Janette dropped the dead body as a trail of blood flowed slowly down her chin. Her fangs retreated back amongst her human teeth and her eyes lost their fiery red glow and regained their innocent brown. She was seventeen, at least in appearance. She had lived centuries, 247 years of hunting and death. She was an eternal, immortal, a damned soul.....a vampire. It was funny, her breed had so many terms. Her metamorphosis back to human was completed when her face changed back to normal. In truth, she hated doing this. She merely did it to survive and when it was absolutely necessary. But, she knew she could never escape what she had become.....she had tried and let's just say, that suicide just plain was not her thing.

She looked back at the body. Poor man. It was not much of a loss. She had calculated that he was in his late 60's and judging by the human disease in his blood, would have died soon anyway. Luckily, human sicknesses, even fatal ones, did not affect her. "Well, that's what you get for fucking one too many!" Janette muttered. Aids, what a common threat to life, especially in this era. She turned and with a burst of strength, leapt up to a ladder hanging from the corner of the building. The alley was dark, no one had seen her. She pushed herself up onto the ladder and headed home. She arrived at her apartment and glanced at her watch. It was 9:30pm. "Crap, I missed Buffy!" She muttered. It was one of her favourites. She found that the show's vampires were closely followed to her breed. You'd think that the maker of the show had known an actual vampire.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside. She turned on the lights and gazed at herself in the mirror. Despite all the crap about vampires having no reflections, she could see herself, plain as day. Her hair was a mix of brown, blond, and red. It hung down and cascaded gently around her shoulders. It looked slightly erotic, which was usually why most human guys kept giving her the eye. She was slender and had a pale complexion. She halfway resembled a cute kitten and a deadly jungle cat. At the moment, due to what she was wearing, she was more ferocious-looking than cuddly. She wore a black, short leather skirt and a black leather tank-top. She had to totally admit, it turned heads. She headed for her room. On the drawer, sat a small puzzle-box. She remembered when she had first seen it in a little shop in downtown. She had instantly longed to have it. She had guessed that it would cost a lot, but when she had asked the store-keeper, he had just given to her with a smile. "Take it, it's yours," he had said. Now she sat on her bed and fiddled with it. She was not sure of what it was, or it's origin. She just wanted to solve it. Suddenly, as if being led by some unseen force, her fingers began to move in strange patterns all around the box. She traced a small circle and pushed here and there. Sparks shot out of it and Janette dropped it in shock. It rolled onto the floor and she watched as the top section lifted, turned, and descended back to it's place. She was suddenly aware of the great wind and of the cracks that began to appear on the walls, on either side of her. They split the wall in two and as Janette watched, a blinding light entered her room. From the light, beings began to appear. Janette watched astounded, the beings stood in the light. For a moment, she thought they were angels, come to take her for her sins. But then, she didn't expect angels to come to get her.

They stepped out of the light and into the dimness of the room. There were four of them. A woman, Janette gaped. The scene was morbid. She was completely bald, small metal chords stretched out from her cheeks and down to her shoulders. In her hand, she clutched a dagger. Her clothes looked like they had been sewn into her body and Janette could not ignore her throat. The scene on her throat made her want to cough up blood. No pun intended! The things throat was opened up and held in place by small hooks. The other....thing, was really fat-looking. It had dark sunglasses on and the same type of clothes. It kept licking it's slimy lips and fingering it's bellybutton. The third was truly grotesque. It had no eyes. It's upper lip was pulled far upward as the lower was not there at all. It kept making an odd chattering noise with it's teeth. The last caught her attention most of all. She imagined, he would have been handsome as a human. But now, he was......she could not even begin. He had long pins that were probably embedded in his skull sticking out of his face in rows. A checkers box came to mind. He was paler than Janette with a slight tinge of blue. He was bald and wore what looked like a leather robe. His body was inflicted with wounds that looked painfully fresh. Hi eyes, were as dark as her dreams.

