Chapter 6: Leaden Seal

As Ethan walked along the carpeted hallway, the chandelier outside room two-five-three began to rock back and forth, as though it had been caught in a gust of wind. The electric bulbs flickered, eventually petering out to cast that section of the corridor into deep shadow, a cold draft seeming to creep its way along the floor towards him like a rolling mist. He was too exhausted to be scared now, and no ghost could rival the terror that he had just experienced.

There was an orange light in the gloom, the man in the cap’s pallid face illuminated as he took a drag from a cigarette. He was leaning against the wall beside his door, the same way that Ethan had first seen him, but fully in-focus this time. His eyes were sunken, and his flesh had an unnatural tone, Ethan noting that there was dried blood on his forearms. He looked like he had been dead for days.

“I did what you asked,” Ethan said, indignant. “I went up into the roof, but I didn’t find any answers, just more questions.”

“You’re on the right track, flatfoot,” the man replied as he peered at Ethan from beneath the brim of his newsboy cap.

“No, I’m done,” Ethan snapped. “No more playing ‘house dick’. I almost died up there, and I’m no closer to understanding what’s going on.”

“You gotta follow through with your swing,” the man began, but Ethan cut him off before he could finish the thought.

“What about ‘I’m done’ do you not understand? I’m done being scared out of my wits, I’m done risking my life, I’m done chasing riddles. I didn’t volunteer for this, and I’m not going to die and get trapped here forever, reliving my gruesome death for all eternity like the rest of you. I’m sorry, but I’ve done all that I can reasonably do to help you, and you won’t even meet me halfway.”

“I told you I didn’t have all the answers,” the man in the cap replied, tossing his cigarette and exhaling a plume of smoke. “Wouldn’t be stuck in this joint if I did. Takes a lot of willpower for me to be here talkin’ to you like this, gotta keep my head on straight, remember what’s what. It’s like I’m drownin’ in molasses, and when I struggle to the surface to take a breath, I get a scant few seconds before I go back under again. Now you got me wastin’ that precious time tellin’ you to stop bein’ a chump.”

“Well, you can go find yourself another chump,” Ethan replied as he marched past the specter. The lights began to flicker on again, the man in the cap’s voice receding, like he was calling to Ethan from a great distance.

“Nobody glows as bright as you do, shamus...”

Ethan reached the door to his suite, not looking back as he stepped inside and closed it behind him, locking it for good measure. After waiting for a moment to make sure that the man in the cap had left, he made his way to the bedroom, willing to brave the nightmares if it meant that he could finally rest.

O-N-S-B-I-F-R.

It didn’t make sense, Ethan running his fingers around the circular seal on the wooden pendant that he held in his hand. He was up in the spire again, but the proportions were all wrong. It extended so high above him that it vanished into inky darkness before he could see the top, the crisscrossing support beams now warped and twisted, far longer and thicker than they should be. It was more like looking up into the tangled branches of a jungle canopy now, the I-beams snaking around each other like vines. They were loaded with innumerable candles, burning with bright flames that made them stand out like beacons in the gloom, hot wax dripping as it melted over the rusted metal.

When he looked down, he saw that he was standing in the center of the five-pointed star, the runes that encircled it seeming to twist and move. It was as though they were in a state of flux, hazy and indistinct, spiraling around him. The seal on the pendant in his palm began to glow, as though a fire had been lit inside of it, the sound of faint voices reaching his ears.

They grew louder and louder, until, from the depths of the shadows that surrounded him, faces began to appear. They came in all shapes and sizes, all races and genders, their eyes sunken and dead. Everywhere he looked, there was a disembodied visage, their contorted expressions conveying terror and despair. Their whispering was unintelligible with so many of them speaking at once, yet he somehow knew what they wanted, as though their words were bypassing his ears completely and reaching into his mind.

“Help us...”

“I don’t know how!” he wailed, the sigil on the pendant shining ever brighter. “I can’t!”

“The leaden seal...”

