Their sanctuary and home. 

An abandoned and derelict residential tower in the heart of that Other Manhattan. There were too many decrepit buildings in the city to easily be discovered, so their home remained an inconspicuous dead tree within a dying forest. 

With no electricity or running water, the brick tower was a fortress of isolation and while sometimes Others found their way inside, they never stayed long.

From the lobby stripped bare, up nine floors through a broken stairwell to a loft and  open atrium, a glass Tudor skylight crowned the top of the tower, it was a stunning marvel of architecture left to disrepair. It was an empty shell of a building and had been for a long time. In the rooms of the loft below the vaulted windows, it was theirs and theirs alone. 

The Temple Court.

When one collection was complete, in the quiet of their haunted tower they waited for the next to be named.

As dawn came, Silas sat silent in the room he claimed as his own. 

An old half broken table was pushed up against the wall with shreds of wallpaper peeling from its surface. The chair on which he sat faced the first rays of the morning light coming from the dusted panes of glass of the window. Like hanging black roots, his arms draped over the sides of the chair, his legs spread out to comfortably distribute his height. He was considered a giant in comparison to those around him and more often than not, Silas stood over a head above most.  

In his hand, in an unbreakable grasp was a pair of chains that pooled to the floor beneath his hold before trailing out of the room through the doorway to the atrium.

She would be there. His Sky.

Overlooking a view down through the hall's hallow tower to the entrance on the ground floor, the open insides of the building enabled Sky the space to float freely to the limit the chains connected to Silas would allow.

Silas' shadowed features could not fully absorb the light of the sun. 

There was no warmth from its light in that world on the bridge towards Heaven and Hell. The world of the Others. The world on the doorstep of Heaven and Hell. 

Thirty-four years of collecting, assigned to them day after day without end. Twelve thousand five hundred and thirty nine sunrises without a soul. And until his soul was returned, he would continue collecting the fugitives of Hell. Those that had managed to escape back into the world of the Others. 

With the collection of one, within a nightfall of the following day the next target would be assigned. There were always fugitives. Hell's seams were bursting and all those escaped were played with by Silas like a cat playing with a mouse before their collection was imminent. 

He had talent. There was no denying it.

Waiting for the next to be named by the only one allowed entrance into their world. The one that handed them the next to be named by Lucifer. The one who annoyed Silas far more than any other had ever. Always the same woman. Appearing like clockwork within hours after the completion of a given collection. And, more often than not, she came with something to say,

'You don't look so good, Silas. Perhaps you should take a break.'

'Try to smile, Silas. You look awful with that scowl on your face.'

'Oh, Silas. Do you always have to be so depressing?'

How bothersome.

A long finger traced the outline of a chain link hanging in his hand, the shadows of the day moving across the room. Hours of stillness, allowing the world to move without him. The light of dawn to the afternoon's cold light and then the eventual fading to dusk. Staring outwards through cracked panes of glass to the dead world outside, Silas waited in silence. 

He never slept nor ate. Two human pleasures that he had been denied in his contract of service to the Devil. As though his body had shut down from being human, he couldn't sleep even if he tried, nor digest any food if he so ate it. 

He lived a curse.

Those fleeting moments of freedom between shifts were a welcomed stillness in his duties which began when the white sun finally sank out of view and the sky came to life. 

Murders of crows and ravens crossed the sky and the frantic flapping of hundreds of thousands of wings filled the still evening air. A daily spectacle that was impossible to ignore. Every Morning and night was like clockwork. Souls on their way to Heaven and Hell.

In the midst of that end of life migration, the Soul Collector stood, facing the window. He smoothed the creases in his suit's jacket and adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves. 

Quiet, Silas moved around the chair to the doorway and exit to the atrium. 

Through the door, she was there. Her form framed as a picture of beauty in his sight. 

At the center of the open air, floating in wait in the empty great space within the tower's innards was Sky. The excess of links that Silas dragged snaked behind him with a life of their own. When Sky felt the movement in the metal chains, she turned in mid air to meet his entrance.

"Good evening, Silas," Sky's soft voice greeted him. The chains that hung from Sky's wrists lifted to the banister as she swam closer towards the man dressed in the black suit.

"My Sky," Silas acknowledged his lady in waiting, bowing to the ghost woman as he placed an arm across his chest. A gentleman to only one creature and that was Sky. A glowing pale chained to a black monolith. Her body, hair and torn summer dress, transparent and weightless. Lifting his marked hand to the ghost that approached, Sky was unhesitant to reach back. 

The touch of her tingled against his cold skin. 

Drawing in closer, she leaned inward, placing her forehead to the back of his hand but there was little time for anything else when the footsteps began.