The group reached the mall entrance at a light jog. Alex probably would have run all out, but he knew better than to leave Skye behind and she was keeping pace with Zac.

Zac could have moved faster but he didn't want to.

Only an idiot arrived at a potential confrontation out of breath.

There was only one member of the Initiative waiting at the end of hall. He stood next to the entrance holding a battered metal folding chair. The entrance had been boarded over with plywood, presumably to protect the glass doors, but the plywood was on the outside, leaving the glass exposed to the escape efforts of a determined man with a chair.

Zac recognized this man, too. He'd been the one who so favored the cattle prod.

The man saw Alex first, as evidence the slump of relief in his shoulders. Then, he saw Zac. He straightened and drew back the chair.

“Alex, run, you've got a creature on your six!”

Zac paused, glancing from Alex to Skye. With Jacob and this man, Alex's group now outnumbered Zac and Skye. Would the man be foolish enough to try to take advantage of the fact? His pride must have taken a strong blow at Skye's hands earlier.

“No, it,” Alex paused, sighed and corrected himself. “He's with us, for the moment. So's the girl.”

The man, Mike did not lower the chair. He glanced at the girl. “She one of them?”

“Them covers a fairly wide range of possibilities,” Skye said. “But, yes. I am one of 'them.' What you need to know is that I am the only hope you have of seeing the sun rise. I'm Death Incarnate and Agent Reaper of Labyrinth. Call me Agent or Reaper.”

The man looked to Alex, who nodded glumly.

“She's not lying, about any of it.”

“Working with Labyrinth? Man, things can't be that bad!”

“Dr. Reed and Roy are dead,” Alex said. “The creature we brought in for study, the big dead one; it wasn't dead. It got up and started killing. It took a full four clips of bullets to the face, didn't flinch. Ripped apart the doctor and dropped Roy onto some sharp pipes.”

The chair fell to the ground, breaking even more of the tile and making a horrific clashing sound.

“Roy?” Mike rubbed his hands through his graying hair. “Man, Roy had a kid! How are we gonna tell him some freak monster killed his daddy?”

Zac felt his stomach plummet. The man had been a father?

Even Skye looked uncomfortable at that.

“What of the woman?” Zac asked, voice soft. “Did she have family?”

Had he really thought his captors were as alone in the world as he was? Of course they had families.

There was a short silence as the men debated answering him. Finally, Alex said, “She had a sister. Maybe a boyfriend; she didn't talk about her home life much.”

“We'll have to come up with something plausible, to explain their deaths,” Skye said. “A car wreck, probably. So their families won't be left with painful questions.”

To Zac's shock, Alex nodded. “Yeah. No one deserves to see their loved ones like... like that.” He looked momentarily sick. “A car wreck should do it. Enough fire, it'll hide what that thing did to them.”

Zac remembered the scientist's last moments. No, whatever her crimes, her family did not deserve such pain.

“What, um,” Jacob actually raised his hand, like they were in a class not a life or death situation, “what was that crashing sound, just now? We thought the creature was after you!”

“Oh, that.” Mike pointed to the chair. “Heard your message, thought I should bust us an escape route. Didn't work.”

Zac glanced at Skye, who had raised one eyebrow. Somehow he doubted the man had been thinking of his comrades when he tried to break his way free of the mall. There was no reason to start an argument at this point though. It clearly had not worked.

“Can she do it?” Jacob pointed to Skye.

“Look, kid, if I can't bust through that, some tiny brat of a girl doesn't stand a chance.”

“I'm probably stronger than you are,” Skye said, “but that's not why.”

The man scoffed. “Yeah right. Prove it.”

“Don't,” Alex said. He tilted his chin back. “See this bruise? Little freak did this. Held me up against a wall with one freaking hand. She is that strong.”

The man frowned. “Alex, that looks bad. You okay?”

Zac noted that he didn't ask why the girl had felt the need to attack Alex. He also noted that Alex felt confident enough to start calling them freaks again.

“I'm fine. It was a miscommunication.” Alex shrugged. “Anyway, Reaper, can you maybe break through? Since you're... death or immune or whatever?”

Skye tilted her head and considered. “I'd not thought of that. I'm not part of the stable of victims, so I should be able to come and go freely. I haven't tested that. And there's no reason I shouldn't be able to open a door for the rest of you.” She shrugged. “That would be much preferable to body-guarding a dozen idiots all night. Hand me that chair.”

Jacob picked up the somewhat mangled folding chair and offered it to the girl. Zac found it interesting that the boy did not wait for either Alex or Mike's nod before he obeyed her.

Skye swung the chair at the glass door. Her first strike cracked the glass and bent the chair even further. She took aim, breathed, and swung again even harder. Glass and metal both gave way. The chair buckled into so much scrap. The window shattered, raining glass down in a sparkling shower.

“Well that was-” Alex began.

He was interrupted by a shriek. Everyone in the group looked around, seeking the source of the sound. As they did, the fallen glass began to swirl around the floor, as if caught in a whirlpool. In seconds, the rather pretty effect became dangerous as the glass rose into a writhing mass of sharp edges.

Zac jumped forward to grab Skye and pull her out of the deadly maelstrom. She wrapped herself around him in a desperate hug.

“Run!” Zac screamed, holding Skye with one arm and reaching for the nearest warm body with the other. He heard the screaming increase in volume, and something stepped in front of him. He ran into, and through, an incorporeal form. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a misty form running, no floating after him. It was the big man, Roy. The one who'd just died.

Great. Now there were ghosts.

“This way!” Alex's voice. Zac followed the sound, half blind from blood seeping into his vision. He only hoped it was his own, not the child's. He skidded through a doorway the man held open, half throwing whoever he'd grabbed through first. Someone else followed him and the door was slammed behind them all. There was another unearthly scream, and something, presumably Roy's shade, pounded on the door for several minutes while they all huddled in the dark.

Then, finally, Skye untangled herself from the pile of shocked, battered men and went to the door.

“Stop.” Her voice held something of the scream of the dead man, and something of a mother's whisper to her sleeping child. The pounding stopped.

Skye rested her hands on her thighs. She muttered a stream of curses that would have done Zac's first drill sergeant proud.

“Anyone have a light?” Alex asked. “It's pitch black in here.”

Zac waited a beat. Of course, humans lacked the near infrared vision of elves. They couldn't see even the tiny amount he could. No one spoke, meaning no one had something so prosaic as a flashlight. Some Scout leader somewhere wept at their lack of preparation.

He did not posses much in the way of magic; practically none outside of whatever cursed powers made him a Crimson Dancer. He could do a few tiny things though. The illusions which hid his true nature; he could spark a fire at need if he lacked a match although it took so much energy he usually just kept a lighter around, and one last “spell” if you could call it that.

Zac held out his hand, palm up, and focused on warmth, light, safety. A tiny mote of light appeared over his hand. He fed the mote what few positive thoughts and hopes he could dredge up, and it brightened to something like a dim Christmas bulb. It would have to be enough. He made a gentle tossing motion and the light mote moved to hover near the ceiling of what appeared to be an office. They were near the entrance, so it made sense the mall's business office was nearby. He sat down and leaned against a thankfully aluminum file cabinet.

For a few moments, the only sound was the breathing of five people who did not want to talk about anything that had just happened. Naturally, the panic induced truce could not last.

“Was that... Roy?” Jacob asked. “I thought he was dead?”

Skye leaned against the door, shoulders drooping. There was a bright red line across her face where the glass had cut her.

“It was his ghost,” she said, voice soft.