The strike was instant. Pain shot into Silas' side, and up through his arm and into his mind. Into the chains like a bolt of lightning his pain ricocheted off of the ghost at their ends. Sky screamed. Swimming against the sudden tremors shaking her, back towards her Collector who was now looking down through the space between his lifted arm. His focus turned to the blade of the knife left in his side. With a wave of a hand to the Collector the Child slipped back behind Silas' body line faster than any eye could follow. Silas long arm swiped at only air as again, somehow, the Child was gone.

The world in Silas' vision contracted, his step faltering. Reality tipped and trying to catch his suddenly shifting weight, his balance rocking. Red blood began to stain his side, the hilt of the Child's knife visible beneath the flap of his jacket. Gritting his teeth, he pushed forward. There was only forward. A feverish belief as he clawed his way out of Hell.

"Oh no, no! Silas!" Sky's panicked voice mirrored her fear. "Don't pull it out! Don't touch the blood!"

Silas knew better. But he didn't listen.

Grunting, his marked hand grasped the bloodied handle of the knife the Child left sticking into his torn side. Pulling it out, he threw the blade and it hit the floor, adding another crimson splatter to the blood that already stained the ground.

"Where is he?" Silas heaved in a slow hiss. There was a flicker of something dark growing in his shadow.

Sky tasted the air in her quickening breaths, her attention suddenly torn to the wound at her Keeper's side. The Child had certainly not gone far. He was watching them, curious of what could be the outcome of his little attack on Silas as he played hide and seek. Spinning in the air against the chains, she looked down the length of the subway the way they had come. Emptiness amongst the dead strewn across the floor.

"He's close. He's here. Hiding. Watching us. Waiting."

She looked back at the Soul Collector. The vibration of the Collector's life shook Sky to her core. Heaving, he was clutching his bleeding side. Red seeping through between his fingers.

Before she could say anything, Silas' form swung back like a heavy branch in the wind. His balance was off against the car's rocking but through the floating chains and back past Sky, he shifted his tall dark frame to the conductor's cabin. When she reached out to help him, he wretched his hand from her touch. Stumbling forward with gaze unwavering, he leaned into the doorframe. His black eyes darted to the red release button and lever at the centre of the blood stained panel next to the slumped body of the murdered conductor. With a roar, he slammed his chain filled fist down onto the console. There was an instant jerk in the subway's motion and a slow in the force of the metal monster racing through the tunnel.

That issue at least was taken care of. Yet as one problem was resolved, the next began to appear.

The pained churning in the chains ceased all movement, going still in the air. For a long moment, Silas didn't move. Continuing to lean against the door frame of the conductor's cabin, his gaze away from the ghost girl.

The subway train slowed.

He was still, his marked hand pressed to the wound, coated in blood. His breaths slow and long. The chains and the feelings that flowed through them went silent.

"Silas?" Sky asked, her feeling sinking as a knot in her chest. She knew what was about to happen. She wasn't the only one that lived with a monster within.

His head turned at the sound of her voice but when he looked back at her, she clenched her jaw shut in the horror she tried to suppress. There were no pupils of white. His eyes were empty holes and black tears of ink now flowed down over his pale cheeks. His heavy body pushed away from the door, staggering towards her. Stunned, she remained in place. The marked hand now smouldering beneath his bloodied touch. A blood sacrifice to Lucifer's sigil.

The transformation was immediate.

With each step Silas took, Sky's stare sank further into his shadow. Alive and clawing at Silas' feet like living tar. It pulled at his legs but the monolith trudged forward. He was staring with his black eyes devouring her. The shadows crawled further up over his thighs, grasping for his arm as it pulsed towards the injury left by the Child. The shadows were trying to devour their own master. Sky's hands flew forward without another thought, inches from the black she tried to shoo the tendrils away. The darkness was coming.

"No! Don't take him!"

The tendrils were undeterred, snapping at her. His marked hand lifted from the shadows, stained black and reaching for his Sky. And in the moment the Soul Collector was distracted, the Child took his chance.

Thinking he could grab links of the chains only feet from him and pull them from Silas' hold, he leapt forth from his hiding place. From the flickering dark the boy rushed. What a prize to return to Faust with Silas dead and Sky in tow. In the Child's reasoning, Sky would be helpless to act against him if he could only take hold the chains. That's how it worked wasn't it? With eyes crazed, the Child grasped for the metal links.

The black hand that reached for Sky, stretched past her to inconceivable lengths from the Collector to grab the Child suddenly by the scruff of his collar. To the Child's neck Silas' form blurred. The chains and Sky were his. His and no one else's. But the feathers returned and the boy fell from the Collector's grasp, swirling free in a whirl of black plumage to reform at the entrance passage to the next subway car, his narrowed gaze remaining on the Collector. Sticking out his tongue to mock the man in black, the boy turned again and began to run. Down through the cars of the subway train away from Silas and Sky.

