The painter's hand was a god. A maker of worlds and a bender of reality. With liquid colours it brought life to fabric. Its long, slender fingers nestled the brush in its artistic embrace as it moved in time to the music.
The musician twirled around the gallery, her fingers and breath pulling a song from the soul of her instrument. Her hands knew every hole and every sweet note they could produce. The tips of her fingers worked each one, bringing the full range of the instrument to the melancholic tune.
They made the perfect pair, the musician and the hand. Theirs was a symphony of colours and sound. Art at its finest.
The musician issued a challenge to the hand, changing her slow melody into a quick staccato. Her feet tapped in time as she skipped closer to the canvas.
The artist's hand beat out a rhythm against the tub of turpentine with a fan brush. Then it mopped up some paint and made quick short strokes in time to the music, the gentle rasp of brush on canvas complimenting the sweet notes of the piccolo.
A groan rippled through their symphony. Like a stone being thrown in a peaceful pool, it distorted their perfection.
The musician missed a note and nearly tripped over her own feet. The painter's hands fell, hitting the small wooden table that held all the accoutrements of their respective trades. The palette clamored on the tile along with several brushes.
The musician's eyes followed a wayward round brush as it rolled to a stop at the feet of the groaner. She lowered the piccolo from her mouth, her lips twisting into a scowl.
She plucked the painter's hand from the ground and gently smoothed its long, slender fingers. A smudge of paint marred the gold band that encircled the wrist, where it was once attached to an arm. The arm of a true artist. Not some sorceress pretending she knew what lied at the heart of a canvas.
The musician set her piccolo aside and pulled the other hand from beneath the palette. They'd served her well but their expiration date was fast approaching. She had preserved them for as long as possible, but decay was a formidable opponent.
The hands had taken on grey-green tinge and were hard and stiff without her music to give them life. Most of the skin had peeled away, even the flesh was receding from the bones and the fingernails had long fallen off. The sickly-sweet stench of death wafted off of them, a scent that would kill a weaker person.
But they still made beautiful art. The painting on the easel was a testament to that. The brilliant blues of the sky blended into the reds and yellows of autumn leaves that dominated the foreground of the painting. Some clung to the gnarled black branches of trees and others danced on an unseen breeze.
A murder of crows flew amongst them while a lonely one was perched on a branch in the foreground. With wings outstretched and head bent forward, it looked eager to join its friends.
The musician was eager to join them too. To dance amongst the leaves. She'd never seen an autumn so beautiful. But these hands had.
"Oh, my darlings. We—" Her words were cut off by yet another groan, louder than the last. "By the Great Sorcerer above." In one fluid motion she rose and spun towards the groaner, her long strides closing up the distance between them.
He sat in her special chair – a hand-carved Victorian – though not of his own volition. No... he had the chains to thank for that, although by the snarl on his face and the angled set of his brows, he didn't seem too happy about it.
Now that's a gaze that could set a woman on fire... And not in a good way. But she couldn't blame him for his choleric disposition. Had she been drugged, and taken from her home by a mad sorceress with an unhealthy fixation with art, well...
She may have been a little upset too.
Rivulets of sweat rolled down his face, and the black tendrils of his hair clung to his forehead. His feet rustled the plastic tarp lining the floor as squirmed against the bonds.
As the musician neared him, he worked the gag in his mouth with his teeth, and a muffled growl escaped him.
"So feisty," she said, raking the painter's hand over his cheek.
He flinched and turned his face away, choking out a cough.
"I suppose if I were painting with my own vomit or menstrual blood, you would be begging for an encore." She turned away from him and laid the painter's hands between her alabaster box and the tub of turpentine. "That's what you young ones like isn't it? Trying so hard to be different. No one appreciates simple elegance anymore."
Her captive grumbled something unintelligible, and she frowned. "Sorry, what was that?"
He fixed her with another glare, his muscles tensing against the chains.
"I'm going to need you to tone down the attitude, my dear child." She hook a single finger under the gag string and pulled it free.
"Help! Somebody help!" The boy screamed, his voice echoing off the gallery's high walls. "Help me!"
The musician looked to the door, waiting for this "somebody" to storm through in shining armour. "Somebody! Oh, somebody!" she sing-songed. "Your dearest friend is in a bit of trouble!"
The boy's shoulders were heaving with ragged breaths, and his stormy eyes darted back and forth between the windows and door.
"Mmm..." the magician hummed with a pout. "It seems "somebody" is too busy to help." She trailed a single finger over the knuckles of his right hand.
Beautiful hands he had... Large, long fingers, nails neatly kept. A few nicks and scars covered the back, but that made them all the more charming. These hands had toiled and ached and blistered. They weren't just the hands of an artist, but a labourer.
And they would serve her well.
