I will remember the first moment I laid eyes upon Bartholomew Garrick for as long as I am on this earth and, quite possibly, in whatever life awaits me after my death.

Out of all the crazy, wonderful, terrible things I have experienced - and let's face it, there's been many - meeting Garrick was definitely a pivotal moment, one of those memories that should flash in front of your eyes, right before you take your last breath. I'll never rid myself of that image of him, sat in one of the chairs in Harper's digs, glowering at his blood-brother with a dark, menacing expression that belied such a young handsome face. I'll never forget that sense of power he emanated, that cocky arrogant veneer that seemed to pervade all the Garrick family. I'll never forget the shocking revelation that Garrick wasn't just sitting at the head of the table of the most important vampire family in London, but that he was connected to Harper by blood, and essentially, to me also.

Of course, it wasn't long before I realised that for all his similarities to Harper, he was also very different. He had a way with words that Harper could rarely match. He was accessible with his emotions in a way Harper found exceedingly difficult. Long before Garrick's death, I had come to realise that I had needed him far more than I could ever have foreseen. He had been the calm, Harper had been the storm, a perfect balance provided by the two people who had bulldozed into my life in a way that still shook the ground beneath my feet whenever I thought about them.

After my first meeting with Lucifer, when I had blindly followed a trail I thought to be Garrick and discovered it wasn't him at all, I had almost given up hope that I would ever see him again.

Almost.

He'd always had faith in me, you see, so I couldn't lose faith in him. Even in death I believed in him. I believed that he would do everything in his power to find me. I believed he would swim against the tide of Purgatory, battle the demons that lurked in the shallows and even challenge the Devil himself if need be.

And now here he was. Here. And this was no apparition. He was real. He was as solid as I was. He was flesh and bone and I held him against me, gripping him tight in my arms, afraid that if I let go - if I relinquished my hold even just a little - he would disappear and I would lose him all over again.

I think he must have felt the same because I could feel the muscles of his arms flexing across my back as he crushed me in a desperate embrace, his breath heavy and rasping against my skin as if he had run a marathon to reach me. We remained locked together for a few moments and finally, reluctantly, I had to pull back, I had to look at him.

He was sickly pale, still wearing that grey-ish death pallor from the last time I had seen him at Oxleas Wood and his skin was slick with a thin sheen of sweat as if he was fighting a fever and yet he felt so cold to the touch. His long outgrown Mohawk lay lank and tousled down one side of his face and it felt slightly damp under my fingers as I began to examine him, almost as if I was checking a child for cuts and bruises after a fall. My trembling hands travelled over his face, searching for wounds and lesions that were not there. Further they went, trailing down his throat, his chest, down to his stomach where I couldn't help but pull on his t-shirt, desperately seeking out the terrible gaping wound made by Vanagandr. I frowned when I found nothing. Not one ravaged welt. Not one mark. Not one scar. It was as if the Great Wolf's claws had never dealt that fateful blow.

I don't know why it bothered me. I hadn't wanted to see it again. Of course I hadn't. Once had been more than enough. In fact, on the night of his death, as soon as I looked, I had wished I had heeded Garrick's warning not to, because after that I never once forgot the sight of it. Even when I closed my eyes, I could still see the raw flesh, I could still see how deep those claws had gouged and I could still see the blood pumping sluggishly from his body. And yet, after bearing witness to the death-wounds sported by so many of the souls in Purgatory, I had expected to see Garrick's and now I was torn between feeling relieved to find his skin unmarked and feeling strangely unsettled that it was practically blemish-free.

"Megan, stop," he said, grabbing my hand and bringing it to his lips where he planted small soft kisses on my knuckles. "I'm fine, really I'm okay."

I stared at him in stunned awe, feeling another sob rumble in my throat, as all the grief I had ever felt over his death threatened to overwhelm me. "How?" I croaked. "How did you find me?"

Turning my hand over, he pressed his cold mouth against my palm. "Did you ever doubt that I would?"

"No." I shook my head. "But I still don't understand. How did you come to be in there? And how on earth did you get out?"

He cocked his head to one side, his dark brows furrowing his forehead. "How did I come to be in there? How did you come to be in here?" When I frowned at him in confusion, his eyes widened with something that bordered on panic. "Megan, my God, do you not know where you are?"

I glanced around the room, my gaze sweeping over the beautiful never-ending bookcases, the richness of the rugs, the welcoming warm glow of the Moroccan-style lanterns and far, far above our heads, the breathtaking expanse of starlit sky.

