Rath didn't stay down for long. Amidst broken glass and metal, seething, his neck slowly craned back on his shoulders as he pushed himself from the floor to follow the Collector and ghost distancing in his sights. 

Despite only narrowly avoiding him and the chains destruction of the train, the passengers in the cars that followed beyond Rath were nonetheless ignored by Silas and his Sky. To the final subway car close to where they began and bursting through its end, the Collector melted into the darkness of the tunnel. They were on the heels of the boy who was transforming back and forth between crow and human. He was using the shadows as cover while trying to create some distance between him and his cursed pursuer.  

A fool to think he could escape into the dark when Silas was being consumed by it. Sky's form continued to radiate in the black, kept close at hand by the Collector's control on the metal links floating close to him. In feverish focus, Silas pursued. He never spoke to Sky but the end of her shackles were kept locked at his side by a mere thought. His eyes black and tears of ink running down his cheeks were evidence that something else was driving his actions. Instinct and the Devil's magic.

Sky could only obey.

A short distance away, the frantic flapping of wings. Trying to find an escape, the rabbit hole was far reaching with no station platform in sight but with Silas closing in, the boy would never make it anyway. 

Sky took another taste of the air. 

The boy was close.

"You can't escape. No one can escape Silas." Sky said, her sweet voice cutting through the dark. Beside her Keeper, she knew the Child could hear her. "He will find you."

He released the chains by her wrists. With his black vision, Silas' arms wrapped in shadow, reached out into the obscurity. Like a spider crawling forward, the Collector's hand felt its way through the shadows towards the Child.

At a length beyond what even Sky could see, Silas marked hand sensed its prey. There was a momentary pause, and a breath of exhale before the predator attacked. The Collector's hand snatched forth, grabbing the boy from the dark. His long fingers stained by the boy's massacre and a palm burning with Lucifer's sigil curled around the Child's neck. Then, he began to squeeze, pulling him back towards his black form as his lips became a sinister grin of detestation. Shrieking against Silas' vice like hold, the Child was trapped. Before the boy could change again in an attempt to wriggle free of the Collector's hold, beneath the palm, Lucifer's sigil burned on contact. Marking the boy for his return to Hell.

The Collector kept him in his unbreakable grip. More pig like squealing rose from the squirming Child. Filling the still air as the train finally came to a stop. The Child clawed at Silas' arm, trying to get away from the man in black's clutches but Silas's grip wasn't about to lose him a second time. That lesson had been learned. Feeling the pressure against his neck and the lack of blood to his head, tunnel vision began to blacken the Child's sight. His kicking legs began to subside, his strength for a fight dying. The Collector would crush him. But then in Silas' war, there was a voice. His voice of reason. Speaking through the dark

"Please, Silas, give him to me. Give him to your Sky," she pleaded to her Collector stained black, her arms extended for Silas to give her the Child before he destroyed him. The Collector's attention turned to her. It was almost robot-like in nature. "I was meant for this." 

Silas' grip loosened by the sound of his Sky's voice and her hands replaced those of the Collector. The fire in Silas quelling, he watched the one to whose chains he held. The boy was near unconscious, which made her job a quiet one. She grasped beyond the physical of the Child's body. There was only silence as Sky lifted the soul from its shell. The shadows around the Collector continuing to grow. The tendrils of black reaching out and around Silas towards the Child in Sky's hold.

"Delivered to Hell's Gate." She said, passing the soul back to her Keeper. 

The living shadow erupted from Silas as an all consuming rage of wildfire. His eyes empty coals and his mouth left twisted. Lifting the marked hand, he and his shadow that held the path to Hell's doorstep were waiting for the Child to enter him. Without a word, Sky gave her Collector what he wanted. The tendrils grabbed the boy, hungrily pulling his soul down through the doorway to Hell, his weak struggles ignored. 

Soon nothing remained but the Child's shell left dead on the tracks.

The Child was collected.

The shadows continued to writhe, curling around the Collector's black limbs. Sky was left staring at her Silas consumed by the corruption of his blood sacrifice. His body rose and fell with the deep breathes he took. The darkness wriggling into the bleeding wound at his side that he clutched once more, the chains sinking to the ground as the rush of energy faded.

"Silas...?" Sky slowly entered his line of sight, almost frightened to catch his attention. He was losing himself and cautious, the ghost neared. Over his chest, shoulders and neck, the dark whipping upward like black fire. His entire form dripping with shadow. The only visible pale skin was his face.

"Mmmmmmy..." The Collector hissed. He lifted his marked hand to her, dripping with living darkness black and blood. "Ssssky...."

His blood. 

He took a heavy step towards her. His balance faltered and stumbling, Silas' great height fell like a tree to his knee. Sky was at his side. The knife's damage continued to bleed and although it wasn't enough to kill the Collector outright, it was enough to finally slow his unrelenting force.

Still he reached for her and she reached back even in knowing the black could consume her just as easily. When her aura came within the darkness' touch, it suddenly receded. Melting away from his hand when she neared. Realizing this, Sky was unhesitant to grasp his hand with both of hers, pressing her forehead into the back of his hand. She was as much his anchor as he was hers.

"You're in pain." She said, gentle as the black shadow flickered up and back, evaporating from his arm.  "What can I do? Silas, tell me what I should do to help you. I can only be here by your side." 

A shuffle of movement and the approaching sound of footsteps from the way they came. 

"Silas will die, you know that, right? Corrupted by the Devil, Hell is certainly his final destination." A familiar voice, mocking her. Condescending with spite, jarring Sky from her Silas. 

From Silas' hand Sky's head lifted to Rathanael, walking towards them from the way they had left the subway. Like ghosts, the Divine gave off their own gentle glow in the dark. He was easy to see in the dark. His expression smug with his baton drawn. Its electric end sparking. Rathanael was only one more problem to face at a terrible time. When Silas' hollow gaze zeroed in on the Divine coming towards them in the tunnel, the darkness quickly returned to the marked hand Sky's touch had cured, forcing the ghost's hands and face away. He opened his mouth to speak but only black tar bubbled up from his throat.

"You're an abomination, Silas Meier. Contaminated with the Devil's lies. His words poisoned you." Rathanael derided the Collector, who remained kneeling. "You continue to rot from the inside and even if you finish your contract, it will still be too late to save yourself."

"No. There is time." Sky shook her head, turning Rath's sight back to her.

"Thirty four years, Sky!" Rath barked. "Thirty. Four. Years."

He went quiet, his gaze narrowed in on Sky. There was a long pause of silence between them with only Silas' heavy breaths on the still air. 

Sky said nothing and it was Rathanael, who again spoke, 

"I could care less if you think there is time. There isn't."

Keeping herself between the Angel and her Keeper, protective of Silas as he remained a half collapsed mountain. Rathanael's derision was apparent. 

"He will save us both. I trust him."

"Oh, ho." Rathanael huffed, half smirking. "He'll be dead before he is free, sentenced to Hell and then, Sky Lark, my wait will be over." 

Everything that happened next was a blur of movement. An arm of shadow pushed Sky from facing Rath, Silas rising up to crash down with all Hell's fury upon the angel as a tidal wave of force. The chains flew outwards and Sky was thrown to the side. Great branches of black swung against the Divine. There was a deafening crash of sound but the world spun in Sky's vision, pulled at speed behind the Collector. When she caught the flash of Rathanael's eye in turn, it was too late and the end of his truncheon hit her abdomen. An electric shock and her senses were torn away into emptiness.