Updated Mar 9, 2026 • ~12 min read
Maya calls Detective Marcus Webb on Monday morning.
“Seattle PD, Detective Webb.”
“Hi. My name is Maya Rivers. I have information about an old case. A death at the Blackwood Apartments in 2019.”
Silence. Then: “Julian Cross?”
“You remember him.”
“I remember all my unsolved cases.” Webb’s voice is cautious. “What kind of information?”
“The kind I’d rather share in person. Can we meet?”
More silence. Maya can hear him typing. “You live at the Blackwood now. Apartment 2B.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re calling about a death that happened five years ago in apartment 3B. One floor above you.” His tone sharpens. “You seeing things, Ms. Rivers? Hearing things?”
Maya’s heart pounds. “I’m seeing patterns. I’ve been researching the building’s history. There have been eight deaths in the same apartment over ninety years. All artists. All in October. All ruled accidental or suicide.” She takes a breath. “But I don’t think they were.”
Webb is quiet for a long moment. “City Brew. Downtown. One hour.”
He hangs up.
Detective Marcus Webb is exactly what Maya expected: mid-forties, tired eyes, coffee-stained tie. He’s sitting in a back corner booth when she arrives, a thick file folder already open in front of him.
“Ms. Rivers.” He gestures to the seat across from him. “You said you found patterns.”
Maya sits. “Eight deaths. Same apartment. Same month. Same victim profile.”
“I know. I’ve noticed.” Webb slides a photo across the table. Julian. Alive. Smiling. “Julian Cross. October 15, 2019. Found dead in his apartment at 6:47 AM. Building manager called it in.”
“Mrs. Kowalski.”
“You know her?”
“She warned me not to go to the third floor.” Maya looks at the photo. Her chest aches. “What did the autopsy say?”
“Blunt force trauma consistent with a fall. Toxicology clean. No signs of struggle.” Webb pulls out more photos. Crime scene. Blood on the floor. An open window. “Ruled accidental. Case closed.”
“But you didn’t close it.”
Webb’s jaw tightens. “No. Because three things bothered me. One: the window was open, but it was a cold night. Why would Julian have it open? Two: His painting was half-finished. Witnesses said he was obsessive about completing commissions. He wouldn’t have stopped mid-brush stroke to open a window. Three: Mrs. Ashford.”
Maya’s pulse quickens. “The building owner’s wife?”
“She was the one who commissioned the painting. Paid Julian twenty thousand dollars for a portrait.” Webb pulls out another photo. A woman in her fifties. Elegant. Cold eyes. “She came by his apartment the afternoon before he died. Security cameras caught her entering. Heard them arguing. She left an hour later. Julian was dead twelve hours after that.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“No one knows. But two years later, Mrs. Ashford killed herself. Drove her car off a bridge.” Webb’s expression darkens. “Her suicide note mentioned ‘making amends for past sins.’ Never explained what sins.”
Maya’s mind races. “And her husband?”
“Dead six months after Julian. Heart attack. Very convenient timing for someone who might have covered up a murder.” Webb closes the file. “So tell me, Ms. Rivers. What’s your interest in this? Really?”
Maya chooses her words carefully. “I think the building is cursed. I think it’s been killing people for a century. And I think Julian Cross—all the Julian Crosses and Catherine Crosses and every other artist who died there—were sacrificed to something.”
Webb doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t call her crazy.
Instead, he says, “I was hoping you’d say something like that.”
Webb takes her to the station.
They go through evidence boxes in a cold storage room, pulling files on all eight deaths. Catherine Cross, 1948. Robert Delacroix, 1955. David Park, 1983. On and on.
Each file tells the same story: talented artist moves into 3B, thrives for months, then sudden death in October.
“Look at this.” Maya spreads the autopsy photos. “They all have the same injury pattern. Blunt force trauma to the same spot on the skull. Like they were all pushed from the same angle.”
Webb studies the photos. “You’re right. I never put them together because they’re decades apart. Different medical examiners. Different detective leads.” He looks at her. “But it’s the same killer. Or the same method.”
“The building itself.”
“That’s insane.”
