Tom didn’t seem overly shocked at the revelation, but Cain was internally raging. Not only did these people shut themselves out from help, and refuse any government or volunteer organizations to make sure the populace was ok, but now there were children running away from home? What kind of home must this kid have grown up in to just barely be sniffling, and yet be covered in bruises. Cain would reserve judgement for the Independent Men until he found out if they had anything to do with this, but the children’s parents? They would be brought to justice, one way or another. This was personal for Cain.

“Alright Alex, thank you. Would you like to go and get some food?” The female officer asked, and Alex nodded.

He was extremely well behaved for his age. He must have been only 4 or 5, still a toddler, but he knew his home address and wasn’t throwing a tantrum or straight up bawling? One of his parents must have been caring at least. Maybe someone outside of the family? Cain didn’t know, and it wasn’t helping to analyze every little thing he noticed, but he felt like this situation had to be addressed immediately. He was clenching and unclenching his fists so much that Lisa noticed, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“You alright?” She asked, and he relaxed, taking a deep breath.

“Yeah, I am. But whoever did that to the kid won’t be,” He said, and she nodded.

“Domestic violence isn’t really high on our priorities right now, and he came from the Independent Men. We don’t have the manpower to stop them if they decide to beat their children as much as they like,” one of the officers said. His nametag read Sergeant Davidson, and he looked regretful saying those words.

“We were actually hoping you could help with this, Tom. I know you said you knew a few folk who have had experience with abuse in the home, stuff like that,” the officer who brought them all here said. Sergeant O'Reilly.

“I’ll get them here to talk to Alex, but I won’t put my people in danger if they don’t have to be in it, Jackson,” Tom said. The two knew each other, probably old friends.

“I could go and check it out,” Cain volunteered. Tom just shook his head.

“I’ll have to ask you not to Cain. These people don’t want to be bothered, and are probably searching for Alex right now. If they caught you sneakin’ into their part of town right after a child disappeared, they wouldn’t be too friendly,” Tom explained, and Cain begrudgingly agreed. It hurt him to admit, but rushing to try and find answers from people who openly chased off anyone they saw was not a good plan.

“That doesn’t mean we won’t try and find out who was responsible though,” Tom added, and Cain resolved to ask the man how he could help. He wasn’t versed in whatever interpersonal maneuvering the mayor was doing, and frankly, Cain didn’t want any part of it. He just wanted to personally bring an end to Alex’s suffering.

Tom continued talking with the police officers, discussing plans on if the Independent Men tried to take Alex back, or if they never reached out at all. For now, Cain wanted to occupy his time and keep busy until a plan was formed, and he knew how to do it. He left by himself to go back to the Costco, where he planned on asking Daniel to help him round up the neighborhood for a talk.

Cain already knew why Tom wanted the Mullan patrol group to gather together by dusk; It was because he feared that Coeur d’Alene would be attacked during the night. Every small town they passed through on the way here was completely ransacked, with the bodies looking fresher the closer they got. He didn’t know how large the attack would be, but if people knew about the Numerals and Cardinals and were able to help, it would allow them to defend themselves. If Matt was tucked away in a corner somewhere, then only four people would have to defend an entire town by themselves. And that just wasn’t feasible. It was possible the police and volunteers knew, but this was a problem that extended beyond what they could take care of.

He practiced using force to really speed up his movement as he ran towards the Costco, and for the most part it worked. He was running at a clip most Olympic athletes would envy, but it got tiring pretty quickly. Cain also had to decide what to tell the people of Coeur d’Alene. All of the knowledge he knew about Cardinals, or just some of it? Ray used soul to control others, and Cain didn’t want a dozen Rays to start cropping up everywhere, trying to create a protective bubble around themselves. But at the same time, he could warn the people about the danger of soul, and about what else he had learned too. Yes, it was better to be honest and trusting instead of deceptive and doubtful.

On a whim, Cain tried using force as a form of stepping stone he could use to perhaps jump in the air, but it wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to hold his entire weight. He fell to the ground in an embarrassing tangle of limbs, but thankfully nobody was around to see his failure. He reached the Costco in just a few minutes, and nobody stopped him on the way to the posterior of the building. Daniel was right, his house was hard to miss.

Tombstones dotted the lawn, and skeletons were hanging from the branches of the trees out in front. There were lights all over the roof, but those wouldn’t be working. It was a pretty respectable amount of effort towards decorating the house, and Cain had to praise the man for his hard work setting all of this up. He knocked on the door, and almost immediately Daniel’s wife opened it, smiling up at him.

