The fire roared in the great hearth in Benjamin Garrick's study. We had no real need for it of course, but I enjoyed watching the shadows flicker on the walls as the flames danced in the fireplace and they enjoyed humouring my whims.
Harper sat in Benjamin's armchair, watching me as I sat in the chair opposite, my legs flung over the arm as I read, one of our father's huge dusty tomes resting in my lap. Watching me read had become one of Harper's whims and it seemed to be one of the only times I saw him shrug off the anger and let the calm overwhelm him completely.
Garrick was sitting at Benjamin's desk, pouring over books and old yellowing manuscripts. Since the day of The Great Uprising he had done little else except bury his head in page after page. I had no idea what he was searching for but every now and then, his eyes widened and glinted in the firelight and he would make furious notes in the tatty leather-bound notebook that he kept with him at all times.
And I had humoured him. I had let him leaf through each book and document, I had let him make note after note and I had let him lose himself in his search.
But tonight, his time was up.
Closing the book and twisting my legs around, I stood up, placing the scruffy Dickens volume on the seat of the chair, and slowly, treading one foot in front of the other, like a cat stalking its prey, I approached the table, knowing that Harper's eyes were following me across the room, alert and wary.
Placing both hands on the edge of the desk, I bent down, staring at Garrick as he worked.
"What do you want, Megan?" he said, not stopping and not looking up at me as I surveyed him, making a small clicking noise with my tongue against my teeth.
"You know what I want," I said, smiling.
He sighed, irritated and threw his pen down on the desk, leaning back in his chair and glaring at me with that arrogant swagger blazing from his eyes. "Oh for goodness sake," he hissed. "Harper can't you occupy her for a while and get her out of my hair? I'm trying to work here."
Harper shrugged nonchalantly and smirked. "You can't bury your head in those books forever, brother. And besides, I have found her to be annoyingly persistent when she wants something."
I grinned and turned my attention back to Garrick, enjoying the way he visibly squirmed under my gaze. "You owe me, Garrick. After all, this deal of yours is what got me into this mess to start with so the least you can do is tell me what it is that you have that Brandon wants. I'm going to find out in the end, so why not give in now and tell me?"
His face twisted into a snarl and he smoothed his ink-stained hands over the shaved sides of his head. "You know, you used to intrigue me, now you irritate me."
"But I still intrigue you. And you're still going to tell me what I want to know."
He growled and stood up suddenly, the chair legs screeching on the floor as he angrily pushed it away. "Fine," he snapped. "You want to know, then I will show you. But don't blame me if what you find is not exactly to your liking."
I frowned but followed him from the room regardless, matching his pace with my own. As we trailed through the dimly lit corridors, with the cracked strip lights flickering and buzzing overhead, barely emanating enough light to illuminate the corners, I turned to see Harper following, his face set in a grim line and the lack of light making him look even more menacing than usual.
Garrick led us into his private quarters, a small sparsely furnished room with a couple of dog-eared posters of some non-descript rock band on the wall and a battered chintz-edged lampshade in the corner. On the other side was a door and he took a key from his pocket and unlocked it to reveal a narrow staircase leading down into pitch blackness.
Quickly he navigated the staircase and I followed, trying not to lose my footing on the steep steps and feeling the cold increase noticeably the further down we went. At the bottom was another door and Garrick stood in front of it, waiting for both Harper and I to reach the bottom of the stairs. Standing there in the small confines of the stairwell with Harper close behind me and Garrick's gaze fixated on me, I suddenly felt suffocated with anxiety and after all my protests that he show me what it was he was hiding, I wasn't so sure now that I wanted to know what it was after all.
"We don't have to go in. If you've changed your mind... " Garrick said, clearly spying the doubt clouding my face. That was enough for my stubborn curiosity to brush all my anxiety aside and square up to the arrogant vampire.
"I haven't changed my mind. I want to know what it is."
Taking another key from his pocket, he inserted it into the lock and looked at me, a small smug smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
"I think you'll find it's a who, not a what."
As my gasp echoed up the stairs, Garrick turned the key and opened the door, revealing a room like no other in the whole of the asylum.
It was a bedroom. I had no idea what this room had been used for in its previous life but now it was definitely a bedroom and furnished as a bedroom should be. As a child's bedroom should be.
