by Frazer Lee
“But… Hello? Are you still there?”
The line cleared.
“You will find another way. Just as you did with the mirror…”
Click. The line went dead.
Great, thought Daniel as he looked out over the treetops to the glassy waters of the loch. With no ferryboat in the offing, and afternoon drawing in, Daniel had little choice but to go back to the ramshackle distillery and try his hand with the bearded old fellow. He stretched out a leg and searched for a branch below his foot, hoping he would make it back down the tree as safely as he had ascended.
The door was open and Daniel entered, calling out to the old man. Even if the old fellow was not open to negotiations, it was in Daniel’s best interest to try and get him on-side. He had no idea if the boat was coming back for him and so might have to stay the night on the godforsaken island.
“Hello?”
Daniel walked into the room housing the well. He heard the same sloshing sound coming from within and crossed the room to investigate. Another slosh—louder this time. He gripped the side of the well and peered into its still, dark waters. There was no sign of movement.
Then, with a heart stopping splash, hands erupted from the water, grabbing and clawing at his face. Daniel fell back in shock, and liquid splashed over the sides as his assailant thrashed around helplessly. The man must be drowning in there. Daniel got to his feet and rushed to help.
The man inside the well was indeed drowning, his head beneath the water so that Daniel could not make out his face. He was trying desperately to gain purchase on the slick rocks with his free hand, but each time he tried, the farther he seemed to slip under those deep, black waters. Daniel thrust both his hands into the well, but the man inside had stopped trying. Daniel’s fingers skated across the cold wet surface of the man’s hands. Then, the drowning man dropped suddenly, as though some great monstrous unseen thing had latched on to him and pulled him down beneath the surface. Dark water spattered Daniel’s face and mouth and he fell back. He spat the moisture from his lips, but he had already swallowed some of the fluid. The taste was unmistakable.
Malt whiskey.
His senses went haywire at the taste, earthy and woody and finer than anything that had graced his lips before. He had no doubt the well was filled with the stuff, a deep mother lode of The Zero Malt. A tiny voice had already started chattering within his skull, to lean over the side of the well and drink his fill. To scoop great handfuls of the dark juice into his mouth, to climb in and swim in the stuff, allowing it to permeate every pore in his body.
Shaking the voice from his head, he looked down at his reflection in the well. He had no desire to go the same way the stranger had. However intoxicating the liquor, he had to put some distance between himself and the well—between his soul and temptation.
Scrambling to his feet, he ran toward a ramshackle door at the back of the room. Slamming the door behind him, he found himself in another dingy room. Buzzing flies murmured from the shadows. As his eyes adjusted to the scant light coming through the crack in a single boarded-up window, Daniel saw he was in a tiny galley kitchen. The place was in disarray—a large table lay upturned on its side on the other side of the room and broken crockery littered the floor. Cobwebs hung from the rusted hob of a filthy old stove. He set about looking for a vessel to fill with the whiskey from the well. If he returned with a sample of the precious liquor, he might yet be able to quadruple his fee.
The cupboards nearest him were bare. Any jugs or bottles in the kitchen lay broken on the floor. He crossed to a dresser behind the overturned table and gasped at the fresh hell laid out before him. The floor on the other side of the table was awash with blood and entrails. A ruined corpse lay at his feet, flesh and clothing torn open as though it had been eviscerated by some feral beast. Its face had been eaten away; little flaps of skin and beard the only discernable features left. These and the man’s clothes were the only clues left to the identity of the victim—the old distiller.
Gagging on whiskey-tainted bile as it bubbled up into his throat, Daniel stepped across the corpse towards another door. Loose teeth crunched horribly beneath his footfalls. He bit down hard on his lip to stop himself from vomiting.
Then, he stopped.
As if in a dream, he found himself walking back to the corpse, even as every rational nerve impulse in his brain begged him to turn around and head the other way—to run from that horrible scene and never look back. Further still, he found himself crouching next to the ruptured chest of the corpse. He watched, almost outside of himself as a hand thrust out of the raw meat cavity of the dead man’s chest. The hand was clutching a blood-stained book.
