"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."