Chapter 151: Resonance
The lights in Deaton's clinic were dim — not by accident, but by design. They cast a soft, uneven glow, a muted yellow that sank into the sterile tiles and turned the floor the color of aged parchment. Shadows collected in the corners like ink pooling on old paper. The faint hum of fluorescent bulbs blended with the low mechanical thrum of the containment ward, creating a rhythm that felt almost alive — too steady to be random, too cold to be human.
Lucas stepped inside quietly, his hand still resting on the door handle for a heartbeat longer than necessary. He didn't speak. He didn't need to ask why Deaton had texted him. The moment he crossed the threshold, he could feel it — that familiar, prickling weight in the air, as if the space itself was holding its breath. The scent was wrong, faintly metallic, threaded with something that didn't belong in the realm of medicine or science. It was sharp and electric, the smell of something that had once been alive and was refusing, stubbornly, to stop being.
Deaton was standing by the examination table, his sleeves rolled up, eyes reflecting the ghostly light from the containment glass. Inside, the remnants of the parasite quivered like a half-remembered nightmare, sealed beneath layers of protective wards and overlapping sigils. The glass shimmered faintly where Deaton's runes intersected, and from within, thin filaments of greenish light pulsed — slow, deliberate, rhythmic. It was almost like listening to a dying heartbeat through a wall.
Lucas approached, his boots silent against the tile. "What did you find?" His voice was low, careful, though beneath the restraint there was a sharp edge — impatience, worry, the kind that only came from knowing something terrible was already in motion.
Deaton didn't look up right away. When he spoke, his tone was measured but thrumming with excitement, like a scholar trying to contain the thrill of discovery. "I refined the tests," he said. "Your friend's — Emily's — suggestion about metaphysical resonance was… surprisingly insightful. I took her framework and integrated it with a series of druidic amplification sigils. The result was far more sensitive than I expected."
He gestured to the monitor beside him. On the screen, faint spectral traces danced in looping patterns, pulsing like waves of color across the display. The movement was hypnotic — soft, musical, like sound translated into light. Lucas realized it wasn't just data; it was rhythm. The machine was interpreting magic in a language that human technology could barely understand.
"The essence isn't static anymore," Deaton continued, eyes flicking to Lucas, then back to the readings. "It's shifting—moving."
Lucas felt his pulse quicken. "Shifting?" he repeated, frowning. "Moving where?"
Deaton exhaled, finally meeting his gaze. "That's the problem. It's not moving through physical space. The pattern suggests something… more abstract. Migration through psychic or spiritual channels. Which means—" he hesitated, voice tightening, "—the parasite has already found another host."
The words seemed to linger in the air, heavy and unwelcomed. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound came from the quiet hum of the machines and the faint ticking of the wall clock that no one had looked at in hours. Lucas's jaw tightened. He exhaled slowly, trying to steady the flood of tension in his chest.
"So it's definitely alive," he said finally.
Deaton's answer was quiet, almost reluctant. "Alive," he confirmed. "And worse — active."
He reached up to adjust his glasses, but his hands trembled slightly — the smallest betrayal of unease. When he spoke again, there was a trace of curiosity in his tone, the kind that bordered on admiration. "Your contact — Emily, was it? She must be a formidable druid. Her grasp of soul-bonded resonance, metaphysical tethering, harmonic empathy… those practices were thought extinct long before I was born. It's rare to find someone with both the intuition and the courage to apply them."
Lucas didn't react immediately. His expression stayed unreadable, but his silence said enough. "She's… good at what she does," he said at last.
That earned the faintest flicker of a smile from Deaton — a sharp, knowing thing that never reached his eyes. "I'll take that as your version of high praise."
He turned back to the containment glass. The parasite's remains pulsed again, a dull, weak flicker that almost resembled a heartbeat trying to reassert itself. "If we continue refining Emily's resonance model, I believe we can isolate the parasite's metaphysical signature within a few days," Deaton said. "Once that's done, we won't just know where it is…" His tone darkened, almost reverent. "We'll know how to kill it."
Lucas followed the faint motion beneath the glass — those thin, glowing veins writhing like nerves desperate to reconnect, to reform. The sight filled him with a cold certainty that whatever they were dealing with wasn't done with them yet.
"I hope you're right," he murmured.
Deaton didn't answer. He didn't need to. The containment glass trembled, almost imperceptibly, as if something deep inside had stirred at the sound of Lucas's voice. A flicker of light twisted across the sigils — a pulse that didn't belong to any living creature, but still throbbed with a hungry, lingering will.
Lucas caught his own reflection in the glass. His crimson eyes glowed faintly in the dim light, sharp and unflinching. In that reflection, there was a promise — quiet, deadly, and absolute.
Whatever came next, he'd be ready.