Panting and light-headed, she lurched to her feet and stumbled down the stairs, only to trip over the cord holding the phone that was swinging from the railing. She crashed back and forth between the railing and the wall and tumbled into the foyer.
For a moment, she was as still as a corpse. Then her eyelids fluttered. Moaning, she opened them to see Mr. Culler lumbering down the stairs with a gun in one hand and his other fist pressed against his shoulder, the corner of his mouth rolled up into a sneer. He fired a warning shot.
“Believe me, there is nothing I’d enjoy more than slicing your neck from ear to ear, Miss Aster, but I think it best to put both hens in one coop for the time being.”
Mr. Culler descended the remaining steps and nudged her with his boot. “Get up,” he said.
As she struggled to her feet, he smiled sweetly and, with little warning beyond an explosive tremor rippling across his features, backhanded her across the cheek so hard she fell into the wall. “Move,” he said, gesturing toward the back of the house.
When they arrived at the entry to the kitchen, she stopped, resting her chin on her collarbone.
“You know where we’re going.” Clutching his wounded shoulder, Culler prodded her in the back with the barrel of his gun.
Coffee beans crunched under Annie’s bare feet as she stumbled across the floor. She stepped outside, squinting under the glare of the sun as she cupped her hands over her eyes.
“If you please,” he said. After a second, less gentle prod, Annie started in the direction of the cabin with the muzzle of Culler’s gun in her back, a single thought charging into her head like discharge coughing from an exhaust pipe. The door repels bloodlines.
Annie casually reached up to remove a hairpin, scraping it across the palm of her hand to draw several pearls of blood. Desperation left little room for doubt, and she whirled around to slap Mr. Culler across the face.
Caught off guard, he blinked. Laughing, he grabbed a fistful of her hair. Giving it a yank that brought her to her knees, her eyes watering, he said, “Perhaps I deserved that.” With her hair still knotted in his hand, Culler wiped his face with the other hand and stared curiously at the blood on his palm. “Go on now,” he said, lifting her upright by her hair.
They had left the wheat field for the grounds surrounding Elsbeth’s cabin when Annie noticed a change in the air. The skirt of her dress clung to her legs, and she experienced the first wave of the telltale dizziness.
As they approached, the horse in the corral tossed its mane and started running around the perimeter, clearly agitated, while the pigs shifted from one side of the sty to the other in a restless display. A pair of crows landed atop the barn, watching them with flapping wings. A third perched atop the cabin roof, as still as if carved from its beams.
Annie braced herself as Mr. Culler reached for the handle to the back door of Elsbeth’s cabin, feeling the ground jerk violently when his hand made contact. She found herself thrown to the dirt beside the well.
Recovering quickly, she jumped to her feet and dashed into the field.
Culler wasn’t quite as quick on the draw. He shook his head and sat up, clearly befuddled. The shoulder wound had begun to bleed again, and dirt mingled with the blood on the side of his face—the last stubborn clumps of foam retardant still clinging to his shirt. He spat grime from his mouth, blinking stupidly as he watched Annie run across the wheat field. Gathering himself, he looked about, finding his associate peering from the cabin door. He wagged his hand in the direction of the field. “Follow,” he rasped. Grabbing Danyer’s collar as he passed, Mr. Culler added, “Alive.”
Danyer stared at the rapidly diminishing figure running in the wheat, then turned to Mr. Culler, nodding. He set out after Annie, favoring his left leg.
When Danyer disappeared into the wheat, Mr. Culler grabbed his gun and plodded to the well. He drew a bucket of water and cleaned the wound above his ear and shoulder as best he could. Dipping a kerchief in the bucket, he scrubbed the grime from his face and hands before continuing on to the cabin.
His voice boomed as he threw the door open. “Mrs. Grundy!”
Elsbeth looked up from the chair to which she was hog-tied and squinted. Even from across the room she could tell Mr. Culler was alone. She panicked. “Where’s Annie?”
