The sun had nearly set by the time Cain and Joe parted ways at the church. The man was feeling revitalized and wanted to offer to help learn how to drive, one of the main ways he could help with the evacuation efforts. Alice and Donovan had briefly shown up to try and cheer Joe up, but quickly left when they realized it would be a long term effort. Words of understanding were all they could offer for now.

Cain was ultimately left alone in the church, the pews having been put back in their original position. A quick thought and his Numeral was in his hand. Joe mentioned that his own Numeral looked like a larger version of the pamphlet that led to him meeting Brian at the baseball game. And Cain was now forced to face the facts, and accept that his own Numeral was an exact replica of the bible he owned as a child. It had been over a decade since he burned it to ash, and yet here it was, taunting him in his hands, a past he could never escape.

Cain didn’t want to dwell on it though, and instead began to test his impromptu theory. He conjured a small flame above his hand, letting it dance in the air for a couple seconds before snuffing it out. He then put a point of Origin in the Cardinal for heat, and conjured the flame again. It was the slightest size larger, the slightest degree hotter, and moved the slightest bit faster through the air. It was a barely noticeable difference, but it proved two things.

Firstly, that the powers the Numerals granted, or perhaps just described, could be grown over time. And second, with the cost of increasing heat again rising to 2 Origin, the resource’s importance rose drastically. Cain didn’t even know what Origin was, but he now knew where it came from. It had increased by 3 from before the fight with Brian, meaning his death gave Cain something intangible, something he didn’t feel he gained. It was a concerning thought, gaining more and more of something he neither understood nor could interact with outside of an invisible book.

With nothing pressing to do, he briefly focused on the Third and Fourth Cardinals of the Secondary Ordinal, and...they made sense. The Third was liquid, and the Fourth was gas. Cain remembered some of his high school chemistry lessons, and recognized that the Secondary Ordinal was just the different phases of matter. Why magical powers were categorized in a comprehensible way was beyond Cain, but he wasn’t going to think about it if he didn’t have to.

Cain decided a breath of fresh air would help him think better, in order to plan where to put the rest of his Origin. Each day seemed to get more dangerous than the last, and it might be the difference between life and death if he spent his Origin or not. It saved his life in the past, so there was definitely at least precedent.

The starry sky was unfortunately not visible tonight, being hidden by a layer of clouds. A few rays of moonlight illuminated the empty streets of Mullan, supplies all over the place, ready to be loaded into a car the next morning. Practicing moving faster with force, Cain took a stroll through the town, not feeling tired enough to sleep, but also not feeling like sitting still in the church.

He noticed some shapes moving in the dark next to the museum he found this morning and went over to investigate. A shape was vaguely hunched over something, and Cain couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Once he got close enough, he heard the crunch and realized it wasn’t a person, it was a humanoid shaped wolf, tearing away at a person on the ground. It’s forelimbs turned into vicious claws that were dripping with blood. It reminded Cain of a werewolf, but a lot more real. A lot more deadly.

“Hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with these damn things again,” Cain muttered before shooting a slowly conjured spike through the animal’s head. It tore through with barely any resistance and shattered on the brick wall behind it. Cain closed the distance rapidly and could only sigh, looking down on the savaged corpse of a young girl. The same way his focus was recently narrowed into a tunnel, making him forget about important events such as leaving Brian and Rose in Lookout Pass, it also seemed to numb his sense of revulsion. But not his rage at the child’s death.

The kid probably just wanted to sneak out of a presumably stuffy house, if the housing situation from last night was any indication. Cain kept a level head despite the growing anger he felt at this whole ordeal, and began to walk back to the church to grab a large cloth he could cover the girl with. Hopefully he could find the Father or Tom and talk to them about-

The wolf that had silently been creeping up on Cain chose that moment to tackle him to the ground and snap at his face. It received a blast of fire from close up in response and whined in pain, twisting away from him. There were long gashes torn into his shirt, Joe would be happy, but Cain focused on conjuring a spike to deal with the wolf. It warily circled him until he finished, presenting the perfect opportunity to end the fight early. A howl followed the second wolf’s death and Cain just now realized he was completely surrounded by a pack of the animals, slowly tightening the perimeter they formed around him moment by moment.