“Is it? More insane than eight identical deaths over ninety-six years that no one ever connected?” Maya pulls out her research notes. “The building was constructed on the site of a massacre. 1889. A speakeasy that burned down with fifty people inside. The owner, Theodore Blackwood, bought the land cheap and built his apartment building on top of the ashes.”
“And you think… what? The ghosts are angry?”
“I think Theodore Blackwood made a deal. Blood for success. He sacrificed those fifty people deliberately—set the fire himself—and whatever entity answered his call has been collecting payment ever since.” Maya meets Webb’s eyes. “One artist every cycle. Their death feeding the curse. Their soul trapped to sustain it.”
Webb is quiet for a long time. Then: “I have a partner who died in that building. Ten years ago. Investigating a noise complaint on the third floor. Fell down the stairs. Broke her neck.” His voice is rough. “Her name was Detective Sarah Mitchell. She was 31. And she was a photographer before she joined the force.”
Maya’s blood runs cold. “An artist.”
“An artist.” Webb’s hands clench into fists. “I’ve spent ten years trying to prove her death wasn’t an accident. That building killed her. I know it did. But I could never prove how.”
“Help me now. Help me break this curse. And you’ll get justice for her.” Maya grabs his hand. “We find the contract. We destroy it. We free every soul that building has trapped. Including your partner.”
Webb looks at her like he’s seeing her for the first time. “You really believe you can do this.”
“I have to. Because if I don’t…” She doesn’t finish. Can’t tell him about Julian. About loving a ghost. About the choice that’s coming.
“Okay.” Webb stands. “Tell me what you need.”
“Access to the building’s basement. Specifically, the south wall behind the boiler. There’s a contract hidden there. A deed written in blood that binds the curse to the foundation.”
“And once we find it?”
“We destroy it on Halloween. When the veil is thinnest and supernatural power is strongest.” Maya stands too. “But first, I need to see Julian’s belongings. Everything that was in his apartment when he died.”
Webb nods. “Evidence lockup. Follow me.”
Julian’s belongings fill three boxes.
Clothes. Books. Art supplies. And sketchbooks. Dozens of sketchbooks.
Maya opens the first one with shaking hands.
The early pages show typical artist studies. Anatomy sketches. Landscape practice. Still lifes.
But halfway through, the subject changes.
Mrs. Ashford appears. Page after page of her face. Her hands. Her eyes.
And in every sketch, something is wrong.
Bruises on her arms. A split lip hidden by makeup. Fear in her eyes despite her smile.
“He was documenting abuse,” Maya whispers.
Webb looks over her shoulder. “Mr. Ashford.”
“The building owner. He was beating his wife. And Julian saw. Captured it in his art.” Maya flips more pages. The sketches get darker. More desperate. One shows Mrs. Ashford with a black eye. Another shows her with a handprint bruise around her throat.
The final sketch in the book shows Mrs. Ashford holding a gun.
And below it, in Julian’s handwriting: She’s going to kill him. I have to stop her.
“He was going to report it,” Webb says. “Domestic abuse. Possibly attempted murder.”
“And Mrs. Ashford couldn’t let him.” Maya closes the sketchbook. “So she—or her husband—killed Julian first. Made it look like an accident. Sealed the third floor before anyone could investigate properly.”
“Then why did Mrs. Ashford commission the portrait? Why pay Julian twenty thousand dollars and spend hours in his apartment?”
Maya thinks. “Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the building did. Maybe it used her, manipulated her, made her commission the painting so Julian would be in the right place at the right time for the October sacrifice.”
Webb looks skeptical.
But before he can respond, Maya’s phone buzzes.
A text from an unknown number: Basement. Now. They’re moving the contract. -J
Julian.
“I have to go.” Maya grabs the sketchbooks. “Can I take these?”
“Those are evidence.”
“Please. I’ll bring them back. But I need them tonight.” Maya’s already heading for the door. “Trust me. This is important.”
Webb hesitates. Then: “Forty-eight hours. After that, I’m filing a report and getting them back.”
“Thank you.” Maya runs.
She has to get to the building.
Before the contract disappears.
Before their one chance to break the curse is gone.
The basement is exactly as unpleasant as Maya expected.