That was the wrong question to ask. Mr. Culler stormed across the room and backhanded her with a palpable smack—another tactical error on his part. Bounder knocked him over before he knew what had happened, clamping her jaws around the meat of his calf and shaking her head so violently he flopped to the floor. Apparently, payback was not simply a two-legged concept. Mr. Culler howled and inched across the room on his rump, pulling the snarling dog with him, and reached for the gun that had been knocked from his hand.
Elsbeth shouted, “Bounder, out!” as Mr. Culler’s hand closed around the handle. The dog released Mr. Culler’s leg and leaped through the door as a gunshot splintered its frame.
Mr. Culler scrambled after the dog to release four wild shots from the porch as she disappeared behind the barn. Cursing, he limped to the bedroom, where he ripped a length of cloth from a pillow cover and wrapped it around his lower leg to contain the bleeding. He hobbled to the rocking chair. Spittle flew like scattershot from his mouth as he leaned over Elsbeth, dotting her cheeks with flecks of his derangement. “Now…I’m angry,” he said. He looked outside, calculating, and snatched his coat from the table before hobbling out the door to follow Danyer’s limping form.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
And Out of the Fire
Annie rushed into the house, slamming the door behind her with her back. She breathed rapidly while going through the details of the plan she’d formulated as she escaped through the wheat field. A strange alchemy was reworking the fear and helplessness that had so completely disabled her earlier, and the constant drip of adrenaline, like nitro in her veins, left her hyperalert, yet coolly detached. Running was out of the question, as was seeking help— not with
her grandmother in danger and time running out. It must end here, and she had to do it.
Her eyes darted from the counter to the cupboard, the solarium, and the entryway, recalling the outrageous pranks she and her godmother would play on each other when she was a little girl. One of her favorites was dubbed “mousetrap,” and she intended to pull off a variation that made use of her knowledge of basic chemistry. The thing about mousetraps, though, was that they needed bait. And she planned to offer herself up as the cheese.
But first things first. She ran to the refrigerator, grabbing a vial and an insulin needle from behind a panel on the door. Pulling a healthy dose of the liquid into the syringe, she hiked up her dress to expose her thigh. Her quadriceps was covered in tiny, mottled bruises, some of them going yellow around the edges. She chose an unblemished spot and injected the solution before tossing the vial and syringe in the trash.
That done, she ran to the counter to collect a rubber ladle and a ball of twine from a utility drawer, tying off the latter to the former through a hole in the handle. She looked around, drumming her fingers on the counter, then threw open the cupboard door below the sink. She grabbed several items, placing them on the countertop—a large Mason jar, an emptied jar of jam, a bottle of window cleaner, and a plastic jug of Clorox.
Working with rapid, nervous movements, she poured the window cleaner in the emptied jar of jam and Clorox in the other. Capping the lid to the first, she dropped it inside the half-full Mason jar of Clorox and sealed its top. Tucking a rolling pin and the jar under her arm, she started across the room, but paused, turned around, and looked back toward the kitchen sink. She wandered back to peer into the utility drawer a second time and seized a final item that she deposited in her pocket on the sly, almost as if its existence was an embarrassment.
She navigated her way to the back side of the solarium and placed everything on the floor. Circling back to the front, she used the ladle to wedge the solarium doo
r nearest the kitchen open and stepped inside to grab a bag of cocoa-bean husks propped up by the door. She walked briskly around the room, emptying the bag. Darting to a small shelf, she seized a bag of fertilizer, ripped a hole in the plastic, and spread the granules evenly over the floor. With that done, she strode through the near door and around the sidewalls, playing out the twine attached to the ladle until she reached the door on the opposite side. It was a silly prank, she thought, but it would have a nasty kick.
Outside, Mr. Culler had caught up to Danyer as he opened the gate to the picket fence, wrenching his associate’s dagger from its scabbard without missing a step. As they approached the door, he put his hand on Danyer’s chest and shook his head.
Annie was propping open the far door of the solarium when he burst into the kitchen, bellowing her name. He dragged the edge of Danyer’s blade across her kitchen countertop, creating a chilling sound reminiscent of a pair of charged socks being pulled apart. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the room.
