Chapter XLVII: Review of Related Literature
The morning breaks with the soft clang of the cathedral bells, echoing through the mist of London like the heartbeat of a tired god. Sunlight filters weakly through the pale fog, painting the cobblestone streets in shades of gray and gold.
Nathaniel Cross walks the familiar route to King's College, his satchel slung across his shoulder, mechanical pencil tucked behind his ear. The world looks normal—too normal—after everything that happened last night.
A drizzle clings to his coat as he turns into the courtyard, passing students rushing to lectures, the smell of wet asphalt and espresso mixing in the air. He exhales deeply, feeling the cold slice through his lungs.
Theo catches up beside him, holding two cups of coffee. "You look like death warmed over," he says casually, handing him one.
"I've looked worse," Nathaniel mutters, sipping. The bitterness burns his tongue, but it keeps him awake.
Theo laughs under his breath. "That's the spirit. Nothing says 'I survived a vampire encounter' like Differential Equations at eight in the morning."
Nathaniel groans quietly. "Remind me why I'm doing this again?"
"Because you love suffering," Theo replies.
Nathaniel smirks, though his eyes stay distant.
They walk through the hallway—walls lined with framed blueprints and equations etched in brass plaques. The engineering building feels like a cathedral of reason, a place built to banish the irrational. But Nathaniel knows better. There's nothing rational about what's inside him.
Every time he blinks, he still sees flashes—the red glow of the Highgate crypt, the teeth glinting in the dark, the way time itself felt like it was bending around his heartbeat.
He pushes the thought away. Not now. Focus.
Professor Adler paces before the whiteboard, chalk in hand. His gray beard twitches as he speaks, words sharp and relentless. "Statics of Rigid Bodies," he declares, "is the backbone of all mechanical understanding. Fail to grasp equilibrium, and everything you build will crumble."
He scribbles an equation:
ΣFx = 0, ΣFy = 0, ΣM = 0
Nathaniel stares at it, his mind echoing with a different formula—the resonance loops he saw glowing beneath the church floor last night. The pattern was identical. Balance, tension, containment.
Theo nudges him. "Oi, you spacing out again?"
"Just thinking."
"About equilibrium or undead geometry?"
"Both," Nathaniel says quietly, jotting down notes.
Theo grins. "You're hopeless."
For the next hour, they wrestle through problem sets. Moments blur between sketches of beams, torque arrows, and trigonometric scribbles. Professor Adler calls Nathaniel once—
"Mr. Cross, if a force of 400 N acts on a beam at a 30° angle, what's the vertical component?"
Nathaniel blinks, brain flicking instantly into focus. "Two hundred newtons, sir."
The professor pauses. "Quick. Correct."
A few students glance at him, impressed. Theo whispers, "Show-off."
But even as he solves equations, Nathaniel's hand trembles slightly. He can feel vibrations in the floor, the subtle hum of the fluorescent lights, even the faint heartbeat of the student beside him. The world has become too sensitive, too alive.
He grips his pen tighter. Not here. Not now.
Meanwhile, across the campus, Kingsley and Edison wade through their own storm.
The nursing lab smells of antiseptic and formalin. Skeleton models line the walls like silent witnesses. Their instructor, Ms. Pritchard, gestures at a chart of the human skeletal system.
"All right, class, identify the bones of the upper limb," she says. "And remember—spell scaphoid correctly, or I'll have you repeat the term test."
Kingsley groans. "You'd think we were med students."
Edison chuckles, flipping through flashcards. "We are practically med students—just with less sleep and more coffee."
"Yeah, but no one told me memorizing 206 bones would feel like preparing for exorcism."
Edison smirks. "At least bones don't bite back."
Kingsley laughs, but the sound fades when he notices his friend's distant look. "Still thinking about last night?"
Edison nods slightly. "Yeah. I can't stop wondering what that thing wanted. Why it appeared at that church."
Kingsley exhales, resting his head on his folded arms. "Whatever it was, Nate looked... shaken. Different."
"Different how?"
Kingsley frowns. "His eyes. Sometimes, when the light hits them—there's this gold flicker. I thought it was just fatigue."
Edison's voice drops. "Or maybe not."
They share a look, one neither of them wants to define. Then Ms. Pritchard calls again: "Gentlemen! Quiz sheets!"
They scramble to their stations. Kingsley mutters, "We'll figure it out later. For now, just name the bones."
Edison smiles faintly. "Radius, ulna, humerus. Easy."
"Yeah," Kingsley whispers, "if only everything was that easy."
By late afternoon, the four reunite at their usual spot — The Hollow Mug, a narrow café tucked between old bookstores near the Thames. The smell of roasted beans and rain-damp pages fills the air.
Theo dumps his books on the table. "I swear, if one more professor mentions Newton, I'll resurrect him just to punch him."
Kingsley laughs. "Try memorizing the tarsals first, mate."
Edison joins them, pulling out his notes. "You all look like corpses. Appropriate, considering."
Nathaniel sits quietly, sipping tea instead of coffee this time. The warmth anchors him, even as a faint chill brushes the back of his neck. The café windows rattle slightly in the wind.
Theo stretches, glancing at Nathaniel. "You've been quiet all day, Nate. You okay?"
"Yeah," he says softly. "Just tired."
Kingsley frowns. "Nightmares again?"