“Oh Cain, I saw you come here from the window. Please, come in. And don’t worry about taking your shoes off or anything, we have laminate and tile only on the first floor,” the woman said, droning just a tad. Conversation partners were scarce during the apocalypse, who would have guessed.

“Daniel! Daniel, Cain is here!” She shouted up the stairs next to the front door, and then led Cain to a dining table next to the kitchen.

“Sorry it’s a little bit of a mess right now, I haven’t really felt much like cleaning these days.”

“Oh that’s alright…”

“Ah, how rude of me. Paige,” she said, and they shook hands, finally formally introduced.

“Cain, you took me up on my offer earlier than I thought,” Daniel said, coming down the stairs. Paige tried to get up and walk to him but, but fell over instead, catching herself on the tile of the kitchen. Cain moved to help her, but she quickly stood up and brushed herself off.

“I swear Dan, this one corner has to be uneven, I trip on it all the time,” she said, smiling. Cain looked at the tile and it was perfectly flat. The woman had tripped over flat ground.

“Paige, we’ve talked about this. We even had a contractor take a look at the kitchen and he said it was level. Just try watching your step,” Daniel said, in a way that implied this wasn’t a recent thing. So his wife was a touch clumsy. No big deal.

“Well I’ll let you two men talk about what you need to,” she said, and walked upstairs. Cain heard a loud thump from above him, and got an apologetic look from Daniel. So more than a little clumsy.

“She’s a klutz, but I still love her. Anyways, you did come here for the Numeral thing right? Well I’ve been going through all of the Cardinals, and some of them don’t seem so...natural,” Donovan said, and Cain held up a hand, stopping him there.

“Your personal realizations are your own Daniel, we all understand our Cardinals differently. I am actually here about that, and was wondering how quickly you could round up your friends and neighbors somewhere, possibly a park?”

“How quickly? Well I could do it in a half hour or so, people don’t really have work they’re busy with nowadays. But is it alright to do this so quickly? Don’t you want to have a presentation or some slides or something?”

“Yeah, I want to talk to as many people as I can before it gets dark. The more they start gossiping too, the better it will be. And I won’t be teaching them, just warning them that the Numeral exists, and life has changed in more ways than they thought.”

“Well alright then, I’ll go start knocking on doors. If you follow the road right next to the Costco you’ll reach the high school and there’s a pretty large field there. I’ll tell everyone to go there, and you can do the same,” Daniel said, and Cain agreed.

The two men left the house and began knocking on doors to gather the town, and a good portion of them left as soon as Cain told them there would be news on what was going on. It was strangely reminiscent of when he gathered the people from Mullan together to warn them about the Numeral. He wasn’t expecting this to go quite as well, but at least mothers and fathers could protect their children if anything went wrong. When something went wrong.

The sun was about two thirds of the way to the horizon, and Cain hoped it would be enough time for word to start spreading. The more he thought that an attack would happen on Coeur d’Alene tonight, the more he became certain it would happen. Like Murphy’s law said, ‘if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.’

There must have been a crowd of hundreds gathered in the field outside of the high school by the time Cain arrived, and more were streaming in by the minute. He wanted to make this quick, but meaningful to those who were already here, and he believed in the power of show versus tell. Especially when he was showing genuine powers. Being a little dramatic might not hurt either. Cain made a small platform to stand on, and when a ring of fire circled his head, he had everyone’s full attention.

“Hello everyone, my name is Cain, and I’d like to tell you kind folk a little something about your Numeral…”

Cain explained what he knew of the Elements, showed off more ways he could use Cardinals, such as shooting fire up into the air, and described the process of using Origin to make either more powerful. Most people listened, but some began trying out Cardinals all on their own, to the exclamations of those around them.

“I am not trying to discourage you all from testing out this new power that has been given to you, but I am asking you to be careful. A small spark can cause a fire to spread uncontrollably, a rock can break someone’s skull. Using Cardinals is dangerous, they are not a toy, and should not be treated like something to play with,” Cain let that sink in before continuing.

“And not all Cardinals are the same. The Second in the Tertiary Ordinal is what I call soul.” A few mutters of disagreement, but he continued. “Everyone sees the Cardinals as something different, but what they do is the same. This Cardinal controls people. It takes away their free will, their thoughts, turns them into some kind of puppet. I am warning you all right now, do not use it. Do not experiment with it.” The sun was almost to the horizon, Cain had been talking for longer than he thought.