The grimoire.
Daniel reached down and grasped the book. As he did so, the hand let go, grabbing Gates’s wrist instead. The hand was clamped as tight as a bear trap around Daniel’s wrist, pulling his hand into the slick network of heart-flesh inside the old man’s ruptured chest cavity. Daniel struggled and twisted and pulled his wrist from the horrible grasp of the hand. He still had hold of the book. He rose and barrelled through the door, away from the horrific scene, crashing out into open air and the sudden, deafening cacophony of crows.
The crows were so many they darkened the sky to a storm. Feeling them swoop, a great black curtain bearing down on him, Daniel ran for the tree line. He almost fell at the first few steps, sharp beaks stabbing and biting at his head and shoulders. Thrashing his arms wildly, he stumbled over the edge of the steep bank and, twisting his ankle so painfully it made him roar, he fell crashing down through the trees. He heard the crows cawing angrily somewhere high above him, felt the sting of nettles and bracken lashing his face as he tumbled into space. The breath exited his body like an exorcised ghost as he hit the trunk of a huge tree and blacked out.
Cold sleet woke him, great globs of the stuff numbing his face as they tore from the night sky. He was propped up against the trunk of the mighty oak against which he had fallen. He must have been slumped there for hours, unconscious after his fall, and could barely feel his fingers from the cold. Lifting his hands, he realised he was still clutching the book from the bizarre murder scene at the top of the hill. The leather binding, and Daniel’s hands, were still slicked with grue from the corpse’s chest cavity. In the numbness devouring his extremities, the book felt disturbingly like a thick chunk of flesh. He wiped the grimoire, and his fingers, on the sleet-filled grass.
As he opened the mysterious little volume, the wind dropped suddenly to a low moan. The sleet retreated up the hill to add further chill to the nightmarish house from which he had fled. The clouds broke, and starlight kissed the yellowing pages of the book, illuminating their fine script and arcane woodcuts. Daniel quickly returned the book to the safety of his jacket pocket, then stood up and made his way back to the path he travelled earlier. The wind hissed bitterly around him and every inch of his being craved shelter and a warm fire. But Daniel knew he could not bear to enter that dreadful house again and instead headed down the steep winding path, back to the inlet.
Chapter Six
Across the Threshold
When he finally reached the inlet, the cold began to get too much for him. A biting wind was rising off the surface of the loch, freezing him to the bone. He paced up and down the length of the inlet, trying to improve his circulation, but the wind bit harder.
Retreating to some tree cover, he blew into his hands and rubbed them together. He cursed his lack of survival skills. He would not know how to start a fire without matches or a lighter if his life depended on it—and he was beginning to think it might. Retreating to the relative shelter of the distillery was still not an option. He shuddered at the thought of the dead man’s ravaged body, the dark well, and those grabbing hands. No, he would take his chances in the Stygian chill, even it meant he froze to death by morning. Sitting down at the base of the broadest tree he could find, he gathered leaf litter and bracken around him like a living blanket. Pulling the book from his pocket, he leafed through
its pages at random and began to read the strange, spidery text by the cold light of the moon.
“Lucifer’s Glass”
Legend tells that Lucifer, also known as the Morningstar, Satan, the Devil and Legion among other names, returned to the physical plane to tempt Christ. He brought with him naked men and women, their sex like ripe fruit, their bodies willing. He smashed stars to the ground and forged them into goblets, filling them with moonlight, which he turned to liquor with which to intoxicate the Christ. But the Christ refused each and every sinful temptation the Morningstar offered up to him. Not one fleshly diversion could break such Holy resolve.
Upon suffering defeat in the presence of such abundant sin, Lucifer shed a single, bitter tear. The tear fell to earth and crystallised. The crystal was the Devil’s own prized emerald, its spectral green glass filled with power enough to drive nations of men insane just by looking upon it.
