Dr. Karen Chambers watched the family in front of her scream at each other. Mother and father berating their two daughters for their disrespect, and then blaming each other for modeling bad behavior. She could see why none of her colleagues felt they were getting anywhere with them. The few words she had managed to get in were a brief introduction and a request for information about themselves. The rest of the time they had gone on as if she had melted into the furniture. Karen told herself that she would know better next time. She watched impassively with her deep brown eyes as their anger grew to be almost a physical presence in the room. With fifteen minutes left of the session, Karen raised a whistle to her lips and blew an earsplitting blast that stunned everyone into silence.

“Now,” Karen said in a soft, even tone. “I have had quite enough of this behavior from all of you. I am not aware of how Dr. Fox conducts his sessions, but I have a few rules.”

Karen paused and looked around at the Pritchards nervously squirming in their seats and looking embarrassed. She suppressed a cold little smile that seemed to well up from nowhere.

“Everyone in this room, no matter his or her age, will be heard. When one person is speaking the others are silently listening. You will get your chance to respond but this is not simply a different forum for the same old fight. If a free-for-all like that should occur again I won’t hesitate to use the whistle.”

“You can’t talk to me like I’m some kid or something!” Mr. Pritchard blustered, seeming to recover from the shock of the last few moments.

“Oh? How should I speak to you when you’re behaving like a child?” Karen sat quietly, her eyes on his. Her gaze didn’t waver and he looked away first. She smiled a bit, but this time it was her professional smile. “I think that we should start again in the few minutes that we have left. I told you a little about myself, now I would like to know a little something about each of you. Will you go first?” Karen smiled at the youngest child.

“I’m Kyra.” She said, smiling and squirming in her seat a little, unaccustomed to being the first one to speak.

“That’s a very pretty name. Tell me something about you, Kyra. Just anything you want me to know.” Karen’s gaze was softer than the one she fixed the child’s father with.

“Ummm, I like to write stories.” Kyra said after a moment of deep contemplation. From the information she had received she knew Kyra was only six.

“I hope you will let me read one sometime.” Karen said and the child smiled and nodded vigorously.

“They’re dumb stories.” The sixteen year old grumbled, Karen studied aesthetically ragged clothes. her poorly dyed hair and dark streaks of make-up.

“Amber!” Mrs. Pritchard hissed.

“My *name* is Lily.” Mrs. Pritchard was about to speak again but Karen held up her hand.

“You prefer to be called Lily? Why is that?”

“Because it suits me better. Lily is the flower of death, of funerals and grieving. Amber is just old tree sap with bugs in it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.

“I’m Annabelle Pritchard, but you can call me Anna, and you’ll have to forgive Amber.” Annabelle said the name deliberately and was rewarded with groan. “Since she fell in with this new crowd she’s had all kinds of crazy ideas.”

“Tell me something about yourself, Anna.”

“There’s nothing to tell really, I’m a stay at home mom.”

Karen smiled adding to her mental notes as she turned to Mr. Pritchard. He hadn’t looked in her direction since his final outburst.

“And you Mr. Pritchard?” She prompted.

“Joe, I’m a plumber, and in case you think there’s something wrong with that I make more money than a lot of lawyers and executive types I know of.” He jabbed his finger at her as if she were a naughty child. Karen maintained her even look.

“Do you feel that people look down on you for you choice of career?” Karen asked in a quiet voice, trying not to sound as though she already knew the answer.

“Any guy who works with his hands is scum in this world.” His arms were crossed the same way his teenage daughter’s were. Anna looked embarrassed by the whole thing and Kyra traced the design on her dress as if there were no one else there. The mantle clock chimed the hour softly.

“I’m afraid time is up for this week. We can continue next Monday at 4 if that’s convenient?” Karen rose and opened the door, Anna said that would be fine and thanked Karen for her time, Joe just grumbled as they walked by. She shut the door softly and exhaled, shaking her head slightly. She made a few quick notes in the Pritchard’s file, noted the appointment and tugged the bobby pins out of her long dark hair, letting it fall free around her shoulders. Finally she could stand the wait no longer. She picked up the non-descript little parcel wrapped in brown paper that the receptionist had given her along with the rest of her mail since just after lunch. There was something about it that had pulled at her all day.