Janette screamed and rolled off the bed. She could feel the vampire inside her stir. At the same time, her fear was equaled with fascination, as she could not tear her eyes away from the one she could refer to as "Pinhead." She wondered if he could feel the wounds. If he could, he certainly was not showing it. She managed to cough up her voice and she addressed Pinhead. "Who are you?" Her voice was a cross between a whisper and a hiss. He eyed her, almost gently. His voice was strange. It was gentle, yet a power supported it like nothing Janette had ever encountered. "We are explorers of pleasure and pain, discoverers of the inner regions of the mind, demons to some, angels to others." Janette moved forward and tried to breathe. "What is your business here?" The demon female laughed. "You opened the gateway, we came, and now you will come with us." "We are the Cenobites, welcome to your hell." Janette gasped as the fat Cenobite, or whatever the hell it was moved towards her. Her hunting and survival instincts took over as her fangs descended and she turned, fully back into a vampire. "Not in my life-time," she hissed. Her fingernails were sharp and as they grew she aimed at the Butterballs throat. With a mighty roar, she flew forward and slashed at him, hitting her precise mark. He staggered, she aimed again, and this time, slashed his fat belly, wide open. He fell to the floor. Dead. She looked back toward the other three. "Oh shit!"

Janette gaped at the remaining demons. Butterball lay dead at her feet, his neck and stomach cut wide open. Pinhead's face was hard to read. He seemed to be looking at her with a cross of extreme anger and......admiration? "We have hunted souls for an eternity, as you have hunted. I can hear the sound of your suffering, you feed off it, crave it......as do I," he spoke. Janette watched as the female cenobite moved forward and her eyes began to glow a deeper red. Pinhead stopped her. "Oh no dear child, we will not make the same mistake twice." The female turned and retreated back into the gateway of hell. The chatterer followed her. Pinhead stayed in place. "You would make a wondrous cenobite. Your powers of suffering equal to mine." Janette stood there and a hiss escaped her lips. "I am nothing like you demon." Pinhead laughed. "You think that you are not like us, your soul ties you to human emotions. Let me release you from this human bondage that ties you to time and space. All that is not known will be known to you, my love." Suddenly, metal hooks flew from the dark corners of the room and attached themselves to her hands. She cried out in pain and watched as her black blood flowed to the floor. Pinhead came closer as she hung, suspended in the air. "Go to hell," Janette muttered. Pinhead reached forward and wiped the blood that flowed down her shoulder. He brought it to his lips and tasted her immortal soul. "Ah, such an exquisite taste." Janette growled and with a thrust, she ripped away from the chains. She cried out and landed on the hard floor at Pinhead's feet. She spotted the box on the floor and reached for it. She suddenly felt a burst of pain as she felt one of Pinhead's blades sink into her neck. "What is it you are dear girl?" Janette collapsed and lay on the floor bleeding. She was not dead, nor would she be. The only way to kill her was to decapitate her or burn her alive. But she was making a good bet that Pinhead did not know that. She lay perfectly still, face-down on the floor. She could hear him approaching. "How quickly your immortality has been ripped away from you. Now, you are as dead as the humans the both of us hunt," he whispered in her ear.

Janette's eyes snapped open. "Not quite." She reached up and grabbed him by the throat. She stood, still holding him up. Janette thrust the demon against a wall and felt him struggling against her demonic strength. He was a match for her, but not good enough. She was about to rip his head off when she felt the hooks impale her back. She let him fall from her grasp and reached for them. More hooks flew from the gate and attached themselves to her arms. She was trapped. Pinhead smiled and traced the dull edge of the blade he had impaled her with along the side of her face. A thin line of her own blood was left behind. She cried out in pain. "You fucken bastard." He laughed. "So many wonders for you to explore, you will experience pleasure unheard of." The hooks dragged her into the gate and Pinhead followed.

much later...

. Hunter walked through the darkness towards Pinhead's chambers. It was time, another poor soul had solved the Configuration. It was time to hunt. As she headed towards the door of his chamber, she passed a mirror. She gazed at the image that looked back at her. The mirrors were there to mock. To torture those who dared to hope against hope. She had lost her hope long ago. She gazed at herself. She wore a leather skirt and top, sewn to her flesh forever. Her neck was stretched open and held in place, exposing her jugular. Her face was set permanently in a demon's. Her eyes shone a deadly red and her face was morphed. Her fangs were sharp and dripped always with blood. Her shoulder were skinless, muscles showing cleanly. She had no hair on her head. Her forehead was cut open in an upside down triangle pattern. She felt the pleasure of pain. There was nothing left of her soul. No Janette, not ever and somewhere in the pits of hell, a child screamed.