"Y-yes," I stammered, suddenly unsure of myself. "I'm in one of the realms. Lucifer's I guess. I don't really know how it all works, other than that there are places here that Lucifer and Michael can go, oh and Lucifer's demons too. I know they can come here. I think Lucifer creates the realms, or maybe Michael does as well. Or at least he did, when he came here."

Garrick pulled back sharply, sitting on his haunches and clutching at his damp hair. "No, no, Megan, this isn't one of his realms! Through there....." He jabbed a finger at the mirror. "That's where his realms are. That's where Purgatory lies. Not here."

A cold trickle of doubt seeped into my gut. "What are you talking about?"

"This place, it isn't what you think it is." He lowered his voice to a whisper, glancing furtively about as if he expected the demons to come crawling out from between the books. "Do you even remember how you got here?"

The pain throbbed in my temples again as I fought to recall what had happened. "I-I don't really know. The unclaimed souls attacked me and I lost consciousness. Lucifer saved me...I mean, he stopped them and all I remember is waking up here." I gestured towards the sofa where I had awoken. "I thought this was one of his realms. He said Michael loved it here and that he knew I would too."

Garrick shook his head furiously, his brown eyes blazing. I didn't remember his eyes being that dark. I'd always remembered them as having a warm mahogany tone about them, capable of darkness, certainly, but never quite as dark as this. Now they verged on brown-black and contrasted harshly with his pale skin.

"This isn't real, Megan. It's just a reflection of what's on the other side of that glass. That's the real realm. That's the place that Michael loved. Not this. This is just a twisted version of what exists through there. This is nothing but a prison. Can't you feel it? Can't you sense how wrong it feels?"

I hesitated. I had to admit, I'd felt strange and out-of-sorts ever since I'd woken up here. At first, I had thought it was just the after-effects of the attack and that my body hadn't yet recovered from the assault, then after a while, I had just assumed it was the effects of Purgatory itself - the sickness of the Underworld creeping under my skin, infiltrating my bones, my flesh, my mind. It had never once occurred to me that there might be another reason for the way I was feeling.

The room that I had loved, the room that had left me slack-jawed in astonishment, suddenly seemed a little darker, the vibrant hue of the book spines were duller than before, the figures carved into the fireplace stared at me with wicked faces. It felt cold, as if the flames in the hearth were nothing but a mirage.

I looked away, massaging my forehead with the palms of my hands and trying to suppress the rising nausea that threatened to spit bile up into my throat. Nothing was making any sense. First there was the strange mirror that was still nagging at my memories for some unknown reason, then there was the fact that Garrick was here, right in front of me, as if I had never lost him in the first place and now he was telling me that the room I was in, wasn't the place I had thought it to be. And if it wasn't one of Lucifer's realms, then what the hell was this place?

"This place is a trap," Garrick continued, answering my unspoken question. "Megan, where is he?"

I turned slowly and nodded towards the door, even that one small motion of my head forcing me to blink away the dizziness. "He left....he said he'd be back soon."

"Then we have to leave. Now. Before he comes back." He grabbed my wrists, tugging me abruptly to my feet where I swayed a little at the sudden juddering movement.

"Woah," I breathed. "Wait a minute, what do you mean leave? Leave how?"

"Through there of course," he said, looking a little exasperated as he pointed at the mirror. "Quick, we can't be here when he returns."

He began to back up and I stumbled as he pulled me with him, getting closer and closer to the mirror. My eyes widened as we drew nearer to it. Was the surface of the glass moving? I shook my head lightly to rid myself of the fog, yet when I looked again, I could clearly see the mirror rippling and swirling, making the image on the glass seem distorted and warping everything into molten shapes and patterns as if I was looking through the lens of a kaleidoscope.

"Wait," I cried, snatching my hands out of his. "Wait...."

"There is no time to wait, Megan, can't you see that? We have to go now before it's too late."

I could see the panic in his eyes, the way he kept shooting glances at the door, how his voice had taken on a slightly high-pitched, breathless tone.

"But that mirror...." I began, trailing off as my eyes were drawn to it again, my nose wrinkling instinctively at the oil-slick blackness of the frame. I imagined that if I reached out and touched it, it would feel alive under my fingertips, like the undulating body of a black adder.

"That mirror is our only way out of here," Garrick snapped, his face twisting with a sudden rage that melted almost as soon as it had appeared when he saw me take a shocked step back. He reached out and touched my head with a hand that noticeably tremored. Stroking my hair, he moved closer until I could feel his cool breath on my skin. "I'm sorry," he soothed. "I didn't mean to startle you, it's just you have no idea what I've gone through to get here, you don't know what he's done to try and keep me away from you."

"Lucifer hurt you?" The thought of that stung me hard, making my fists clench with anger.