From the pentagram erupted a forest of grasping hands, reaching up towards him as though the floor was no more solid than the surface of a lake. They were pallid and cold, their flesh grey and bloated, pale bone visible in places where it had started to peel away. As those dead fingers clawed at his slacks, dragging him down into the depths to join them, something appeared before him.

As if someone was lowering it from the beams above on a fishing line, another pendant emerged from the shadows, hanging on a length of hairy string. This one had been crudely pressed from grey metal, shaped like a large coin, more runes and symbols etched onto its face.

“Break the seal,” the tortured voices moaned in a macabre chorus, Ethan sinking up to his knees in what felt like quicksand as those grasping hands crawled up to his belt. “Break the leaden seal...”

He reached out and gripped the pendant, a yell of fear and frustration rising in his throat as he tore it from its string.

Ethan awoke with a start, finding himself back in his bed. He wasn’t even surprised anymore, he had expected a nightmare, and he wasn’t going to let it get to him. After checking his phone to make sure that the day shift had begun, he started to pack his things, filling his duffle bag and slinging it over his shoulder. His mind was made up. As much as it bothered him to leave the staff with no facility manager, returning them to the sorry state in which he had found them, the choice was between that and death.

When he arrived in the lobby, he made his way to the front desk, where Spencer was waiting. The old man looked up at him as he arrived, his eyes shifting to the duffle bag.

“Are you planning on going somewhere, Mister Lewis?” he asked jokingly. Ethan didn’t need to answer the question, the serious expression on his face told the whole story.

“I’m afraid that I’m here to give you my resignation,” he said, the concierge sighing with exasperation.

“I had feared that this might happen, but you struck me as a reliable person, Mister Lewis. Your handling of our ... unusual situation has been pragmatic and practical thus far. I’m disappointed, to say the least. I was beginning to believe that you might be the person who would dig us out of this hole, so to speak.”

“My sincerest apologies,” Ethan began, and he really meant it. “The situation here is very different from what I was led to believe when I took the job, and while I have made attempts to adjust, it’s beyond my area of expertise.”

“Have you made up your mind, then?” the old man asked.

“I have.”

“I can’t force you to stay,” Spencer said with a shrug, “but perhaps you’ll humor me for a few moments?”

Ethan had been dead set on getting out of the building as quickly as possible, but he couldn’t deny the kindly old concierge, and so he nodded. Spencer stepped out from behind his desk and began to walk him across the lobby, the two of them eventually ending up over by the executive elevator.

“Do you know what this is?” Spencer asked as he gestured to the gilded doors.

“I never noticed it before now,” Ethan lied, “looks like another elevator?”

“Correct. This is the executive elevator that leads up to the top seven floors. It’s locked, of course, and I alone have the key. Not even Mister West can get up there without my permission. Now, I know that when we had our conversation about you wanting to survey those floors yesterday, my refusal may have come off a little ... strong.”

Ethan began to speak, but Spencer cut him off with a wave of his liver-spotted hand.

“If you’re willing to stay and keep helping us organize this place, I’ll take you up there right now. How about it? I’ll give you a personal tour of all seven floors, and then you can decide what you want to do about them. If it’s your opinion that they should be renovated and opened, then that’s what we’ll do.”

“As much as I appreciate the offer,” Ethan began, “that’s not something that factored into my decision to leave. I’m sorry, Mister Spencer, I really am. But I can’t do this, I can’t deal with the nightmares and the apparitions.”

Spencer fished in his pocket for a moment, withdrawing the golden elevator key and handing it to Ethan.

“Hold this for a moment, please,” he said. His hand returned to his pocket, and when it withdrew, Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. Clutched in Spencer’s bony fingers was a snub-nosed revolver, which he was now pointing at Ethan’s chest.