He couldn’t fight the dozen or so wolves he saw approaching, and those were only the ones he could see. All of them were strange in some way, one had a third eye, another had no fur, and a third a single long mass of bone jutting out from its back. Cain didn’t observe any further, moving some of the bricks of the museum outwards, forming footholds for him to climb up to the roof with. The wolves caught on too late, nipping at Cain’s heels as he climbed the building, fueled by adrenaline.

He began to pepper them with spikes as soon as he reached the roof, and a couple dead wolves later they began to disperse. But now there would be a pack of wolves loose in the town, and most of the townspeople wouldn’t provide as nearly a large challenge as Cain would. Time to commit. 15 Origin down the drain, and the solid Cardinal was up to 6. No units of measurement for that, very strange. Cain conjured another spike and it materialized from thin air far quicker than before, with a much keener point at the end. He tapered the spike down to more of a needle, which would make it easier and faster to conjure, and he climbed down the building, shooting a needle at one of the retreating wolves in the distance.

It wasn’t a headshot, but it cut through one of its legs, putting it out of the fight. It would be good enough. The wolf’s yelp of pain alerted the rest of the pack, and they turned their attention back on Cain, disregarding surrounding tactics and just charging wildly. This was good.

Cain moved some of the road in between the wolves and himself to create some potholes, slow down their push, and began to fire off needles. Got one in the head. Another in the leg. Not good enough, it was still running.

Cain began to run as well, angling towards the burned part of the town, where there wouldn’t be any bystanders to the fight. Cain tried raising a wall out of the asphalt, but it barely budged according to what he willed, and he discarded the idea for now. A second wolf down, and the pack was almost on him.

He pulled out one of his, Joe’s, trusty wrenches and spent the last few unmolested seconds covering it in a sea of spikes, almost like a mace. He jumped over the burned remains of what used to be the walls of a house and spun around, shooting one last needle before the wolves descended upon him. It hit, and the madness began.

A pounce at the head. Ducked. Swung up with the wrench. Stuck in the wolf. Used the corpse to block a pounce from another. It tore the body off the wrench, got a needle in the face as a reward.

Tackled from behind, apparently a weakness of his. Conjured a needle off of his back, shooting straight up, and impaled the wolf. No clear limits on how Cardinals worked, good to know. A wolf latched onto his leg, clamping down hard with its teeth. Punctured skin, but didn’t bite down as hard as it could have. Wrench to the head. Arm holding the wrench bit down on, needle to the head.

Three wolves attacked at once, each clamping down on a different extremity of his. Had to get creative. Three needles conjured simultaneously shooting into their brains, ending their lives in a flash. A fourth impaled Cain from behind with a horn on its head, and a fifth kept doing its brethren’s bloody work, keeping the wrench arm occupied. Cain moved the wrench to his other hand with force, and shot needles through the both of them.

He snapped the horn off the wolf’s head. Headache creeping up. Blood loss starting to get serious from the accumulated wounds. Still half a dozen wolves left, maybe more. Had to do better, use Cardinals better. How? Heat and solid at the same time?

Cain threw out a thin but large wall of flame around him, which the wolves shied away from, and Cain took the breather to shoot a needle through one. Threw his second wrench at another. Another wall of flame when they regained their courage and charged again. One braved the fire and was met with a wrench between the eyes. Another a needle straight through its own needle like teeth. Those definitely would have gone through his flesh.

Only a few more left. Hard to think. Hard to see. More walls of flame, more needles. More yelps of pain, or silence of death. The two remaining wolves ran away, tails tucked in between their legs. Cain laughed, he couldn’t help it. He didn’t think the saying actually translated to reality. The laugh quickly devolved to a choking hack, with blood starting to leak out of his mouth.