It wasn’t very large and the name on the return address was one that she recognized as a man that had been one of her first clients. Elias Merchant was an odd sort and she hadn’t quite known what to make of him. She had chalked that up to inexperience but she still didn’t know why he had come to see her in the first place. He talked about Heaven and Hell and his beliefs about each and while she had been more than willing to listen his presence had never quite made sense to her. As Karen unwrapped the parcel she remembered feeling a sense of loss when he stopped coming to appointments, his subject was one that she had pondered in her own quiet moments for the last several years. She had chalked up missing him to inexperience as well.

Her fingers were frustrated by all the tape that the sender had used, but finally she managed to tear the paper away. She could tell there was an object inside that was shaped differently than the cardboard box that held it. Karen could feel it sliding from one end to the other as she moved the package, and she could tell that it had some weight. There was a single cream colored sheet of paper folded on top of the cardboard box. “For your pleasure…” Was written across it in a careful, large hand.

Karen practically tossed the sheet aside, hardly thinking about the message or the intent of the sender. The pull of what was inside seemed stronger now, although Karen was sure that the draw was only her curiosity. As she slit the tape holding the flaps of the box closed she caught a glimpse of metal catching the light. Just then, as her whole body was tingling with an energy she didn’t quite recognize, her door opened.

“Busy Doc?” Jack Brehman asked, poking his head in the door. Karen’s mystery package would have to wait just a bit longer.

“No Jack, just wrapping up the day.” She said, placing the package and its mysterious contents into a drawer as he approached her desk. Jack looked every inch the detective that he was. Even though she had never mentioned it Karen was certain that he cultivated that rumpled appearance carefully, and probably listened to Wagner operas when he was alone.

“Well don’t wrap up too fast, I brought something that I need your opinion on.” Jack held up a manilla folder Karen hadn’t noticed in his hand. She offered him a seat in front of her desk and cleared away the few objects she kept there. Karen had consulted with the police once before and Jack had been the first to trivialize her ideas, until she turned out to be right on every point. Then he became a believer.

He silently laid out photos in front of her and Karen leaned back a bit. Widening her eyes at the right places and covering her mouth with her hand. A gesture that could be interpreted as thoughtfulness covering nausea. Karen didn’t know why, but she didn’t feel any of those things, and never had. She stared at the collage of carnage before her as if it were a spread of vacation photos.

“We found her yesterday morning.” Jack said. “Or I should say, her roommate found her. Both women had gone out to Harry’s Pub the night before. Roommate met a guy and got lucky and thought her friend just went home. I guess she did, just not alone.”

Karen barely heard him as she studied the photos. The young woman’s face was so mutilated that Karen had to look closely to make sure there was still skin covering the muscle. Looking further down she saw the woman’s nipples had been sliced off, somewhat unevenly she noted. She could see there were genital mutilations as well but the shots weren’t close enough to tell what kind.

“She has a male friend, or had, as the case may be.” Karen said softly.

“Someone she knew did this to her?” Jack looked incredulous.

“She was a pretty girl, wasn’t she?” Karen gathered her hair up again as she spoke.

“I’m surprised you could tell.”

“I can’t really, but someone found her beautiful. None of those cuts on her face are meant to kill, they’re to take away her beauty, perhaps to bring her down a peg. The removal of her nipples, I would only be guessing at the reason for that without more information, but the wounds are ragged. Whatever he used either wasn’t very sharp, or wasn’t wielded with much skill.” She was musing almost to herself.

Jack was sitting back in his chair now, listening. When he first met her, he had thought she was some kind of psychic because of the way she went through things like this verbally. There seemed to be nothing scientific about it, but he had come to realize that was just her style. The more shocking statements that she made – and were eventually born out by facts – he chalked up to educated guess. He was mostly right about that. Karen had studied criminal pyschology extensively, but there was something innate under it.

“He didn’t go there to kill her, I doubt he would have brought a weapon. There was a knife missing from the kitchen, wasn’t there?” She addressed Jack, but didn’t look up from the photos.

“Yes.”