“Please, tell your friends about what I have told you. Let them know that the world is changed, that everyone has superpowers like something out of a movie. But please, also warn them of the dangers. I believed it was more important to let you all know the risks and the rewards of the Numeral, instead of letting you find out for yourselves.” Cain met eyes with a few people in the crowd, who had been giving him their full attention the entire time. He nodded and stepped off of his platform, barely more than a flat rock.

The crowd erupted into conversation, with families talking amongst themselves as well as with neighbors. Cain didn’t allow himself to be bogged down into talking with curious parents, and had to eventually resort to using force to gently nudge people out of his way. He took off at a walking pace towards the Costco, but propelled every step forward as he did so. It was good practice. He would have to thank Daniel for gathering as many people as he did, but Cain didn’t want to be late for his meeting with Tom.

The food line was still chugging, even as dusk fast approached, but at least the Red Cross volunteers looked rested, the few from Mullan that took over for them giving them a much needed break. Tom and crew were gathered next to the same spot as usual, a little ways off from the food lines, but also far enough away from the parked cars to allow some breathing room. Everyone from the patrol group except Matt was there, and a few officers were as well.

“Cain is here, so we can get started. Thank you all for coming here tonight, and I’m sure you’ve all figured out what’s going on. I’ve already let the Coeur d’Alene police know the situation, and they’ve agreed to patrol the outskirts of the city tonight, and would appreciate the help, if you’re willing to offer,” Tom said, and the Turners, Lisa, and Cain all nodded.

“Great. The police have already started cordoning off the area, making sure everyone at the edge of town goes and stays with a friend for the night. The Costco is also going to be used as a public space for those who don’t have anyone they can stay with. Protecting the people of Coeur d’Alene is a priority, especially since most of them don’t even know what the Numeral is, and- yes, what is it Cain?”

“I actually just came back from talking to a group of people like I did in Mullan. I told them everything I know about the Numeral and Cardinals.”

“How many people did you talk to?” Tom asked.

“Um, maybe a few hundred? Give or take.” Cain answered, and Tom sighed.

“Alright, we’ll deal with that tomorrow. Protecting everyone is still the biggest objective, but don’t get yourselves killed doing it. If there’s an attack tonight, it would come from the East, and the town’s suburbs extend for a while that way. You’ll all be paired together and driven to the edge of town, where you’ll get about a third of a mile to cover. We don’t have that many officers, and a few have to make sure nothing comes from the North part of town either. Sergeant Davidson, you’re with Cain, Sergeant…”

Davidson’s first name was Ryan, and the two of them were driven by one of Mullan’s mechanics over to the East part of town. The sergeant explained to Cain on the way how Tom and the rest of them had worked out a sort of grid system for pairs to keep watch over, ignoring the West and South parts of town. If the town was attacked from the West, Coeur d’Alene was already a lost cause, and the Independent Men were probably paranoid enough to defend themselves against anything, even a surprise invasion of wildlife.

An officer was sent to let them know they feared such an attack, but returned without confirming whether they took his warning seriously or not. The North part of town actually led to a smaller town known as Hayden, but they were in the same situation as Coeur d’Alene. Mainly, a police and volunteer presence had been established, and they were currently working to coordinate defense efforts. It was very difficult to manage with messages having to be ferried back and forth, but something was worked out.

Cain and Ryan were assigned the Southernmost part of the grid, right above the I-90. When they got to the edge of town, Cain was already feeling skeptical about the whole plan. There were forested hills barely a couple hundred feet away from the nearest houses, practically in these families’ backyards. If a wave attacked the whole town, there would be no way to really stop it if all the paired groups were spread so far out from each other.

“Once we figure out where they’re attacking from, we’ll get a signal,” Ryan explained to Cain once he voiced his doubts.

“Signal?”

“Yup, you can’t miss it. An officer will brighten up the sky for a while, almost like a flare.”

Cain opened his Numeral and quickly found what he was looking for. Tertiary Ordinal, Third Cardinal. Light. And Ryan was making good use of the Cardinal. Glowing orbs began floating all around them, illuminating the houses around them and forest in front of them in a soft glow.

“How do you get them to stay like that?” Cain asked.

“Stay in the air? I just think about it. It must be the way the Cardinal works I guess, I don’t really know myself,” Ryan explained.

