Page 24 of These Hallowed Bones (Bloody Desires #3)

Micah

I jolted awake in the darkness, unsure what had pulled me from deep sleep. Beside me, Ezra rested peacefully, one arm still draped possessively across my waist.

My body ached in unfamiliar places. The rawness inside me burned with each subtle movement, a wound that marked the threshold I had crossed. Purple bruises bloomed across my skin where his mouth had claimed me, each mark a testament to something beyond ordinary desire.

The stump of my little finger throbbed beneath its healing bandage.

I slipped out from beneath the sheets, careful not to wake him.

The moth on the nightstand glowed as I picked it up, its soft light guiding me in the darkness.

I found a white robe draped over a chair and pulled it on, my bandaged finger making the simple task of tying the sash difficult.

The house creaked softly as I moved through the hallway.

I didn’t have a destination in mind when I stopped in front of the workshop door.

I wasn’t even thinking about my amputated finger.

But once I was there, the stump throbbed as if it were calling out for the missing joint.

I wanted to see it, needed to know what had become of that piece of myself.

Had Ezra transformed it yet? Made it part of something greater?

The door creaked open. The workshop lay still and dark beyond. The moth's glow cast strange shadows across brushes, blades, and specimen jars aligned in perfect rows as I moved through the space, searching.

Then, I brushed against a section of wall I'd never noticed before.

It was covered with clear plastic sheeting, the kind used to protect spaces during renovation.

During my previous visits, I'd assumed it concealed unused equipment or unfinished work.

Now, as the moth's light played across its surface, I noticed the outline of a door behind it.

Hesitation gripped me briefly as Pastor Morris's voice echoed in my memory: "Curiosity was Eve's downfall, boy.

Some doors are closed for your protection.

" But that life seemed distant now, belonging to someone else.

Ezra—Daddy—had shown me a different path, one where curiosity led not to damnation but revelation.

I pushed aside the plastic, revealing a steel door, slightly ajar.

Beyond it, concrete steps descended into darkness.

The moth's glow created a small sphere of light around me, just enough to navigate the first few steps.

My hand found a light switch on the wall, illuminating a staircase that looked much older than the renovated house above.

The stone walls glistened slightly with moisture, the air cooler and carrying scents both clinical and organic.

The stairs ended at another door, this one modern steel with a sophisticated locking mechanism.

It stood partially open, light spilling from whatever lay beyond.

My instinct screamed to turn back, wake Daddy, ask permission.

But the ache in my amputated finger intensified, urging me forward into forbidden territory.

I opened the door.

The room beyond was a temple of transformation disguised as a laboratory with polished concrete floors and stainless steel tables.

One wall housed glass-fronted refrigeration units, their contents obscured by frosted surfaces.

Another displayed neatly arranged tools on a pegboard, some familiar from the workshop where I'd sacrificed my finger, others more surgical in nature.

But it was what occupied the center of the room that stopped my breath. Three bodies, nude and perfectly preserved, positioned in various states of artistic transformation. They stood on platforms of brushed steel, lit by recessed lighting.

The first, a woman perhaps in her thirties, had been partially dissected, her chest cavity opened to reveal organs replaced by glass structures that caught the light. Her face remained untouched, peaceful in repose, almost smiling.

The second, an older man, had been modified more extensively.

Sections of his skin had been removed and replaced with canvas stretched across his exposed muscles.

Pigments had been applied directly to these surfaces, creating a living painting that wrapped around his form.

His hands had been positioned as if in prayer, each finger tipped with small metal implements that resembled paintbrushes.

The third subject, barely begun, appeared to be a young man. His body remained largely intact, only his back opened to expose the vertebrae, each one carefully gilded with metal that caught the light. His transformation seemed recently started, perhaps the next piece in Ezra's artistic journey.

Revulsion never came. Instead, something else flooded my system: recognition. The shadow inside me stretched toward these creations, finding in them a terrible beauty that resonated with my deepest nature.

I clutched my moth tighter to my chest, its glow intensifying with my racing heart. The amputation site on my finger burned. My small sacrifice seemed almost trivial compared to what lay before me. Yet it connected me to these transformed bodies, a first step on a path that led inexorably here.

"Beautiful, aren't they?"

Ezra's voice behind me didn't startle me as it should have. Perhaps some part of me had expected him, had known this discovery was not an accident, but an orchestrated revelation.

"Yes," I answered honestly, turning to face him.

He stood shirtless at the bottom of the stairs. Despite the horror surrounding us, my body responded to his presence with a warmth that embarrassed me. No anger distorted his features, only calm assessment and something that looked remarkably like pride.

"You found this place sooner than I expected," he said, moving toward me. His lips curved in a slight smile that never quite reached his eyes. "Though perhaps not entirely without... guidance."

Of course. The unlocked doors. The light left on. Not carelessness but calculation. He had wanted me to discover this place, had created a path for me to follow while maintaining the illusion of forbidden discovery.

"What are they?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.

"Art in its purest form," he replied, coming to stand beside me. "The transformation of the mundane into the transcendent."

