Page 22 of These Hallowed Bones (Bloody Desires #3)

Ezra

Everything progressed according to my design.

The message I sent to Micah was simple but perfect: Tonight we collect materials for the final piece. Dress warmly, all black if possible. I'll pick you up at one tonight.

A month had passed since I'd introduced Micah to bone ash. Two weeks since he had given me the first joint of his little finger. The wound had healed nicely, though he still favored that hand occasionally.

I'd guided Micah through a carefully calculated progression.

Each session built upon the previous, teaching him to incorporate bone ash and specialized media into his work.

He was growing confident with materials most artists would never touch.

He knew we worked with human remains, but not the details.

Tonight would change that.

At one AM, my car slid into the parking lot of his apartment building. He emerged dressed as instructed, the glowing moth toy clutched to his chest.

I smiled at the eagerness in his stride. "You came."

"Did you think I wouldn't?" A touch of defiance colored his response.

"There was always the chance your conditioning might reassert itself." The moonlight caught the angles of his face as I studied him. "Religious trauma creates deep grooves in the psyche, pathways of shame that can suddenly reactivate."

His hands remained steady in his lap, the bandaged finger a stark reminder of his commitment. "I'm here."

"Yes, you are." A small smile curved my lips. "Good boy."

The phrase sent a visible flush across his skin.

We drove in silence through winding country roads. Moonlight lit his profile: sharp cheekbones, full lower lip, the vulnerable curve of his throat. So similar to the others, yet uniquely himself.

"Where are we going?" he asked finally, adjusting the moth on his lap.

"A place I've scouted. Remote but accessible." My hand moved from the gearshift to his knee. "Are you nervous, Micah?"

"Yes."

"That's appropriate. Nervousness indicates awareness of significance." My fingers tightened slightly on his knee before returning to the wheel. "Tonight represents a threshold for you. For us."

We turned onto the narrow dirt road I'd traveled three times this week. Trees pressed close, shadows dappling the path.

"What exactly are we doing here, Ezra?" Micah asked, his voice small and uncertain in the darkness. "Is this... for your exhibition at the Ravenna Gallery? The final piece you've been working on?"

"Yes," I replied. "The culmination of my year's work. You've already contributed to it, of course. Tonight goes deeper."

He hesitated, then ventured cautiously, "We're not getting this from a medical supplier, are we?"

"No," I confirmed, keeping my voice neutral while monitoring his reaction. "Tonight, we acquire something more specific. You'll understand soon enough."

The car stopped in the small clearing, and the engine went silent. "From here, we walk," I said, retrieving the backpack from the rear seat.

The forest greeted us with rustles and a distant owl call. My path through the trees remained familiar, Micah following close behind.

The trees opened to reveal a small clearing. In the center stood a weathered cabin, dark and unassuming. Without the coordinates I'd memorized, it was just another abandoned shelter in the forest.

"We're here," I said, approaching the padlocked door. The key turned silently in the lock.

"What is this place?" Micah asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His grip on the moth toy tightened, the glow intensifying.

"A sanctuary for my more specialized work," I replied, pushing the door open. "Where art transcends conventional boundaries."

Inside, the cabin was sparse but organized.

A generator hummed quietly in one corner, powering the single essential appliance, a commercial-grade deep freezer.

Solar panels on the roof and carefully concealed battery banks ensured continuous operation regardless of weather or grid failures.

Amateur preparation was the downfall of lesser artists with similar proclivities. I left nothing to chance.

I switched on the battery-powered lantern, casting the interior in a warm glow that contradicted its true purpose. The concrete floor was treated for easy cleaning and graded toward a center drain.

"I want to show you something," I said, moving to the freezer and releasing the reinforced locks.

The lid opened with a soft hiss of cold air.

Micah stepped closer, his moth glowing brightly in one hand.

Inside, wrapped in preservation film, lay the dismembered remains of a man.

Various parts were individually wrapped and labeled—legs, torso, arms, head—each one prepared for specific artistic purposes.

"This is Able," I explained, my voice taking on the tone of a professor conducting a lesson. "A pianist. His hands created music in life. In death, they'll serve something equally transcendent."

