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NOTE: These stories are
intended for a mature audience.

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

"It's moving again."  George's voice came sudden as a spring storm into the darkness behind the windshield.

"Then tame it or accept it." Agam was curt, his attention taken up by the speedometer's dance. "I can't be expected to take care of it - it's terrified of me."

"It should be."

"Yes," said Agam, his teeth glinting in the rear-view mirror. "Well done."

The tiny wendigo crept further from that grin, crawling along George's neck to cower in between collar and earlobe. It made no sound, had no breath, moved as the current of the wind beckoned … though it moved ever further from the spirit in the driver's seat.

George's eyes cut to the left. "You know the dogs will be a problem."

"I doubt that."

"I won't be bait."

"Really? Then you won't mind if I shove you out at the next stoplight. Or shall I be after it now?" The used-car smile never left Agam's face. "You know I won't, though. You're made for better things than bait."

"Then why?" George lifted one split-nailed finger to stroke along the wendigo's insubstantial form. "If not as bait, then why?"

"Because two on one is better odds, George. You didn't bother to learn that, though your friends in the mountains did. They moved once they'd come to a critical mass, and they held their fangs and claws because they knew you might be stronger.

"Never doubt that. You didn't live because you're one of them. You lived because you were better. Because you could be more than a ghost or a ghoul."

"I'm … better."

"You're the man, George," said Agam with a smile. "You. Are the man."

***

"It's moving," said Gordon, his voice sick with horror.

"It is meant to, child of man."

"Not yet! Not until the dogs …"

"It will move as the spirit wills it, O my host, and move ever and ever on until unleashed against those who would harm you."

Gordon kept walking, his mind and eyes dull, placing one foot in front of the other in a seemingly endless parade. "Just like I move," he said - and shouted, as his arm thrust itself to the side, making room in which the Ally might speak, tearing at the edges of flesh and tendon as it head never done before.

"No," said the Ally, and its voice was sharper than starlight. "There is no pity here, O my host, if ever there was. You will have none from the Creator and none from me, and you will spare none for your foes nor for yourself. I have made … sacrifices for you, child, I have raised you as a parent with love and affection and tenderness as is rarely seen among my lot. And you have shirked, and rebelled, and quailed as a child is wont to do.

"But the time for such is passed," hissed the voice, as the pain grew warm alongside his bones, "the time for rebellion was months passed, in the motel, among the hounds, in the shed where you found the knife that let me in.

"By your hands came I to your skin, my host, and by your will have I moved within, and by the will of something greater still do I move freely among the children of man, and move against the Gentleman Ghouls. You are a child no longer.

"You have killed. You have tasted blood, and eaten of the flesh. You have moved as a shadow through the wilderness and have betrayed those you love by your childishness. Throughout it all have I coddled you, O host, and throughout it all have I loved you."

The voice was no gentle croon, but a command, and that command ran and thrilled through the bones of Gordon's forearm. "Now you walk, the desecrated hand bound to your chest, the bloody knife buried, the rotting corpses of dogs and shadows of men at your back, and we have no more time to pass in the love and tenderness; yes, tenderness such as I have shown you until now.

"Many are awake to your presence and actions. Many are clear on what you mean to themselves and their precious order, their civilization, their legends and tales of propinquity. You have wandered as a child in the mist, my Host, but you can wander not a second longer.

"Wake, O my Host, and decide. Carry your talismans and your Allies to battle willingly, or drop the moment arms rise against you. I have lived long and fought well outside your flesh, and though I long as you do to drop this charade and parade as a victor thought the smoldering ashes and bones of the Farm, the Chainfields, the Commons and all the lands to which the Ghouls lay claim, I will neither weep nor suffer should we fail."

The pain stretched along sinew and sang though bone, hot and liquid and endless as Gordon threw himself to a snow bank and thrust his arm within.

"I will not weep, O my Host, because I have never chosen a Ghoul or golem, fully formed from some societal ideal. I have ever chosen men, though they must be boys ere their final fight. Your fight comes at Walpurgisnacht, O my Host, and you will grow …"

"Or I will die," said Gordon, panting as steam rose from the snow bank.

"Or you will die," agreed the Ally. "You hide nothing. Do you understand? Your secrets are as bare as the layers of flesh beneath this mouth you have carved for me. I know you, O my host, better than anyone - anything - could ever know you. I am of you, my host.

"I am of you. And together we may yet prevail, that we move as one and not against one another. I have walked with you, enriched you, protected and defended you. Now you must do this thing for me, O child … O my child," whispered the ragged edges of the wound. "Or you must fail trying and fall with me."

The autumnal fingers of the hand of glory whispered across his chest. The heat and pain drained from his arm, leaving the dull acidic ache of overuse behind. Gordon looked to the tender, furred buds upon the tree before him, coming to spring whether it wished it or not, fighting against the deathly cold with all that was within it.

Gordon smiled.

Story and image by Ivan Ewert, Copyright 2008