Garrick gave a small smile. "Nothing I wouldn't have endured a thousand times over just to see you again."

He leant down, resting his forehead gently against mine. I gripped the fabric of his shirt in my balled fists and closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the closeness. I felt his fingertips on my face, trailing a path along my jaw line, tickling my neck and curling into my hair.

When he pressed his mouth against mine, my eyes flew open but he didn't stop. Instead he held my head in both his hands as he parted my lips with his tongue, kissing me slowly, passionately.

Pushing hard against his chest, I wrenched my head away. "What are you doing?" I gasped.

"What I've always wanted to do. What you've always wanted me to do." He pulled me to him again, covering my face and mouth with small fervent kisses that almost knocked the wind out of me.

My hands found his face and I held him at bay, staring wide-eyed at him. "Garrick, no, this is wrong, you know it is."

"Wrong? Oh Megan, this place is screwing with your head." He chuckled softly but his eyes blazed a dark hunger that wrapped a cold tendril of panic around my heart. "We both always knew how much we wanted each other. Don't you remember how it was when Harper left? We grew so close then. If he'd never come back, you and I would have been together. You know that as well as I do. But you had to be loyal to him, he is your maker after all, I understood that and stepped back but I know now it was a mistake. I should never have let you go back to him. He is not right for you, you must realise that?"

"He is your brother! How can you say such a thing?"

His face tightened, cheek muscles pulling over bone as he scowled. "I died because of him. It's his fault that I'm here. Everything that has been done to me, everything that I've suffered at Lucifer's hands, is all because of Harper."

I reeled at the bitterness in his tone. It sounded so full of venom, so full of hatred for Harper that I was momentarily frozen to the spot.

"You don't mean that. Look, I can't even begin to imagine what's happened to you since you came here. I've seen some pretty terrible stuff, I've seen what Lucifer's demons are capable of and it breaks my heart to know they've hurt you. I can't stand to think of you suffering, really I can't. But this place changes everyone who comes here. It gets in your head, don't you see? It makes you think such awful fucked-up things that just aren't true. You love Harper, you were trying to save him and you didn't just do that for me, you said as much yourself. Don't you remember telling me that you'd do anything to help him?"

His face contorted with disgust. "Well I was wrong," he spat. "Because I lost you and it wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth it. I should have told you how I felt long ago, I know that now. But blind faith in him kept me from confessing the truth and the truth is that I cannot be without you, Megan Garrick." His eyes lit up then, his lips curling up into a wide grin. "See? It even sounds right, doesn't it? Megan Garrick. You took my name, not his. Doesn't that tell you something?"

"What?" I cried. "That we're going to get married and live happily ever after? I took our family name. I took our blood-father's name just as you did."

I expected to see the hurt in his eyes. I expected to see him reel from my words, just as I had to his. Instead, the grin widened and his fingers languidly stroked my collarbone, slipping just under the collar of my shirt.

"Megan, he is not here now. There's no need to pretend anymore. What can he do to stop us anyway? Once we are out of here, once we go through the mirror, we can do whatever we want and right now I want to do everything to you. Everything."

Grasping the back of my neck, he pressed himself against me and we stumbled backwards until my back hit one of the bookcases and I was reminded of another time, another place, surrounded by the much-loved and well-read books from Benjamin's collection. I recalled being with Garrick there in Benjamin's study but not like this, never like this with the sirens resounding loud and clear in my head and the panic gripping me in a tight suffocating bind.

Pinning me against the bookshelves, Garrick once again crushed his mouth against mine, more forceful this time and his knee slipped between my thighs. The dread washed over me as I felt his excitement through his jeans, his hardness pressing against my stomach, one of his hands travelling down to smooth over the curve of my breast.

"Garrick...." I managed to croak when he eased up on the kisses, only for him to cover my mouth again, pushing his tongue between my lips and hearing his audible groan of pleasure as he ground his hips against mine.

I was free-falling, too stunned to move, to respond, even to think clearly.

Had I ever thought about what this would be like with Garrick? Of course I had. Bartholomew Garrick was just one of those guys you couldn't help but think about in this way, even if it was just for a fleeting moment, even if you just let the images wash over you mind whenever you locked eyes with him. Maybe there might even have been a point when this had made sense, maybe even more sense than being with Harper did, because it was easier somehow to focus on Garrick's charms versus Harper's faults. It had been very easy at times to remember every cruel word, every moment of pain Harper had inflicted on me. It had been easy to remember when he had walked away and easy to remember that hardened edge to his expression and to know that no matter how hard I chipped away at him, he would always keep something of himself locked away where I could never reach it.

