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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

Hands of Glory
A Vorare story
By
Ivan Ewert
Start at the beginning of the Vorare series

The moon was high this night, reflecting off hills of snow, sheets of ice, and Gordon's unblinking eyes. It seemed peaceful, almost, as he lay in the snow, his arms crossed behind his head to act as a pillow. Cold and sleep were no longer concerns to his flesh or bones, but laying in a field of snow seemed a kind of sleep, a rest that went deeper than most for all its pointlessness.

He could move - could continue walking ever to the north and west, moving toward the Farm, toward April, toward Walpurgisnacht and the cannibal festival at which they planned to strike. There was time, though, time enough to reach the camp, and he felt a rest was deserved if unnecessary.

"I have thought on the matter of the dogs, O my host."

"Hm?"

"The dogs," repeated the Ally, "of the Farm. I believe I have a way to avoid attracting their attention - or rather, to focus their attention elsewhere."

"Tell me," said Gordon, "do you think I'm going to like it?"

"Not particularly, O child of Man, which is why I raise it now rather than as we come closer to the fields."

Gordon shut his eyes. Their interactions had become more and more delicately woven since the escape from the hospital, as if the balance of power had shifted enough for both to consider where the other stood before speaking. As long as Gordon remained free, and the Farm remained standing, he felt safe enough in the hands of the Ally. Should he be captured, however - or should the Ghouls fall - the intimation of not only death but damnation hung over him like a thundercloud.

"All right. What is it?"

"Do you recall the heavyset Ghoul who first reached your mother's door?"

"Paul. Yeah."

"Do you recall where he lays now?"

"At the bottom of the lake, in his car, with his buddy."

"And how did he get there?"

Gordon's stomach began to sink. "You ? animated him."

"We, O my host. We warmed his flesh with our own blood, and set him to stand once again."

"All right. We animated him."

"We could do so again."

The silence stretched for minutes, Gordon watching the moonlight turn white snow to ivory. The Ally said nothing more, allowing its words to sink in. When Gordon spoke, his voice was level, emotionless.

"And send them in to the dogs."

"Precisely."

Silence returned, then: "Where do you propose we find dead Ghouls?"

"This is one point of difficulty. I ask you, O my host, must the bodies be those of Ghouls?"

"I'm no murderer. I passed that gate before you found me and I don't plan to go back ever again."

"Must the bodies then be murdered? Are there not places in the Earth where a body may be found - a body missed and mourned by neither man nor maiden?"

"Grave robbing," said Gordon, a thin smile crossing his lips as he shook his head. "Is there anything you wouldn't like me to try?"

"Unmissed and unmourned," the Ally pressed, "a pauper, unregarded, who has outlived his time and toil."

"What about his soul?"

"O child of man, if I had dominion over such things, the world would be different indeed." The edges of the wound rustled, either with impatience or mirth. "You raise homunculi, not the spirits of the dead. It is flesh without a soul, as a carpenter might form a marionette with which to amuse his children."

"You don't bring the spirits back," said Gordon.

"The blood does not," said the Ally simply.

Gordon had made the question sound simple, as if he were seeking confirmation of a fact. His mind, however, took tentative hold of this concept and began to work it over. If it doesn't bring souls back ? then how was I raised? And if it has no dominion, then how does it know I'll be damned?

"Okay," he said aloud, "here's another thought. If we can send one homunculus into the Farm in order to distract the dogs, can we send in others as well? What are the limitations?"

The edges of the wound slid together as if smacking a pair of unseen lips. "A valiant question. Could we raise enough of these homunculi to send a squadron of the unmourned dead into Walpurgisnacht?"

"Or send a batch of them with the Molotov cocktails."

"I do not know," confessed the Ally. "I have never before tried such a thing. Yet you were weak after Paul's return, and I would have you as strong as possible when the sun sets on their festival."

"We'll have to try it as we're moving, then." Gordon had been ready to deny the idea, to tell the Ally they would find some other way. The raising of the dead had frightened him earlier, despite its necessity, and to rob a grave - even one which was old, or of a man unloved - was another step down the road to perdition.

