By the time Char’s feet hit the ground, the courtyard was in turmoil. Stacks of wood lay scattered, scavenged tools kicked across the dirt. Some of the people were huddled in groups against the wall, craning their necks, trying to make sense of the chaos. They muttered and argued, and comforted one another, but they didn’t get involved. Some hovered at the gap in the wall, torn between the fight inside and the monsters lurking outside. Others were fighting, taking out their fear and anger on those they thought might be loyal to Voss.

  Char didn’t have time to sort it out. There was another, larger fight near the entrance to the Mercado, and that was where she needed to be. Lulu’s distress pulled her in, their shared desperation echoing through the link.

  Something was wrong with Lulu. Waves of sickness flowed from her. Her flames were dim and struggling. She fought to keep off the men who were trying to capture or kill her, and the woman who tormented her. Her teeth and claws kept them at bay, but she was flagging.

  As Char crossed the courtyard at a dead run, three of Voss’s thugs surrounded Lulu, and next to them was Gina. She wasn’t unscathed. The side of her face was a charred, blistered horror show. Her hair had been burned away on that side, and her arm was held tight to her chest; the fabric that had once covered it was melted and charred, and stuck to the ruined flesh beneath.

  Lulu must have hit her with her flame breath, but Char had no pity for her. Cory had told her about Gina’s sadistic poisons, about how she liked to make people sick and watch them suffer. Turnabout was fair play. Now she was as ugly on the outside as she was on the inside.

  Char didn’t bother with silence. Her vision tunneled in on Gina’s burned face, the cruel twist of her lips. She came in screaming like a banshee, raw and hoarse, the sound tearing at her throat. Gina spun, eyes going wide in fear and shock. She flung out a hand as if to ward away the blow, but Char ignored it as she brought the sword down. That was a mistake.

  Gina’s head hit the churned soil of the courtyard, and her body crumpled a heartbeat after it, but she had already inflicted her damage. Char felt the alien mana flow into her from the contact. The notification icon in the bottom corner of Char’s vision started blinking red, and icy tendrils of pain snaked out from the spot on Char’s arm where Gina’s hand had touched her.

  She looked down. On her forearm, the vague outline of a hand bloomed outward, distorting and claiming more of her flesh as she watched. The green-black stain stank of gangrene. The smell stuck to the back of her throat and made her stomach lurch. Black veins crawled up her arm and down into her hand, burning with cold, invasive rot.

  The poison was fast, and it was heading for her heart.

  On the edge of panic, she cast Mend Flesh on herself. The veins retreated, but it was a fleeting reprieve. When the mana of the spell bled out, the poison started its march of conquest again. Char didn’t have time to tend to it, though. Lulu was still being attacked.

  Lulu was fighting in the middle of a ring of vomit and worse, and she shuddered with illness. Whatever poison Gina had used on her was making her cramp and shiver and purge from both ends. Her coat was matted to her with her own filth, and her flames flickered, guttering low like candles in a storm.

  Char shoved away one of the men trying to skewer Lulu with his sword. As he stumbled backward, he tried to bring his sword around in a clumsy strike. With both hands on the hilt, she swept her blade forward, relieving him of hand and blade alike. He shrieked and stumbled away.

  The other two men turned on her. The poison crept higher, a cold weight under her skin. She forced another Mend Flesh, driving the damage back, but with the spell came a twinge of discomfort behind her eyes, and that warned her mana was getting low. The spell helped, but barely. The relief it gave was paper-thin, and the poison began its march again. She dismissed Wyrdsight. She could handle these two without it, and she would need her mana for herself and Lulu.

  For one of the men, turning his back on Lulu was the last mistake he ever made. She took out her misery and frustration on him as her claws sank into his back, her weight bore him to the ground, and her jaws slammed shut on the back of his neck with a crunch that sounded ominously final.

  The third man glanced from his shrieking, handless companion to the unmoving man under Lulu and was wise enough to drop his sword and back away. Char made note of his features and let him go. She had more immediate things to see to.

  Lulu staggered off the corpse of the man she’d brought down and dropped to her haunches, retching. As the spasm passed, she whimpered, but despite her distress, she sent Char a pulse of reassurance. She would be fine. Char should take care of herself. The reassurance hit her like a blow. She could feel Lulu’s nausea and weakness through the bond, and it made her chest ache.

  Char ignored the feeling and looked Lulu over for any signs of the black rot, but there were none. Lulu sent her a more insistent image of Leigh being dragged away and a sense of urgency. See to the pup, protect the pack, I’ll be fine. Lulu didn’t use words, but her message was clear enough.

  It was a decision she didn’t want to make, but the dog was wiser than she was in this. The veins of rot were nearly to her shoulder again, though she thought they might be moving more slowly now. Her entire left arm felt like a dead weight hanging at her side, burning with corruption. The skin around the original touch was starting to bubble up and slough away. Her eyes slid away from the sight, not wanting to see her own body rotting.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  With one last glance at Lulu, uncertainty bubbling in her gut, Char pulled herself away. She turned to the door of the Mercado, left swinging open in the chaos. She didn’t quite have enough mana to heal her arm again, but she could at least do something useful while she waited for the pool to refill.

  Anais was still on the stage, struggling with the ropes that bound her. Char pulled out her pocket knife and cut her free. “You OK?”

  Anais croaked, her voice hoarse, “Yeah. I’m good, bruised and sore, but that won’t stop me.”

  “Good. Get these people organized and see to the wounded. I’m going after Voss.” The older woman nodded to her, and Char crossed the yard to the store.

  The interior of the store was dark. The sky was so overcast that it had little illumination to spare, and the big display windows had been partially covered with old sheets and cardboard. For a moment, she was staring into a black abyss. Here there be monsters.

