Ander - Part 5: Subchapter 73
73
Everything was painful. His head, his jaw, the fingers on his right hand, but worst of all was his chest. There was something hard and heavy pressing against it, holding him down. Every time he tried to breathe, it stung him like a giant thorn. It was...
Rose thorns?
Emily?
James opened his eyes.
He was lying on the floor, looking straight up at the ceiling, but why? What was he doing down here? The sharp winter wind was blowing in from somewhere, ruffling his fur and stinging his eyes. He tried to turn his head, but it was hard to move. It was this thing pinning him down, this long, thin... thing. What was it?
James blinked his bleary eyes and, slowly but surely, it came into focus.
It was a fireplace poker, and its head was buried deep inside his chest. His clothes were red and sticky.
Oh dear gods... What happened?
A heavy crash came from the kitchen. It sounded like a chair being smashed to pieces. James held his breath and listened.
"Don't worry, Valery. I'm coming to get you. I'll make you warm again..."
That was Banno's voice. The deep, guttural sound of it sparked James's memory and everything came flooding back in a single moment, the insane horror of it all. That monster had tried to murder his children, and as long as it still drew breath, none of them were safe.
He had to find them. He had to save them. He had to protect them. He was their father, and he had a promise to keep.
Emily...
The backdoor opened and shut. Time was running out.
James reached for the shaft of iron protruding from his body. The moment his fingertips touched it, the handle started to sway and a violent surge of pain shot though his body, making him gasp.
How am I not dead? he wondered. I shouldn't even be alive, let alone conscious and thinking. What is going on here?
James touched it again, being very careful not to jostle it a second time. He ran his hand down towards the backwards curving spike, pointed straight up into the air like a black horn. Was this what had stopped the head of the poker from penetrating all the way? It didn't seem like enough. His fingers slipped past the spike and came to rest on his chest, where he could feel his heartbeat thumping away - fast but steady. If it was still going, then that meant it must be intact. But how? Banno could chop through a whole length of wood with a single flick of the wrist. There must be something else going on here, something more than just blind luck.
He wriggled his fingers into the tattered slit in his shirt and ripped it open, finally revealing the truth of what had saved him from death.
His eyes filled with tears. "Emmy..."
It was the picture she had sketched of the family, the one where they were all together, smiling and laughing. The frame had caught the backwards spike right where it attached to the shaft, preventing the head from going in any deeper.
He remembered now. He had been looking at this picture in his room when he heard Valery screaming. He could have dropped it to the floor or hidden it underneath his pillow, but instead he had shoved it into his shirt like a guilty child almost caught smoking his father's pipe. He had run downstairs and, after seeing what Banno was doing to his little girl, he had simply forgotten all about it.
The broken glass shifted beneath his fingers and whispered against the faces of his loved ones, covered in a silvery spider web of cracks.
He had to get out of here.
James slowly lifted his head, but he barely managed an inch before the pain in his jaw knocked him back down. All those punches and kicks he took to the face must have dislodged something.
I don't have time for this, he thought and grabbed the lower half of his muzzle. The fingers on his right hand were crooked and bleeding, so the best he could do on that side was to push with his palm. He only knew the bare basics of first aid, but it would have to do. He counted to three, then pulled his jaw on one side and pushed with the other as hard as he could. He heard a sound in his head not unlike a drumstick popping free of a particularly juicy chicken at a fancy Sunday dinner. A brief shot of pain flashed through his temple, then settled down to a dull throb. He could live with that.
Now, for the real problem.
He gripped the iron poker and, doing his very best to keep it steady, he slowly started to get up.
The pain was unbelievable. The poker must have struck a rib, because he could feel something slicing into his flesh with every breath. It was probably another contributing factor to his survival, but that didn't make it hurt any less. And even worse, the weight of the handle kept pulling the poker down, and that caused the tip to rise inside him. He gripped the shaft with both hands, broken fingers be damned, and shuffled towards the dying glow of the fireplace, gritting his teeth against the pain. Snow blew in from the shattered window as if to mock his excruciatingly slow progress, adding freezing insult to injury. Bits of glass kept breaking free of the frame pinned against his chest. He could feel them working their way down against his stomach, prickly and scratchy.
He propped his back up against the wall and slid down to the floor, still gripping the poker as hard as he could. He needed to get this thing out as soon as possible, but there would be no point if he bled to death immediately after. There was only one solution he was aware of, as unpleasant as it would probably be.
Cauterization.
The kitchen knife he had shoved into Banno's mouth was lying just underneath the broken window, covered in a slurry of half-melted snow and wickedly sharp fragments of glass.
Fireplace to the right, knife to the left. He could do this. He had to do this.