The horned wolf must have got one of his lungs. He opened his Numeral and focused, focused, focused, searching for...the First Cardinal of the Tertiary Ordinal. Life. He poured all the Origin he could into it, and willed his flesh to knit back together. For his blood to stay in his body, not leak out of it. The lull of unconsciousness beckoned, and Cain was tempted to give in. To simply lie down for a minute, no, a second. Just a quick second and he would be right as rain, ready to heal himself. One, little-

Cain stabbed himself in the leg with a needle, not a good idea for being as injured as he was, but he left it lodged in there. It wouldn’t bleed that way. Basic first aid coming back to mind was a good sign, it meant Cain was getting blood to the brain, he was starting to think properly again. The rush of the fight was starting to die down, and the life Cardinal was doing good, steady work. It was a few minutes before Cain felt confident in getting up, ripping the needle in his leg out as he did so.

The horn came after, and it was another couple minutes after the new fountain of blood stopped gushing that he felt like moving again.Walking while focusing on healing himself was somewhat difficult, but it was concerning that nobody had come to check out the light show by now. It was of interesting note how his entire body emitted a weak yellow glow, similar to the one coming out of his hands when he healed Alice.

He couldn’t manage more than a brisk walk with how injured he was, but it would be fast enough to reach the unburned residential area of the town. He hoped.

It wasn’t obvious at first if anything was wrong when Cain reached the houses everyone was sleeping in for the night. But with the few rays of moonlight available, he saw forms prowling among the streets, some pawing at the entrances of the residences. Screaming could be heard from one of the more distant houses, apparently broken into.

Needles began to be routinely fired at the nearest wolves, and most of them hit their mark. Cain was getting better at aiming the things with practice. He had to stop healing himself to use solid, but it was an acceptable trade. He wasn’t in danger of dropping dead or unconscious from his wounds anymore.

Nothing from his current repertoire of Cardinals could safely be used to alert the townspeople that they were under attack though. He didn’t want to set any houses on fire, it would take too long to conjure a rock big enough to create enough noise, and force could barely move his body a couple inches at a time, let alone something as large as a car.

Silently stalking the wolves the same way they were stalking the houses, Cain kept picking off lone targets as he made his way down the street, and opened his Numeral again. The book was coming in plenty handy the more he used it. Something for sound, something to alert the senses, make a lot of noise...Sixth Cardinal, Tertiary Ordinal. Mind. The Cardinal fit his specifications, it made sense, but how could he use it?

The same way he used all the other Cardinals so far: with trusting his gut. Cain willed the sound of a car alarm to start blaring, and blare it did. It came with the unfortunate side effect of the remaining wolves turning their heads in his direction though. All few dozen of them.

A woman opened the door to the house right next to Cain, peering around with the look on her face one gets when rudely awoken. He ran towards her, barging inside and slamming the door shut behind him. The rushed actions promptly woke the woman up, and she was clutching a crowbar to her chest before she knew it. What was with the town and crowbars?

“What in the hell is going on? Was that a car alarm?” She asked, a demanding tone in her voice.

“The town is being attacked, there are wolves all over the street, I think they already broke into one house,” Cain answered, grateful at being allowed to speak with another person instead of having to kill hostile animals. Nobody liked doing life-threatening activities. At the woman’s look of bewilderment, Cain decided to ask, “is there a way I can get to the roof of the house?”

“The roof? Well there’s a ladder in the laundry room, the door right next to yo-”

She didn’t finish her sentence before Cain was inside and reaching up to drop the ladder down.

“Hey! Now what do you think you’re doing? Was what you’re saying about the wolves true? What about the car alarm?”

“It’s true ma’am, take a peek through your window if you don’t believe me. And I made the noise. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to try and find a way to get the rest of you folk safe,” and with the final word, Cain began to climb up the ladder, opening a hatch at the top which led to the roof.

It wasn’t too far up off the ground, but it would have to do for now. There was barely any light outside, the moon alternating between hiding and appearing behind cloud cover. Cain needed light to be able to do anything, and he had an idea. Solid was a phase of matter, and the first thing that came to mind was iron, but what about wood?

Cain conjured a ball of bark in his hand, a rough, dry thing that had no life in it. But it would make for perfect fuel. A wisp of flame added onto it, slightly straining in the head, and he tossed it into the street. He repeated this a few more times, and the wolves slowly began to turn their attention on him once again. It was enough light to start shooting and thinking of a plan.

