Silent Vigil

"What is this?" he gasped, his voice faint and distorted. Ethan had enough experience with ghosts by now to know a dead man when he saw one. Spencer's body was semi-transparent, hazy and indistinct, like a mirage rising from baking sands.

From the carpet around his feet sprouted dozens of pairs of grasping hands, reaching up from below to take hold of his pants. The floor seemed to become liquid, like it had suddenly turned into a bog, Spencer sinking up to his ankles as more of his victims clawed their way up from the depths. There were so many of them, each one clothed in a style indicative of the era in which they had lived, from the nineteen-twenties to the modern day. Some of them bore overt injuries and disfigurements due to the manner in which they had died, while others might have been mistaken for the living was it not for their pallid and unhealthy complexions.

"No!" Spencer wailed, kicking at them impotently. "Get away from me!"

The ghosts clambered over one another to reach him, gripping his clothes, wrapping their fingers around his flailing limbs as their harrowing moans filled the room.

"Your captives can finally pass on," the gargoyle rasped, watching as the old man sank up to his waist. "And they are taking you with them."

Spencer's wail was choked off as one of them took hold of his neck, more of them planting their pale hands on his face, pushing their fingers into his mouth and taking handfuls of his hair for leverage as they dragged him under. Once his head had disappeared beneath the dark water, his final gurgle silenced, the carpet returned to its normal state.

Ethan stood there in shock, staring at the now empty floor, the towering gargoyle waiting beside him.

"What now?" he asked, peering up at her.

"I am free for the first time in decades," she replied in that low, husky voice. "And you have completed your task. I have no power over you, you owe me nothing. Do as you will."

"I...I have so many questions," he stammered, not knowing where to start. "In the last ten minutes, I've learned more than I can process, I can't get my head around it. Was everything that Spencer said true? Are you really a Demon? Where have the ghosts gone now? What will happen to them? Why do you all keep saying that I glow?"

"Patience," she replied, silencing his rambling. "If you wish to learn, then I will teach you, but I must rest first. I feel as though I have awoken from a deep sleep, my mind is still clouded by an obscuring fog. Return here on the morrow, and I will answer any questions that you have to the best of my abilities."

"Yeah, okay," Ethan replied with a nervous nod. "I should clear my head too. So much has happened. What are we going to do about him?" he added as he gestured to Spencer's lifeless body. "I don't know how people do things where you're from, but you can't just murder people in modern-day America, it's illegal. Spencer was well-liked by the rest of the staff, they'll notice that he's gone. They probably have already..."

Ethan began to pace in front of the gargoyle, muttering frantically to himself.

"Fuck, fuck! What am I supposed to do now? I don't know how to dispose of a body! How am I going to explain this? Spencer and I come up here alone, before the rest of the staff has even arrived to start their shifts, and he ends up dead? What do I tell the police, that he was an evil wizard and that a stone gargoyle came to life and killed him? I'm going to jail! They're gonna put me away for the rest of my life, for something that I didn't even do!"

He froze up as he felt the gargoyle's heavy hand on his shoulder, her stone talons pricking his chest through the fabric of his jacket.

"Calm yourself," she urged, her tone soothing. He couldn't believe that he was being consoled by a creature that had been trying to kill him only moments ago, and that it was working...

"Alright, I just...gotta sit down for a minute," he mumbled as he abruptly lowered himself to the floor. He crossed his legs and cradled his head in his hands, trying and mostly failing to do a breathing exercise.

"My master, the great Earl Bifrons, has power over the dead," she continued. "He teaches the arts and sciences, the virtues of precious stones and woods, and he is able to move bodies from one place to another. I will petition him to grant you a favor, as I have no doubt that he will be grateful for your help in undoing Spencer's works."

"If you say so," Ethan muttered.

"There are spirits under his command who can erase Spencer's existence from the memories of those who knew him. It shall be as though he never existed at all, and you cannot be accused of killing a man who never lived. It is a fate well deserved for the likes of him."

"Wait, really?" Ethan asked as he looked up at her.

"It may surprise you to learn this, but in ages past, my sisters and I were greatly concerned with matters of vengeance and justice. I will do all that I can to help you."

"Your sisters?" he asked, but then he stopped himself. "Never mind...tomorrow, right?"

