The Lucifer Glass

by Frazer Lee

  “Give that to me,” he demanded, clinging to the girl with one hand—his other gripping the handrail to the side of the door, his knuckles white.

  The train’s whistle blared again and she laughed. The two sounds combined to form a banshee howl that rang out into the rush of night. Peering over her shoulder at Daniel, the woman gave him such a look that it chilled him to his marrow. A suicidal madness had made its home in those eyes, which glinted like bright green gemstones. With a maniacal smile spreading across her lips like a red gash, she twisted her body around so that she was facing Daniel. Her eyes glowed green with the same emerald hellfire that had taken possession of the boatman’s. She pushed back from the footplate with her heels.

  Gates fell with her, the force of the movement loosening his grip on the handrail. Together they tumbled from the back of the train. As they fell towards the tracks, Daniel’s hand found the spine of the book.

  They wrestled with it, mid-fall.

  Slam.

  Daniel jolted awake. Confused, he looked up and saw the rat-face of the boatman standing over him. He felt cold. Looking down, he saw the makeshift blanket of leaves and bracken he had gathered around himself; the book lay open in his lap.

  He rubbed his neck, which had a painful crick in it from sleeping up against a tree half the night.

  A dream within a dream.

  Even now, the boatman was on his way back down to the little inlet where his vessel was moored. Daniel had a distinct feeling of déjà vu as he struggled to his feet and followed.

  That feeling stayed with Daniel as the boat made its crossing. He was lulled almost to sleep by the same rhythmic splash of the oars hitting the water, but remained awake with paranoia that he would be jolted awake again by phantasms just as soon as he’d closed his eyes. Glancing over his shoulder, he looked at the island—a tiny green outcrop in the distance—and heard the rhythm of the oars slowing to a stop as he did so.

  Turning to face the ferryman, a sudden gnawing fear in the pit of his stomach gave him cause to grip the sides of the boat tightly.

  The thin man stood to his full height, held out his hand and uttered a single word.

  “Payment.”

  The word sent a shiver down Daniel’s spine.

  “Payment…for what?” Daniel asked, although he suspected he already knew the answer.

  “For the crossing,” the boatman replied, his eyes reflecting the preternatural green of the lake.

  A dream within a dream. Or a portent.

  Daniel felt the texture of the book’s binding, heavy against the tender bruise on his chest. He gripped the sides of the boat and rocked his body to one side as hard as he could, throwing the surprised boatman from his craft and into the icy waters. The man coughed and spluttered, splashing and flailing about as the hidden currents took hold of his spindly form like he was no more than a leaf in a waterfall. Daniel gripped on to the side of the boat, a frozen spectator, and watched as the flailing man disappeared beneath the surface of the loch.

  Within seconds, the glassy water became still, as though nothing had been there to disturb it just moments ago. For a breathless, heart-pounding minute Daniel watched the water and, satisfied the boatman had drowned, he clambered to the centre of the vessel. He was about to sit down at the ferryman’s position on the bench built into the hull of the craft when he saw there was only one oar in resting in its tarnished brass cradle. Daniel peered over the side of the boat and saw the other oar floating on the surface of the water a few feet away. It had fallen in with the boatman when Daniel tipped him overboard.

  It took a couple of attempts to get his direction right, but soon enough Daniel was able to row and steer the boat using the one remaining oar in order to get closer to the second. He reached over the side and grabbed hold of the errant oar. It was too heavy to lift using only one hand. The weight was enough to make him fall overboard if he wasn’t careful. Adjusting his position—so his upper body was hanging over the water with the side of the boat steadying him beneath his armpits—he reached down, with both hands this time, to retrieve the oar.

  A fury of water erupted beneath him, splashing freezing cold into his eyes, and rigid little hands grabbed his wrists. As he was pulled from the boat, Daniel looked into the wide, murderous eyes of the ferryman. They fought in the current as it took them both down beneath the swell of the loch. The thin man scratched and bit at Daniel’s face and arms as he struggled to defend himself. Daniel felt the man’s sharp nails rooting inside his jacket and, too late, realised he had succeeded in plucking the book from his breast pocket.