Hitting the wolves from an out of reach vantage point threw them into a frenzy, but there were too many to drop down to the ground and start another fight with them. There were bad ideas, and then there were suicidal ideas. Cain was a fan of the former, not the latter. Speaking of bad ideas, it would take too much time to make an entire wall from the asphalt, but what if he…

Instead of conjuring needles from thin air, Cain manipulated the existing asphalt into a needle shaped form, moving towards a wolf’s head. The inferior material moved at a much faster speed than his iron did, but couldn’t actually hurt the wolf. Damn.

Another idea discarded, and Cain continued to pelt needles at the wolves. They began to get wise to his strategy though, and began to hide around the sides of the houses where he couldn’t see them, or just tried dodging the needles themselves.

Once Cain willed a needle forward towards a target, it would be out of his mind and thus his control. It allowed him to use tiny bursts of force to change the trajectory of the needle the slightest bit needed to hit the wolves as they dodged. Every single one of his few such attempts failed, not having nearly enough practice with such a detailed use of force to get it to work properly. It was nice learning new ways of using his Cardinals, but now the wolf pack was all in hiding, or far enough away from his makeshift torches that he couldn’t aim at them properly.

They were wary of him now though, which was good. It meant they weren’t focusing on tearing down the doors of the homes he was defending. There had to be some way of using two Cardinals at once without causing debilitating head pain after the first couple tries though. It was time to turn to the Numeral once again. All of the wolf hunting gave him a respectable amount of Origin to work with too, a solid 25.

Before he could think on how to spend them to fix the situation though, a man wearing a nightcap was apparently attracted enough by the burning wood in the middle of the street to leave the safety of his house. Cain shot a warning shot at him and yelled at him to, “get back inside!”

The man didn’t need further prompting to obey. It was a good reminder though that there were as many as dozens or hundreds of people huddled together in these houses, with no idea of what was going out right on their doorstep. It was a regretful oversight of Cain’s to not try and explain the situation with his newfound sound Cardinal. Mind. Whatever.

“Testing?” Cain tried, and his voice boomed across the street.

“Good. People of Mullan, there are many wolves outside of your houses, the town is being attacked. Please either stay inside or climb up to your roofs. We can work together to beat them back.”

It wasn’t much of a rousing speech, but it got the point across. People began opening the doors to their roofs and climbing out, easily spotting Cain who had a ball of fire hovering above his head. He snuffed it out in order to keep talking once people knew where he was.

“I know this is a rude way to wake you up, but I’d prefer you angry and alive than happy and dead. I showed you all what your Numeral could do, anyone’s ability to make fire appear from nothing. I am asking you to do this now, all of you. There are predators surrounding your homes, your families, and I am asking you to teach them we are not prey. Light them up.”

A much better speech. Bouts of flame began to erupt all over the street, and the whines and howls of wolves being burned alive was music to Cain’s ears. The townsfolk had listened to and apparently remembered his lecture about heat, about fire, and his warnings about how it could get out of hand. Not a single fire began to spread out of control, and it was barely a minute before there was no more fire at all. The wolves must have all been killed or ran away. But Cain had a feeling they’d be back.

A short climb down the roof, and an apology to the owner of the house, who was weirdly thankful I chose her house to stage the town’s counterattack from, and Cain was back on the street, keeping an eye peeled for any opportunistic wolves lurking about. He began walking towards the general direction he heard the screams from, but the chances were slim anyone was still alive by now. Tom was rushing towards Cain at a brisk walk, flanked by Ed and a tanned, stout woman he didn’t recognize.

“Couldn’t keep yourself out of trouble for half a day, huh?” Ed taunted as soon as he got close enough. Cain thought the two of them had reached a sort of understanding, but apparently not. Perhaps the man was just naturally crude. Tom and the woman studiously ignored Ed, and Cain elected to do the same.

“Cain, I’m glad to see you’re safe, but if you don’t mind me asking, what in the hell is goin’ on?” Tom asked. Cain finally reached the trio and walked past them, beckoning for them to follow. He was subtly healing himself at the same time, still not fully recovered from the earlier fight with the pack.