She nodded her head at him, that bestial face somehow sympathetic now.

"Return to your home, Ethan," she said. "Rest, gather your thoughts. By the time you find yourself standing before me again, all will be well. You have my word."

"It's that easy, then?" he asked as he rose to his feet. "I just go back to my apartment, take it easy for a little while, and you'll take care of everything?"

"Consider it a debt repaid," she replied.

***

Ethan rode the executive elevator down to the lobby, the car vibrating beneath his feet as he mulled over what had just happened. Spencer's meddling in the occult, the fate of the spirits that haunted the Abbott and Schutzman, the newly articulate gargoyle. He wanted to feel pride at having accomplished his task, at having helped to free Spencer's familiar and the ghosts that he had imprisoned, but he hardly felt like a hero. Circumstance had made him their champion, and he had been ready to abandon them. It was only Spencer's intervention that had seen the affair come to a close. If the old man had just let him be, Ethan would have been long gone by now.

He glanced down at the lead pendant that was still clutched in his hand, marveling at the idea that this simple trinket had been the glue holding everything together.

A sudden chill came over him, the electric lights in the elevator flickering for a moment, Ethan bracing himself in alarm. They shut off entirely, plunging him into pitch darkness, the car grinding to a halt. Was the old machinery finally giving out on him?

"Not a bad job, house dick."

Ethan sighed in a blend of relief and irritation as the man in the cap lit a cigarette, the orange glow illuminating his face, like someone telling ghost stories around a campfire.

"Damn it," Ethan grumbled, "must you scare me like that? I thought I was about to reach the lobby at terminal velocity."

The man chuckled as he waved his match in the air to put it out, then took a long drag, exhaling a puff of smoke that rapidly filled the car with an acrid smell.

"Why are you still here?" Ethan continued as he tried to wave the smoke away. "Didn't you leave with the rest of them?"

"Thought I'd pay you one last visit, shamus, for old time's sake. You were behind the eight ball for a minute there, but you really came through. I bet on the right horse." He tipped the brim of his cap respectfully. "Thanks, kid."

"What happens next?" Ethan asked. "Spencer was terrified of where he'd go after he died, do you know what's waiting for you on the other side?"

"Can't say that I do," he replied. He pulled his cigarette from his mouth and examined it pensively for a moment, lost in thought. "But findin' out for yourself is half the fun, right? If someone told me the endin' to a good serial before I seen it, I'd sock 'em in the mouth."

Ethan couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Good luck," he said, the man in the cap giving him a nod.

"And to you, flatfoot."

The lights came on again, seeming to wash away the apparition, Ethan finding himself alone once more as the elevator lurched into motion. As much as the visitations by the ghosts had tormented him over the last few days, the hopefulness of his self-appointed spirit guide warmed his heart. His optimism was infectious.

***

Ethan did as the gargoyle had advised, taking a day off to recuperate after his ordeal, and trying not to think too much about the future. Whatever happened, if the gargoyle made good on her promise or not, it was out of his hands now. Giving himself a stomach ulcer worrying about it wouldn't do him any good. All that he could do was trust that she would make everything right, and after all that he had seen, he had no good reason to doubt her.

Around midday, he took a nap, able to sleep soundly for the first time since setting foot in the Abbott and Schutzman. He had never appreciated rest so much in his life, waking from a dreamless sleep in which no ghosts or monsters had tried to convey vague messages and prophecies to him.

After a short walk through the city, which he always found paradoxically relaxing, he was ready to turn in again. Another night's sleep went by without incident, and by the time morning had come again, he was rested enough to return to the building.

CHAPTER 7: BLOOD FROM A STONE

"Morning, Mister Lewis," West said as Ethan entered through one of the revolving doors. Ethan was momentarily taken aback, but he reminded himself that this was what the gargoyle had promised, that nobody would even remember that Spencer had existed. It seemed a cruel fate, but it was not undeserved after what he had done.

"Good morning, Mister West," Ethan replied. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should risk pushing his luck, but he couldn't relax until he was certain. "I see that the main desk is empty," he added, "I don't suppose you've seen Mister Spencer around today?"