  No longer interested in Daniel, the wiry man disengaged from the fray, kicking his legs and rising up back toward the boat. Daniel powered after him, fuelled by a fury that gripped his body like a virus. Breaking the surface of the loch, Daniel saw his assailant swimming for the boat. Daniel’s shoulder brushed against something hard, and he reached for it. It was the errant oar. Still swimming, Daniel held on to the sleek oar like it was a harpoon. Gaining on the boatman, whose weak strokes made him less of a swimmer, Daniel launched himself out of the water with a few powerful kicks of his heels.

  He brought the business end of the oar down on the man’s head with a sickening crack. Blood seeped from behind the ferryman’s ear and his body fell limp, facedown in the water. Daniel saw a flash of yellow white in the gloom of the water. The old man had let go of the grimoire and it was sinking into the loch. Taking deep breaths and filling his lungs with air, Daniel plunged head down into the water after the precious tome.

  The book seemed to be the key to everything that had happened to him since he’d set taken that damn meeting with Rothschild. The thing was too valuable to lose now in the cold abyss of the loch. Its pages would dry out, if he could only retrieve them.

  Daniel followed the book down, fighting against the undercurrents that seemed desperate to pull him off course. Now at such a depth he could barely see in the gloom of the water, Daniel was about to break off his search and return to the surface where he could breathe again.

  Then he saw it.

  Amidst a little flutter of pages that made it look like some alien anemone of the deep, he spied the book. It had become tangled in reeds on the bed of the loch. Daniel swam low, kicking up dirty sand and sharp gravel as he went. His lungs were at bursting point. With a last surge of energy, he crawled farther through the reeds and his fingers found the book. Treading water for a moment, he got ready to kick off from the loch bed and swim back to the surface, but something was wrong; he could not move his arms and legs. He was entangled in the reeds. Fighting them only made their grip around him stronger, and they pulled him back down until his nose was against the silt floor of the loch. He could only hold his breath for a few seconds longer and cursed himself for chasing after the book; it would be the death of him.

  No. He had to try—he had come too far to drown without putting up a fight. Deciding that struggling against the reeds was ineffectual, he opted instead to work with them. Rather than trying to break free, he began to crawl through the reeds and across the bed of the lake. His progress was slow at first, but then he picked up speed, forging his own current through the slippery undergrowth. He crawled on, the last of the air leaking from the corners of his mouth, which was fixed in a grimace of dread concentration.

  Then through the thicket of sodden reeds, his fingers found an opening. It felt like a tight curtain in the loch bed and, gripping its edges tight, he prised it open and pushed himself through. Elated that he must have found the end of the reeds and preparing himself to swim for safety, Daniel instead found himself wriggling through a wet, elastic tunnel.

  The walls of the strange tunnel gripped his body as he passed through. Each kick of his legs and pull of his arms was matched by the stretching membrane around him, propelling him on as if through some monstrous gullet. Clutching the book with one hand, he broke through an opening at the end of the membranous shaft. He felt the sensation of air cooling his hand. Gaspin
g for oxygen, he pushed himself through and out of the weird orifice into which he had swum.

  He crawled up and out, tumbling over onto his side, coughing up water and gagging on a foul, coppery taste that had invaded his mouth. He took huge gulps of air. With disbelief, he looked at his surroundings. He was on the floor of the kitchen at the distillery in the woods. Blood coated the floor and walls around him. He had just crawled through, and out of, the ravaged corpse of the bearded man who lay dead next to him.

  Looking at the bloodstained book that he still held in his hand, Daniel lay back on the floor and screamed like a newborn child.

  Chapter Seven

  Through the Looking Glass

  Daniel felt something warm and tiny in his palm, little fingers skitting across his flesh like spider’s legs. The fingers closed around his hand and pulled him up until he was sitting. He opened his eyes and looked into the beautiful grey eyes of a child.

