Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm not stealing anything. Just taking the characters out for a walk...

Prologue

Somewhere on the back roads of Eureka, a white van was slowly making its way through to a destination only known to the GPS device mounted on the dashboard by a generous amount of duck tape. The GPS was the only thing illuminating the dark interior of the makeshift delivery van, which cast an eerie blue glow onto the driver.

The driver was the usual college undergrad living off whatever financial aid he could get, and grabbing side jobs wherever he could; namely jobs that paid in cash on delivery. To his chagrin, he had no luck finding any such jobs, so he had done what any aspiring student would do: he started his own business of delivering secure discreet packages for certain unnamed individuals who did not want any kind of paper trail, which suited him perfectly well. That is, until tonight.

He had of course delivered many weird packages in the past year since he had started his business, but this delivery won the prize for utmost weirdness. From the man, or at least he thought it was a man (it was hard to tell in that dark abandoned old factory); he was given six packages marked with unique color coded dots as their only label. Although, a grand per box was still a sweet deal, and helped quiet his nerves, if only a little bit.

"Only one more stop to make," he reminded himself while trying to relax his tight grip on the steering wheel. He tried to take his mind off of the feeling of impending doom that clung to the air like stale cigarette smoke since he had taken this job by concentrating on his driving and paying close attention to his GPS directions. He give a breath of relief when he saw a sign denoting that was entering into the small town of Eureka. Then, out of nowhere, the little animated road that was highlighted on his GPS vanished from view.

"What the…? What just happened?" He slammed on the brakes, reached for the small GPS and hastily tried to get the gadget to recognize that he wasn't in a forest with no roads, but on a paved road on the outskirts of a town. But his efforts were lost on the small device, and he was still completely on his own. He slouched back against the back of his seat with his eyes closed as he took a few controlled breaths attempting again to calm his nerves.

"Guess I'm on my own," he sighed resignedly as he took his foot off the brake and began to drive forward at a reasonable pace. How many side streets would there be in this town, anyway? He mused to himself. All I have to do is read the signs whenever I come to a cross road, piece of cake.

Two long hours later he had finally found his destination, and gratefully waltzed up the front walk and rang the bell.

"Who is it?" Called a voice from the other side of the door.

"Delivery for one Mr. Douglas Fargo of Eureka."

"It's Doctor. Doctor Douglas Fargo" corrected Fargo as he unlocked the door, and opened it. The driver shrugged lazily, and handed Fargo the unmarked package.

"Here ya go doc," he remarked before turning and walking back to his van.

"Don't I need to sign something?"

"Nah," the driver called back over his shoulder. "Just don't hurt yourself when you open it, doc."

Fargo stood there with the package in hand, watching as the driver drove off, and was filled with the overwhelming feeling that something bizarre was happening. He shrugged it off and went back inside, locking the door as he did so. However, instead of returning to his study, where he was currently toying with a few ideas regarding artificial intelligence, he leaned against the door and examined the package.

It was just the ordinary run-of-the-mill box, except it had no labels whatsoever. Unless one counted the small dark purplish dot on the box's lid, but then again what kind of label was that? Fargo was intrigued by what could be in the box, more so than its lack of decent labels, and opened it to reveal a rectangle wooden carved chest. The plain cardboard box fell to the floor forgotten.

The wooden chest had a phrase of what appeared to be Latin carved into it, or at least he was pretty sure it was Latin, ancient languages were never his strong suit. On the lid there was a carved image of an off-fashioned smoking pipe, and also adorned on the lid was the word 'Professor' above the pipe in modern English.

But, what really caught Fargo's eye was the small metal lock; it had the mathematical equation of pi etched on every millimeter of its surface. It started on the pin of the lock, and run clockwise outward getting a hair smaller at each decimal, creating a spiral of numbers to finally end where only concaved lines were visible to the naked eye. The box was, to Fargo's amazement, unlocked and easy to open, not even the hinges creaked as he opened it.

Now what was in the box almost made Fargo drop it like a hot potato. An old revolver laid within folds of a dark purple velvet cloth that lined the interior of the chest. The revolver glistened as if it weren't but a day old, although it was clear that this gun had been crafted more than fifty years ago. The handle didn't have a scratch or blemish anywhere. In of itself the pistol was beautiful, but being in the chest with the velvet cloth hugging its every metallic curve, the sight was hypnotizing.

Even against his common sense, Fargo pried the gun free of its housing, and held it in his hand studying the metallic object. The last thing Fargo remembered was the cold, marble feel of the gun's handle before he, and the world, faded away.

Meanwhile, miles and miles away in Leena's Bed and Breakfast, Claudia Donovan fell into the comfort of the leather sofa that resided in the boarding house's living room. She let out a low moan of pleasure as all the stiffness and strain slowly drained out of her body. The overtime of re-inventorying all the new artifacts into the new system had taken its toll on the tech teen.

Even though with all the ease and user-friendliness of the new interface that Douglas Fargo had designed and installed into the Warehouse's computer system; the task of re-entering (aka fixing) the latest artifacts' data into the system was still a chore to be feared.