Nathaniel doesn't answer. He looks out the window, where the gray sky bleeds into the Thames.
Theo leans forward. "You sure this isn't... you know. A side effect?"
Nathaniel's gaze flicks to him—sharp, tired, defensive. "I said I'm fine."
The silence that follows is thick.
Edison breaks it gently. "We're not doubting you. We're just—worried."
Nathaniel exhales. "I know. And I appreciate it." He sets his cup down. "But the only way forward is to keep living. Keep studying. Keep moving."
Theo smiles faintly. "That's very 'shounen protagonist' of you."
Nathaniel chuckles. "Maybe I'm finally learning from anime."
The mood softens. They talk about classes, laugh over mispronounced formulas, argue about whose workload is worse. For a while, it almost feels normal.
Almost.
Then Edison says, quietly, "But we still need to find out what happened at Highgate. That thing didn't just appear by accident."
Nathaniel nods slowly. "You're right. We'll head to the library again after this. There's more we need to uncover."
Theo groans. "The library again? My brain hasn't even cooled from last night."
Kingsley smirks. "You can rest when you're dead."
Theo points a spoon at him. "Bad choice of words, considering our crowd."
The library glows under dim amber lamps, tall windows draped with rain. The four move quietly through the aisles, their footsteps soft on the carpeted floor.
Nathaniel leads them toward the deeper archives. His eyes are sharper than usual, picking out details others would miss — faint etchings, symbols carved into the old wood.
Theo flips through records. "Found something weird. A report about resonance fluctuations near industrial Chelsea."
Edison joins him. "Same location as last night's readings."
Kingsley frowns. "Coincidence?"
Nathaniel shakes his head. "No such thing anymore."
He spreads out old blueprints of the district — tunnels, abandoned factories, sewer lines. "Look here," he says, tracing with his finger. "This network of conduits runs beneath the entire sector. If resonance energy is traveling through the city, it's using these."
Theo whistles. "You're saying London's plumbing is haunted?"
Nathaniel smirks faintly. "Something like that."
Edison leans over. "What if these conduits are amplifying something—something that connects to the vampire's presence?"
Kingsley adds, "Like a nervous system under the city."
Nathaniel nods. "Exactly." He flips through his notebook, filled with equations and circuit diagrams. "If we can calculate the phase difference between the pulses we recorded, we can pinpoint where it's strongest."
Theo squints. "You make it sound so easy."
"It isn't," Nathaniel says, already sketching. "But it's possible."
For hours, they work — equations scattered, maps unfurled, whispers echoing through the stacks. The rain outside intensifies, thunder low and distant.
Edison glances up. "We've been here three hours. You think the librarian's noticed?"
Theo snorts. "I think she's undead herself."
Kingsley yawns. "Don't jinx it."
Then Nathaniel suddenly straightens. "There."
They all gather around. The resonance readings form a pattern — intersecting like a spider's web, converging toward one point beneath the city.
"The old Chelsea rail tunnels," Nathaniel says. "Same direction as the energy field we tracked."
Theo rubs his face. "Bloody hell, we're really going back underground, aren't we?"
"Not tonight," Nathaniel says firmly. "We prepare first. We can't walk into this blind again."
Edison closes the ledger. "Agreed."
Kingsley stretches, glancing at the storm through the window. "Then what now?"
Nathaniel stares out at the rain, voice low. "Now... we plan."
Lightning flashes, briefly illuminating his reflection in the glass—eyes glinting faintly gold, like an ember refusing to die.
The rain has softened to a drizzle. Nathaniel stands on the rooftop, coat flapping in the cold wind. The city glows beneath him, alive yet unaware of the storm building in its veins.
He closes his eyes. The hum returns — that same resonance, faint but calling. Somewhere beneath the ground, something is stirring.
He touches the scar on his neck where Eris bit him. It burns faintly in the cold.
You're still there, he thinks. I can feel it.
But he won't let it win.
Theo steps onto the roof quietly, holding two cans of soda. "Thought you might need one."
Nathaniel takes it with a small smile. "Thanks."
They stand in silence for a while, watching the rain wash over the city.
"You ever think," Theo says slowly, "that maybe we're just... way out of our depth?"
Nathaniel laughs quietly. "Every day."
Theo nods. "Yeah. Same." He sips his drink. "Still—someone's got to do it, right?"
Nathaniel looks at him, the wind tugging at his hair. "Yeah. Someone's got to."
A quiet moment passes. Then Theo says, "We'll figure this out, Nate. Whatever's happening beneath London—whatever's happening to you—we'll face it. Together."
Nathaniel smiles faintly. "I know."
Below them, lightning flashes across the river, illuminating the skyline. For a heartbeat, Nathaniel sees it again—an outline, faint but real—something ancient moving beneath the city.
And this time, he doesn't look away.
Somewhere far below London, deeper than the subway tunnels, the air vibrates with a slow, rhythmic pulse. A cluster of metal conduits hums faintly, glowing with red resonance light.
An old speaker crackles to life, though no one is there to speak. A voice—distorted, mechanical, yet alive—whispers through the static:
"Phase two complete. The frequency has responded."
A pause.
"Subject Cross is adapting faster than projected."
The light flickers—once, twice—and the pulse synchronizes with a distant heartbeat.
Then darkness swallows everything again.