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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

First Shots
A Vorare story
By
Ivan Ewert
Start at the beginning of the Vorare series

"It distracts the dogs," said Gordon, tentatively stroking the hand of glory. Its insect-like movements no longer seemed so alien to him, sitting among the deep green shadows of the woods with his back to an oak. His eyes were focused to the north, toward the Farm. "When they mobilize, so do we."

"Our aim is confusion, O my host ? terror and blood. I will guide your arm, but we must be quick to move, and never stop. We will be a wheel afire from on high to the Ghouls of the Farm, and this time, you will have no need to run from fear nor from betrayal."

Gordon nodded. Not for the first time, he inhaled deeply, not for air, but to take in the sweetly rotting scent of spring come to the northern woods. It was different, somehow, knowing what was to come ? knowing that death was coming in his wake, moving with a clear mind and without secrets or subterfuge.

He was dead to his family. His Ally would neither be escaped or denied. Whatever force had placed him in the hands of Sylvie and the Gentlemen Ghouls so long ago could judge as it pleased. He was past both fear and hope, past the need for good and evil, past the desire to escape his fate and past the numb acceptance of it. His mind was finally, perfectly, unclouded.

"Still ... it seems like there should be some kind of plan."

The edges of his wound smacked together. "When you are one against so many, there is no plan. There is only movement and destruction and perfect clarity. When you see their bright hunger, we move toward them, when I sense their dull strength we shift away. The night cannot defend them as they wish, and our eyes are as the owl's."

Gordon shifted, placing one hand against the solid, loamy soil and pushing himself into a squat, then picking up the hand of glory to rest it in his shirt. As he stood, he took up a bicycle basket filled with twelve bottles, each one three-quarters full of gasoline purchased along the roadsides.

"All right, then. Let's plan to move, and hope to survive."

***

The Walpurgisnacht fires ran high in the April evening, pale blades of flame licking against the edges of darkness. At one side, the long trencher tables stood groaning with the weight of vegetables and plates stored over the long winter, decorated with pinecones and garlands of dried fruits which small children snatched at, giggling over their indiscretions, affectionately overlooked by the Ghouls who oversaw them.

At the center of one table was an empty space, a space defined by its very absence amidst so much bounty. The dark wood, scarred and scratched by countless knives over countless years and many generations, seemed to gleam forth among the dull oranges of yams, the pale witch fire green of cucumbers. It showed itself as an eclipse appears in a starlit sky, motionless - eternal - waiting only to be filled.

The Master Farmer stood near the flames, so close his forehead was damp against the chill of evening, so close that dark wings seemed to spread across his broad back, centered on his spine, the sweat seeping through even the light cotton shirt he had chosen to wear on this evening. Surrounded by his brothers, he stared intently into the flames, answering their questions with simple grunts and monosyllabic instructions until he was left, finally, standing solitary against the flame.

"I hear you," he whispered. "but I'm not going to do it. This celebration is older than the savages who take up against us. This here is a sacred thing, and I won't have it rushed or hurried. The sacrifice will come as he's meant to, not a minute early."

His eyes were hard as frozen soil, his brow creased with cares which had not existed before taking up the Master's mantle. The weather-beaten hands cracked knuckle against swollen knuckle, prematurely arthritic with a lifetime of labor. Then he reached to his pocket, took a flask, and slowly took a mouthful of apple brandy.

"This is bigger than me," he said to the flames, and placed the flask back into his pocket.

***

"Hey."

"Hmmm?"

"Look around you. Is anything familiar?"

"Hmmm."

"Damn it," Agam swore under his breath. "Listen. Listen! Do you think I brought you here just for fun?"

"No," said George, his yellowed teeth showing beneath the beard. "I think ... you needed me."

"I don't need anything," the demon hissed. "My kind never does."

"Something you want, though." said George, and his teeth were tombstones in the sunset. "Blind without a toy. Blind without a car, and a road, and a guide."

Agam's smile returned. The wild roses had torn at the cuffs of his tailored pants, though they drew no blood on his manicured hands. "Your little friend's not as dumb as he looks."

"What they'll say about you, too."

"All right then. Assume I'm blind - I still know how to get back to the car, and the road, and to leave you here at the Ghouls' doorstep. You'll do my work for me whether I'm here or not."

"Still something you want to see."

Agam's smile turned wider. "I get it. So what is it you want, George?"

"My name. And Velander."

"You know I'll give them to you."

"No."

