Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQE6P203QAQVZT4A85HCJM

Rain slashed sideways through the neon glow of Soho, turning the streets into streaked mirrors of flickering light and shadow. Detective Harlow Quinn cut through the downpour like a blade through silk, boots hammering the slick pavement, breath sharp and controlled. Her leather watch dug into her wrist with every stride, its weight a familiar burden. She barely registered the cold — only the figure ahead, darting between umbrellas and traffic, a smudge of dark fabric disappearing into the alley beside *The Raven’s Nest*. Quinn didn’t slow. She vaulted over a discarded crate, shoulder brushing wet brick, her sharp jaw clenched so tight it ached. Three years. Three years since Morris bled out in a basement that reeked of copper and burnt sage, whispering words that made no sense — *“They’re not human. It wasn’t real.”* And now this. The same symbols etched into the doorframe. The same whispers in back rooms. The same goddamn *stench* of something just beyond the veil. The alley narrowed, reeking of damp stone and old garbage. The man — Tomás Herrera, according to the warrant flagged *restricted* — turned sharply, coat flaring, and disappeared through a rusted metal door half-hidden beneath a tarp. Quinn reached it, shoved — it gave with a groan. A narrow staircase plunged down into darkness, lit only by a single, flickering bulb near the bottom. She drew her service weapon, flicked off the safety. "Metropolitan Police! Stop where you are!" No answer. Only the echo of footsteps, descending fast. She followed. The stairs ended in a tiled corridor, long abandoned, walls stained with mold and graffiti scrawled in jagged symbols she didn’t recognize. The air smelled wrong — old earth, ozone, and something sweetly rotten, like overripe fruit left in a cellar. Her phone had lost signal three flights up. No backup. Not that she’d called any. Not on *this* case. A flicker of movement at the far end. She advanced, low and steady, gun out before her. Then, silence. She rounded a corner and stopped. The corridor opened into a cavernous space — an old Tube station, swallowed by time. But this was no ruin. Lanterns made of bone and glass hung from rusted girders, casting an amber glow. Stalls lined the platform: jars of glowing liquid, desiccated herbs, feathers stitched into patterns, vials of black oil that writhed when touched. Figures moved in silence — cloaked, masked, some with eyes too large, too bright. A woman sold teeth strung on copper wire. A man with antlers offered dreams in bottled smoke. *The Veil Market.* She knew the name from Morris’s notes. Classified. Myth. *Delusion,* Internal Affairs had said. But here it was. Real. And the man she was chasing — Tomás — was just ahead, slipping through a curtained archway toward a stall stacked with old medical texts and copper instruments. Quinn moved fast, her bearing sharpened by years of military precision. She grabbed a hooded figure by the arm. “Where’d he go?” The figure turned. No face—just a smooth porcelain mask painted with a weeping eye. “Pay the toll, detective,” it whispered in two overlapping voices. “Or turn back now.” She shoved the figure aside. “Toll?” The bone token. She remembered the file. Morris had one in his pocket when they found him. Unidentified. Untraceable. She didn’t have one. But she didn’t stop. Tomás was now speaking urgently with a stall vendor — a hunched woman with silver eyes. He reached for a small, coiled scroll wrapped in red thread. “Herrera!” Quinn shouted over the low hum of the market. “You’re under arrest!” He turned. Warm brown eyes locked onto hers. Not fear. Not panic. *Recognition.* He wore a Saint Christopher medallion around his neck, glinting in the lantern light. A scar ran along his forearm — fresh, red, not yet healed. “You don’t belong here,” he said, voice low but clear. “This place eats cops for breakfast.” “I’m not just a cop,” she said, stepping forward. “I’m the one who found Morris.” Something flickered in his eyes — grief? Guilt? “You don’t know what you’re stepping into,” Tomás said. “That case? It wasn’t yours. It wasn’t *ours*. You weren’t meant to see it.” “Then explain it.” She kept her gun raised. “Explain why my partner died whispering about ghosts and blood pacts. Explain why I found his notebook in *your* clinic last week. Explain why every lead on this goes back to *The Raven’s Nest* and *this* cursed market.” Tomás glanced around. The crowd was thinning. Shadows deeper than the lanterns could reach pulsed at the edges. A low rumble echoed through the tunnels — not trains. Something else. “They’re already watching,” he muttered. “And they don’t like intruders.” “If you’re not guilty, come with me,” Quinn said. “Answer the questions. Let’s do this clean.” He laughed, short and bitter. “Clean? Nothing about this is clean. You think the system protects people like us? Like *him*? I tried *saving* Morris. That’s why I lost my license. That’s why I work in the dark now. Because sometimes the only way to heal is outside the rules.” Her finger hovered over the trigger. Every instinct screamed to cuff him, drag him up into the rain, back to the world that made sense. But Morris had *bled* in a room that shouldn’t exist. His bones had turned black in the morgue. The coroner called it contamination. She’d seen the photos — the symbols carved into the floor. The same ones from tonight. “You knew what killed him,” she said softly. “Didn’t you?” Tomás exhaled, long and slow. Then he unhooked the medallion from his neck, pressed it into her hand. “Saint Christopher,” he said. “Patron of travelers. Of the lost. Keep it. It won’t save you. But it might buy you time.” Before she could react, he turned and slipped through a narrow archway behind the stall, vanishing into the maze of tunnels. She stood there, in the unnatural glow, the medallion warm in her palm. The bone token was the key. She didn’t have it. But she had his name now. His face. His fear. And something else. From the tunnels ahead, a whispering hum — like voices speaking in reverse. A flicker of green light pulsed, deeper in, the same color as the sign above *The Raven’s Nest*. She holstered her weapon. Then, with measured steps, Detective Harlow Quinn stepped past the veil.