"Mister Spencer?" West asked, confused. "Is that a new hiree, Sir? Nobody has manned the main desk as long as I've worked here. There's not much use for a concierge now, not with most of the building unoccupied."

"Never mind," Ethan said with a smile, passing by the bemused security guard.

She had really done it. West and Spencer had been close colleagues, if anyone would have remembered him, it would have been the burly guard. Did that mean Ethan was off the hook? By God, could he actually focus on the work that he had been so excited to undertake when he had first accepted the position of facility manager?

He walked straight to the executive elevator, the key still in his pocket. Without Spencer to forbid it, there was nothing unusual about the facility manager going where he pleased. After a quick ride to the top floors, he made his way up the spiral staircase, emerging onto the observation deck. Spencer's body was indeed gone, there was no evidence that it had ever been there, and there was nothing out of place save for the faint scent of sulfur that lingered in the air.

Ethan couldn't see the gargoyle, and so he wandered out onto the balcony, enjoying the cool wind as it ruffled his hair. There she was, perched in her usual place, sitting motionless. Ethan began to worry that she had returned to her petrified state, but as he approached her, one of her pointed ears started to flick.

"Welcome back," she said, turning her bestial face to greet him. The fearsome blend of reptilian and feline features was still there, but it was softer now, somehow less pronounced. Her ruby eyes had lost much of their fiery glow, the vertical pupils now dilated and round. It was almost as though the rage and hunger that had been forced upon her by Spencer had changed her physical appearance in kind, and without his insidious influence, she was returning to a more natural state.

"It's just as you promised," Ethan said, leaning against the railing beside her and looking out over the city. The sky was bathed in less ominous oranges and pinks now, a far cry from the blood-red of the morning prior. It seemed like a good omen. "Nobody remembers a thing."

"The world has changed so much since I was last summoned," she muttered, Ethan following her gaze. "Back when my sisters and I were worshiped, when we had energy abundant enough to go where we pleased, Athens was one of the largest cities in the world. Its buildings seemed so tall, so grand. Then came the keeps of the dark ages, towering walls of stone, but even those pale in comparison to these constructs of glass and metal."

"Yesterday, you told me that you'd answer any questions that I had," Ethan began. She nodded, keeping her eyes on the skyline, wistful. "What...are you?"

"Belief brings deities and monsters into being," she replied, Ethan waiting patiently for her to elaborate. "Once, every natural phenomenon and cultural concept was attributed to some kind of God. They ferried the dead, brought victory in war, made crops flourish or fail. We are gestalt. When enough minds come together, when their imaginations sing in harmony, we are made manifest. The energy of worship and belief sustains us. But religions come and go, myths fade from the collective consciousness, and we fade along with them."

"So...you're a God?" Ethan asked skeptically.

"Not anymore," she chuckled bitterly, raising a stone hand and examining her clawed fingers as though she was seeing them for the first time. "My first incarnation was that of an Erinye, a Fury. We were the Goddesses of vengeance, emerging from Hades to wreak bloody havoc upon the wicked people of Greece. Adulterers, murderers, thieves. Their victims willed us into being through their thirst for retribution, and we were all too happy to oblige, my sisters and I..."

She spoke of her past with longing, as though the bloody retribution that she described with such glee was something that she missed dearly. Perhaps the lead amulet had not been the sole source of her bloodlust...

"We were hellions, flying on bat-like wings, our hair crawling with serpents. But eventually, we were convinced to abandon that lifestyle by Athena, the patron deity of the city in which we resided. So many cities had one in those days. She made us protectors, wardens, she gave us a more prominent role in a new system of justice of her own design. As such, we were worshiped, loved. The nourishing energy flowed."

"I'm assuming that didn't last?" Ethan asked, watching the light of the rising sun reflect off the myriad windows of the far-off skyscrapers. It caught her stone hide, too, tiny mineral crystals making her shine as they refracted it.

"Empires rose and fell, as did pantheons," she said mournfully. "New beliefs subsumed the old. Some deities adapted themselves to new roles, while others faded from existence, starved of vital energy. In those times, it was common for lesser deities to enter into the service of greater ones, taking a share of their energy in exchange for services rendered. Gone were the days where we could walk the Earth amongst the mortals at our leisure."