  She forced herself to move, every step dragging. The fight with Loman had been exhausting. Gina’s poison was eating her alive. Her chest tightened with worry over Lulu. But stopping wasn’t an option. She hadn’t seen Declan since everything had kicked off. If he’d followed Voss into the store, he might be in trouble, and there was no doubting that Mira and Leigh needed help.

  Pushing aside her fear and exhaustion, she stalked forward into the darkness. Lulu trailed her, moving slowly, still hampered by the poison, but ready to back her up.

  The store was quiet, but not as dark as it had seemed from the outside. Just enough gray light filtered in to let her navigate through the bedrolls and detritus of what must have been a horribly overcrowded space. Evidence of nearly sixty people crammed together on the ragged edge of survival made the space somehow both less scary and more ominous.

  A thump and an angry voice from the back office told her where she needed to go.

  The office door was open, and Voss was waiting for her. He had staged a scene to greet her, and she might have made a quip about James Bond villains if it hadn’t made her blood run cold and stolen the words from her throat.

  He sat behind the desk, and Mira knelt to the side of it, Voss’s gun pressed to her head. Leigh huddled in the corner, her back pressed to a file cabinet, and her arms wrapped around her head, sobbing silently.

  Declan stood on the desk. There was a rope tied around his neck and affixed to a beam in the ceiling. His eyes were vacant, and he didn’t react to Char’s arrival. He stood casually and stared into space, his gaze never dropping to meet hers.

  “Can you cast your lightning faster than I can pull a trigger or say ‘jump?’” His face twisted into a wicked sneer, but the confidence didn’t reach his eyes.

  “You talk too much for a man with a gun and a leash. You’re not in control, Voss. You’re letting fear control you. But Declan, here, he’s a better man than you. He knows how to control his fear. He’s faced down a horde of cannibals and an eldritch horror, and held his own in the fight.” She pitched her voice loud, full of a confidence she wasn’t feeling. Her words were for Declan, to remind him of what he’d already overcome.

  Voss snorted. “He’s just a kid, and my spell took him as easily as anyone else.”

  “So, what’s your endgame here, Voss? You just going to sit in this office hiding behind kids? Do you expect me to fold up and die? I might die here,” she held up her arm to show the poison, “But I won’t be going out on your terms, or anyone else’s. And I’m gonna make sure that kid gets a chance to finish his bucket list.”

  She took a step forward.

  “Stop. No closer,” Voss snarled. He was getting angry. Char knew she was walking a fine line. She had to piss him off enough to shake his control without pushing him into pulling the trigger on either of her friends.

  Her left hand had gone numb, and she was having to struggle to keep her expression calm and confident. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of her neck.

  “Dec, you owe me a Godzilla marathon. Don’t let this asshole win. Fight him. You’re stronger than he is.” She wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the flickering candlelight, but she thought Declan’s jaw twitched and his muscles tensed. Movement behind Voss brought her gaze back down to his level, and she fought to keep her eyes on his face and not glance over his shoulder.

  “Shut up. Stop talking to him. You just stand there. Gina’s poison will kill you soon enough. Then all I have to do is put things back together. Those people out there know who’s been taking care of them. They won’t believe your lies for long.”

  “Bastard. They all saw how guilty you are. You’ve already lost their respect,” Mira said, forcing her words through clenched teeth. Char tensed, hoping she hadn’t just set him off.

  Voss pushed the gun harder into Mira’s head, forcing it to the side, “You shut your mouth.”

  The icy burn of the poison was creeping up her shoulder. Time was running out. She had to make him lose his focus, give Declan a chance to shake off his control. She had all this strength and speed, she had the sort of magic that belonged in fairy tales, and yet she was helpless in that moment. Her only weapon was her weakest—her voice. So she used it.

  “Voss, don’t you get it? You’ve already lost.” Char pulled his attention back to her. She had to keep him looking her way so he wouldn’t see Leigh moving behind him. “You wanted to be the big man, the one in charge, but all you’ve done is push these people to the breaking point. You’re the sort of guy who can’t tell respect from fear. They won’t follow you again, not now that they can see through you. Hell, even Declan here could see through you. That’s why he left. He didn’t want to be under your thumb. You’re petty, a bully. You’re not a real leader.”

  Declan twitched a hand. It was subtle, easy to dismiss as another trick of the light, but she was pretty sure she hadn’t imagined it. Tendrils of rot were starting to spread into her chest, reaching for her heart. She had to hold on, keep Voss on tilt, buy Declan more time, but there wasn’t much to spare. She forced herself to smirk at him, condescending, dismissive. The last thing an insecure man wants to see from a woman.

  Voss growled at her, showing teeth. His voice was shaking with barely constrained rage. “What would you know about leadership? You walked away. You didn’t even want this place. Why did you come back? Just to ruin things for me? Were you jealous that I had something you didn’t?” His voice rose in pitch and fervor with every word. His focus was entirely on her, and his control was slipping.

  This time, she was certain it wasn’t her imagination. Declan’s hand flexed. His gaze dropped to meet hers, and he was in there, his eyes full of determination.

  She nodded to Leigh. Leigh grabbed Mira and pulled her backwards. Declan stepped sideways out of the noose, vanishing. Char dove forward. The gun went off. Mira screamed.

  Drywall cracked with a puff of dust as the bullet missed Mira’s head by mere inches. Declan stepped out of nowhere, pushing Voss’s gun hand upward. Char’s sword slid into his chest. She felt the steel of the blade vibrate with his heartbeat, slowing, and finally stopping.

  Thief of Echoes and get a backlog of chapters for Dominion: Volume 2.