Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQE6PCHHWTY5KGE6Y86AXA

The abandoned Tube station smelled like rust and time. Detective Harlow Quinn descended the crumbling concrete stairs, her shoes echoing against stone that hadn't known human footsteps in thirty years. Her worn leather watch caught the beam of her torch—2:47 AM. The Metropolitan Police didn't usually get called to places like this unless something had gone very wrong indeed. The platform stretched before her like a throat, swallowing the darkness beyond her light. Fluorescent tape marked out an area near what had once been a ticket office, and three uniformed officers stood at attention, their expressions carefully neutral. They'd been told to secure the scene and ask no questions. Quinn appreciated that about the younger generation—they understood discretion. But it was Eva Kowalski who made her pause. The redheaded woman stood to one side, her round glasses reflecting Quinn's torchlight, her freckled face unusually pale. She wore her characteristic worn leather satchel despite the hour, despite the circumstances. Her left hand was tucked against her chest, the nervous habit of pulling her curly hair behind her ear visible even from across the platform. "Ms. Kowalski," Quinn said, her voice carrying the crisp authority of eighteen years on the force. "This is a secured crime scene. How did you get past the tape?" Eva's eyes widened. "Detective Quinn. I—I called it in. The tip came to me, and I knew you needed to see this, so I called 999 and then I called you directly because—" "Slow down." Quinn approached, her sharp jaw tightening. She'd worked with Eva before, tangentially, through cases that involved her friend Aurora. The woman was smart, meticulous, almost obsessively careful about detail. That she'd called in a crime scene wasn't the issue. That she was here, that she'd orchestrated the police involvement—that required explanation. "Who sent the tip?" "I don't know. It came through the museum's anonymous tip line. I was doing archival work late—we have a new acquisition that needs cataloging—and the emergency alert came through on my phone." Eva gestured vaguely at the scene. "When I saw the address, I knew what this place was. What it is. So I called it in, but I also called you because the uniforms won't understand, and if they contaminate the scene with standard procedure—" "You're assuming I'll understand better?" Quinn moved past her, careful not to disturb the marked perimeter. Professional curiosity warred with irritation. "Ms. Kowalski, I need you to wait upstairs. Let the officers take your statement." "Detective, please. Just look at the scene first. Then you'll understand why I needed you specifically." Quinn wanted to argue. The last thing she needed was a civilian—however well-intentioned—compromising an investigation. But there was something in Eva's voice, something beyond academic enthusiasm. It was the same tone Quinn had heard three years ago, the night DS Morris disappeared. The night the impossible had dragged itself into her carefully ordered world and shattered it. She turned back to examine the scene properly. The body lay near the edge of the platform, a man in his sixties, expensively dressed despite the decay. No immediate signs of violence—no blood, no weapon, no obvious trauma. His face was peaceful, almost serene. That alone struck Quinn as wrong. Death rarely looked peaceful unless it was orchestrated that way. "Time of death?" she asked the nearest uniform. "Medical examiner estimates between 24 and 48 hours ago, Detective. No visible cause." Quinn crouched beside the body, her knees protesting. The concrete was cold through her trousers. She examined the man's hands carefully—clean nails, a gold wedding band, the cuff of an expensive shirt visible beneath his tailored jacket. The fabric on the left side of his chest bore marks, faint but definite. Pressure marks, or something like them. She looked up at Eva. "Come here. Don't touch anything." Eva approached carefully, stepping exactly where Quinn indicated. The younger woman pulled out a notebook from her satchel—actual paper, actual pen, no concessions to modernity. She was meticulous that way. "What do you see?" Quinn asked. "The marks on his chest. They're not from the body settling or decomposition. They're too precise. Too deliberate." Eva bent closer, her glasses sliding down her nose. "And look at the platform around him. There's no blood, no fluids, no typical decomposition seepage. But there is this." She pointed to a faint shimmer on the concrete, barely visible, just catching the light wrong. Quinn had almost missed it entirely. She leaned closer, studying it. The pattern was circular, maybe three feet in diameter, with symbols traced within. Not scratched—drawn. With something that had burned or etched into the surface. "Protective circle," Eva said quietly. "Or a containment one. I'd need better light to read the sigils properly, but the structure's consistent with a binding ritual." Quinn's stomach tightened. "You're saying this was supernatural." "I'm saying the positioning, the condition of the body, the markings on the ground—none of it fits standard death. Overdose, heart attack, murder with a weapon—none of those explain the marks on his chest or the ritual circle." Eva adjusted her glasses. "Whoever made that call knew you'd come if I reported it as a standard death. They wanted you here, but they wanted you to find the truth rather than see a cover story." "Who's the victim?" Quinn asked the uniform. "Marcus Thornfield, age 63. Confirmed identity through his wallet. Residence in Chelsea. We found him when a tunnel inspection crew came through for routine maintenance this morning. They called it in as a suspicious death." Thornfield. The name meant nothing to Quinn, but then, it wouldn't. Not yet. This was how these things worked—a victim nobody she knew, a location nobody official cared about, evidence that didn't fit the world as she understood it. She stood, her knees popping, and walked the perimeter of the ritual circle without stepping inside it. Her cop's mind cataloged everything: the precision of the marking, the placement of the body's hands—one across the chest, one at his side, both positioned with obvious care. The lack of struggle, defensive wounds, or signs of forced entry to this sealed location. "How did he get here?" Quinn asked. "The western entrance," Eva said. "It's still accessible if you know where to look. But you'd have to be invited. You'd have to have a bone token." Quinn turned slowly to face her. "And you know this how?" Eva met her gaze steadily, despite the tremor in her fingers. "Because I've been here before. To the Veil Market. And so, I suspect, did Marcus Thornfield. The question is what he bought, what he owed, or what he stole that made them kill him in such a deliberate way." The detective's watch ticked audibly in the silence. She thought of Morris, of the questions that had never been answered, of the case files that had been quietly closed and filed away. She thought of all the things that existed in the margins of her understanding, the price of ignoring them written in the death of good men. "Tell me everything," Quinn said. "Everything you know about the Veil Market, about Thornfield, and about why someone would go to this much trouble to make sure I found this body." Eva nodded and began to speak, her nervous habit forgotten, her focus absolute. In the fluorescent tape and cold concrete and impossible symbols beneath their feet, Quinn finally began to see what she'd been missing all along.