If, that is, the perdition existed. If the Ally had no particular sway, or if Gordon were - as he now considered possible - entirely soulless, then that road's boundaries became somewhat different, as did his relationship with the Ally.

To discover the truth, though, he knew he would need to speak with the dead. To keep one raised a while, to see what sentience, if any, began to form in their minds. To see what they had in common with him, and what traits they shared with the marionettes the Ally spoke of.

Gordon smiled slightly in the moonlight. "You found the lake, back home, where we sank the bodies. Can you find us a graveyard the same way?"

"O my host," said the Ally, " I already have."

***

The cemetery was a tiny place, off a little-used road and atop a small hill. The white picket fence which surrounded it sat partially buried in snowdrifts, mimicking the grey and white stones in neat little rows.

"Nineteen ninety-three," said Gordon softly. "That's the last date carved on any of these."

"Long enough to set any mourners far away in the chill of winter. Does this suit your plans?"

"How much of him is going to be left after thirty years underground?"

"It will depend," admitted the Ally, "on how he was buried. But observe, O my host, the stone. He or others spent their money on this stone, and likely on the coffin as well. We may be lucky."

"All right," said Gordon, "tonight."

As the moon rose, he stood, his arm extended across the top of the gravesite. He watched up and down the road carefully for headlights in any direction as the blood ran from his Ally onto the snow, sending clouds of steam from the frozen ground.

"To the left," said the Ally, "draw for me a square, that the Earth may yet be softened."

The snow melted beneath the crimson flow, revealing dead brown grass and rich black soil. As they stood, blood pouring as if it were no more than water from a faucet, the soil slowly took the blood in, steaming and smoking.

Like a gate to Hell, thought Gordon, but said nothing. Time passed, and the flow of blood slowly ground to a halt.

"Now," said the Ally, "the ground is soft, as much as I may make it. Take up the shovel and about our work."

The task took less time than Gordon had expected. He had feared being present at the dawn with a half-buried casket, but by midnight the wood and brass were exposed. He was covered in grave-soil and was only slightly surprised to find red tears staining his face, as the part of his mind still capable of horror processed what they did in the Indiana night.

"Again," said the wound, "as we did with the glass."

The blood ran onto his finger, and Gordon drew a line around the edge of the coffin. As it shifted slightly down towards the corpse, he reached tentatively below one edge and pulled, revealing the prize within.

It was a gruesome sight. Fifteen years had left little more than bone and cloth, and Gordon could only shake his head as he looked on.

"This is pointless," he said. "I can't walk around with a skeleton for any amount of time, and anything ? fresher ? is going to be missed."

"Perhaps," said the Ally slowly, "we do not need the entire skeleton."

Gordon let his silence serve as a question, and the Ally continued. "If we were to take, let us say, a hand? Such a thing would certainly cause the dogs concern - and would be far simpler to bring with us for any distance."

Was there an air of coyness about this, the sudden reversal on the Ally's part? Had it divined what Gordon's hidden intentions were, and brought him to this pass in order to further its own ends?

He was tired of thinking. His frame no longer needed air, or sleep, or food or drink, but if he still carried a spirit in his heart then it had reached the point of exhaustion. It had been a great deal of work, and the body lay ready, and Gordon barely blinked as he brought the sharp edge of the shovel down across the corpse's forearm.

Dawn found the body reburied, the hand laying beneath an pine tree outside the cemetery. He had buried the clothes he wore in the top layer of the grave, scrubbed his body with pine branches and snow until only the sickly layer of horror kept the feeling of filth upon him, and dressed himself in the secondary pair of clothes he had bought along with the shovel.

Looking to the hand, he shook his head again. "Later," he said to the Ally. "Give me some time."

"It is yours to ask, O my host," said the Ally, and again Gordon recoiled from the sing-song tone which hearkened back to his earliest days with the wound.

Story and image by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2008