Chapter 9 - THE HEARTH AND THE HAMMER
The kitchen window exploded inward in a shower of icy shards and splintered wood.
A figure clad in black vaulted through the frame, landing on the kitchen table with the feral agility of an animal. It was Reena.
Her face was unrecognizable from the polished, delicate woman who had played Chopin at Aaron’s wake. Her hollow cheeks were sunken, her lips split by the frost, her eyes burning with an unholy, psychotic brilliance. In her hand gleamed Aaron’s old framing hammer—an antique twenty-two-ounce steel tool she had stolen from his workshop after his funeral.
She swung the hammer in a vicious, descending arc before I could pivot.
The steel head struck my right shoulder. The agony was blinding—an explosion of white fire that tore down my arm, completely numbing my fingers. The .38 revolver slipped from my grip, clattering across the linoleum into the darkness under the stove.
"MINE!" Reena shrieked, an ear-splitting, demonic wail that tore through the quiet house. "THEY ARE MINE, PAUL! AARON GAVE THEM TO ME!"
I threw my left shoulder into her midsection, slamming her backward against the kitchen cabinets. Plates and glassware shattered around us as we hit the floor. Her fingers, tipped with broken, dirt-caked nails, clawed at my eyes with psychotic fury.
From the stairs, Vance lunged into the kitchen, raising the iron crowbar to crush my skull.
"Get off him!" a high, piercing voice screamed.
From the hallway stood Drew.
He hadn't stayed locked in the bathroom. He was standing in the kitchen doorway, balanced on his good foot, his face pale as chalk. In his small hands, he was holding my heavy electric drill, the long steel spade bit spinning with a violent, screaming whine as he squeezed the trigger with both hands.
Vance turned in surprise, momentarily distracted by the six-year-old child challenging him in the dark.
That split second was all I needed.
Ignoring the agonizing fire in my shattered collarbone, I drove my heel into the side of Reena’s knee with all the force my body could muster. A sickening cartilage crunch echoed above the gale. Reena shrieked, collapsing onto her side, clutching her ruined joint.
I scrambled across the linoleum, grabbed a heavy cast-iron skillet from the drying rack, and swung it with the entirety of my torso into Vance’s hip as he stepped toward Drew.
The heavy iron pan struck his pelvis with a dull, hollow thwack. Vance crumpled, the crowbar slipping from his fingers, clattering loudly against the baseboards.
He tried to raise the syringe, but Drew lunged forward on his crutches, driving the spinning spade bit of the drill directly into the meat of Vance’s forearm. Vance screamed—a high, pathetic bleat of agony—as the drill tore through his wool coat, dropping the syringe into the shattered glass where it crushed beneath my boot.
Reena was dragging herself across the floor toward the hallway, her fingernails clawing into the hardwood, leaving a smear of blood from her ruined knee.
"Drew," she wheezed, her voice shifting back into that terrifying, lilting whisper. "Drew... come to Mother. Tell your uncle... tell him how good Mother was to you. Tell him about the cupboard..."
Drew stood three feet from her. He lowered the drill, his chest heaving, his green eyes burning with an ancient, unyielding fury that seemed too vast for his small frame.
"You're not Mother," Drew said, his voice crystal-clear, steady, and devoid of fear. "You're the monster from the cellar."
Reena reached out a blood-stained hand toward his cast.
I stepped between them. With my good arm, I grabbed the heavy crowbar from the floor and drove the flat edge down onto the floorboards two inches from her nose, burying the iron an inch into the oak.
"Touch him," I whispered, my breath hot against her ear, "and they won't even find enough of you to bury."
Outside, the neighborhood was suddenly illuminated by the violent, strobing fury of red and blue emergency lights cutting through the blizzard. Siren wails cut through the howling wind, tires churning through the deep snowbanks as four police cruisers and an armored SWAT transport tore onto the front lawn.
The front door burst open. Flashlight beams cut through the amber darkness, blinding and pure.
"POLICE! NOBODY MOVE!" Detective Henderson’s voice roared.
Officers swarmed the kitchen, pinning Vance to the floor in zip-ties while two female officers wrestled Reena onto her stomach, the handcuffs clicking shut with a final, definitive snap.
I sank back against the kitchen cabinets, the room spinning as the shock finally claimed my nervous system. Drew dropped the drill, turned toward me, and hopped over the shattered glass on his good leg.
He fell into my lap, burying his face in my bloody flannel shirt.
I wrapped my good arm around him, holding him against my chest while the room filled with the crackle of police radios, the shouting of medics, and the clean, cold air pouring through the broken window.
Down the hallway, Lily stepped out of the bathroom doorway, clutching Aaron’s old red work shirt against her chest. She looked at the police, looked at the woman pinned to the floor in handcuffs, and then looked at Drew sitting in my lap.
She didn't cry.
She walked over the linoleum, climbed over my outstretched boot, and sat down between Drew and my chest, wrapping her small arms around her brother’s neck.
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"The light's on," Lily whispered, looking at the bright halogen lanterns the paramedics set on the kitchen counter.
"Yeah, Lil," Drew answered, his small fingers stroking her hair. "The light stays on now."
