AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm absolutely thrilled that people are taking to this story as well as they are! I was a little worried at first, but no longer! Please continue to read and review! Tell your friends! Onward we go…

Chapter 3: Revelations

Victoria sat on her bed, staring at the Lament Configuration in her lap. For the past few days she'd continued to experiment with the box. She continually tried opening it, but nothing like the appearance of the nail occurred. She'd searched the internet for information on the box, but found nothing more than what Dimitri had already told her. There was no affirmation to the supernatural rumors that surrounded the box. She was beginning to think that it was all just superstition.

But then where'd that nail come from? And the nightmares? How can you explain them?

"I'm not crazy," Victoria said. She wasn't sure if she was speaking to herself, for reassurance, or to the puzzle in her lap, mocking her with its silence. Something had to have left that nail impaled through the mannequin's head. Both Adrian and Dimitri had been as shocked at its appearance as she had been, so she knew neither of them had planted it. It couldn't be a mere coincidence that the nightmares had begun the day the box had arrived. The box had made her uneasy from the moment she'd unveiled it, even before she'd known what it was. Something was toying with her, perhaps biding its time. But for what?

Once again she opened the box, as she'd done numerous times before. Unlike all the other times, the box didn't reassemble itself, that one section gliding up and rotating back into alignment. She heard that ominous bell tolling from an unseen location. Was it louder than before? She thought she caught a whiff of vanilla, with an underlying aroma of decay, but it was gone before she could confirm its verisimilitude. She spun around suddenly. Had she felt breath at the nape of her neck? The glare of some unseen observer boring into the back of her head? There was nothing there. The room was devoid of life, with the exception of her. Now she was becoming frightened, not of some unseen entity, but of the fragility of her own mind. She worried she was becoming consumed by her own paranoia. She left the room and entered the bathroom, hoping a hot shower would clear her perturbed mind. No such luck. She kept expecting the something to rip back the shower curtain and drag her into oblivion. She went back to her room and put on pajamas. She sat down at her computer and attempted to do some homework, but found herself unable to concentrate. She considered calling Adrian, but decided against it, knowing her friend would demand she get rid of the box to preserve her sanity. She couldn't do that. She was too close to a breakthrough, she knew it. She flopped down on her bed, staring at the box on her bedside table. She reached up and turned off the bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. She could still make out the Lament Configuration, partially illuminated by the blue glow of the digital numerals on her alarm clock. She drifted off to sleep, still looking toward the box.

She awoke with a start. It was still dark outside; the only light coming through the window cast by the streetlight outside. She turned to look at her alarm clock. 3:06 AM. She started to doze back off, but opened her eyes immediately, staring back at the table. The box was gone! She suddenly sensed she wasn't alone. She quickly scanned her room, expecting to discover nothing, that her paranoia was once again getting the best of her. Her heart stopped when she discovered that she was sadly mistaken

The face appeared to be floating in the far left corner of the room. From this distance and in the dark, she was unable to clearly make out many distinguishing features. It appeared to be male and possessed an unnatural pallor that seemed to give off its own eerie glow. She rubbed her eyes, expecting the visage to disappear, nothing more than the hallucinations of a frenzied mind, but it was still there. It laughed softly. She immediately recognized it as the laugh from her nightmares.

"Oh no. You're not dreaming," it said, its voice distinctly male. "You received my message, I presume?"

What the hell is he talking about? Victoria thought.

He began to move, stepping into the light coming through the partially opened blinds. Victoria recoiled against her headboard, his meaning suddenly clear. The creature, for he couldn't rightfully be called a man, was completely bald and had a grid cut into the bare flesh of his head. At every intersection, a nail had been driven into his skull, the same nails as that which had been driven through the head of the art mannequin. He wore long high-collared robes of what appeared to be black leather. Down his chest were two rows of ornamental wounds; the flesh was peeled back, exposing the muscle beneath. Beneath this scarification was another cut out area in his robe, exposing a large portion of his stomach, including a pierced navel. In his bloodstained fingers he clutched the Lament Configuration.

An involuntary whimper escaped Victoria's lips. She was suddenly overcome by the urge to void her bladder, but managed to keep herself under control.

"Please…I…I didn't mean it. I was just curious. P…Please don't hurt me," she pleaded with her visitor.

The demon chuckled. "If I was going to take you, I would have done it by now."

"What?" Victoria said, suddenly confused. "What do you mean?"

"We've been searching for you, de L'Isle."

Confusion and curiosity had now taken over fear.

"That French guy who commissioned the box? Ummm, I think you've got the wrong person…and century," Victoria said, hoping her unexpected boldness wouldn't get her killed.

"No, no, I know what I'm doing," he replied. "I've found the person I was looking for."

Victoria stared at him, still confused.

"What do you want?"

"You," he answered. "Allow me to explain. In 1784, Duc de L'Isle had Phillip Lemerchand create the Lament Configuration. De L'Isle and his apprentice, Jacques, used the box to summon a demon, whom de L'Isle would have complete control over, unless he stood in Hell's way. Jacques and the demon, Angelique, betrayed de L'Isle and killed him. Jacques eventually stood in Hell's way and was killed by Angelique."

"What does that have to do with me?" Victoria asked.

"The Lament Configuration rightfully belongs to de L'Isle, even though Jacques killed him and Lemerchand stole back his creation. De L'Isle commissioned its creation; it exists because of him. Lemerchand may have created its physical form, but de L'Isle made it into a doorway. Jacques may have robbed him of his familiar, but it was de L'Isle who had summoned her. Obviously de L'Isle is long dead, but his bloodline survives. Remove the first three letters from de L'Isle and what do you have left?"

"Isle," Victoria gasped.

"Yes," he replied. "You are a direct descendant of de L'Isle, meaning that this is rightfully yours."

He held out the Lament Configuration. Victoria hesitantly reached forward and took the box, gasping as her fingers briefly brushed against his. They were ice cold.

"So what does this mean?" she asked.

She looked up at him, making direct eye contact for the first time. His eyes were abysses in that mutilated face, dark and of interminable depth. Their blackness betrayed not even a shimmer of emotion.

"You open the box, we answer," he said. "You now possess the control Jacques stole from de L'Isle. We're at your service."

"So there are more of you?"

"Yes. Would you like to see them?"

"NO!" Victoria blurted out. "I think I've had enough for one night."

"Very well," he replied. "I shall take me leave now, if you don't oppose."

"No, you can go," she said, but then suddenly remembered something. "Wait!"

"Yes?"

"Do you have a name?"

"I have been called many things, some from previous lives and no longer used. For obvious reasons, many simply call me Pinhead."

"Pinhead. Okay, that makes sense."

"Anything else?" he asked.

"No, that's it."

"Very well."

He disappeared in a flash of blue light. In her hand, the Lament Configuration reassembled itself. Victoria stared at it for a moment, and then looked past the foot of her bed to the place Pinhead had stood moments before. Her mind still couldn't wrap itself around his visit. She looked back at the box. She now held an inconceivable power, one that could drastically change her life, for better or for worse; she wasn't sure.

"I guess Dimitri was right," she said to herself. "Something happened that will change everything."

She put the box back onto her bedside table, rolled over, and dropped back off to sleep with a smile on her face. It seemed that things were beginning to look up.