At the sound of his voice, Annie ducked under the pane of glass at the opposite end of the solarium. She rested her back against the wall, letting its coldness soothe the fire that had been stoked under her skin. A thought edged into her head—This is a bad idea—but it was a little late for regret. The sound of coffee beans being crunched underfoot brought her back into the moment. Her head jerked up, following Culler’s progress through the kitchen. She waited.
Despite her misgivings, the distinct pop of the cocoa husks brought a fierce grin to her face. She counted four steps, then reached for the twine, giving it a good yank. The ladle under the door at the opposite side sprang free, bouncing off the wall. As the far door slammed shut, she leaped up to throw the Mason jar into the solarium, shattering it on the concrete floor.
Culler stared at the shards of glass in momentary confusion, watching as rivulets snaked around the seed husks to disappear down the drain in the cement floor. Looking up, he saw Annie standing in the open door at the far end of the solarium with a rolling pin in her hand, a strange smile on her face. He roared, lunging for her as she heaved the door shut and slid the large metal bolt in place. She backed away, watching as he crashed into the door with a heavy thud, its impact absorbed by the metal struts.
While he pounded impotently, Annie stepped forward to observe him, as if he were some ape in a cage.
Unnerved by her calm, he went still, returning her gaze. His eye twitched once, then he shrugged, turned, and lazily wandered to the far door. He reached for the doorknob. As it came off in his grip, he turned to watch her shake her head. “Should have gotten that thing fixed,” she yelled.
Throwing the doorknob to the ground, he slowly made his way over to stand in front of her. He sneered contemptuously as his hand thrust up to clank the dagger against the glass, holding it in place with his open palm. The glass chirped and stuttered like a deathwatch beetle as he rubbed the knife slowly up and down against the pane. His eyes were dead, but his message was clear.
They stood face-to-face, inches apart, and Mr. Culler opened his mouth to breathe heavily on the glass. He scrawled the word whore in the resulting fog.
As the word faded, he coughed once and rubbed at his eyes. He reached for a handkerchief, only to pause when he noted Annie’s peculiar smile. It was out of place, and his mind ticked off a warning. She pointed over his shoulder, saying something he couldn’t hear. He coughed again, this time deep in his chest, and followed her gaze to an empty bag of fertilizer on the floor— chemical hazard, combustible, poisonous fumes written in bold print on its warning label.
He looked from it to the broken Mason jar, and his eyes widened in alarm. She waved, an impudent gesture, and followed his example by fogging the glass before writing a word of her own, spelling it backward so he could read it easily—loof. Once done, she held up her hand, slowly lowering the index finger with which she’d written and raising her middle finger in its place.
He coughed again, this time so violently that spittle clung to his chin, and stumbled to the center of the room, his throat and eyes on fire. Swaying, he dropped to a knee, the knife clattering to the floor, and leaned against a wrought iron chair to keep from toppling over. He began to scratch at his throat.
Annie turned to leave as Mr. Culler slowly folded over the chair like a leaking tire. She only caught his final act of desperation from the corner of her eye.
Screaming, she knelt reflexively, covering her head as he hurled the chair—an explosion of glass scattering overhead to ricochet off the far wall and cascade around her.
Before she could grab the rolling pin that had scuttled across the floor, Mr. Culler reached through the broken pane and grabbed her by the hair. Taking in huge bites of air, he wound her hair around his hand and wheezed, “I’m…going…to…peel you like a grape.”
She arched her back, trying to ease the pressure as she reached for his wrist with one hand, her other hand scouring the floor until she came across a large piece of glass. She raked it across Mr. Culler’s forearm, slicing open the palm of her hand in the process. Blood sprayed from his gash in a delicate arc to splatter across her cheek. She raked again and again, creating crimson spumes, until he released her with an agonizing howl. Scrambling across the floor on her belly, Annie got within a hand’s breadth of the rolling pin as Mr. Culler crashed through the broken pane and yanked her to the side.
