There would be nothing to come back to. Their Temple Court burned. Silas' focused gaze remained on the flames. It was a taunt. He despised fire. His soul's fate if he failed. Turning, the world swirled in the Collector's shadowed sight to his Sky who remained wide eyed, staring at the inferno that was consuming the closest to a home they had in that world.

With the fire engulfing the bottom floors of their home, Others gathered in the street. They gawked and pointed fingers at both the blaze and at Silas and Sky. Across each and every face that looked back in fear and accusation, the Collector scanned the growing crowd, cautious that his enemy was lurking amongst them. Next to his shoulder, Sky drew close, the chains floating in a snaking motion around their Master and his ghost girl.

Out of sight Silas moved. Past the gazes of the congregating crowd, Silas and Sky's forms blending into their vision. A streak of black and white, the Collector became a passing shadow to the nearest escape of prying eyes.

"This one and my Sky are being followed." He said, finding their way through the emptiness of the back alleys out of Lower Manhattan. In the distance, the echoing caw of a crow. Laughing at him. Despite Yona's instructions, it would be foolish to go directly to the Archives with a collection in tow. The Temple Court had been a clear example of what could happen.

Sky's mind raced alongside her movement to stay at Silas' side. Her eyebrows furrowed, she used her arms to propel herself forward faster than the Collector's pace. Flying up before him, she swam backwards alongside his movements in order to get his attention in their urgency. Into her eyes his attention was drawn as he continued to walk.

"To set a trap of our own," her words made Silas' interest peak. He raised an eyebrow, waiting on her. "we must lure them somewhere they cannot escape."

The Collector saw the image of her words in his mind and he agreed. A confined space could be an advantage. He could avoid casualties while catching his prey and throwing off the trail of any of the other of Faust's followers.

His pace slowed only for a moment, his mind trying to add detail to Sky's suggestion.

"Down the rabbit hole this one and his Sky shall lead them." Silas said in a low breath.

"The question remaining is where to find a rabbit hole?" Sky asked. They knew they were being watched and Silas had to make his decision. Through the next alley and across the adjacent street beyond. Silas' destination wasn't far. The perfect rabbit hole. His still singed hand grasped for hers and she was effortlessly pulled along through the air. Down the nearest set of stone steps that descended to the entrance gates of a subway station below the city's surface.

If they wanted them, they would have to follow.

The Others walking to the train platforms went still in place when they spotted Silas' approach through the underground halls. Passing by as black wind with Sky's white form fluttering close behind, no one moved. Cautious with eyes on the Collector and the chains gathered to his arms, both passed through the ticket gates without a word from the security that stood at their entrance. In that world, it was well understood to leave a Soul Collector alone. If they weren't sent for you, then they best be ignored. Silas's existence was a black cat. A bad omen to cross. He meant deliverance to Hell's doorstep, and in that mirrored world, everyone knew death walked among them. Everyone stood at the brink of Heaven and Hell's judgement.

To the platform of Line 4 Subway. He would leave the city center.

With sight of the Collector coming down the stairs towards the empty track's edge, the ground littered with papers and strewn garbage, most travellers and vagrant Others took their leave. The platform emptied, the general air being that riding on a train with a Collector was a death's wish.

Soon, all that remained under the flickering underground lights were the Collector, his ghost and one other.

Hair disheveled, dark clothing and black feathers hanging from his thin frame, the Child stepped out from behind a pillar at the opposite end of the platform. The distant rumble of the approaching subway in the connecting tunnel was coming towards them. The rhythm of its turning wheels and the roar of its advance pushed out the mouth of the tunnel closest to the Child. A rush of air from the tunnel swept more feathers from his body. His pale face and the circles beneath his round eyes faced the Collector, his Sky and the lengths of chains that hung lifelessly over Silas' arms.

The subway cars slowed and when the train came to a stop, the doors opened and only a handful of passengers stepped out. When they caught sight of Silas and Sky, a wave of cautious alarm and exchanging whispers from every Other on the platform came within earshot.

A Collector. Waiting.

Passengers were quick to move past them, from the platform and out of the waiting subway while Silas never once took his sight off the Child who continued to watch him from the opposite end of the platform, staring back with wide and wild eyes at those sent to collect him.

It was his move.

"Come," Silas said. Sky barely heard him but she was certain his words were meant for the Child. This is how Silas played. Into the final car at the end of the subway, the Child dove through its doors and within seconds, the warning bell for the train doors' closure.

Silas and Sky moved in unison. At the far end of the subway platform they entered the open doors of the waiting subway.

Lowering his arms, the chains slid from Silas' limbs and lifted to life in the air.

Slithering forth in the around the Collector and his Sky at the far end of the subway car, the links moved through the air towards the door leading to the next and the Child who was at the other end of the train. The sliding doors of the cars closed, and the subway started to life again, its speed quickly gaining to a roar on the tracks. Silas stood still alongside Sky, facing the closed door at the end of the car as it rocked to life on the tracks.

With the chains under his control, the sliding doors to the next car were pulled open. The connected links slithered inward as the Collector's introduction. Shadows followed, the towering monolith of the Collector's form stepping through the smaller frame of the doors that led through each subway car. His black followed by Sky's flickering white.