Micah's expression was a complex mixture of fascination and nervous excitement. "Did you kill him?"

The question hung. This was his first real confrontation with my work's full reality.

"Yes," I answered simply. Then after a calculated pause: "But only because he asked me to.

Terminal cancer. He didn't want to waste away, lose his dignity.

Especially his hands. They were already beginning to fail him.

" I closed the freezer lid, watching his reaction carefully.

"He wanted his body to serve a purpose beyond medical research.

The official channels waste such potential. "

I moved to the stainless-steel table in the center of the room. "Tonight, we focus on these."

I removed the cloth covering to reveal a pair of hands, already thawed to the perfect consistency, resting on a bed of surgical towels. They’d been separated at the wrists, the skin pale alabaster, fingers long and elegant.

"I prepared these earlier today," I explained. "Temperature is crucial. Too cold, and the tissue resists; too warm, and degradation compromises quality."

Micah placed his moth on a nearby shelf. He leaned closer to the hands, his breath visible in the cold air. "They're... beautiful," he whispered, his fingers hovering just above the marble-like skin without touching. "Like classical sculpture."

"Exactly. The Greeks understood that the human form represents the highest artistic achievement. But they could only replicate it in stone. We have the privilege of working with the actual material."

I moved to a cabinet mounted on the wall, unlocking it to reveal surgical instruments modified for artistic purposes, containers for specific components, brushes and scrapers in various sizes.

"Tonight, I'll show you how to harvest what we need for the exhibition piece," I explained, laying out the tools.

"The hand's bone structure has unique properties essential to the luminosity I'm after.

And the connective tissue between the third and fourth metacarpals will provide the binding medium. "

I paused. "In Genesis, God took a rib from Adam to create Eve. The first artistic creation, the first transformation of human material into something new. We're simply continuing that sacred tradition."

Micah's eyes darted to his own maimed hand. "From one life, another."

"Exactly," I affirmed. "The ancients understood transformation. They simply lacked our techniques." I gestured to his bandaged finger. "You've already begun to understand this through your own offering. Tonight, you'll witness the next level."

"Did it hurt?" he asked quietly. "When you... helped him."

"No," I answered, selecting a tool from my kit. "I've perfected a quick, painless method. A final dignity for those who choose it."

The explanation seemed to satisfy him.

"Come closer," I instructed, indicating a position that would give him the best view. "What follows is as much ritual as technique."

He came to stand beside me as I began to work. Our shoulders touched as we bent over the pale hands, our first shared sacrament of this kind.

His reaction was exactly as anticipated. No horror, no disgust. Instead, his pupils dilated, he leaned forward, not away.

"Is this... legal?" he asked, though his tone suggested the question was merely perfunctory.

"Legal is relative when it comes to art," I replied, selecting a fine-bladed tool from my kit. "The great anatomists throughout history operated in gray areas. Da Vinci, Vesalius… They advanced human understanding by refusing to be constrained by the arbitrary limitations of their time."

"Hold this." I instructed, placing the partially cleaned bone in his palm. "Feel its weight. Its potential."

His fingers closed around it reverently. "How many... donors have contributed to your work?"

"Many. Each brought something unique."

For the next hour, I guided him through the process, teaching him to harvest what we needed—bone, specific tendons, cartilage—each component carefully separated and preserved in specialized containers.

His hands were unexpectedly adept. By the time we finished, his fingertips were stained with the chemicals we'd used, preservation scent embedded in his skin.

After collecting everything we needed, I carefully cleaned our tools and work area. Every element of the pianist's hands had been utilized, bones for ash, tendons for binding medium, even the skin cells for specialized pigments.

"Will you use the rest of him too?" Micah squeezed his moth as I secured the cabin.

"Yes," I replied. "Each component requires its own processing time." I turned away from the cabin. "How do you feel, Micah? About tonight?"

He hesitated. "More alive than I can remember feeling. Even more than when I gave you my finger."

"That's the paradox of death-adjacent work. Nothing makes us feel our own vitality more acutely than proximity to mortality." I cupped his cheek. "You did well tonight, my boy. Better than I dared hope."

His breath quickened, and he leaned into my touch. "Ezra…"

"I know," I murmured. "I feel it too."