Bested by the Son of God, Lucifer was driven back to his Hell. But his emerald, his dark conjuring power, remained on the earthly plain. As the cleansing winds of virtue ripped through the land, the green glass was lost beneath aeons of sharp sand. The sands might have ground the glass to dust, were it not for a traveller who saw a chance glimmer of emerald green one night.
The traveller awoke Lucifer when he released the emerald glass. The demon told the traveller that the precious glass could be his, if he were to prove his mettle. Just as Christ bested the Devil, the seeker of the glass must himself conquer the Devil’s trinity of Threshold Demons:
The first of these green-eyed Demons was Astaroth, the Taskmaster, who could set men on the path to great riches.
The second green-eyed Demon was Lilyth, the Temptress, who had the power to conquer men and give them cause to falter from the path.
The third green-eyed Demon was Kharon, the Ferryman, who guarded the veil between one world and the next…
A kicking at his heels woke Daniel with a start. Screams echoed in his mind, the spectral hangover of another nightmare. His fingers found the book, still open in his lap. He must have dozed off while reading the mumbo jumbo in the grimoire—no wonder he was having nightmares.
The skinny boatman was standing over him, his usual sour expression making his rodent-like features even more unsavoury a wake-up call. Without a word, the thin man turned and walked away, leaving Daniel to rouse himself and wipe the troubled sleep from his eyes.
Back on the boat, Daniel rubbed his arms and legs in a vain attempt to keep out the damp chill that seemed to have taken possession of his bones. The boatman rowed silently, and at the repetitious splash and creak of the oars as they dipped in and out of the water Daniel yawned, still not fully awake. The boat was about halfway across the loch and Gates took a look back at the island, which seemed a mere outcrop above the water, no longer the threatening place filled with terrors that had plagued his dreams. As he gazed at the emerald rock, Daniel felt the boat slowing down. The sounds of the oars became fewer and farther apart. Turning back to face the boatman, Daniel found him standing over him again like a phantom.
“Something the matter?” Daniel asked, unable to read the man’s thin expression.
“Payment,” the ferryman replied, his voice as oily as his over-garments.
“Payment? For what?”
“For the crossing.”
“Now look here,” Daniel said, “My client will cover any surplus requirement you’ve dreamed up to cover whatever overheads are commanded by this vessel of yours. I’m sure they’ll give you enough to cover buying an engine for this damned boat if that’s what you desire…”
“Desire?”
The wiry man’s eyes glinted in the light reflected from the loch.
“We’d get across a damn sight quicker if you did invest in an engine, wouldn’t we?”
The boatman stood where he was, still as a mast in the centre of the boat.
“Well,” said Daniel exasperated, “get on with it man, or do I have to row myself across the bloody lake?”
The boatman regarded him with those hungry eyes. For a moment, they flashed emerald green. Gates shivered, and not from the chill wind brushing across the surface of the water.
“Payment.”
“Listen, I don’t have anything on me right now, only plastic. Just get me ashore and I’ll make the call. You’ll get a nice bonus I assure you.”
The man ignored him, pointing at Daniel’s breast pocket.
Daniel could feel the rectangular shape of the book against his heart.
“You want this?”
The ferryman nodded, like an adult playing along with a child.
“It’s exceptionally rare, worth a fortune. You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”
“Payment.”
Daniel sighed, fed up of the boatman’s game. If he wanted the book, then fine, he would have to return to the mainland empty-handed after all. He began to calculate exactly how much would already be in his account for the mirror job—enough to fund a lengthy vacation that was sure. Maybe the time was nigh to go off the grid, forget about work for a while and ditch this damn-fool assignment he had allowed himself to be talked into.
“Take it,” he said, standing up and handing the book to the boatman.
“It has blood on it.”
Daniel took a step closer so he could see the book cover more clearly. A few crimson droplets remained on the lower edge of the binding.