“Mister Spencer, what are-”

“Quiet now,” Spencer replied, his hand completely steady. “You’re going to turn around and insert that key into the lock, and then we’re going up to the top floors. If you won’t go willingly, then I’ll have to give you some ... extra motivation. Don’t shout for help, now. Mister West hasn’t arrived yet, we’re alone, and you’re riding that elevator dead or alive.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Ethan hissed, his eyes locked on the barrel of the gun.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Mister Lewis. I know that you took the key from my desk, I know that you rifled through my filing cabinets and discovered my little ... collection. Now, I don’t know what you saw up there or what you were able to figure out, but I can’t run the risk of letting you spread what you’ve learned.”

“What? How did you know?” Ethan asked in disbelief.

“An old trick, but an effective one,” the old man explained. “One needs only to pluck a hair from his head, and tape it across a drawer or a door with two pieces of scotch tape. It’s quite invisible to someone who isn’t already expecting it. If the hair is broken when you return, then it means that someone has been snooping. You were quite adamant about accessing the top floors, it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

“Listen, Mister Spencer,” Ethan continued as he slowly raised his hands. “Whatever’s going on here, I don’t want any part in it. I really was going to quit and never look back. So just ... put that gun away, and then I’ll be out of those doors, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“As I said, I can’t run the risk of you spreading what you’ve learned. It’s a shame, I wasn’t lying when I told you that I found your work exemplary. Fairfax was the same,” he added, a shiver crawling down Ethan’s spine. “He was a good facility manager, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Eventually, he threatened to go over my head and to talk to the owners about the upper levels. I couldn’t risk anyone finding out about my little project, and so...”

“You set your monster on him,” Ethan finished.

“So you encountered my familiar?” Spencer said, raising a bushy eyebrow. “I’m impressed that you lived to tell of it. The mere sight of it was enough to send Fairfax to a padded room for the rest of his days. A more favorable outcome, really. Explaining his sudden disappearance would have been difficult.”

He gestured to the elevator with the barrel of his gun, Ethan turning reluctantly and inserting the key in the lock. The doors parted, and he stepped inside, Spencer maintaining a good distance as he kept the weapon trained on him.

“Why?” Ethan asked as the car began to rise, his heart sinking as though it had remained behind in the lobby. “What the hell is going on in this accursed place?”

“Accursed is right,” Spencer replied. “It would have seemed unbelievable to you only a few days ago, but now, I think you will agree that there are worlds besides our own. This material realm is not all that exists, it is but one facet of reality. The occult, the supernatural, these are all words that a laymen uses to describe that which he cannot possibly fathom.”

The old concierge seemed so eager, almost gloating, as though this was the first time that he had been able to reveal these truths to another soul.

“That’s what the ghosts are, then?” Ethan asked.

“Death is not the end,” Spencer continued, “but I say that not to console you. The very idea should terrify you. When we die, our immortal souls are cast adrift into a chaotic void, and not even those who have crossed over to the other side can say where we will eventually end up. I have always viewed death as abhorrent,” he said bitterly, “as a perversion of life. We have convinced ourselves as a species that it is natural, a necessary part of our lifecycle, and what choice do we have but to accept it? Yet all that death truly signifies is the failure of the organic machines that we call home for the duration of our paltry lives on this Earth. I am an old man, Mister Lewis,” he added with a despondent sigh. “My time is running short. Younger men might one day conquer death through technology, and medical advances, but I cannot afford to wait that long.”

“I don’t understand,” Ethan muttered, “how does having a building full of ghosts help you cheat death?”

“I would not expect you to understand, dear boy. Few are privy to the secret knowledge that I was able to uncover during my search for the metaphorical fountain of youth. It seemed so fanciful at first, but the more I learned, the more evidence seemed to corroborate the myths. These parallel realities are inhabited by beings of great power and intelligence, creatures with abilities that we could scarcely imagine, all meticulously documented in ancient texts going back thousands of years. What was once common knowledge was hidden over the ages, scrubbed from history because of the great danger that treating with these entities posed to the powers that be. Call them Demons, Djinni, extra-dimensional entities or EDEs, they’re as real as you or I. Real being a relative term, of course.”

“So, that thing you have living up there, that’s a Demon?”