Numerous rugs, multi-coloured and overlapping covered the floor, no doubt protecting tiny feet from the cold that seeped up from the ground underneath. The walls were painted cream, a stark contrast to the grey institutionalised walls of the hospital above. The light, a single bulb that hung from the middle of the room, was housed within a lampshade with a boat print patterning the navy fabric. In one corner was a small white book-shelf and from where I was standing I recognised many childhood favourites of mine, all new copies and neatly organised on the small wooden shelves. There were no dusty, tattered old books in here. In fact, everything about this room screamed new. New rugs, new books, freshly painted walls. New toys lay strewn about the floor.
A large bed, really too large for a child, stood on the far side, scattered cushions rested against the white bed frame and a thick duvet draped over it, cascading down the sides.
Sitting in the middle of the bed, almost swallowed up by the plush bedding, was a small boy, who sat cross-legged, staring at us with wide-open eyes, possibly the bluest eyes I had ever seen. He was about eight years old, with poker straight nearly-trimmed white-blonde hair that framed his pale face. He didn't seem alarmed that his sanctuary had been invaded by a trio of vampires. In fact, he seemed far calmer than I did.
"He's a human!" I gasped.
Garrick watched me with interest. "Is he?" he said, raising an eyebrow. "Are you sure about that?"
"Well, he's clearly not a vampire and definitely not a Varúlfur," I stammered, unable to take my eyes off of the boy who continued to stare right back, still unruffled by our presence.
Garrick walked over to the bed and the boy looked up at him and smiled. It was the smile of an innocent, who seemingly did not know that a vampire, a monster of childhood nightmares, stood right by his side, grinning back at him.
"Lucius, this is Megan. She very much wanted to meet you. Why don't you go over and say hello?"
Lucius nodded, still smiling. He slid off the edge of the bed and tiptoed towards me, his small feet covered in Buzz Lightyear socks. As he approached, with his hand outstretched to greet me, I realised immediately that I didn't want him to touch me. I didn't know what it was but there was something about him that suddenly terrified me to the core and I thought that if he got any closer, I might be unable to stop myself from screaming right in his face. I didn't realise I had backed away until I felt Harper's body against mine. His hand grabbed firmly at my waist, holding me in place.
"Don't be shy, Megan," Garrick insisted, his dark eyes glinting beneath thick brows. "Say hello to Lucius."
I reached out a trembling hand, whilst everything inside me was screaming at me not to touch him and as his tiny palm slipped into my own, I knew instinctively that this was no human child and certainly no innocent. Moaning in fear, I fell to my knees in front of him as he continued to hold my hand and smile, as if all this was perfectly normal.
Immediately a crescendo of screams echoed in my head as if all the spirits from the asylum had escaped the walls and rushed into my skull, filling it completely with such terrifying noise that I cried out in pain, but still Lucius didn't let go. I saw a dark landscape filled with bloodied bodies crushed together in a wall of such horror that I wanted to close my eyes to the agony but couldn't. This vision was in my head and there was no way of shutting it out. I saw tortured souls amidst the chaos; men, women and children, wailing in fear, all emanating great guttural cries that tore at my heart and made me whimper to hear them. Some reached for me, their hands grabbing at nothing but air as they implored me to help them. Their wide eyes pleaded, their faces nothing but mutated, melted visages of the dead. I felt their anguish as if I were one of them and the tears streamed down my cheeks, but still Lucius held on.
And then there were the others. Dark, twisted shapes that maybe once were human and now were something so terrifying, so sinister that they revelled in the misery and pain, writhing and undulating amongst the anguished souls, feeding off their terror. They grinned with horrible slavering mouths. They licked at the skin of the tortured ones as if they could taste their agony and fear. They pushed their deformed bodies against them, their hideous eyes rolling with excitement and their clawed hands grasping and caressing in a way that made the bile rise in my throat. And, worst of all, they laughed; high-pitched howling laughter filled with such dark glee that I wanted to clap my hands over my ears.
"That's enough now, Lucius," I heard Harper say although his voice seemed so far away that it was hard to hear it above the screams and the cackling laughter.
I wanted to pull away but I was frozen, as if some kind of invisible unmovable force held me there. I was aware I was whining now, like an injured animal emitting a high-pitched keening that was getting louder and louder as the visions assaulted my mind. The pain was so terrifying that I wanted to crack my skull against the wall and release the abhorrent images that whirled round and round.