“He thinks of himself as not very attractive. He’s known her for awhile as friends and he thought that she saw the 'real him', so he tried to tell her how he felt. She either didn’t really understand what he was saying, or didn’t want to hurt his feelings by rejecting him on that level.” Karen’s left hand caressed the drawer that hid the mysterious package, feeling as if the very presence of whatever that thing was gave her a strange clarity. “That night he went over there to tell her, straight out how he really felt, and she rejected him. I don’t know why he had that kind of break, but something snapped in his mind.” Karen’s hand dropped from the drawer front and she looked up at Jack for the first time.

“Maybe if you let me interview him when you catch him, I will have a better idea of what broke.”

“You’re sure it was someone she knew? The roommate didn’t seem to know of any of her friends that would do something like that.”

“Of course she didn’t, the person who did this wouldn’t seem like the kind to do something like that.” She looked at him directly. “You have someone in custody, don’t you? One of the ‘usual suspects’?”

“You got a camera in my office now?” Jack sounded irritated. She supposed she didn’t blame him.

“Tell me it’s not Charlie Finnerty.” Karen sat back and laughed a little.

“He’s the town pervert for Christ sakes! The victim called us several times to say that he was looking in her windows. What would you have thought?” He said defensively.

“It was a logical assumption, but no one forced their way in, did they?” Karen wasn’t sure where that came from, but she was fairly certain that she was right. She had always gotten impressions like that from out of nowhere. She supposed if she weren’t so logical she would have called it a kind of second sight.

“You could tell that from the pictures?” Jack’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her, but Karen’s gaze was steady.

“It was just an impression that I got, especially if he didn’t bring a weapon. If Charlie had knocked on her door, why would she let him in? You said yourself she had made several complaints against him for peeping. I certainly wouldn’t let him in if it was my door and he came here for court mandated counseling for six months.” In truth, Karen wasn’t afraid of Charlie. She didn’t feel sorry for him either. She didn’t feel much for anyone one way or the other, but she had learned to mimic enough emotion to fool most people.

“I suppose that makes sense.” Jack said after a moment. “This is a small town, sick shit like this is out of my league.” He moved forward and started gathering up the pictures again.

“Give me a call if there’s anything else I can do for you. And see if you can find something to hold Charlie on for awhile. I know I would sleep better if you did.” Karen gave a wry little smile and Jack smiled back a little. She noticed he had removed his wedding band recently, the line of white skin was starkly visible against his tan. She decided not to mention it unless he did.

“Thanks Doc, and I’ll see what I can do about that interview after we get someone.” She stood up and walked him to the door.

“Anytime Detective.” She smiled a little, closing the door behind him softly and turning the lock silently. She knew Dr. Fox had left early today, the receptionist would have left right after the Pritchards had. She walked back to her desk, pulled out the nearly opened parcel and pulled the object out into the light for the first time.

Karen’s hand tingled a bit as she held the box by its edges and turned it slowly. The brass seemed to catch the light, guiding it in thick drops over the exposed wooden places, reminding her of the dark blood she had seen splashed around the in the photos. Karen barely breathed as the tingling sensations that started in her fingertips spread through her body, finally reaching and weakening her knees. She sank back into the chair feeling helpless for a moment as she regarded the finely crafted puzzlebox in her hand.

Finally Karen set it down and the loss of contact with its surface was somehow unsettling. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look away from it and she felt her usual calm returning, although her fingers trembled slightly when she picked up the creamy sheet of paper again. “For your pleasure…” she noted was written in a dark reddish brown ink and something in her head went back again to the blood in the pictures.

She avoided looking at the box as she searched through her file for Mr. Merchant’s phone number. She dialed without even thinking about what she was going to say, the first thing that came to mind was ‘Thank you, it’s exquisite’ but she thought it might be considered wrong to accept such a gift from a former client. Karen wouldn’t have to worry about that though, the number had been disconnected. She cradled the receiver softly and looked at the little box, feeling almost as if it were looking back. She couldn’t resist sliding a finger along the top edge nearest to her, the thrill it sent through her seemed stronger, or maybe she just wasn’t resisting its progress this time.

