I debated for a while if I should go to the London Library or British Museum to look for old books and if lucky, signs of occult activity. But then I decided that with my limited time, it would be much more efficient and useful to find the most common and basic things from the Internet first.

Suddenly it came to my mind that it would be a good idea for Rabbi Es and his team to make use of coloured contact lenses during our upcoming trip. But when I felt the synagogue’s surroundings, I noticed that all the military people had already left. Meh, pity that good idea came late.

During the walk back towards my hotel, I kept revising the mission plan and emulating different scenarios I could think of. How should I present myself? What should I do in different situations? How should I react? By the time I reached my suite, I had already formed dozens of possible tactics, explanations and excuses.

---

Back in the hotel room, I dropped my coat by the table and sat down. Then I switched my laptop from phone hotspot to hotel’s provided access point. It was faster and also it was now unnecessary to hide my activity. Because the laptop screen could only display a limited amount of information at once, I could use the rest of my attention and mental abilities to study my body once again.

Quickly downloading and browsing anatomical and medical encyclopedia allowed me to make extensive comparisons between the described facts and myself. What I could confirm, was the fact that while general anatomy of my body was almost perfect, and even unnaturally symmetric, I had misunderstood many details in neurology and biochemistry.

Notably, I had been unaware that the process of emotions was much more advanced than I had remembered from school programme and popular science articles. For example, the happiness hormones I thought to be only endorphin and dopamine turned out to include serotonin in the mix, and endorphin was actually a whole complex group of substances belonging to the “endogenous opioid neuropeptides”.

No wonder I had been unable to properly feel the emotional fluctuations in the previous world. Now, however, it appeared that during my crossing over to Earth, the changes that were forced upon me also included a set of “connection points” where my materialized body was shifting between energy and physical form in a semblance of tiny whirlpools. Some of them were located in the locations similar to the traditional acupuncture points, but some were different.

Such detail made me to think that the ancient Hindu and Chinese heritage had a lot of real occult practices that had somehow seeped into mundane world. And the differences were either the mistakes that had appeared over time or were intentionally introduced to limit the effectiveness of the practice. Or I was simply slightly different from the rest of the humans. The difference could be because of the unknown base that had formed the skeleton I was forced to possess after my soul had been abducted.

That made me think about other occult theories. Unfortunately, the available information on Western esotericism was limited. I found out that it was heavily influenced by ideas that had come from Near and Middle East, such as Kabbalah, dharma and Zoroastrianism. Micro-and macrocosm, Hermeticism and ever popular New Age spiritism were full of complex theories and numerous contradictions. But I was surprised to find that the idea of the balanced energy circulation had been as popular in Europe as in Asia. It seemed to lack the structured organisation of chakras and acupoints, but the idea was there.

I stopped checking my body while I downloaded another set of books pertaining to forensic pathology and anthropology. It was odd how a few minutes of waiting could feel like hours with enhanced perception. Then I understood what had been bugging me for hours - why I did not feel the saturation of energy after the death of Nicole and the redcaps?

When I recalled the sequence of the events, I could remember that when Nicole had died, I had gotten absolutely no energy from her. But the death of the redcaps, including the ones killed by Bob, had provided some energy. However, it had been much less than the amount from the gangster who had died during my first encounter with Bob and the creatures in the other world. And because I did not feel the overabundance of energy, I had not paid attention to that at all.

That reminded me to pay more attention to such things in the future, as some of these minor details could provide me a lot of help in understanding the logic of my existence.

---

I stood up and walked over to the window. I looked into the distance towards the Tower, before focusing my eyes and giving a short wave to the car where two men were sitting and keeping watch on my window. As annoyed as I was, I could not really blame them for the procedures the government had set for them. But observing how my gesture had caused them to tense up and start a heated “he noticed you” blaming session, definitely improved my mood.

I returned to my seat where the files had finished downloading. I continued reading for a while before I bent down to retrieve the buzzing phone I had left in the coat pocket. A strand of my hair that had escaped the tie fell on my face. When I then straightened back up, I had my hands occupied with coat and phone and I could not fix it immediately.

I stretched out a finger to press a button to load the next document, while I simultaneously turned to observe the duo in the car which was currently driving away, only to be replaced by another duo on a different car further away. I threw the coat on the sofa nearby and returned my attention to the screen.

But now the strand of my loose strand of hair had shifted to be tucked behind my ear. I scrutinized my recent actions in retrospective, and then figured it out. A tiny sliver of my attention which could be called a reflex or subconscious action, had used the fact that my whole body was materialized from energy, and simply moved my hair like a muscle. Hmm, I had never tried that consciously, but it was because I had been too busy before, and had enough trouble with the rest of the body.

Now I was reading, comparing and categorizing the new information, observing the new surveillance duo, fiddling with “do not send promotional messages” settings in the phone and trying to manipulate my hair. After a few hundred pages of small-text PDF, I could confirm that while paying attention to a single strand of hair allowed me to manipulate it fairly easy, I had difficulties when I tried to move several strands or increase the movement strength and speed. I analyzed the energy flow and found no objective reason for such limitation.

Nevertheless, I could come up with a few theories: it either lacked proper supportive structure like I had done with the muscles; the energy-matter manipulation had limitations I was not aware of; or I could not grasp the necessary image or feeling of moving my hair.

First theory was conflicting with the time when I had been limited to the form of a skeleton. The second one was probable, but did not offer any solutions, so I preferred to keep it in mind while focusing on the third. The last one was likely, because I had used my memory and experience when forming muscles, and imagination played a significant role in that process.

Now I had something to do while bored. “Better than staring at wall anyway.” - I reasoned.

---

Time passed and the sun had gone down for a while already. I finished reading the university entry-level physics and chemistry textbooks and sat in silence, trying to digest the information. My mental capacity greatly improved my mathematical and retentive ability, but understanding the logic behind some advanced processes required something I did not have. I shrugged, scientific work had never been my forte and was the main reason why I went for international cultures degree. But knowledge was power and remembering the nitration reaction of glycerol was double the power. And while the pen is mightier than the sword, a solid stick of dynamite is guaranteed to take care of if not all, then most pens for sure.

Preparing for the trip no Newcastle, I also searched for the folklore in the area. While the Newcastle upon Tyne was known to be pretty haunted but lacked distinctive myths, the nearby areas were interesting. Some grey dwarf near Rothbury, bigfoot or apeman near Bolam Lake, there was even a vampire in Alnwick Castle, but the last one had supposedly been killed off long ago. There was even some famous legend I had never heard about, describing the story of Lambton Worm o Wyrm, which had been killed near River Wear and had something to do with a local family’s curse. I committed the descriptions of the stories into my memory, including the locations and relative positions on the maps.

While looking for the information, I occasionally glimpsed the news. The hottest topics were rapidly rising prices on imported goods, rising discontent caused by flight and ship departure delays and the heavily limited passenger flow through the Channel Tunnel as it had become the only link to the continent now. Official statements kept blaming the volcanic activity, and a massive amount of articles were focused on the images of northern lights, massive lightnings and other atmospheric phenomena usually associated with volcanic eruptions.

Unsurprisingly, the lootings and other criminal activity were also on the rise, and police was “concerned about the abnormally large amount of disappearances”. Things were heating up.

I shrugged and continued reading.