But Garrick wasn't Harper. And as much as I loved him - a deep, soul-aching love that I knew no one would ever understand no matter how much I tried to explain it - I didn't want this and I never once imagined it would ever be like this either. Not with a cold fear in the pit of my stomach and confusion clouding my brain. Not with his hands feeling so intrusive, so insistent. Not with his mouth pressed so hard against mine that I could barely breathe. This wasn't the Garrick I knew.

And that's when it hit me. That's when I remembered.

"Remember," Lucius whispered. "The mirror lies.....it will show you want you want to see but it isn't real, Megan, remember that, okay?"

And I did. I did remember.

With a growl of rage, I pushed against him as hard as I could, sending him stumbling backwards. When he grinned and came at me again, I did the only thing I could and I swung my arm out in an arc and hit him square in the mouth, hating myself for hitting that face I adored but knowing now that this was all nothing but a lie.

"You're not him," I hissed. "You're not Garrick. He would never do this. He would rather die all over again than force himself on me."

The thing that was masquerading as Garrick pressed the back of its hand against its split mouth, a mouth filled with too many razor sharp teeth, and studied the blood on its skin with the blackest of eyes that glistened malevolently, reminding me of the blackness of the mirror-frame. Dabbing its tongue at the cut, it smacked its lips together grotesquely as it tasted its own blood, making me want to retch to know that tongue had been inside my mouth.

"Hmmm," it crooned. "I can see why he likes you. There is sooooooo much to like." Its black eyes wandered lasciviously down my body.

"Where is he? What have you done with him?" I demanded.

It laughed then, a bubble of laughter that sounded thick with phlegm. "Oh don't you worry about your pretty little Garrick, we've having so much fun with him. He's such a delight. Such a tasty morsel of flesh that bleeds so very well."

"You're lying."

"Am I?" said the thing, smoothing back its lank hair in a cruel mimicry of how Garrick did it. "Maybe, maybe not," it trilled in a sing-song voice. "Liar, liar, pants on fire! Tell me Megan, does it burn? Does it consume that little angelic soul of yours to think of him in pain? You're going to burn forever you know, because you'll never find him. Forever and ever, amen."

The demon clasped its hands together in mock-prayer, all fake piety as it inclined its head slightly. I launched myself at it again, howling in fury and this time, knocking it to the floor as I let fly with a flurry of punches to its face and body. It hissed and spat beneath me, its fingers now sporting cruel talons that scratched at my arms, my throat, my face, but I wasn't giving up so easily. I wasn't just angry at this thing, I was offended, insulted, utterly repulsed by it. I could still feel the slick sensation of its mouth upon my skin, still feel its hands on my body. Seeing my target in sight, I buried my face into the neck of the thing with Garrick's face for a second time but instead of inhaling its scent, I plunged my incisors into its foul flesh and tore at its skin, ripping a hole in its throat as it grabbed at my hair and yanked my head away. The most putrid of blood poured from the wound and I spat it out, gagging at the taste of it in my mouth.

Pushing me off, the demon scrambled to its feet, clutching its neck, its black eyes blazing rage and fear. It pointed one yellowing talon at me. "You're no angel," it shrieked. "You're nothing but a vampire! I bet Michael laments the day he made such a pathetic excuse of a being such as you. Where are your powers now, angel? Where are your wings? You know nothing and you will fail, just like all the others have failed before you. We will meet again, you and I and then you will know my name and scream it for an eternity in Hell!"

When the demon's insane glare snapped to something over my shoulder, I turned sharply to find Lucifer standing in the open doorway, engulfed in a fury I had never seen before. It was a fury so powerful, so all-consuming and so infinitely terrifying that immediately I knew why he was feared, I knew why people trembled at the mere mention of his name.

He wasn't just Lucifer, he was Satan, he was the Devil and I had severely underestimated the power he possessed.

He stood there, so utterly furious that I could feel the room shake around me. Books popped free from their shelves and began to fall to the floor. Lanterns fell from tables and smashed, splintering fragments of coloured glass onto the plush rugs. High up above clouds as red as blood rolled overhead and thunder split the sky wide open.

Back in the classroom of the old derelict school, as I finally tore my hands free from Lucius, as I finally snapped back to the world above, I could still feel Lucifer's rage. I could feel the heat of unbridled fury in those startling rainbow eyes and yet I was confused by it, probably more confused than I had ever been, because I knew Lucifer's anger had not been directed at me at all, even though his gaze had swept over my disheveled form, with streaks of blood streaming down my face, throat and arms from by the demon's talons.

His anger had been aimed completely and utterly at the demon itself, which upon seeing its master, fell prostrate to the floor and screamed and screamed for Lucifer's mercy.