She stood quickly. It was getting late and while she didn’t have anything else to do the idea of staying here was not appealing either. Having the box in her house unsettled her in some way, but it sent another feeling through her as well. Something she could only describe as anticipation. To Karen, these ordinary feelings seemed overwhelming. She put the box into her bag quickly, trying to touch its warm surfaces as little as possible.

*******

Karen drove home slowly, glancing at the bag laying next to her from time to time, turning the box over in her mind’s eye as she waited at the town’s one red light. He hand wandering to the hard corner pressing against the leather of the bag as she guided the car down the dark but familiar road that led to her house. She was isolated out here, but the isolation hadn’t bothered her, until now.

Karen left the bag on the table in the hall, stepped out of her heels and ran lightly up the stairs in her stocking feet. Her feet and ankles ached as they always did, but the look and extra height the shoes gave her were worth the discomfort. She started bathwater running into the deep clawfoot tub, stripping as she walked back into the bedroom, trying to push the box out of her mind, but that was more easily said than done. Once again she took her hair down, brushing out her thick, dark brown mane as the tub filled.

With her hair down like this Karen knew she looked less than her twenty-seven years. Her mother had always said that there would come a day that she would be glad for her youthful appearance, but that day had not yet arrived. Going through school at the pace that she had hadn’t helped matters either. She set the brush aside, turned off the water and switched on the CD player. A fountain of Mozart bubbled forth and caressed the air around her as she slipped into the hot water.

Karen lay back and closed her eyes, letting the music lull her mind into a soft-focus jumble of half-formed thoughts and imperfectly experienced emotions. Her emotions – or lack thereof – had been a source of confusion for Karen ever since she could remember. When she was younger it had been harder. She simply watched the spider that elicited screams of terror from her friends. She looked curiously at the wound that had left one of her cousins bleeding and howling in pain. Even when she was the one cut or bruised, Karen’s lack of response led her parents to think there was something wrong with their little girl. Being different didn’t really bother her back then, but being thought of as different had, so she became a mimic. Screaming at all the right places in the horror movie, laughing at all the right times during the jokes, lending a sympathetic shoulder to acquaintances at the right times in spite of the fact that she didn’t feel the fear, see the humor, or have any idea how the other felt. For awhile she had wondered if she was a sociopath, but she never had any desire to hurt anyone. She had accepted her lack of response as just a part of who she was.

Until today.

Until she touched the box.

She legitimately felt something. Fear? Anticipation? Elation? Maybe a combination of the three? Maybe something she didn’t have a name for. Whatever it was, it still tugged at her, in her relaxing mind she saw the puzzlebox as a solid object suspended above her insubstantial desk. She remembered the way the light dripped down its edges. The sensation that flowed through her body, like a current of electricity and settled under her heart and between her legs. Karen groaned a little and brought the box with her into the music, into the sunlit meadow that her mind danced through when listening to Mozart.

It was a familiar place to her, and something she thought she must take pleasure in because it had been so lasting in her mind. The box made it brighter. No, brighter wasn’t right. It was more intense. The sun was hotter on her skin, the grass pressed at the soles of her feet and tickled her bare calves, the drone of unseen insects mixed with the babble of the water in the stream until the real world seemed less real than this one.

Her fingers lightly caressing the sharp edges of the box as she turned slowly, taking in the sights that made her squint, the smells that made her gasp for breath and for more of them. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath and when she opened them again, he was there. A creature completely out of place in this sunlit world he stood in regal black leather that seemed one with his pale bluish skin. The pins that studded his head and face gleamed in the golden light. Karen felt as if she were frozen to the spot. Her blood suddenly turned to ice water in her veins, and her hand stopped caressing the box.

“Open the box, child.” His tone was soft, but the power was evident in his voice.

Karen jumped up in the tub, splashing cool water everywhere in her struggle to extricate herself, her head swinging wildly around the room to find only her own bathroom. The music drifting in now was crescendo of Carmina Burana. Karen settled back into the water again for a moment and rubbed her eyes.