"Remind me to hurt you when I - correction - if I live through this." Claudia remarked, sensing that Leena entered the room.

"Hmm…" Leena commented while taking her seat in the wing-back chair adjacent to the sofa that Claudia had taken over. "Inventory duty again?"

"Yes, and Artie was being his gloomy self again. I'm so beginning to hate Halloween" Claudia replied. Since she had joined the team last year, she had been told how after Labor Day no one was to be alone in the Warehouse until after October thirty-first. Something about the supernatural forces that were emitted during the Halloween season, and its adverse effects on multiple artifacts throughout the Warehouse. Or, at least that was what Leena had told her.

Artie had scoffed at the 'supernatural' part of Leena's reasoning, but on the same note did agree that during this time the Warehouse did take on an eerie aspect to everything.

Claudia loved the spirit of mystery and the supernatural that seems to be everywhere during this time of year. But recently her childlike love for All Hallow's Eve was beginning to dwindle. That could be expected after spending twelve hours collecting artifacts that had moved from their secure areas to random areas throughout the Warehouse. Artifacts that she had to re-detoxify, and re-enter into the system's database. And it was always the scarier artifacts out of the whole bunch would be the ones jumping around the shelves and vast rooms.

"I have hot chocolate on the stove, care for some?" Leena asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I would."

Leena got up and was heading in the direction of the kitchen when she turned and said "Then remove your feet from my sofa. Sit up."

"Yes, mom" Claudia quipped, moving her hands for emphases, but otherwise still lying with one leg on the floor and the other thrown across the armrest with her eyes closed. She slowly opened her eyes as she sat up, seeing for the first time since she landed on the sofa what had been beside her on the coffee table. A cardboard box was sitting on the coffee table with a yellow post-it note stuck to its side. She pulled off the post-it, reading the scribbled note that Pete had left her:

Claudia, this came in the mail for you.

You owe me twenty bucks.

- Pete

Claudia rolled her eyes at the lame joke about the twenty dollars, which was a running gag between her and Pete. She placed the post-it to the side and examined the box. It was unmarked, except for the red dot on the side. She opened the cardboard box, withdrawing the rectangular wooden chest and revealing carvings of a big willow tree and the word 'Miss' on the chest's lid, and a Latin phrase etched into the box.

But what was etched onto the lock caught her attention as she ran her finger over the engraving of all known alphabets from all over the world translated into binary language. The spiral of repeating 0s and 1s eventually became so minute in size, that only lines remained until not even a scratch could be seen.

Claudia opened the chest, part of her expecting a thing of exotic candies from Todd, but what was held within the chest's rich red velvet fabric was a golden candlestick that shined vibrantly. She let out a low whistle as she reached for the shining object before her.

"Got your hot chocolate. Do you want any marshmallows?" Leena asked as she entered the living room carrying a tray with two big mugs of hot chocolate. She stopped dead in her tracks. Leena did not like the bad vibrations that were emitted from the chest, she couldn't place her finger on it, but something wasn't right. The aura coming from the chest was disturbing, and the underlying energy field that vibrated with negative emotions didn't comfort her in the least. Something evil was associated with that box, Leena knew it.

"Claudia?"

"Huh, what is it?"

"I'm getting a bad feeling about that chest," Leena ventured, still holding the tray, the steam from the hot chocolate slowly drifting off the surface of each cup. "I haven't seen it before, where did you find it?"

"It came in the mail," Claudia answered, her attention glued to the candlestick. She gradually began to stroke the golden object as she pondered aloud, "I wonder where the other candlestick is. Don't candlesticks usually come in pairs?"

"In the past, yes; however, recently it's not uncommon to find only one candlestick, instead of a pair" Lena replied absentmindedly as she looked over Claudia's shoulder at the object in question. The shining of its surface seemed to drain all other thoughts from her mind.

Leena physically tried to shake herself free from whatever was trying to take over her thoughts, but she was still under its spell and helpless to prevent what came next.

Claudia, caught in the hypnotizing spell of the metal object, reached into the chest and pulled out the candlestick mesmerized by the feel of the cold inert metal against her skin. Her last memory of this world was tracing the brim of the cup of the candlestick, designed to hold the candle firmly in place, and wondering to herself why they was no evidence of wax residue when everything around faded into pure whiteness.

Leena blinked as she began to gain her thoughts once more. Claudia was gone, vanished into thin air. She tried to remain calm as she moved to the chest that now lay closed on the table. "It's locked" she muttered after she tried to pry the chest open, to no avail. She turned from the chest and the empty sofa, and ran up the stairs to find Artie.

Author's Note: Many grateful thanks to Gothandthegleek for beta-ing this for me. This is a fic I have been wanting to do since last year, but keep putting off. Mainly to get my other fics on a regular update schedule, but sadly that plan didn't go anywhere fast. So, my new plan is to update this fic every two-three weeks. (I may post sooner if I have the time, and the update is ready to post.) While every week update one of my other stories till there are complete.

Chapter One will be posted around the 15th. . .