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Chapter 7 - Chapter seven

"Surely

the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the

prophets."

—Amos 3:7

 

By the time the last

lecture ended, Thalia had already gone through two cups of vending machine

coffee, three passive-aggressive conversations with Cassandra DuVere, and one

incident involving a crumbling folklore presentation slide deck that decided to

die seconds before she was meant to present.

 

The rest of her day

unfolded in predictable blur:

— A comparative

mythology seminar, where the professor waxed poetic about trickster archetypes

while Thalia tried not to fall asleep.

— A two-hour shift

at the East Library Archives, where she filed manuscripts older than the plague

and shared tea with Marta Aureel in comfortable silence.

— And finally, a

late-evening wander through King's Courtyard, watching twilight drizzle over

the cobblestones while pretending the pale shadows at the edge of her vision

were just tricks of the light.

 

By the time she

reached her dorm, her shoulders were heavy with fatigue — not just from the

day, but from the soft pressure behind her eyes that never seemed to fade

anymore.

 

The wraiths hadn't appeared all

day.

Not here.

Not in the library.

Not around Marta.

 

Which meant tonight

would be loud.

 

 

Scene:

Dorm Room, Evening

 

The dorm room light

was dimmed to a soft amber hue, casting lazy shadows against the walls covered

in art prints, pinned notes, and Jazz's half-broken lava lamp that somehow

still worked. A faint playlist hummed from a speaker near the window —

something indie, mellow, the kind of music that sounded like a memory you

hadn't made yet.

 

Thalia sat

cross-legged on her bed, flipping through a thick anthology of Celtic curses.

Her hair was still damp from the shower, loose curls tucked under a worn

hoodie. A mug of chamomile tea steamed on her nightstand, untouched.

 

Jazz was sprawled on

the other bed in a constellation of chaos — mismatched socks, eyeliner half-on,

her red curls tied up with two pens like improvised chopsticks.

 

"Thal," Jazz said,

swinging her legs, "come to the party."

 

"No."

 

"Not even a maybe?"

 

"No."

 

Jazz huffed. "You

didn't even pretend to consider it."

 

"I'm tired."

 

"You're always

tired. That's the point. Maybe if you actually did something chaotic

for once, your brain would stop feeding you murder dreams."

 

Thalia blinked.

"That's not how trauma works."

 

"Still. Worth a

shot."

 

Thalia looked over,

lips quirking. "Is this your expert folklore minor advice? Party away the

ancestral blood curse?"

 

Jazz smirked.

"Actually, I wrote a paper on Dionysian rites and ecstatic cleansing rituals.

Wine and dancing fix more than people think."

 

Thalia rolled her

eyes but couldn't help the small laugh.

 

Jazz pushed up onto

her elbows. "C'mon, it's just at The Vault — that semi-legal club near Camden

with the creepy statues. All the cool weirdos go there."

 

Thalia raised an

eyebrow. "And who exactly qualifies as 'cool weirdos'?"

 

"Caleb Moreau," Jazz

said, casual as thunder.

 

That earned a pause.

 

Thalia stared down

at her tea. "He's going?"

 

"Mhmm. Saw him at

the coffee shop earlier. Cassandra tried to invite him herself, but he said

he'd 'probably tag along if others were going.' And guess who counts as

'others,' baby girl?"

 

Thalia bit the

inside of her cheek. "You're evil."

 

Jazz beamed.

"Persuasive. Not evil."

 

There was a beat of

silence. The kind that tiptoed carefully between choices.

 

Then Thalia sighed.

"If I go, I'm not staying long."

 

Jazz shrieked,

diving for her makeup bag like a gremlin. "Say less!"

 

"I mean it, Jazz."

 

"Yeah, yeah. You can

glower in a corner and drink water. I'll handle the dancing. You handle the

brooding. Classic division of labor."

 

Thalia shook her

head, smiling despite herself.

 

In the corner of the

room, just behind the curtain, a single thread of shadow slithered away —

unnoticed, uninvited.

 

And far off, beneath

the old bones of London, something began to stir.

 

————

 

London had never

been kind to him.

 

It was too old to

care, too cursed to notice. The fog wasn't just weather here — it was history

exhaling. Blood beneath cobblestones. Echoes behind windows.

 

For the past four

days, Luciel had been walking between the seams of that fog — chasing whispers

through catacombs and back alleys, blending the sacred with the street-level

grime. His trail was stitched together by rumor and karma — exorcists who'd

vanished, relics gone missing, demons seen speaking in tongues not heard since

Babel.

 

One vampiric enclave

spoke of a relic that sang in the presence of old blood.

A lycan cell

mentioned a shadow that walked without making prints.

An oracle girl tried

to bite his face off for "carrying the scent of a broken oath."

Normal things.

 

The karmic threads

had begun to fray, pulling taut around a new convergence point — different from

the Highgate site but eerily close. Something was gathering near the east end

docks… and the latest pull landed near a run-down event hall recently rented for

a university party.

 

Luciel wasn't the

party type. Unless someone was bleeding or possessed.

 

But the threads

didn't lie. Not to him.

 

 

Current

Location: Temporary Safehouse, Southbank. 7:49 PM.

 

Luciel sat

cross-legged on a concrete floor, surrounded by scattered pages, candlelight,

and the ever-soothing smell of gun oil and burned parchment. His twin pistols —

Sanctus and Umbra — rested beside

him, fully loaded.

 

Before him, a small

case lay open — a grid of aged talismans tucked into velvet-lined compartments.

Some hummed faintly with stored power. Others looked like nothing more than

paper and string.

 

He rolled his

sleeves up.

 

"Alright," he

muttered, pulling a red ink pen from his jacket. "Let's restock the miracles."

 

Basic

Talismans (Scripture-Based)

 • Seal of Isaiah – Suppresses

demonic speech for 3 minutes. A narrow hexagram written in silver on red

parchment.

 • Psalm Breaker – Disrupts minor

illusions or enchantments. Shaped like a prayer strip, folded seven times and

dipped in anointing oil.

 • Gospel Chain – Binds lower-class

spirits for interrogation. Comes in sets, inked onto thread-wrapped nails.

 

Advanced

Talismans (Angelic-Class)

 • Veil of Anael – Conceals the user

from ethereal detection for 10 minutes. A thin white strip bound in rose gold

threads.

 • Key of Uriel – Unlocks sealed

magical barriers and doors. Etched into a sliver of obsidian wrapped in gold

leaf.

 • Eye of Sariel – Allows momentary

true sight, piercing glamours and veils. Inlaid with a drop of blessed mercury.

 

Luciel carefully layered a fresh Psalm

Breaker

between two pages of his grimoire and tucked the Veil

of Anael

into the lining of his trench coat.

 

He clipped the Gospel

Chain

around the hilt of his butcher's knife — a quiet reminder that not everything

needed bullets.

 

His hands paused.

 

The weight of unseen

threads brushed against his awareness again — a karmic pulse, subtle but

insistent. The thread led to the warehouse.

 

He didn't know who'd

be there.

 

Didn't know why it

felt familiar.

 

But he'd learned

long ago that when the weave called… he answered.

 

Luciel stood.

 

Slipped his weapons

into their holsters.

 

Snuffed the candles

with two fingers.

 

And whispered,

"Let's dance."

 

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