  The boy was neatly dressed in silver-grey clothes that matched the hue of his eyes. Helping Daniel to his feet, the child led him out of the kitchen and into the dank room containing the well. Hearing a disconcerting splashing sound from within the well, Daniel tried to pull away from the boy but those tiny fingers were clasped so tight around his hand that he could not free himself. Giving up the fight and padding after the child like a faithful dog, Daniel felt a tide of horror growing within him the closer they got to the well.

  His fear became awe as he watched the little boy climb up onto the side of the well. He helped Daniel up, too, holding on to his arm the way someone might guide a blind man. Standing atop the wall of the well, Daniel saw that the black fluid had gone and he was instead looking down at a spiral stone staircase. Taking his hand and urging him on, the boy led him down the steps into the unfathomable cool dark beneath.

  They descended through the darkness for what felt like an age. Daniel was beginning to fear they would never reach the foot of the stairs, and that he would be taking shuffling steps for all eternity, when he felt solid earth beneath his feet.

  A warm sirocco breeze spiralled through his hair, filling his senses with the fragrance of warm earth after rain. Stars began to pinprick his field of vision, then a shaft of bright moonlight through high trees. The moonlight illuminated the wilderness around him.

  Impossible.

  Daniel knew exactly where he was as he had been there just days ago. The child tugged at his hand, leading him on across the dirt and gravel to the roadside. Daniel felt sluggish as he walked, like a dying bird trying to escape an oil slick.

  “But, this is impossible,” Daniel muttered.

  His eyes showed truth, however, and Gates looked at the crossroads. The place was in the middle of nowhere, deserted, exactly as it had been the night he had won the mirror. Now it was just him and the quiet boy standing at the roadside.

  “You remember this place?” the boy asked. His voice was like ice and fire.

  “Yes,” Daniel replied, “I was here for a card game.”

  “Nice place to play.”

  Gates staggered on, as though in the aftershock of concussion, and fancied the sound of traffic behind him. He heard the growl of an engine and the rush of tyres across loose gravel. He turned and realised the sound was a phantasm, sucking him into a deep, buried memory of the last time he was behind the wheel of a car—days ago. Looking down at the boy by his side, Daniel’s vision misted over and he realised he was crying.

  “What’s wrong? Tell me what you see?” the boy asked.

  The child’s lips were unmoving; his voice now inside Daniel’s head, like an ice pick probing his brain. Daniel saw himself in his rear-view memory drinking from a whiskey bottle he had swiped from the butler as he roared down a country lane—the spoils. He was high on victory then, having snatched the mirror from its owner the baron after deceiving him in both card game and drink measures. The mirror sat on the backseat, its dark glass glinting in the moonlight like a wanton lover’s eyes. He saw himself turn and raise the bottle in a toast to the mirror—to his own reflected self. Then, Daniel saw a lightning flash of shocked headlamps as he hit the brakes too late, skidding into the hapless woman and her tiny child at the side of the road.

  He stumbled on loose gravel and stones, remembering the sickening bump as the wheels bounced over their little bodies. He saw himself screaming by the roadside and felt every bitter moment of raw guilt that had haunted him ever since. He had crawled from the wreckage of the car, howling into the night. That the mirror had survived was, his client said, a miracle. They made no mention of the fact that he had survived too.

  His employers had smuggled him and the mirror out of the country, telling him they would clean up his mess after him. They had instructed him not to worry; the fact that he had secured the mirror was all that was important. What had happened to the bodies of his victims, he did not know—he did not want to know. On the boat back to England, he had vowed never to drink again. But he could still taste that last slug of whiskey, lodged in his throat where it choked him like a lie. His throat still burned with it, with the heat and rawness of it. The seat belt bruise across his chest would fade, in time. His guilt would not.

  He looked down at the child and gasped in horror. The child’s face had changed, morphing somehow into that of the poor kid he had mown down on the roadside. Trembling at the boy’s innocent visage, Daniel dropped to his knees, unable to tear his eyes from those of his little victim.

  “You’re… Him, aren’t you?” Daniel asked, his question twofold.