“I fell asleep.” She said to herself, although she knew that she hadn’t been asleep. It was the only thing that made logical sense. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she couldn’t catch her breath and Karen knew that this was fear. This cold, knotted feeling that made her shiver more than the chill of the water, and something about that exhilarated her. She cleaned up the bathroom quickly and pulled on a robe to go hunt up something for dinner.

As Karen passed the hall table her fingers drifted over the hard edge of the box, still covered by the black leather of her bag. She had done it almost before she realized and memory of the face flashed before her again. She withdrew he hand quickly and turned to making dinner, vowing to forget about the box for the rest of the night. It was an odd thing and maybe it took an odd thing to stimulate her blunted emotions but it was just an object. Even as she had the thought she knew that it wasn’t true, but something in her made her cling to it.

********

Karen was awake, or felt that she was. Wherever she was, the place was so completely shrouded in blackness that she couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed. For a few moments she remained still, finally feeling a floor under her feet and beginning to pick out the soft glow of a distant light.

Slowly, she began to move toward it. Karen could hear movement around her, and she sensed she was in a wide corridor but something in her told her that she didn’t want to see what was scuttling and shifting outside the limited range of her vision. She wondered if it was wise to move at all, anyone or anything could be waiting for her, but the light drew her on.

She noticed that it shifted, as if it were firelight, or candlelight. Her heart was pounding as she came to an arched doorway, the heavy wooden door was open just wide enough to allow her to slip inside. Instinctively, Karen stayed in the deepest parts of the shadows. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears and she was certain that anyone who was a few feet away would be able to hear her pounding heart. She tried to control her breathing and take in the scene before her.

A person – a man she thought, but she wasn’t sure - was suspended from hooks driven deeply into his flesh in the center of the room. His groans reverberated from the walls, making it seem that the sound came from all around. His body was covered in blood, so much so that Karen couldn’t see from her vantage point what his injuries were. Suddenly a scream erupted from him, it was an inhuman sound that made Karen gasp sharply, her eyes wide, her limbs trembling. Slowly, from around the suffering man appeared the same visage she had seen in her bathtub vision. His onyx eyes fixed on hers, the instrument in his hand dripping blood. Karen felt her heart contract one last time and then the alien place spun and dissolved around her.

Karen screamed into the darkness of her bedroom, knocking the lamp over as she tried to turn it on, fumbling out of bed for the overhead light switch. She slid down against the wall hugging her knees, her body alight with terror and….and a nearly orgasmic pleasure that had soaked her panties.

Confused, Karen looked at the familiar objects scattered around the room and tried to catch her reason again. Is this what schizophrenia was like? Was it some generic madness that didn’t even have a name? What about her dream had excited her to that point? The victim was pitiful, his scream had torn at her heart, but…..but what? The vulnerability, maybe? No, it was his vulnerability to that particular torturer. A torturer that her unconscious must have created from somewhere. Still, if her unconscious could create a being that awakened so many of her senses, why hadn’t it happened sooner?

The box.

She pushed the thought aside and changed her clothes, nodding off again around 4am, the light still on.
*******

Karen carried the box with her wherever she went for the next several days. She sensed it there in her bag when she was talking to clients, when she was making notes, when she was having lunch. The dreams were there too, as was the pale man who seemed to be an artist with his instruments of torture. The abject terror of her first dream had subsided enough that a part of her noticed his skill, his bearing, the tone in his voice when spoke to his latest victim. And there was some part of her that recognized the fact that he felt she was there. Since that first time though, he didn’t interrupt his work to look at her, and she didn’t distract him by registering her shock vocally. When she woke, she was in the same, nearly orgasmic state as the first night, but since the first night she managed to go back to sleep with the lights off.

On Friday, Jack stopped her in the parking lot as she walked to her car.

“Am I under arrest officer?” Karen quipped, her hand resting lightly on the familiar lines of the box.

“Don’t tempt me.” He laughed and Karen could tell that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“So, you caught him then?” She asked, smiling.

“We did.” He grinned and then looked away a little. “Course I had a little help, from someone who said she might be interested in an interview with our confessed killer.” He looked over at her with a sidelong smile.

“He confessed?” Karen sounded surprised but she wasn’t really. If she was right about the killer he would have tried to play it off at first, but once confronted with the facts he would fold.

