Jack stood there at the edge of the gate, overwhelmed with the devastation that had befallen Olric and his farm. His home.

  Jack’s home, or the closest thing to it.

  “What happened here?” he breathed, resting a hand against one of the fence posts.

  There was just so much death.

  By the house, something moved.

  “Olric!” Jack shouted, his shock abandoned for sheer bloody speed.

  He raced over the corpses of the dead shroudlings, their gray skin baptized in green ichor. The boulder where he had sat just this morning was cracked down the middle. And everywhere, the stench of some unholy magic clung to every surface. Goosebumps crawled up Jack’s skin as he sprinted toward Olric’s crumpled form.

  The wrongness in the air grew stronger with each step.

  Jack leapt up the porch steps, clearing them entirely. He was by Olric’s side and crouching to turn to the man over in an instant. Blood was everywhere, red darkened by an alien black liquid. The old farmer was remarkably heavy—heavier than he had any right to be. Still, with Jack’s increased stats, he moved him easily. The moment he had the weathered man on his back, Jack saw the wounds.

  Black varicose veins crisscrossed his entire body, moving from wound to wound like a vascular plague. He had over a hundred cuts across his chest, neck, and face, but the worst were three deep claw marks across his ribcage. They bubbled with the dark substance, and with each pulse, the veins spread.

  Olric’s eyes were unfocused, but the man coughed. It was a wet, strained sound.

  “Olric! I’m here! What happened?!” Jack shouted, holding the man by the base of his neck.

  The old warrior’s eyes sharpened, and he clutched at Jack’s torn tunic.

  “Notes… Farm… Protect the… Notes…” Olric gasped, blood streaming from between his lips.

  Jack’s heart sank. He knew what was in the barn, and that was the last place he wanted to go right now.

  “No, I’ll get you safe and healed up, then you take care of those damned notes,” Jack said resolutely. “Now, tell me what to do!”

  Olric’s expression was unreadable. Despair warred with conviction in his eyes.

  “Tell me, dammit!” Jack roared. “Tell me how to save you!”

  He could not let Olric die. Yes, he was experimenting on God knows what. Yes, he had answers Jack desperately needed.

  But when everyone had sought to kill him, when this entire world lowered its blades at Jack’s heart, Olric was the one who offered him a safe haven. Olric was the one who shared his food, home, and knowledge with Jack.

  He may not trust the man as blindly as he had before, but he owed him. And Jack Thatcher always paid his debts.

  “Notes…” Olric breathed before he collapsed into unconsciousness.

  “No, no, no!” Jack yelled, shaking the man.

  Never again.

  He was different now. He could do this.

  He could fix this.

  Jack stared into the wrecked interior of the farmhouse, furniture thrown every which way. It looked like a tornado decided to have a dance party in there. But as he looked, he saw the dried herbs hanging precariously from the rafters. His eyes shot back down to the old farmer.

  “Notes,” he said in realization.

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  Jack cursed at his stupidity, but rushed to make up for lost time. The first thing he did was pick Olric up and bring him inside. He used Olric’s body to shove away the food and parchments scattered across the kitchen table. He placed a hand on the man’s neck.

  There was a pulse, but only barely.

  Why isn’t his Constitution healing him? Shouldn’t he have way more than me? Why is he dying?

  But as he thought about it, the cause of Olric’s wound had to be that black liquid, and not the wounds themselves. At least, that’s what he hoped.

  Jack tore through the kitchen, scattering jars and dried herbs.

  Nothing.

  Behind him, Olric's breathing turned wet and ragged.

  “Come on, come on!” Jack grunted, tossing cushions and blankets from the couch in the vain hope he hid his notes there.

  What he found wasn’t a stash of books, but something far, far, stranger.

  A backpack.

  He opened it. Inside was a leather bandolier with a dozen thin vials secured across it. There was a mortar and pestle inside as well, in addition to what appeared to be dried rations and water canteens.

  But no notes.

  “Dammit!” Jack said, glancing back at where Olric lay unconscious.

  He knew what he had to do.

  The notes had to be in the barn—that cursed, reeking barn where Olric did his real work.

  Jack fled the house and sprinted for the farm. It loomed in the night like an obelisk of death, but Jack did not hesitate this time. He stormed inside, past the cages, and straight to the stack of journals. The place reeked worse than before, and he spared a glance at the torn tarp he’d left last time he’d been here.

  He took them all.

  Jack’s hands shook as he tore through the journals once back inside the home.

  Diagrams. He needed diagrams, not theory.

  He was just about to toss the final book aside when his eyes caught the final few entries.

  ‘Infection antidote failed. Subject deceased,’ Jack read, his mind coming to an abrupt halt.

  An… an antidote?

  Jack’s eyes fell on Olric. He didn’t have long, and he couldn’t afford to second-guess himself. The black veins were visibly crawling up the farmer’s cheekbones.

  Jack rushed out the broken door frame a second time, his feet eating away at the distance between the house and the barn. His boots thudded heavily on the wood floorboards as he dashed inside, breathlessly searching in the dark. He prayed that he was right, and that Olric hadn’t moved those three damned vials.

  THERE!

  Three vials. Orange, clear, red.

  His shoulder slammed into the doorframe, and he heard a crack. None of it mattered.

  Back inside, he could see the black veins had crawled up Olric’s throat. He glanced down and knew he had to make a decision. There was no time to second things.

  Jack’s hand moved—red vial, uncorked, tilted to cracked lips. The liquid stained Olric’s teeth.

  God, let me be right.

  Olric hacked and coughed, but Jack held on.

  Come on. Come on!

  “Live, dammit!” Jack shouted.

  He prayed that he was right. He prayed that he hadn’t just killed his one ally in this world. He prayed that Olric would live.

  Because in that transparent vial, his instincts recognized an echo of none other than Steward. He had no idea how Olric had distilled that bastard’s essence, but that, at least, he knew with marrow-deep certainty. And the orange one reeked of death.

  But what if I’m wrong?

  On the table, Olric began to have a seizure. Jack slipped the clear-liquid vial into his belt and held the man down with both hands. Minutes passed, but they felt like hours. Jack’s arms trembled, but he never let go.

  He had a spike of terror as he recalled holding his sister just like this. She had OD’ed on some designer drug he forgot the name of. But when he’d found her in his bathroom, vomit staining her favorite band shirt, it had undone. She’d nearly died because he hadn’t been fast enough.

  Please. Never again.

  Slowly—oh so very slowly—the varicose veins started to recede. Olric’s body regained a bit of its former color. He was still clammy and torn until he was just three steps from hell, but he was alive! Barely, but alive!

  Olric suddenly curled inward and to the side. He vomited up lungfuls of liquid that resembled tar. It smelled like sulfur and mulch had been fermented with cat piss. Jack made sure he didn’t fall off the table, though he felt bile rise in his throat.

  “There you go. Get it all out,” Jack said soothingly.

  Olric’s body, clearly overtaxed, slumped back onto the table, and he fell into a deep sleep. The veins had receded, but the wounds remained. Jack scrambled around the kitchen, searching for the gauze he’d passed over earlier. Finding it, he wrapped the man’s wounds as best he could. They immediately morphed from a sanitized white to a muddled red.

  Jack’s heart stopped, and his fingers wouldn’t stop shaking. He knew the truth.

  Despite everything he’d done, despite all of his efforts, it hadn’t been enough. Sure, he’d cured at least a part of the infection, but the damage had been too extensive, and Olric’s Constitution just wasn’t able to fight off the remaining poison and all the wounds.

  He’d failed. Olric was going to die.