  The ice grey of those eyes turned to an unholy blaze of emerald green. Their answer, irrefutable.

  “But…how can the Devil be a child?”

  The child sighed, a sound that echoed the emptiness and despair of millennia.

  “Only something as monstrous as a man could demonize something as innocent as a child,” the boy replied, weeping.

  A single emerald tear trickled down his cheek and fell to the ground. The teardrop exploded on impact, blazing like verdant star fire in the night’s void all around them. It crystallised where it fell, solidifying into glass. As the brilliant green glass cooled, it settled into the form of a hipflask, as though shaped by the lips of some master glassblower.

  “Take it,” the boy-thing said. “You earned it.”

  Daniel wiped the tears from his own eyes with his fingers. He rubbed the salt liquid between his fingertips where it had moistened the dried blood from the cover of the book. He picked up the hipflask. It burned like some radiant green dawn in his hand, impossibly heavy.

  Gripping its burden to his chest, he pushed on down the road, disappearing behind the curtain of night like a spectre.

  Daniel walked, for what felt like aeons. He walked over land like a ghost, drifted across the emerald glass of the loch, through the shadows of tall trees—all the way back to the threshold of that derelict house in the woods.

  Struggling beneath the weight of the hipflask, he trudged into the room where the well awaited him. Leaning against its bricks for support, Daniel gazed down at the well’s black waters. His reflection peered back at him, eyes as dark as the fathomless depths beneath them.

  All the while, the idea of the hipflask burned in his hands, daring him to take solace from its contents and imbibe the heat of that special liquor. He lifted the flask, which glittered gleefully like a sprung prisoner as he plunged it into the well. With the vessel filled, he placed it to his eager lips and poured the earthy cocktail down his throat. A warm glow spread through his neck and into his chest, down his arms and through his abdomen, all the way to his frozen toes.

  Rare balm, sweet nectar.

  He drank more of the stuff, gulping it down like it was water—but each swallow just seemed to increase his thirst.

  Flask empty, he struggled to lift it and plunged it back into the well. As it broke beneath the surface, the ensuing ripples distorted his reflection into something between laughter and a scream. He laughed and screamed along with his reflection
, drinking and refilling, drinking and refilling, but unable to slake his thirst.

  As he thrust the flask once more into the well, he felt the sudden shock of cold hands gripping his wrists, pulling him in. He gazed into the reflection of his face. His was the face of the drowning man trapped in the well.

  Excruciating pressures crushed and stretched his body as he pulled himself under. His bones were ground into sand and stars. His mouth and throat blasted by temptation and time. He had enough to drink all the way down. Enough to drown him, lifetimes over.

  Daniel Gates was falling, into that black mirror. And as he fell, he heard screams and the sickening crunch of bone.

  And breaking glass.

  About the Author

  Frazer Lee’s first novel, The Lamplighters, was a Bram Stoker Award Finalist. His short stories have appeared in anthologies including the acclaimed Read By Dawn series.

  Also a screenwriter and filmmaker, Frazer’s screen credits include the award-winning short horror movies On Edge, Red Lines, Simone and the horror/thriller feature film (and movie novelization) Panic Button.

  Frazer resides with his family in leafy Buckinghamshire, England. When he’s not getting lost in a forest he is working on new fiction and film projects.

  Official Website: www.frazerlee.com

  Blog: frazerlee.wordpress.com

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/frazer_lee

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorFrazerLee

  Look for these titles by Frazer Lee

  Now Available:

  The Lamplighters

  Coming Soon:

  The Jack in the Green

  Life on Meditrine Island is luxurious…but brief.

  The Lamplighters

  © 2011 Frazer Lee

  Marla Neuborn has found the best post-grad job in the world – as a 'Lamplighter' working on Meditrine Island, an exclusive idyllic paradise owned and operated by a consortium of billionaires. All Lamplighters have to do is tend to the mansions, cook and clean, and turn on lights to make it appear the owners are home. But the job comes with conditions. Marla will not know the exact location of the island, and she will have no contact with the outside world for the duration of her stay.