The Collector watched the Child, his form still. Black eyes locked on his target.

Then in black swirling shadow and chain, Silas pursued.

Sky watched the Collector change. The black crawled up over his limbs with each trudging step in a half run he took, his pace quickening after the Child. The confines of the subway made them all trapped as the train had stopped far from a platform inside the dark tunnel.

The chains came alive once more, writhing with fury. As metal limbs and an extension of Silas himself, they flew outwards from his shadow, smashing every surface they could reach. Windows, doors, ceilings, floors, metal bars and seats. Nothing could escape him as the chains destroyed the innards of each car Silas ran through in pursuit of his due collection. Pulling the ghost girl along at his side. She was not to leave him. Not then. Possessed with the thought that she would be taken if left out of reach.

"Wait! Silas!" Sky shrieked, caught like a fish at the end of a reeled fisherman's line. He continued to trudge forward without acknowledging her objections. The Collector was on the Child's heels. Faster with injury as the blood spilled from him. The Others remaining on the train had retreated to the far front of the subway. Hiding from the tidal wave of darkness following the Child back up the length of the train. The Soul Collector was a monster.

Unable to help himself, the boy glanced back to see how close Silas' devouring black had come.

But looking back over his shoulder proved a grave mistake as for that fraction of a second lead was lost and his plans immediately changed. For it was not Silas himself that caught the boy off guard.

Out of nowhere as the boy raced through the next subway car's connecting doors, a metal bar swung out from around the other side of the doors' frame to connect with the Child's chest. There was enough time to see the flash of white before being flung off his feet. The world flipped backward and the boy hit the floor, his body once more exploding into a flurry of feathers as he once more became a crow. With frantic flaps of his wings, the bird cawed in a frenzy. Into the air, it maneuvered in a turn but he was now walled in both directions.

Silas was coming with his chains, destroying everything in his path, while the way in which he was trying to go was now blocked by another.

In his white suit with his metal baton drawn, Rathanael stood in the frame of the subway's door. Although he had stopped the boy, he cared little about the collection or what Silas had to do. What he cared about was the Collector. With sparks ignited from the tip of the truncheon, the Divine waited for the Collector to get closer. And when Rathanael stepped into view, everything changed. Silas' black sight shifted from the crow to the angel, a roar of rage rising from the man in black.

How dare HE interfere?

Lifting his marked hand from the wound at his side, fire burning in his palm. The Collector's body never slowed. A train of force, he charged at the angel. The crow forgotten.

Near to Rathanael, the chains concentrated forward, a landslide of force smashing the windows at the end of the car. The crow took its chance in the shower of metal and glass, and quickly turning in the air, it made its break for freedom. Out the broken window frame to fly out and up onto the subway's roof, proceeding to scurry along the cars' tops towards the open tunnel beyond the train.

"He's getting away!" Sky screamed, trying to follow the creature but Silas would not allow her any length in the chains to leave his side.

The wave of Silas' black collided with the wall of Rathanael's white. Through the frame of the subway door, shattering the metal and glass around the Divine.

Remaining steadfast, he swung the metal rod at Silas' face but the Collector ducked his head out of the way. For a moment he released Sky's chains long  enough to throw his marked hand as a punch towards Rath's face, the angel blocked him by grasping the Collector's fist.

"Disgusting." Rath spat, eyeing in loathing how Silas' curse fed from him. Cannibalizing whatever trace of his own humanity he had left. "Thankfully, I won't have to wait much longer."

Sky was over Silas' shoulder, leapfrogging her Keeper from behind to protect him from Rathanael's interference. She at least had enough chain length for that. She swiped for the angel's face, her nails leaving searing scratches against his soul. The surprise of her attack caused him to release the grip he had on Silas' fist. The Collector's force receding behind Sky, readying to attack once more. Wide eyed in surprise, Rath reached up to touch his cheek and the icy sting in his skin left in the wake of Sky's retaliation. When the moment sank in, he shot the ghost an arrogant glare. Gritting his teeth the angel focused his rage into another swing of his baton.

'Spare the rod, spoil the child.' The angel seethed. His punishment directed at Sky's closer proximity.

The electric rod sparked, sending Sky backpedaling in the air in order to avoid it. Another swing but Silas' intercepted, grabbing the chains close to Sky's wrists with his marked hand and pulling her back. By the fist that held the chains, his strength connected with the angel's gut. The fury in Rath's swing fell away and with round eyes, he doubled forward, distracted long enough for Silas to take advantage. The Collector kicked him to the floor and with his Sky, they were back in pursuit of the Child who had escaped into the tunnel beyond the end of the train.