“He sure did. And I don’t think I would have known what to say to him if it weren’t for you, so, don’t tell anyone I said this, but, thanks Doc.” He held out his hand and she shook it, smiling broadly at him.

“You would have figured something out, but thank you, for the compliment, and for allowing me to help.”

“You want to maybe, get some dinner? Just to celebrate and all, not like a date or anything.” He said quickly. Jack was at least fifteen years her senior, but he was a nice guy and it had been ages since she had gone out.

“I’d love that, but please, call me Karen. I’ll follow you, if you don’t mind.” She smiled, a finger playing along the edge of the box.

********

Karen said goodbye to Jack at the restaurant. It had been a nice meal, good conversation and a few laughs, but even though she sensed he wanted the evening to go on, she was content with dinner and the promise of another social meeting. Besides, the pull of the box was almost unbearable now. She had to be alone with it, to touch it, to see if she could have another waking vision of the man with the crown of pins. For some reason, even though she had seen others in her dreams, none affected her like he did.

She slipped out of her clothes and into her short, dark burgundy night gown. For some reason, she wanted to be comfortable when she thought intensely about the box, and the man she had come to associate with it.

Karen’s hands trembled a little as she reached into the bag and drew out the box. It felt heavy in her hand, warm, almost like a living thing. She caressed it softly, watching the brass figures catch the light, letting it drip from one to the next. Tracing the figures lightly with her fingers, and then letting one finger trace the circle at the center of one side.

There was a soft, but distinct *click*.

Karen stopped for a moment, hesitating.

“Open the box, child.” The words, his words, echoed through her mind. Her fingers were moving again before she could think further about it. A section raised fluidly, turned slightly and she pressed it back down until the box had taken the shape of a star with uneven points.

Karen looked at figure and then up toward a soft light that was gathering, brightening. She got to her feet, watching as a segment of wall dissolved into the light. Her heart was pounding and she watched her vision step through, flanked by a female and one that seemed to have no face other than a set of chattering teeth. He was taller than she had dreamed, or she felt that he was now that she was standing in his presence.

“You,” She whispered, looking up into the cenobite lord’s infinitely black eyes and then, after years of staring down parents, teachers, supervisors and clients, Karen lowered her eyes to the ground. “You’re real.”

“As are you, child.” He seemed mildly surprised by that. Karen slipped slowly to her knees, his voice drawing the image of rich honey poured over a jagged wound. The female stepped forward but he stopped her with a small gesture. The wound in her throat pulsed in the apparatus that held it open.

“You’re going to take me to that place I saw, the place I dreamed about.” She was speaking quietly, not asking as much as stating a fact. She didn’t see the corner of his mouth twitch into a cold little smile.

“Yes, child. Take my hand and your journey will begin.” She could see his outstretched hand.

“Can I,” Karen took a deep breath, trying to calm herself enough to speak. “May I, ask something of you?”

“You cannot escape us, nor do you really want to.” He said, moving forward slightly and Karen knew that he was right. The concept of escape had never crossed her mind. “Take my hand.” He spoke more firmly this time.

“I’m not asking you to let me go, but,” She swallowed hard but tried to speak quickly. “But you are the one who awakened my fear, my excitement, all the things I never felt before. Whatever happens there, whatever suffering that I can’t even begin to fathom,” She glanced at his face. “Please, let it be by your hand.”

The pins that were placed were his eyebrows should have been twitched slightly and his lips curled into a cold little smile.

“Did you think that they were only your dreams? I wondered at my visions of a girl with the audacity to invade my chambers and watch my work as if it were her entertainment. Did you think that I would let such boldness slide past without personal attention?” He asked quietly, offering his hand again. She placed her slim hand in his and it was lost in the tight grip of his pale flesh. The heady scent of leather and the foreign musk of ageless suffering surrounded him. She stood when he tugged her to her feet, turning her so that her back rested against his chest and securing her there with his other arm around her narrow waist as he led her through the portal.

“We have much to discuss before we begin.” He said softly next to her ear. Karen shuddered in response, her head leaning back against his broad chest. He moved more quickly, leaving the other two behind in the darkness.

THE END……
July 13, 2005