“Some wolves attacked me after I left the church earlier in the night. When I went to try and find you and let you know, I found all of the houses were surrounded with wolves. And, well, you were there. You heard me talking, saw what happened. I heard screams from somewhere over here though, and I’m trying to-” Cain was cut off by Tom grabbing his shoulder and pulling gently on it. The man shook his head with a somber look on his face. The night had taken many lives.

“We checked even before all the wolves were killed, but nobody made it. Speaking of, you didn’t happen to see a little girl wandering around when you left the church, did you?” The woman perked up at that, and now Cain knew why she was tagging along with Tom. It was heart wrenching to see the woman waiting so eagerly for news of her daughter, even if the news was almost certainly bad. And it was bad. Cain bowed his head and faced the woman.

“I’m sorry ma’am, I truly am. I found her body being eaten by a wolf next to the museum. It was already too late. I’m so sorry.” Cain was clenching his hands so hard he was drawing blood, The woman approached him, and he prepared for a slap that never came. She embraced him tightly, choking sobs wracking her body for a few seconds before she stepped back.

“Do not fret warrior, she died a regrettable death, taken too young, but you are not to blame. I thank you for ending the life of the one who took hers, and putting her spirit to rest,” the woman said in a formal tone. The way she spoke, and the tattoos on her arms all combined to let Cain make the connection that she was native american.

“Chin up young man, you saved many lives tonight, and I think you will save many more in the future,” the woman finished in a more informal manner, even as she freely shed tears. Ed blissfully stayed quiet for the whole ordeal, and stayed quiet up until she left earshot, heading in the direction of the museum.

“You let a child die! For all we know you could have orchestrated this whole attack on the town! Tom, we need to lock him up and question him, it’s not safe for the rest of us,” Ed practically shouted, glaring at Cain. Something had happened between the last time they spoke and now, and there was only one possible event.

“Did you know Brian?” Cain asked quietly, not giving Tom a chance to shut Ed up.

The older man looked at Cain with venom in his eyes, fingers flexing as if one second away from trying to strangle Cain.

“Don’t you dare speak his name again, murderer,” Ed spat.

“Ed, we’ve gone over this, Cain was acting in self-defense,” Tom said, trying to calm Ed down.

“I don’t care why he did it, he killed Brian, and that’s good enough for me. I say we do things the old way and hang him. Murderers shouldn’t be allowed to walk near us civilized people.”

“Ed, if you can’t be here without continuously claiming Cain murdered Brian, then you shouldn’t be here at all,” Tom said in a suggestive manner. Ed took the hint and stormed off, clearly not done with Cain, but not willing to argue further with Tom.

Cain didn’t say a word during the exchange, or try to chase down Ed as he walked away. Cain had to kill Brian to save his life and the life of those who offered to join him in checking to see if he and Rose were still at Lookout Pass, or even alive. Ed most likely knew the reasons, but still chose to hold Brian’s death over Cain’s head like it was some sort of curse. There was no arguing with him, but Cain would do his best to stay out of the older man’s way, and give him some peace of mind.

“Brian and Rose’s death hit all of us hard, ‘specially with the rumors already goin’ around of how Brian died. I swear, Donovan has too big a mouth on him sometimes. But I digress. You did good Cain, and you keep doing good. I don’t know where this town would be without you, and once again you have my thanks,” Tom said, and Cain shook the offered hand.

“Now I know I keep asking of you, and I ain’t gonna stop now. A few folk have taken to this Numeral and Cardinal business better than most, and I’d like you to work with them on keeping the town safe for the rest of the night. We’ll be leaving for Spokane this afternoon, and I want everyone rested for the drive there, so could you do that for me?”

Cain would like nothing more than to collapse on a bed and forget about the thought of consciousness until high noon, but he nodded his head anyway. Tom just beckoned for Cain to follow after his acceptance and led him to a group of four men and one woman. They were all dressed in various winter gear, and were holding bats, crowbars, and a hockey stick. But no visible guns? He would have to ask about that.

Tom dropped him off with the group, offering a few words of explanation and took off, going about his daily mayorly business. Cain wondered if the man ever got a chance to sleep. He was walking around in a suit, so he didn’t think so. Cain went around learning all of the names of the people he would be working with for a while.

It was going to be a long night.