“Not exactly,” Spencer explained. “Like all forms of life, Demons share a common trait. The need for energy, the desire to feed, to sustain themselves. There are many ways in which they obtain that energy, from worship, from sacrifice. The very act of reproducing a Demon’s sigil can fill it with nourishing energy in the same way that you might fill your belly with a hot meal. It took months of preparation,” he said, clenching his fist for dramatic effect. “Hours of learning spells and incantations by rote until my throat burned, but I was able to create the ideal environment to summon one of these Demons. I chose Bifrons, the forty-sixth of the seventy-two spirits listed in the ancient grimoires, an entity said to have power over life and death.”

“So that explains the mess I saw in the spire,” Ethan muttered. It wasn’t ‘Onsbifr’, the circular seals had spelled out ‘Bifrons’.

“Indeed,” Spencer replied as the elevator car rumbled beneath their feet. “The conditions must be perfect, the ritual precisely replicated, the lengthy rules of their customs followed to the letter. The Lesser Key of Solomon was all that I needed to learn what tools and steps were required, an arcane text penned in the seventeenth century, based on lore far older. When my ritual succeeded, and he appeared before me, I was ecstatic. But I soon discovered that my offering was ... insufficient compensation for what I was asking,” he added, seeming deflated. His eyes turned to the floor of the car for a moment as he was lost in thought, but then his manic energy returned. “I needed souls, dozens of them, maybe more. But how could I obtain them, save by becoming a serial killer, a job for which I was not at all cut out?”

“The Abbott and Schutzman,” Ethan sighed.

“I scoured the city archives in search of the most haunted buildings, for the most unnatural deaths, and this one was at the top of the list. Its misfortune became my fortune, a haunted place, packed with souls who couldn’t move on due to their trauma. It can take a great deal of time for such a lost soul to pass into the next life, for them to overcome their grief, but Bifrons has power over the dead. I summoned him once more, and this time, I asked him to grant me a familiar. He provided me with a lesser Demon from the many legions of infernal spirits that serve under him, and I promptly sealed it away in one of the building’s Gargoyles,” he chuckled. “It was a perfect vessel. It is bound to me now, compelled to do as I command, regardless of its own wishes. I use it to protect my secrets, to keep the souls trapped here, and to add new ones to my collection when the opportunity arises.”

“And you think that this Bifrons will grant you immortality?” Ethan asked skeptically, “that it can somehow stop you from dying?”

“If not Bifrons, then one of the others,” Spencer replied with a shrug. “I have seventy-two to choose from, after all. One of them will give me what I want, I’m certain of it, I just need an offer too generous to refuse. As for the familiar, it’s mine now, Bifrons couldn’t get it back if he wanted to. Not with the magick that I used to seal it away.”

The elevator came to a stop, the doors parting to reveal the carpeted corridor that Ethan had fled the night before. He could still see the damage that had been done by the rampaging gargoyle. Spencer pressed the barrel of the gun into the small of his back, urging him onward, and he stepped reluctantly into the hallway.

“I’ll have to tell the staff that you fled in the night,” the old man said as he marched Ethan toward the spiral staircase. “You did me the favor of packing your belongings already, so it shouldn’t be too hard a sell. Come on, up you go.”

Spencer walked him up onto the observation deck, then circled around until they were face to face, a good few feet apart to ensure that Ethan couldn’t try for the gun. The door to the balcony was still open, but the storm from the night before had mostly cleared, the sky painted blood red by the rising sun. The exterior was still damp, the wind carrying the scent of rain into the room.

“Feeding time!” Spencer called out. There was a sound like cracking stone, Ethan’s eyes drawn to movement through the grimy windows. One of the hunched gargoyles began to move, jerkily at first, dust and small particles of rock raining from its grey skin as its great wings unfurled from its back. It was like watching an old Ray Harryhausen stop-motion creature come to life, unnatural and twitchy, his instincts informing him that those were not the fluid movements of a living thing. It slowly rose from its crouched position, its rocky hide becoming more flexible, as though it was being softened after years of petrification. Its muscles rippled, its tail waving in the air, its joints seeming to loosen as it stretched its limbs.