on factors she couldn’t fully control.
In the following weeks, Wednesday, with Natasha’s help, focused on collecting objects that had belonged to the missing people, hoping to trigger a vision that would give her a clue about the day they disappeared.
The task of finding these objects was more tedious than it initially seemed. The missing people hadn’t taken anything with them, but their houses had been emptied by their families, who either gave away, sold, or threw out their belongings.
Even so, by tracking down relatives, they managed to obtain a few objects that had belonged to these individuals. However, the results had been disappointing so far.
It was a slow process, and Wednesday was still training to refine her control over these visions.
“You know it doesn’t depend entirely on me,” Wednesday replied, keeping her eyes on the record player. “I’ve improved over these months. My visions are more consistent, I can trigger them more frequently. But…” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“But what?” Luke pressed, his tone impatient.
“But it’s not always that simple. The object has to have been in the right place at the right time. If it didn’t ‘witness,’ so to speak, what happened, then there’s no memory to recover,” she continued, now looking at him with her abyss-black eyes.
Wednesday could have an exhausting vision of this record player’s past, but it might be useless, revealing nothing of value. That had happened with previous objects, and since she still struggled to fully control her ability, sometimes she saw memories from irrelevant days.
“I know, but don’t you have a hunch? Or something telling you that this time, you’ll actually get a useful vision?” Luke asked.
“No object comes with a tag that says, ‘I was there during the crime,”” Wednesday replied, with a mix of sarcasm and patience she reserved only for him.
“I get it…” Luke said, trying to be more patient.
“Now, stop complaining and stay close in case I lose consciousness,” Wednesday instructed, and Luke stepped a few paces closer to her.
Forcing a vision was far more demanding and exhausting, which meant she could pass out while experiencing it—especially if it lasted too long.
Luke moved in, close enough to catch her if she collapsed forward.
Wednesday placed her pale hands on the worn-out record player and began to concentrate. Her usually impassive brow furrowed, and sweat started to bead on her forehead. Suddenly, she jerked her head violently upward, and her eyes turned white. A few seconds later, she collapsed forward, and Luke had to catch her.
‘This is a long vision…’ Luke thought, still not entirely used to the process of entering a vision.
Meanwhile, Wednesday found herself in a completely different plane. She was inside a house and could see through the windows that it was nighttime. The record player sat on a small table, looking clean and well-maintained.
On a nearby couch sat a couple that Wednesday immediately recognized-Julia and Henry Reynolds. A middle-aged man and woman with blonde hair and green eyes.
Time seemed to accelerate. Just seconds later, the peaceful atmosphere shattered. Two figures appeared out of nowhere, like shadows materializing from the darkness. Both wore black hooded robes that concealed their faces, leaving only a faint glimpse of their jaws visible.
Their movements were unnaturally fast, almost a blur to Wednesday’s eyes-partly due to the nature of the vision.
Before Julia or Henry could react, the hooded figures knocked them out in the blink of an eye.
Then, each one lifted a normie, ready to take them away. But at that moment, everything faded, and Wednesday was pulled back to the present.
The first thing she saw was Luke’s face, very close to hers. She also noticed that Luke was holding her in his arms like a princess.
“I said you will catch me, not carry me in this stupid way,” she muttered.
“Your neck was stiff looking up. A little scary, so I thought it would be good for you to look up,” Luke replied, still seated in the chair, holding Wednesday in his arms.
“Mm, I see,” Wednesday said thoughtfully but made no move to get down. After all, it was comfortable. This time, the mental fatigue and neck pain were far worse than before.
“Did you see anything useful?” Luke asked.
“Yes. Very useful,” Wednesday replied and began recounting the vision to Luke.
“Hooded figures again?” Luke muttered in frustration.
“Yes, though I didn’t see their faces, I know they were Outcasts based on the level of strength they displayed in the vision… and also the type of Outcast,” Wednesday added, dragging out
her words for suspense.
“What type of Outcast?” Luke asked eagerly. Finally, they had a lead-something they could use to track these bastards down and force them to give up information about his parents.
“Vampires. Their skin was very pale, but what gave one of them away was a small symbol I saw on the inside of their wrist,” Wednesday replied, and Luke’s expression turned to
surprise.
“Vampires? What symbol did you see that confirmed it?” Luke asked.
“It was a chalice overflowing with blood. It belongs to one of the seven most important vampire clans in America-the Drosia Clan,” Wednesday answered, and Luke couldn’t help
but grimace at the information.
“Great… one of the most noble and powerful vampire clans,” Luke sighed.
“Don’t worry. It’s just a branch,” Wednesday said calmly as she slowly sat up, still held in
Luke’s arms. Her dark gaze locked onto his with intensity.
“How do you know that?” Luke asked. He had no clue about vampire clan symbols-he had
only memorized their names.
“The symbol had two lines crossing the base of the chalice, like an engraving beneath the cup,” Wednesday explained, making a small gesture with her fingers to illustrate the parallel lines. “That indicates hierarchy within the clan. Two lines mean it belongs to one of the secondary branches, not the main core.”
“So, we’re still dealing with vampires, just not the most important ones. That’s… better, I
guess,” Luke said.
Wednesday narrowed her eyes, leaning slightly toward Luke while keeping her gaze fixed on him, their faces now just inches apart.
“You, Luke Poe, someone addicted to combat and always bragging about his skills, seem relieved to be facing weaker vampires,” Wednesday observed with curiosity.
“If it were under different circumstances, maybe I’d be excited to fight them. But we’re
looking for evidence. And we already have enough trouble with the Spellmans,” Luke replied
with a slight smile.
“I see your point,” Wednesday conceded, not breaking eye contact as her dark eyes studied every shift in his expression.
“I must admit, it’s rather mature of you not to go around making unnecessary enemies,” she
added. “Hey, don’t treat me like some immature kid,” Luke complained, frowning slightly-though the expression faded when he caught the hint of a smile on Wednesday’s lips. “I’ll only believe it completely if, when the time comes, you manage to face these vampires without killing them,” she said, tilting her head slightly, a thoughtful look on her face.
“I won’t kill them. At least, not yet. I need to get the Spellmans off my back before I start adding powerful clans as mortal enemies,” Luke said.
“We’ll see,” Wednesday murmured softly before leaning in and brushing her lips against his
in a kiss-soft but firm.
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