"Enough, Lucius!" barked Harper, his voice full of alarm.
Immediately Lucius blinked and let go of my hand. I quickly scrambled away, throwing myself into the corner of the room, where I clutched my head in my hands, pulled at my hair and rocked back and forth. The child simply walked back to his bed and climbed back up, nestling amongst the scattered cushions and thick duvet, ignoring us as if we were not even there. I stared at him, my eyes bulging and my mind still tortured by visions I would never be able to forget.
Harper moved to my side, sliding his back down the wall and sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest. Untangling my fingers from my hair, he held my trembling hands firmly in his but said nothing, his eyes unusually solemn.
Crouching on my other side, Garrick touched a hand to my leg and I flinched, feeling my heart pounding erratically and my breath catching in my throat.
"What was that? Garrick, what is he? What is Lucius?" I whispered hoarsely, unable to take my eyes off of the child.
"Lucius is one of The Lost. Maybe the only one left of his kind. Well, at least that's what we think. The Lost are the descendants of the nephilim, the offspring born of the carnal coupling of angels and human females. It is said that God found the nephilim to be abhorrent, evil creatures, created by the corrupt nature of human flesh and He believed that they, in turn, would corrupt humanity and help open the gates of the Underworld, thereby creating Hell on Earth. God decreed that all nephilim be destroyed and hence the great flood of Noah's time was sent to wipe out all traces of the angels' hybrid offspring. Only the flood did not kill them all and the nephilim went on to beget more children, and those children beget again and so on. And they learned to hide from God's searching eyes, living in the shadows and never revealing themselves in fear of the angel armies who would come and slaughter them in the name of the Holy Father himself. The descendants of the nephilim came to be known as The Lost, beings who lived in limbo, of this world and yet not of this world."
"So The Lost are evil?"
Garrick looked at me in surprise. "No Megan, The Lost are not evil. But they have the capability to do great evil, yet who amongst us does not have the same capacity for evil acts? No, The Lost are neither good nor evil which is exactly why they are lost. But you see, the thing to remember about things that are lost, is that they can always be found."
"What was is that he did to me? Those things I saw...."
"What you saw was the Underworld. Lucius showed you what lies waiting behind the gates of Hell and just why God fears The Lost so much."
"I don't understand," I frowned, but my body was growing colder by the second, as if the demons had crept through the void and were here now, with their icy wraith-like claws wrapped around my throat, squeezing tighter and tighter.
"The gates to the Underworld exist for a reason: to abate the powers of the fallen ones. When God expelled the dark angels who opposed him, he believed that he could curb their growing power, clip their wings, so to speak. But Lucius could help undo God's work. He would not do that on his own, but there are those that would take him and use him to rip open the barrier that keeps the Underworld and our world apart. Just as there are those who would seek him just to make sure he never opened those gates."
"And the Varúlfur want him?" I said.
"There are many who want him. But it just so happens that I found him first." He smiled a thin, cruel smile.
"So all this, Brandon's deal, everything has been because of Lucius?"
Garrick nodded.
The sadness ripped into my gut. "Then he must want him very much."
Garrick and Harper shot glances at each other, before Garrick locked his dark eyes with mine and slicked a tongue across dry lips.
"Enough to sacrifice his most beloved wife for," he said.
I stared at Lucius, his angelic white-blonde hair, beautiful blue eyes and seemingly innocent smile, as he flicked through a book, running his fingers slowly along the words and silently forming those words with his mouth just like an ordinary child would. Except, he was anything but ordinary. He was the key to Hell itself and I would have traded everything he had shown me for an eternity of suffering in Harper's basement. Just looking at him made me want to ball my fist into my mouth to stifle the screams.
The child looked up at me and smiled.
*******************************************************************************************
So here is the end of Playing Dead! I can't quite believe a story that I started to write to help combat writer's block would ever turn out quite like this so a big Cinnamon thank you to everyone for their comments and votes. Without readers, a writer is nothing so my gratitude and appreciation goes out to all for your invaluable support.
**PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A COMPLETED SERIES AND BOOK 2: THE LOST AND BOOK 3: SAVAGE WINGS ARE BOTH AVAILABLE ONLY ON WATTPAD. PLEASE CHECK MY PROFILE FOR STORY LINKS**