James sucked in as much air as his pained chest would allow and reached for the knife with his good hand, trying in vain to keep the poker steady with the other. He never knew how heavy a simple fireplace poker could be before this night. It kept shaking in his blood-slick fingers, sending wave after wave of excruciating pain through his body.
Just... a little... bit... more...
James's fingertips brushed the knife, sending it on the slowest, most infuriating little quarter-spin he had ever seen. It was as if the damn thing was teasing him.
To hell with it. He grabbed a piece of glass and used it to hook the bastard closer, not caring how badly it cut into his fingers. He finally picked up the knife and stared at it in disgust. The blade was smeared with filthy, semi-coagulated blood. It was like he was holding a piece of Banno in his hand.
"Monster..." James muttered underneath his breath and shoved it into the fireplace, burying the blade deep inside a pile of red-hot coals. The thought of that creature roaming the wilds outside, looking for his kids... It was enough to make his blood boil, but he couldn't afford to rip himself apart before the blade was ready. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the flagstones and concentrated on not moving.
The seconds dragged by and his arms started to ache with the effort of holding the poker steady, but he had no choice but to endure. Knowing that a watched pot would never boil, but unable to stop himself, James kept glancing at the knife. The fire had mostly died down while he was unconscious, but the coals still shot up with the occasional flame. Surely it would be hot enough to heat the blade, wouldn't it? Metallurgy wasn't his area of expertise, but it couldn't be that complicated. Put knife in fire, knife gets hot. How hot it actually had to be to do the job was something else. Emmy probably would have known.
He waited until the base of the handle started to blacken and char, then pulled it out. The blade was glowing a dull, reddish colour. He knew he was supposed to disinfect it first, but he simply didn't have the time or the equipment for such niceties. Right now he was grateful enough that the heat had burnt away most of the blood.
"All right..." he whispered to himself. "I can do this. For Luke, for Tim, for Valery. Here goes..."
He gripped the iron shaft of the poker, feeling the spirals against his palm. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and started to pull. He could actually feel the tip of the poker slide back against his broken rib, making it vibrate inside his body. It was like holding your hand up against a tree branch while someone was sawing through it, except on the inside. The pain was enormous, but he couldn't stop now. Fresh blood came pouring out of his wound, dribbling down his chest in disgustingly warm rivulets, coating the back of Emily's picture. The glass still stuck inside the frame screeked against the metal, grinding and crackling in a way that hurt his ears.
"Aaargh!!" James pulled the last inch out with a furious tug and the whole thing dropped into his lap, broken picture and all.
Not wasting any time, he pressed the red hot blade into his wound. It sizzled like a piece of meat over an open fire and the strong, pungent odour of burnt fur travelled up in wisps of black smoke to assault his nostrils. He had no idea how long he was supposed to hold it there, but eventually that decision was taken out of his hands. He simply couldn't keep his hands steady anymore and the knife slipped free of grasp and tumbled to the floor, bloody and smoking.
James ground his teeth together and banged the back of his head against the wall, writhing in agony. He gasped for air, fighting with all his might against the urge to just break down and cry. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the pain subsided enough for him to relax his clenched muscles. He was sweaty and dirty and his clothes were torn, but he was alive, and as long as he was alive, he could fight.
He could fight to keep his promise.
"Emily..." He picked up the picture she had made for her family all those years ago. The back had a thin slit where the head had pierced it, lined with sharp splinters of wood like teeth, all dripping with his blood, and the frame was cracked and buckled where the spike had lodged against it. He turned it around and saw something that filled his heart with hope for the first time since he had lost the one he loved so much.
*
So when Luke asked him who he had gotten help from, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the last picture she had drawn for them. "From your mother."
He held it out, and Luke took it in his trembling hands.
They all looked at it for a very long time.
In the sketch, they were all together. Kids in the front, parents in the back, all smiling and laughing. There was a dry splotch of blood marking where the poker had pierced a hole right through their mother's chest, cutting her from shoulder to shoulder. It was as if she had reached beyond the grave to save the ones she loved, just one last time.
"Mom..." Luke whispered. A tear fell from his eyes and broke across the paper with a soft tapping sound, and Tim and Valery put their arms around him, looking down at the memento their mother had left them.
James ran his fingers across the sketch and said: "I promised her, long ago, that I would take good care of her children. I promised that I would protect them, keep them safe. I'd feel her sometimes, as if she were looking over my shoulder, checking in to make sure I was still doing a good job. But I never knew..." His own tears fell to join with his children's. "... I never knew she was looking after me, too..."
He took all three of them and held them in his arms, slowly rocking them back and forth. "This is from your mother," he said, hugging them tight.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, or perhaps he had lost too much blood and spent too much time wandering around in the freezing cold, but it felt like there was a fifth pair of arms overlapping with his own, embracing the children he loved so much.
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