Her great wings unfurled, Ethan's eyes drawn to the defined muscles in her back and shoulders that powered them, shifting beneath her grey skin. The limbs resembled a second pair of muscular arms, the fingers elongated, the spaces between them joined by webbed skin like a bat or a pterodactyl. She might be animated by magick, but her body seemed as real as his own. It was driven by muscle and sinew just as an organic creature was, and it obeyed the same physical laws. Like a bird longing to take flight, she almost seemed to be trying to catch the wind, as though the memory of a freedom now lost was too much to bear.

"Bifrons was one of them," she continued. "My master once went by the name of Janus, but he now serves mortal summoners, nourishing himself and his legions of dependents with the energy that they provide."

"So you went from being worshiped as Gods to doing work for hire?" Ethan asked. "That has to be a...rough transition. That's like a celebrity being reduced to taking odd-jobs on Craigslist." She turned her reptilian snout in his direction and cocked an eyebrow at him, not understanding the reference. That might be for the better. "How did you end up here, like this?" he continued as he gestured to her stony body.

"My sisters and I continued our work as protectors, just as we had in Athens. During the dark ages, the sorcerers who advised Kings and Nobles often sought our help to protect their keeps. We would perch upon the battlements and frighten away their enemies with our terrifying visages, springing into action when serious threats emerged. It seems that we started somewhat of a tradition," she muttered as she nodded to one of the adjacent gargoyles. "The likeness is far from perfect, but I suppose I should be flattered that we are remembered still."

She rose from her perch, Ethan moving out of her path as she stepped down onto the balcony, the stone beneath his feet shaking with the impact. She began to walk towards the door, and so he followed beside her as she continued her story.

"When Spencer failed in his attempt to buy eternal life from Bifrons, he instead asked him for a familiar, someone to protect him and his secrets. Bifrons sent me to watch over him and this building, an obvious choice. But once I was under his power, Spencer bound me to this stone statue and affixed the seal about my neck. How ironic, to be confined within the very vessel that my likeness inspired."

"If he had managed to accumulate enough souls," Ethan began, disgusted by the idea that Spencer had been treating them as mere units of currency to be bartered. "Would Bifrons have given him what he wanted?"

"Some Demons accept souls as payment," the gargoyle replied, her lips pulling back to expose her teeth in an expression of displeasure. "They feed on powerful emotions like pain and fear, the more intense, the better. They draw their energy from blood sacrifices. Bifrons is not one of them, and he would not have given Spencer what he asked for, no matter how many souls were offered to him in payment. I doubt that any Demon would, even the most...depraved."

"Why is that?" Ethan asked. "Is it not something they have the power to do?"

"Oh, they have the power to do it," she continued. "But not the will. Mortals are meant to live and die, the idea of disrupting that process goes against the natural order. It is offensive."

"But Spencer didn't know that?"

"Perhaps he simply chose not to believe it," she replied with a shrug of her stony shoulders. "He couldn't turn back, not after what he had done to reach that point." Her expression darkened, a hint of the fury that he had seen in her returning for a moment as she snarled like an angry wolf, her snout wrinkling. "For a deity of justice and retribution to be forced to partake in such activities...he must have derived some sick pleasure from it."

Ethan took a seat on one of the old leather recliners in the observation lounge, arranged around a small table with a couple of other chairs. It had once looked out over the city, but now the windows were too grimy to see through. The gargoyle stood nearby, towering over him, her leathery wings folded across her back almost like a cape.

"I guess that explains where you came from and how you got here," Ethan said. It was no more unbelievable than anything else that he had seen over the last couple of days. "But one more thing has been bothering me. The ghosts...where did they go? What happens after we die? Spencer said that there were worlds besides our own, but he never really elaborated on what that meant. Are Heaven and Hell real places?"

"Yes, and no," she replied. "What you refer to as Hell is our abode, an immaterial realm of pure emotion in which the thoughts and feelings of its denizens blend in a chaotic soup. The physical barriers that separate individual minds are absent there. To be summoned is a reprieve, to be free to experience the world as mortals do a rare delight. Sight, sound, taste, touch. These are things that we go eons without. As to where the dead go when they die, in truth, I cannot say. Demons do not possess souls in the way that mortals do. We are forever bound to our realm, only able to make brief jaunts into yours when our stores of energy allow it."