Our Father, which art in Heaven,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy will be done,

in earth as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive the trespasses,

As we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,

Forever and ever.

Amen.

CHAPTER ONE

Sixteen days.

It had been sixteen days since I had gotten a decent night's sleep. Fourteen since I had left England. And two years since I had spoken to Tiffany.

Tiffany.

She was the reason I was here in the first place.

About seventeen days ago, I began having dreams that involved the quiet blonde. In fact, they were centered around her; she starred in them, much to my dismay. Not that I have anything against Tiffany, no. We had been good friends back in the day; living in Channard's asylum, battling hell, killing my stepmother and such. It's just what would happen in the dreams that upset me.

Every night when I would go to bed, I would immediately fall into a deep sleep. It was almost like I skipped R.E.M. I would just start dreaming as soon as my eyes closed. And then I would dream of Tiffany…and her pain. Mostly I would dream of her pain.

And I could feel it.

Not physically, of course, but I could see it in her face; in the way her body would react to every little thing. Her eyes would roll back in her head, and her face would contort into another person's face. A person I didn't know. A person who had lived too long and seen too much of the world.

I could hear her, too.

Shy and quiet little Tiffany, always contemplative, always silent, shrieking and wailing into the night and into my dreams. Her screams stayed with me through the day. Her face disappeared when I opened my eyes, but her voice, her voice that haunted me because it was so rare to hear, and certainly never at that volume, sat at the back of my mind and reminded me of her pain.

It was almost as bad as the smell.

That putrid, coppery smell that hung in my nostrils after I'd wake…her blood seemed to stain my sheets, and waves of nausea would make me run to the bathroom, kneeling in front of the toilet until both the smell and feeling subsided.

It was hell. Literally.

I would dream of Tiffany in hell, and I knew it was hell, because I could sense him.

I never saw him, and I never heard him, but from the fear in Tiffany's eyes, I could tell it was him that was doing this to her. I had seen that fear many times before, and had even felt it myself. Once a person knows that fear, they never forget it. Luckily, I had never been seriously injured on my several hellish journeys.

But I had seen others hurt, and I had seen the damage it could do.

My father had been killed because of Uncle Frank.

Uncle Frank.

Julia, Channard, my uncle Frank; they had all been obsessed. Obsessed with pain, obsessed with the box.

The box.

I could understand why they would be obsessed with the box. For those short periods of time that I held the puzzling cube between my fingertips, I felt the power it emitted, and understood why someone could be so driven to possess it.

I think that's how he got there.

I speak of him, but it's not him that I mean. I mean him before he was him. I think he was a general or a captain or something. He's obviously old, but lived recently enough as a human to have his photograph taken. I'd say he was in World War I rather than World War II, the uniform looks a little dated for the 1940s, but I could be wrong.

Maybe he was a Nazi...that would explain a few things.

I should have looked further into the notes that Channard took. Channard. That disgusting bastard.

He killed Tiffany's mother; or at least that's what she told me. And what reason would Tiffany have to lie? The doctor was just a sick fuck.

Who would willingly become one of those? Those demons. Those monsters. What had he called them? Angels?

I wonder if they prefer "of pain" or "death".

I don't even think Uncle Frank would have willingly become one of those…things. The last time I saw him, he didn't seem to be too thrilled with his situation. And he hadn't looked like one of them.

Yet.

I guess that could have changed. Anyway, he'll never get the chance. Not now.

But that was in the past. Right now the task at hand was finding Tiffany. Poor, innocent Tiffany, whose location was unknown. The administration of the college she attended said she hadn't been to class in a month…and they didn't know where she was.

Stupid fucks.

You would think that if a student hadn't been attending class, and they didn't drop the class, not mention the fact no one had seen them for a month, that someone would get the clue something was up. Something bad.

The box had been surprisingly easy to find. Articles describing horrible cases of people getting their skin ripped off, hooks appearing from unknown places, and a sudden increase in disappearances had aided me in my quest. The articles led me to a little town on the outskirts of Boston. How the box got there, I don't know. But I now I had it.

That had actually been more difficult than tracking down the box. Some little shit had it tried to sell it to me for less than that monstrosity was worth—he couldn't know how truly valuable it was—but it was still a considerable amount of money. Several carefully chosen threats had quickly lowered the price, and before I knew it, I had it in my possession once more.

And now, here I was, sitting in the cheap motel room I was renting, sitting at the head of the bed, the box laying before me. I had dressed for the occasion.

Nothing fancy, just jeans and sneakers. I wanted to have as much of an advantage as I possibly could. I didn't have any weapons, though. What good would they do? How does one battle the demons of hell with a knife or a gun? They don't. The only weapon I had was my mind, and the little cube lying before me. And the cube could both aide me or destroy me. That's where my mind came in.

I picked up the puzzle and just stared at it for a moment. It had destroyed so many lives. I had solved it before, but what made me think that I was so amazing I could do it again? Who's to say I wouldn't just kill myself and Tiffany would be left to rot, or worse, to suffer, in hell for all eternity. I had to be strategic.

But I just want Tiffany.

My hands began sliding over the patterned, metal surface, feeling each small crevice with the pads of my fingers. They seemed to have a mind of their own, rotating, pushing, sliding back and forth against the gold.

Tiffany. Tiffany. Tiffany.

It began to open.

That's good. Open. Open for me. Take me in.

It opened further, and I smiled as the cube seemed to give up.

But the smile fell from my lips, and from them erupted a harsh howl of pain as I felt a hook embed itself in my side.

He's here. He's here. He's here.