"What the hell do you want?" The boy asked, cutting through her thoughts. His face was once again twisted into an expression of fury. "Money? I can give you money."
Why did they always think she wanted money? The gallery was indication enough that she didn't need it – from the marble tiles to the vaulted ceiling to the paintings sitting in gilded frames. "Isn't it obvious?" She made little circles on the back of his hand.
His eyes went wide and his lips parted. "No..." He fought against his bonds, nearly toppling himself and the old Victorian chair over.
"I wasn't asking your permission. I want to make beautiful art, and for that I need beautiful hands." She moved to her alabaster box and popped the lid. Nestled inside the velvet interior were two wide gold bands and a steel cleaver. She picked up the blade and the boy started screaming for "somebody" again.
So much noise for nothing. Obviously, "somebody" had better things to do. Well, either that, or they couldn't hear him beyond the vast acres of her estate.
While he continued his animalistic screeching, she picked up the gold bands with her free hand and examined the markings on their surface – the same inscriptions that graced her piccolo. Everything seemed to be in order.
As the musician turned to the boy, his eyes opened so wide that his irises seemed to shrink. He thrashed against the chains, causing the chair to tip over and hit the tiles with a crash.
She sighed and lifted her hand so the gold bands slid to her wrist. With a snap of her finger the chair righted itself, but the thrashing continued. She silently wondered, if it was worth it to wait until he tired himself out.
Eh.
"Wait! Wait!" the boy pleaded. All the malice and defiance from earlier was gone, along with the colour from his face. "I can teach you. I can teach you how to paint!" His words were as frantic as his demeanor.
"I've heard it all, my dear boy," the musician drawled, drawing closer to him. "Please don't do this." She snapped the first gold cuff around his wrist and it shrunk to fit him like a second skin. "I'll give you money." The second gold cuff went on. "I'll paint as many pretty pictures for you as you want." She rapped the blunt side of the knife against the cuff, appreciating the soft melodic clinks.
"Okay, okay! I'll uh..." He swallowed. "I'll get you another artist. Someone better than me."
Her eyes trailed the length of his arm. Cutting at the wrist ran the risk of damaging the bangle. Even after numerous artists, she hadn't perfected her butchering skills. Perhaps I should get some butcher's hands, she mused.
"Are you listening?" the boy asked and her eyes cut to his. "I can get you a better artist. The billfold in my back pocket has the cards of several who can paint better than me."
"That's nice." She cranked her arm back and brought it back down with all the speed and force she could muster. The boy had no time to react as the cleaver bit into his arm. She felt every part of his anatomy as though the blade were a part of her.
His buttery skin and flesh that was parted smoothly. His hard bone that sent a small shock up the length of her arm. The cleaver slice through it cleanly, its onslaught stopped only by the solid wood of the chair's handle.
Her cut had gone down the middle of his forearm, which meant she'd have to trim off the excess later.
The boy stared wide-eyed and mouth agape at his severed appendage before releasing an air-splitting howl that echoed though the gallery. Warm, sticky blood gushed from his stump and dripped in crimson streams down the armrest before falling to speckle the plastic.
The musician wrenched the knife from the wood and crossed to his other side. With his first arm cut, she would have to move fast, or all her hard work would be for naught.
"No! No! Please! N—" Another screamed rent the air as she sliced through his other arm.
She let the cleaver fall. Almost there. The recipe for a set of painting hands called for two gold bands, two hands and one soul. She clamped one hand over the boy's mouth, muffling his screaming, while the other went to his chest.
The boy twisted his head and flailed as much as the bonds allowed, but she held fast until the blood loss made his movements sluggish. As they locked eyes, she saw the briefest flicker in his irises and called out to his soul. Her hands warmed up and his muffled groans ceased, his eyes glazing over.
That's it. Don't resist.
The boy's skin grew cold and took on a pallid, grey hue. A familiar tingle tickled the musician's palms like a light breeze. With slow careful movements, she pulled her hand away from his mouth.
The soul appeared invisible to humans, but for a sorceress like her, it carried the look of water and the feel of soft putty. Guided by her hand, it emerged from his mouth like an apparition. A wide grin spread across her face as she split the soul in two and pressed it into the gold bands.
With no coaxing from her, it seeped into the engravements on the metal. There was nothing a soul loved more than a vessel. Such an obedient, lovely thing.
The musician snapped a finger and the chains fell away from her new hands. They were still warm to the touch and as she picked them up, a childish giggle escaped her. "New hands! New hands!" She clutched them to her chest, twirling and dancing around the gallery like a giddy school girl, never minding the blood that dripped on her dress.
New hands came with new possibilities. What would they paint for her? The lush greens of spring? Or the harsh greys of winter? Oh, she could hardly wait!
The musician squealed and hugged the hands tighter. "With these hands, I will do wonders."