The myriad amount of uses Cardinals had was astounding to Cain, and he hoped civilization would continue to exist to the point where they could make use of these powers for something greater than just personal protection. The proverbial night was still young so to speak, with the Ruin only just having happened. The government might find a way to reconnect the country with itself again in the coming days, but somehow Cain doubted it.

He tried conjuring a ball of fire to stay hovering in the air, but it quickly dissipated into nothing. Perhaps more Purpose would make it possible, but he probably didn’t have enough Origin to get it high enough.

There was no grand fanfare to the wave starting. It had barely transitioned from dusk to twilight when large beams of light were shot up into the air all across the edge of town. Seconds after the first one came up, wolves began to stream out of the woods and towards Cain and Ryan, growling and howling, barking and snarling. Cain didn’t even know this many wolves lived in this forest, there had to only be so many of them. It was extremely easy to shoot out needles towards the horde, like catching fish in a barrel; It was hard to miss. Cain even tried shooting two at once, but his accuracy sharply decreased, and mild head pain discouraged him from continuing.

Ryan was also shooting out projectiles made from solid, but they were smaller than Cain’s, less crude in their shape. Very similar to bullets, if they looked like they were drawn by a child. But even though the two of them didn’t stop firing, there were simply too many wolves. Dozens streamed past them into the city, and Cain could only watch helplessly. And they just kept on coming. Once the bears began to stream out of the woods too, Cain and Ryan elected to move inwards, creeping back towards the Costco.

Cain checked his Numeral. A few minutes in, and he already had 107 Origin. The scale of this wave versus the one that attacked Mullan was on a whole different scale. And this was happening all across Coeur d’Alene, probably across Hayden too. If Post Falls was hit, and they didn’t have any preparations, then the town might all end up dead within the hour. Cain threw Origin at Vertex until he felt the mild head pain from conjuring two needles at once fade entirely. Lucky number 9.

Doubling his offensive power wasn’t even close to enough to eradicating everything swarming the town however. And it was time to get a little crazy. It was painful to do so as a construction worker, but Cain began to carve into the asphalt of a street he and Ryan were retreating on. Cain was never much of a history fan, but he did remember some pictures.

A spiked asphalt barricade the size of a school bus rose out of the ground, and the hasty dumping of all of the Origin Cain had into Form did its job. Finally, wolves were impaling themselves on the barricade instead of just shattering the asphalt into rubble. Cain erected a few more barricades before he outright motioned for him and Ryan to run away from the front.

“How’d you manage something like that?” Ryan asked him.

“Writing it down makes Cardinals stronger than just thinking about it. I haven’t figured out how it works yet, but I’ll settle for anything right now,” Cain said. Hopefully the officer would think of his own way to use a Prodigal in defense of the town. This was already beyond his or Tom’s predictions, and Cain feared a large portion of the town wouldn’t make it to tomorrow morning. Having to write down Prodigals was a serious drawback to Cain’s plan, since he couldn’t just climb a house and lift up barricades left and right as he pleased.

Cain and Ryan made it about halfway to the Costco, the edge of where the townspeople had been asked to move before they stopped running. Cain began to raise barricades in the road, going from street to street. The fortifications were staying upright as soon as he made them, and would be able to protect the town without his direct oversight. That was reserved for shooting needles at the approaching throng of animals.

The standard throng of wolves, bears, foxes, and crows were all fast approaching Cain’s location, and Ryan had split up from him at some point along the way. There was nothing Cain could do but let the animals stream past him towards the town, only a couple bothering to try and attack him. Plenty were getting impaled by his barricades, but far more were running around them, and the spikes would eventually become filled with bodies. It was a stopgap measure at best, but Cain was disappointed he couldn’t do more. All of those fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, they were all at risk of dying, at watching their loved ones get their throats torn out, at watching their lifeblood bleed out of them. No, Cain would not allow it. He had another 104 Origin. All to Dimension.

If there was anything Cain was versed in, it was construction. Architecture, buildings. And roads. Underneath the asphalt of the road was layers of cement and dirt, which often were prepared in a rush, leading to structural instability. Cain wanted to make use of that instability, buy the town as much time as possible. He knelt down, and etched a very rough drawing of the picture he had in his mind. Of the road with various cracks in it. Of how he imagined the cracks widening, expanding. Of how the very ground would split open, in some obtuse exaggeration of a pothole. And of most importantly, how the hole would keep spreading to nearby ground faults.