"You don’t just kill the ones who ask you for it, do you?" My moth's glow dimmed slightly against my chest, as if absorbing my realization.

"I elevate them," he corrected gently. "From temporary creatures of flesh to eternal works of art. They achieve through my vision what they never could in life: transcendence."

His hand touched my shoulder, fingers traveling down to the stump of my amputated finger. "Does this disturb you, Micah?"

The answer was complicated. Yes, it unnerved me, but not with moral outrage or righteous revulsion. It unnerved me like scripture had unnerved me as a child, like my own darkest thoughts unnerved me.

"No, Daddy," I admitted finally.

His lips twitched as if he were resisting a smile. "You continue to exceed my expectations." His hand moved from my finger to my face, thumb stroking my cheek tenderly. "The others couldn’t accept this reality."

Something dark and feral twisted in my chest. I gritted my teeth, resisting the urge to let out a feline hiss. "What others?"

"Students. Protégés. But none quite like you."

He guided me closer to the third figure, the young man whose transformation had just begun. "This will inspire my final piece for the exhibition. A study in potential energy, the moment before complete metamorphosis."

"You mean you'll create a painting based on... this?" I gestured toward the body.

"Of course," Ezra smiled indulgently. "What you see here is the raw material, the inspiration. The public sees only the finished artwork—oils, pigments, and special media on canvas—never understanding the true source of its power. They appreciate the echo without ever hearing the original sound."

I studied the man’s face. He looked…serene. "How do you choose them?"

"Carefully," Ezra replied with a smug expression.

"I observe, sometimes for months. Looking for specific qualities that will translate into the work.

This one," he gestured to the partially transformed young man, "had remarkable bone structure.

A dancer. The way his body moves, even in stillness, carries a rhythm most can't perceive. "

His explanation shouldn't have made sense. Shouldn't have calmed the last tremors of conscience rattling inside me. Yet somehow it did. I found myself nodding, understanding the artistic logic if not the moral justification.

"Come," he said. "There's more I want to show you."

He led me through another door into an adjacent room, smaller and more intimate.

Unlike the clinical preparation area we'd just left, this space felt consecrated, a private chapel devoted to artistic revelation.

The lighting was softer, walls painted deep burgundy, the air infused with subtle incense.

"My private collection," Ezra explained. "Works too honest for public exhibition."

Display cases lined the walls, each holding a part of the human body on display.

A heart preserved and transformed into a ticking clock, brass gears exposed.

A pair of praying hands covered with microscopic script like a clay tablet.

A face, removed whole and stretched across a frame like canvas, the lips stretched into a smile.

Other pieces defied easy classification. Sculptures composed of bone and preserved tissue. Paintings created with pigments clearly derived from human sources, their glow unlike anything achievable with commercial products.

I unconsciously raised my maimed hand to my mouth, teeth worrying at the bandage. My grandmother's voice rose unbidden: "The wages of sin is death." Yet here, death had been transformed into wages of another kind, currency in a spiritual economy my grandmother could never comprehend.

"They would call me a monster if they knew," Ezra said quietly, watching my reaction. "They lack the vision to understand that true art requires breaking boundaries, transcending conventional limitations."

"They wouldn't understand," I agreed, moving slowly around the room, absorbing each piece. Every creation spoke to my shadow self in a language that transcended anything I could speak aloud.

"But you do," Ezra observed. "You always have, from the first moment I saw your work. The darkness others tried to exorcise from you isn't sickness, Micah. It's clarity. The capacity to see beauty where others see only horror."

His arms wrapped around me from behind, drawing me against his chest. The contact felt both comforting and dangerous, like finding safety in the eye of a storm. My moth glowed softly in the dim light.

"You stand at a threshold, Micah," he murmured against my hair. "You've seen the truth of my work. Now you must decide: will you retreat to the safe confines of conventional morality, or step forward into authentic vision?"

The question wasn't really a question at all.

We both knew I had crossed that threshold the moment I descended the stairs, perhaps even before that.

Last night when we collected materials from the pianist's hands.

The day Ezra first claimed my body. The moment I offered my finger to his blade.

The day I first sat in his office and admitted to the darkness inside me.

The moment as a child when I watched my mother's suspended body transform day by day and found beauty in her dissolution.

I turned in his arms to face him, the moth pressed between our bodies. "I want to help you, Daddy. To learn from you. To create with you."

For the first time, his breath caught—not with the control I'd come to expect, but something closer to awe.

Something too human for a god. His smile spread slowly, satisfaction evident in every line of his face.

"You understand what that means? The commitment it requires?

There's no partial participation in this work, no spectator role.

To truly understand, you must fully engage. "

The world had always asked me to deny this part of myself. Ezra simply named it art.

"I know," I said with certainty. "I'm ready."

The kiss he gave me then felt like a sacred promise, a ritual sealing of vows more binding than any religious ceremony. His hands gripped my face, holding me steady as his mouth claimed mine. When he pulled away, his eyes had darkened to stormy gray.

"My beautiful boy," he murmured, then gestured to the waiting art. “Shall we begin?”