“So it does. A book restorer will have no trouble removing the stain. I’m sure you’ll live happily ever after. Now just get me off this goddamned lake.”
The wiry boatman’s eyes burned green with emerald fire once more and, without warning, he stamped his foot on one side of the boat. It tipped suddenly and Daniel was thrown from the vessel into the icy water. The harrowing cold took the breath from his lungs and he swallowed draughts of loch water as an undercurrent dragged him down. Clawing with his hands, he tried to swim upwards, but his limbs were useless in the grip of the currents bearing down on him from all sides. Above him, he could see the dark little shape of the ferryboat, getting smaller and smaller as he was sucked down into the freezing depths.
Air bubbles trailed from his mouth and nostrils as he fought against the current. His vision grew dense as fog. As he took yet more water into his lungs, he blacked out.
A piercing scream shook Daniel awake.
Scrambling into a seated position, he felt his clothing.
Bone dry.
Another piercing sound made him start. What he had mistaken for a high-pitched scream was, in fact, the whistle of a train. He felt movement all around him, a rhythmic rocking accompanied by an all-too familiar clickety-clack from outside.
He searched for the light-pull with his fingers. Clicking the reading light on, he surveyed his surroundings. He was back in the sleeper carriage, with not a clue how he had got there. On impulse, he felt inside his breast pocket and found the book there. Holding it up to the light, he studied its cover with great care and attention to the finest details. He could not find any bloodstains on the binding.
Perhaps his journey to the island, and all that had transpired at the distillery had been some fever dream. He checked his watch. Three a.m. Daniel coughed. He had the beginnings of a sore throat. Tossing the book onto the bedclothes, he swung his legs over the side of the cot bed. He poured himself a glass of water from the complementary bottle on his nightstand, next to which stood a now-cold pot of tea, with cup and saucer.
Glancing at the book, he saw it had fallen open on the same pages he had read—or dreamed he had read—while on the island. He drained the water glass and fell back onto the bed. Overcome with tiredness and disorientated by his vivid dreams he closed his eyes, intent on getting some rest before the remainder of his journey. He was just drifting off, his mind occupying that transitory place between wakefulness and sleep, when he half-heard a click then soft footfalls approaching his bed.
Moments later he felt a weight leave the bed beside him, and he opened his e
yes to see the red-haired waitress from the dining car crouched over him with Choronzon’s Grimoire in her hands. Her face was a shock of surprise, emerald-green eyes blazing at him as she clutched the book to her breast. She turned and bolted from the room before Daniel could react. He sprang to his feet and, without shoes, ran outside into the carriage’s narrow passageway. Looking on instinct to the right, he saw only the empty carriage. Hearing another click, he looked to the left and just glimpsed a flash of red hair as the woman disappeared through the connecting door into the next carriage. She was making for the rear of the train.
He ran after her, steadying himself against the carriage wall and windows as he went, rocked by the movement of the train. Another screech of the whistle and the train entered a tunnel, making Daniel’s ears pop. The roar of the train was momentarily muffled, and he remembered his dream of drowning, sucked down beneath the currents of that dark, freezing lake. His hearing returned to him, and Daniel charged through another carriage into the next—and saw the redhead at the end, still clutching the precious tome. She had reached a dead-end. The door behind her had an emergency lever marked with a series of warnings and grim diagrams of stick figures falling onto train tracks. She ignored the warnings and pulled the lever.
With a defiant expression on her face, she slid the emergency door to one side and took a shaky step onto the footplate beyond. The airflow searing past the train whipped her hair into a crazed Medusa-like tangle over her head. She held on to the handrail, preparing to throw herself off the train and into the night.
Daniel reached her just in time. He clawed at her falling body, his fingers finding the collar of her uniform. Her feet were on the footplate of the carriage and her upper body leaning out at a forty-five degree angle so she was dangling over the tracks. Her arms flailed as she tried to steady herself, and Daniel saw the precious book in her right hand.