Cain didn’t notice the wolf biting his leg until his drawing was finished, and he killed it with a curse. It was apparently a potential problem to be too absorbed into a Prodigal, but it was worth the risk of dying. Just the way he intended it, the ground began to split open, revealing the sewage pipes that lay underneath the roads of a city. Animals began to fall into the quickly expanding hole by the dozens, with only the crows managing to safely fly over the trap. The crack thankfully didn’t expand towards the houses on the street, but it quickly left Cain’s view as it travelled past where he could see in the dark. Hopefully any people on the road would be able to move out of the way in time.

And peeking over the rooftops of the houses was the sight of a familiar beast. A shaggy creature that trailed plumes of acidic fog. Cain had no name for it, but that didn’t diminish its danger in the slightest. There would be no need for a Prodigal to deal with the reappearance of this threat to the town. Cain once again threw all of the Origin he had into his Numeral, specifically into solid. He conjured an iron spike, and it materialized longer than his forearm. Not as big as the Prodigal spikes he used when defending Mullan, but they would do the job.

Cain spent the next hour or so mostly finishing off animals that fell into his crack and hunting down the shaggy monsters. He encountered a couple police officers patrolling the populated edge of town once the invasion died down a little, and was relieved to hear the casualties were minimal. The ability to heal even life threatening wounds was an incredible boon towards saving lives. Ryan also showed back up at some point, taking turns sniping down the few stragglers that wanted to get a tasty human snack for the night.

Apparently he thought of a way to use Prodigals for communication purposes, and went to let Tom and the acting police chief know. Afterwards, he was taking care of any animals that made it past the first line of defense, but he honestly didn’t have much to do in that regard. A lot of people, children included, used their Cardinals to defend themselves, their families, and their neighbors. It was inspiring to hear that Cain’s efforts didn’t go to waste, that time and again Cardinals were being used for good. He had grown up on the saying that power corrupts, and the use of the Cardinals, of this power was still fledgling, but Cain had hope. He had hope for the future of humanity.

The only important development for the rest of the night was the sight of a massive flock of birds heading towards the town. The birds weren’t crows, no, they were shiny. Once they got close enough, Cain figured out why. They used their feathers as projectiles, and hundreds if not thousands of shiny, bronze knife-like feathers peppered the houses of the town. Cain took a trick from Jack, coating himself in a thin layer of protective metal to defend against the strange birds’ attack.

They flew too high up in the air for Cain to reach with his needles or fire, and it was someone from the town that made a meaningful contribution to their eradication. A small tornado was created in the middle of the flock, and the birds began to smash into each other, making a cacophony of clinking noises as they fell to the ground. And grounded birds were no longer a threat.

Coeur d’Alene only had to deal with one large wave for the entire night, although Cain stayed vigilant up until dawn broke, constantly on watch for anything else making its way through the suburbs of the town. He didn’t feel quite as tired as he did last night when he defended Mullan, but a bed did sound comforting by the time he was relieved from his informal post.

As Cain walked through the town towards the Costco, where a sleeping bag, unfortunately not a bed, was waiting for him, he was surprised. For all the animals he noticed getting past him at the beginning of the night, there was an incredible lack of damage to people’s property and the inhabitants living inside of it. Perhaps a hole in the wall here, or a scorch mark there, but nothing serious, nothing permanent.

“Cain, wonderful,” Tom greeted in front of the Costco. Cain wanted to spy on the man at some point, he always seemed to be awake.

“Tom, good morning,” Cain replied, in relatively good cheer. Only a few people had died, but it was the exception, not the norm for the night. When all of those bloodthirsty animals had run past them at the start of the wave, Cain feared the worst. He thought that hundreds would die, and the few that did die were a tragedy. But when everywhere he looked he saw hale and healthy people? Cain felt a knot in his chest loosen.

It wasn’t his responsibility in any way. He didn’t know anyone from Coeur d’Alene. He even barely knew a few people from Mullan. But he wanted to save them, he wanted to make sure they were alive to see the dawn, smell the fresh morning air. No pollution was great for the air quality.

“Get some rest, you’ve earned it,” Tom said, and Cain wholeheartedly agreed. He found a sleeping bag with his metaphorical name on it, and climbed inside. He checked his Numeral, but found it hard to be surprised. There was 621 Origin waiting to be spent, but he would deal with that when he woke up. He fell asleep in seconds, and had the first restful slumber in days.