Their end of the train was empty, save for the few drunk Others that slept unknowingly on the cars as they travelled with a Collector.

Silas' black eyes were to the next car. He wasn't interested in anyone else but one to be marked.

As few bystanders as possible. But more bystanders there were.

They reached a small rush of half a dozen passengers coming towards them through the door ahead in panic. Yet when they saw Silas and Sky coming towards them, they stopped, faced with a dilemma. The threat behind them and the Collector before them.

Silas continued to move forward and made the decision for them.

They parted for the approach of the Collector that towered above every head, avoiding his chains and the wrath that would incur if they did.

The ghost passing in his wake sparked the raw awe of those who had the courage to look up after Silas' immediate passing, Sky catching their glances as she passed. A ghost was a rare thing indeed. Swimming closer to Silas, her arms entwined around one of his to pull her along. She didn't like such confines of lives so close.

Into the next car came the reason for their panic.

The Child was standing in the middle of the next car streaked with blood, a knife in his hands. With several visible bodies lying motionless and twisted on the floor in his wake. The speeding metal behemoth that was the subway train, never slowed on its tracks.

The subway shot past its next intended stop. The flash of the platform outside and glimpse of the surprised faces of the waiting passengers as they watched the train rush past.

"It's not stopping." Sky said in alarm.

A wry smile cracked across the Child's pale face before he laughed, filling whatever room was left in the air was full with the rumbling force of the subway's cars. It raced through the station, its lights flashing by, catching the surprised look of the Others waiting on the platform before diving again into the darkness of the tunnel. The subway was never going to stop. The Child had done something to the conductor.

Anger moved the chains. His body void of emotion, it was the metal links that spoke. The chain like tentacles, twisted and writhed. Sky shadowed, the ends of the chains at her wrists remaining at Silas' side.

Casting a glance to Sky before stepping forward, the long stride of his legs bringing him closer to his Collection.

The Child's arrogance towards the entire situation only fuelled his mocking nature. Flipping the bloodied knife in his hand, he jumped back, giving further space between them. The chains grasped at the seats and poles within the car, pulling Silas forward. His darkness spread out from his shadow, ready to grab hold of anything living in his path. All that was needed was his prey to be marked before the soul's separation. 

A technicality.

Silas never committed mindless murder. In fact, Silas never killed at all. Collecting and killing were different. And he had Sky to help separate the soul from the body. There were too many of his Collections that took far too much enjoyment from the act of slaughter and it sickened him. Another jump to the entrance of the next car with Silas and Sky following the trail of blood the Child had left in his little massacre. This continued for half a dozen cars to the conductor's cabin at the tail end.

Still in his view, Silas followed

"You're too slow, Collector!" The Child hollered against the rumble of the speeding subway. Silas caught the look on the boy's face, turning his head with wild exhilaration to catch the look of the Collector's dead stare.

"I can catch him," Sky's voice was suddenly speaking through Silas' focus. Without looking, he debated her idea. It was a risk to send Sky to the frontline of a Collection before they were marked but she was fast and she could immobilize their prey. By the force in his arm, without a second thought of consideration, Silas' strength gave Sky the extra momentum she needed to jump the car's length.

Three. 

They were three cars from the end and the conductor's cabin and Sky was on the Child's heels. He taunted her with laughter, always inches out of reach of her grasp. She followed, the focus of a swimming predator undeterred, Silas just behind, the chains connecting their master with enough length for her floating form to pursue. The Child had already been through this end of the train once already. Having killed anyone in his way, a trail of blood and several bodies were left strewn on the cars' floors.

Two. 

The chains had enough slack yet despite her speed the Child remained out of reach, leaving Sky to scream in feral frustration.

One. 

The last car. At its end, a wall and open metal door at its center that led to the control cabin. The Child made it to the end, slingshotting himself in and around the corner of the door, momentarily disappearing out of Sky's view. Swimming through the air into the cabin in pursuit of the Child. A revelation dawned inside.

The conductor had been stabbed to death. Having suffered the same far of those left dead on the floors. The train was no longer under control and would continue to speed along the tracks until it crashed.

To Sky's shock, within the cabin, there was no Child. He was gone.

"No." Sky couldn't understand where the Child had gone and as she tried to process how the Child had suddenly slipped through her grasp when he had evidently been trapped into a corner, she turned her head to Silas. A gust of black feathers were swept out the door and into the car at Silas' feet as he walked towards her. "He's gone! H-How?"

It didn't make sense as she could still feel his presence.

Sky was caught in her disbelief for only a moment when another more important matter called to their immediate attention.

"Silas, we have to stop this train. The conductor is dead!" Sky said. She looked back to her Collector in time to see the white face of the Child. Appearing from an angle behind Silas' body hidden from view, the Child was suddenly standing right at the Collector's back.

With a twisted grin, his round eyes were on Sky, his bloodied knife in hand.

Silas saw the look on Sky's face before she made a sound. He turned his large frame in time to see the flash of steel in the child's grip as the ghost girl shouted,

"Behind you!'