The town of Blackwater Creek was not sleeping. It was festering.
As Silas walked down the main mud-street, he felt the town watching him. The windows of the wooden shacks were dark, like empty eye sockets, but he could hear the breathing inside.
The air tasted of coal dust and cheap gin.
He tightened his grip on the shovel. He didn't look like a hero. He looked like a nightmare—a tall, gaunt figure covered in grave-soil, with pale skin that seemed to glow in the smog.
He reached the only building with lights on: The Rusty Anchor.
The sound of a detuned piano and raucous laughter spilled out into the street.
Silas pushed the swinging doors open.
[The Dead Man Walks into a Bar]
The saloon went quiet.
The piano player stopped mid-chord.
Thirty pairs of eyes turned to the door. Miners with blackened faces, whores with tired eyes, and men in long coats who kept their hands near their belts.
Silas stood in the doorway, the mud from his own grave still drying on his cheek.
He didn't blink. His heart beat once every two seconds. Thump... Thump.
He walked to the bar. His boots made no sound on the wooden floor (Corpse Collector ability: Silence).
He placed the rusted shovel against the counter.
The bartender—a massive man with a prosthetic iron jaw—stared at him.
"We don't serve hoboes," the bartender grunted. "And you smell like a compost heap."
Silas reached into his pocket. He pulled out the Gold Coin he found in the coffin.
He slammed it on the counter.
The heavy thud echoed in the silence.
The bartender looked at the coin. His eyes went wide. He looked at the weeping woman on the face of the gold.
He swallowed hard.
"Whiskey?" the bartender asked, his voice suddenly respectful, almost fearful.
"The whole bottle," Silas rasped. "And a glass of ice. I'm warm."
(He wasn't. He was freezing. But he needed the ice to numb the taste of the grave in his mouth).
[The Gambler]
Silas took his bottle to a dark corner table.
He poured a glass and drank. The alcohol burned like acid, but it settled the shivering in his bones.
From the shadows, he watched the room.
His Spirit Vision flickered on involuntarily.
Most people had dull, white auras. They were alive, but barely.
But one man stood out.
Sitting at a poker table in the center of the room was an old man in a priest's collar.
Father Jericho.
He was laughing, raking in a pile of chips.
His aura wasn't white. It was a shifting, chaotic Red.
And there were faint, transparent cards floating around his head that only Silas could see.
A Beyonder, Silas realized. Sequence 9... maybe 8.
"Read 'em and weep, boys!" Jericho slammed down a Full House.
The miners groaned.
"You're cheating, Priest!" a large miner yelled, standing up. "Nobody gets three Full Houses in a row!"
" The Lord provides," Jericho grinned, flashing a gold tooth. "It's not cheating, my son. It's divine intervention."
[The Law]
Before the miner could punch the priest, the saloon doors swung open again.
The temperature in the room dropped.
Three men walked in. They wore tin stars on their chests.
Sheriff's Deputies.
But to Silas's eyes, they looked wrong.
Their skin was too tight. Their movements were jerky.
And their auras were Black. Pitch black, like the Tar from the mines.
They aren't human, Silas thought, gripping his glass. Or they used to be, and something else moved in.
The lead Deputy, a man with a scar across one eye, walked up to the bar. He knocked Silas's shovel over.
Clatter.
He looked at Silas.
"You're new," the Deputy sneered. He leaned in, sniffing. "You smell like fresh dirt. Did you crawl out of a hole, stranger?"
Silas picked up his glass. "We all crawl out of a hole eventually, Deputy. Some of us just do it sooner than others."
The Deputy didn't like that.
He drew his baton—a heavy iron rod.
"Smart mouth. I think you're a vagrant. And vagrants go to the mines."
He swung the baton. A vicious overhead strike aimed at Silas's skull.
[The Numbness]
CRACK.
The iron rod hit Silas's head.
The patrons gasped. That blow would have cracked a normal man's skull.
Silas's head snapped to the side.
But he didn't fall.
He didn't scream.
He slowly turned his head back. There was a gash on his forehead, but it wasn't bleeding much. The blood was thick and slow.
And his eyes were completely empty. No pain. No fear. Just cold observation.
"Is that it?" Silas asked calmly.
The Deputy took a step back, terrified. "What... what are you?"
Silas stood up. He loomed over the Deputy.
Sequence 9 Ability: Aura of Dread.
He projected the feeling of the grave. The cold. The end.
The Deputy felt like he was being buried alive. He couldn't breathe.
"I'm the Undertaker," Silas whispered.
He grabbed the Deputy's wrist. His grip was like a vice of cold steel.
"And you're interrupting my drink."
He squeezed.
CRUNCH.
The Deputy's wrist broke. The Deputy screamed—a sound that was less human and more like a leaking steam pipe.
[The Exit]
The other two deputies reached for their guns.
BANG.
A gunshot rang out. But not from them.
Father Jericho was standing on the poker table, a smoking pistol in his hand. He had shot the ceiling.
"Now, now, children!" Jericho shouted. "Let's not ruin the ambiance! The stranger is just leaving. Right, stranger?"
Jericho looked at Silas with a knowing look. He winked.
Silas released the whimpering Deputy.
He grabbed his shovel. He grabbed his bottle of whiskey.
He walked to the door.
The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea. No one wanted to touch the man who took an iron bar to the skull and didn't blink.
He stepped out into the night.
Father Jericho followed him out a moment later.
"That was quite a performance," Jericho chuckled, lighting a cigar. "You're one of the 'Cold Ones', aren't you? A Corpse Collector."
Silas took a swig of whiskey. "And you're a cheat, Father."
"I prefer 'Probability Manager'," Jericho grinned. "You look like you need a place to hide, kid. The Sheriff won't like what you did to his puppet."
Jericho pointed to a dilapidated church on the hill.
"Sanctuary is open. But it'll cost you."
"Cost me what?" Silas asked.
Jericho looked at the shovel.
"I have a job that requires digging. And you look like you were born with that shovel in your hand."