Concrete floors. Exposed pipes. Decades of accumulated junk. And cold. So impossibly cold that her breath fogs despite the building’s heating system.
Julian is waiting by the boiler.
“They know we’re coming,” he says without preamble. “The Man in Black. The building. They know you talked to Dr. Vance. Know you found the protection sigil. Know you’re planning to destroy the contract.”
“How?”
“The building sees everything that happens within its walls. Hears everything. We’ve been planning our rebellion in its hearing range.” Julian looks grim. “And now it’s moving the contract. Hiding it somewhere we can’t reach.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But I felt the power shift. The binding that anchors the curse to this location—it’s loosening. Being transferred.” He grabs her hand. “We have to find it before it’s gone completely. Once it’s moved, we’ll never track it down.”
Maya pulls out her phone. Turns on the flashlight. “You said south wall, behind the boiler?”
“That’s where it was yesterday.”
They move to the wall. The boiler hisses and clanks beside them, radiating heat that doesn’t touch the supernatural cold.
“Here.” Julian points to a section of wall that looks identical to the rest. “The brick should be loose.”
Maya presses on bricks. Nothing moves.
“Try there.” Julian indicates a different spot.
Still nothing.
“Julian, are you sure—”
The brick under her hand gives.
Maya pulls it free. Behind it, a cavity. Dark. Empty.
No contract.
“It’s gone.” Julian’s form flickers. “They already moved it.”
“Then we search.” Maya sets the brick down. “The basement is big, but not infinite. It has to be here somewhere.”
They search for an hour.
Every corner. Every shelf. Every dusty box and forgotten storage unit.
Nothing.
“It’s not here,” Julian says finally. He’s barely visible, energy depleted from maintaining form in the basement’s hostile environment. “The contract is gone. Hidden somewhere we’ll never find it.”
Maya sinks onto a crate. “So that’s it? We lost?”
“Not lost. Just…” Julian sits beside her. “Setback. We’ll find another way.”
“What other way? The contract is the anchor. Without destroying it, we can’t break the curse.”
“Then we force the building to bring it back. We threaten something it values.” Julian’s eyes are fierce. “The painting. Catherine’s portrait. If we destroy that, the resurrection fails. The building loses its prize.”
“And you lose your chance at freedom.”
“Better trapped than watching you die trying to save me.”
Maya takes his hand. “We’re not destroying the painting. Not yet. Not until we’ve exhausted every other option.”
“Maya—”
“I mean it. There has to be something we’re missing. Some loophole in the curse. Some weakness the building has.” She stands. “Let’s go talk to Catherine.”
Julian blinks. “What?”
“Your sister. The original Catherine. She’s been trapped the longest. She knows the most about how the curse works.” Maya heads for the stairs. “If anyone knows a way to break it without the contract, it’s her.”
“She doesn’t appear to me. Won’t speak to me. Hasn’t since…” Julian follows her. “Since she died and I couldn’t save her.”
“Then maybe she’ll speak to me.” Maya climbs the stairs. “Where would she be? If she could be anywhere in the building?”
Julian is quiet. Then: “The third floor. Where she died. Where she’s anchored.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
“Maya, the Man in Black controls the third floor. If we go up there—”
“Then he’ll try to trap us. And we’ll fight back.” Maya reaches the lobby. “We have three weeks until Halloween. Three weeks to find every advantage, every weapon, every piece of knowledge we can. And we start with Catherine.”
She heads for the stairs.
Julian catches up. “You’re insane, you know that?”
“You’ve mentioned it.” Maya starts climbing. “Multiple times, actually.”
“And stubborn.”
“Also established.”
“And brave beyond reason.”
“Now you’re just flattering me.”
They reach the second-floor landing. The third floor looms above.
The sealed door is open. Waiting.
“Last chance to turn back,” Julian says.
Maya draws the protection sigil on her palm in pen. The symbol glows faintly. “I’m not turning back. Are you?”
Julian smiles. “Not a chance.”
They climb toward the third floor.
Toward Catherine.
Toward answers.
Toward whatever trap the building has prepared.
But they climb together.
And somehow, that makes all the difference.
The building may be powerful.
But so is love.
And love, Maya is learning, can be a weapon.
If you’re willing to fight dirty.
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