They faced one another, knee-deep in the undergrowth. The dying light cast their shadows tall as trees against the forest, pointing back unerringly toward the Jeep Agam had abandoned at the roadside. Against George's chin, the tiny wendigo throbbed, wattle-like, waiting for what blow would come.

"You really are the man," said Agam. "All right, then. I'll give you back your name. I'll let you take Velander and do as you like with his body." The demon held forth a hand. "In return you will take us to the Farm, and you will unleash absolute Hell on the Ghouls and Velander alike. Do we have a deal?"

"No."

"What else, then?"

"You. You don't let me die."

"Ah ..." Agam sighed, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. "You're right. They will tell me my little friend's not as dumb as he looks." He lit the cigarette, holding it momentarily between his lips and looking not at George, but to the east, toward civilization and soft beds and the remembered smells of gin and olive juice.

"Well, I picked the right one, then. I won't let you die."

George put out his hand at that, and Agam, still smiling, took it.

"Now. Lead on, MacDuff."

"No. George."

"Sorry, George. Lead on."

***

"Master Farmer." It was no request for attention, but a simple statement, which brought the Master's head around to his new Huntsman.

"Yes, Brother Andrew?"

"It's the dogs. They've got wind of something."

He nodded, eyes moving to the burning branches at the base of the fires. "Figured they would. Close?"

"Not too. They're still quiet, mostly."

"All right. Quarter of the pack, out and after whatever they're scenting. Your newer dogs, raw ones. Get the collars activated and feed them into our tracking systems. I want to know where they're going, when they're baying, and where their trail ends." He turned back to Andrew, still expressionless - a man going about his necessary labors. "They're stalking horses. You know that."

Brother Andrew shrugged slightly. The Master Farmer had hoped to find another with the empathy and passion Paul had shown for the dogs, but it took time - time he and Andrew could not have afforded.

"All right. Let them go."

***

Gordon set the hand of glory on the damp, flattened leaves, still crisped at the edges with a light frost and dark from their long winter's burial under the snow. It rose up slightly, arching its back like some great arachnid.

"Listen. You go that way - that way," said Gordon, positioning the hand. "Go that way and keep going until you exit the forest, then stop and don't move again. Understand?"

"It knows, O my host, it knows." The Ally was in constant motion now, rubbing and rasping against itself. "As surely as you yourself. See their hunger, bright and shining. They have gathered and the hand will skirt their edges, flank them cleverly, and draw those hounds anew."

"All right," said Gordon, "then go on ahead. Get," he said, nudging the hand with the toe of his shoe. The thing moved forward, more slowly than Gordon would have liked, but clearly able to reach the Farm before midnight came. He turned his attention back to the homemade explosives which he carried, and began to tear his jacket into strips ...

***

The dogs moved swift and silent through the evening, coursing around trees and through brush with no more sound than their rapid panting. There were six of them - young and full of excitement, ready for the chase. They were hounds, no guard dogs but trackers, intended to find and flush their prey.

The second dog in the pack set up a whine as they moved further from the Farm, the joy of being on the hunt threatening to overcome his harsh but short training. The rest of the pack swiftly took it up, and the moment the scent of a strange man struck them they set up an orchestra of bays and howls, crashing now through the undergrowth toward the intruders.

"George," said Agam evenly, "do you want this one or shall I?"

"Leader's mine."

"Very well."

As the lead dog emerged, George hurled himself against the hound with all his force and weight, tackling it from a standstill as an angry cougar would. The dog gave a shrill and excited bark as it was carried to the ground, bowled over by George's mad rush. Its jaws gaped both to shout and to defend itself, but George's right forearm was quickly thrust between its teeth, followed by his left thumb gouging deep into the eye.

Only the animal continued to make noise. Now the rapid panting came from George, quick and excited and flushed for the kill. He growled deep in his throat and went for the other eye, missed, stabbed again and struck deep.

Now the four legs were kicking, scrabbling away at the dirt and at the ferocious foe, blind and terrified and seeking only to escape. George rolled off and away, allowing it to turn and flee, blood streaming down its face, toward the scent of wood smoke and home.

George's own arm was dripping blood from the bites, attracting the wendigo to float down from the back of his neck and toward the arm, drawn to the blood and the promise it held. From behind George came the discontented whine of the remaining five dogs, flat on their bellies and abased before Agam.

"These are good boys," said the demon pleasantly.

"How'd you do it?" The corner of George's mouth hitched up despite himself, and Agam shook his head.

"It's body language. Not as much as yours, of course. But if they smelled you, they know me, George."

"How?"

Agam shrugged. "They know my kind. And that's all a smarter creature needs."

Story and image by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2008