“You bitch,” he bellowed as he rolled on top of her, wrapping his hands around her neck. He started to squeeze even as he lifted himself up to a sitting position, straddling her body. His forearms were whipcord strong and slick with sweat, and Annie couldn’t get a grip, not that it mattered. With mass and leverage on his side, her bucking and squirming were useless, becoming more pathetic until finally she reached up to place a trembling hand on his chest. It kneaded weakly over his breast pocket before reaching to the ceiling. The fingers splayed briefly, trembling, then her arm fell limply to the side.
Mr. Culler continued to squeeze, his face expressionless, even as sweat beaded on his forehead, and the muscles in his back and neck bunched and quivered. After a moment more, he released his grip, taking in a shuddering, almost sensual breath, and shifted his weight to get more comfortable.Telltale bruises, like livid sausages, were already starting to form on Annie’s neck. Satisfied, he removed a pair of surgical scissors from his pocket and peered at her face. Giving it a light smack, he said, “Wake up, Miss Aster,” and watched as her eyes began to roll from side to side under their lids.
She gasped, not so much from the lack of air, but from the memory of his hands around her neck. Her hands flew up, clawing at his eyes, but he caught one in midmotion, and while she looked on in horror, waved the surgical scissors with his other hand. “This might be a bit premature, but I wanted you to watch the show.” As he forced her pinkie between the blades, he added, “This is going to hurt…a lot.”
“Yes, it is,” Annie replied as she shifted her weight. A hum, like a current coursing through a wire, traveled up Mr. Culler’s torso, causing his back to arch in a spasm and his jaw to lock before he collapsed to the side.
Pulling herself out from under him, Annie raised the Taser that was in her skirt pocket.“Welcome to the twentieth century, asshole.”
She threw the Taser aside and began kneading her neck. Retrieving the rolling pin, she crawled to Mr. Culler’s side, watching dispassionately as his muscles seized, sending him into a fullbody cramp. She struggled to her knees, lifted the rolling pin over her head with both hands…and froze.
There comes a moment, a precise instant, when your next move redefines you, erasing everything before it. You are a tablet upon which the future course of your life awaits instruction. This was Annie’s moment. As she knelt with the rolling pin hovering above Mr. Culler in judgment, prepared to snuff out his inhuman light, Christian’s face appeared in her mind’s eye and she began to sob. It started as a little thing, a hiccup of sorrow, but as her exhaustion mounted, it overcame her, and she broke into tea
rs.
Even so, there was a job to finish. And despite the kinks, it was still going according to plan. She looked down, allowing malice to etch her features one more time, and shuddering in revulsion, slammed the pin down with all her strength, connecting with the meat of Culler’s thigh just above his kneecap. “That’ll leave a bruise,” she said under her breath.
“Wake up, Mr. Culler.”
Ambrosius moaned, cracking open an eye to see a trio of images that eventually merged into the figure of his associate. Mr. Culler closed his eye and swallowed thickly. As Danyer leaned over to shake him, Mr. Culler grabbed the offending arm and croaked, “Don’t do that.” He extended his hand, allowing Danyer to help him to his feet where he teetered for a moment, his muscles still rebelling under the influence of Miss Aster’s electric device. His head was pounding.
When Danyer opened his mouth, Mr. Culler held his hand up, motioning for silence. Hearing nothing, he took a single step toward the living room before reaching for his leg with a gasp. “Bravo, Miss Aster.” He pulled out his gun, motioned for Danyer to follow, and limped through the living room.
Entering the kitchen, he noticed that the back door was ajar and turned to Danyer, curiosity turning into something more urgent. “Did you leave the door open?” he asked.
Danyer shook his head, staring at it suspiciously.
“She’s going for her grandmother! Damn!” Mr. Culler exclaimed. “If they get to the horses, we’re lost.”
Danyer ran to the back door with Mr. Culler limping behind him. He turned to say something, but Mr. Culler’s leg seized up and he stumbled, sending both of them crashing through the door.
The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 27
