Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQJ21KP1P4089M7CWAX1WP

The rain painted London’s Soho into a city of ghosts, reflections stammering in oily puddles, neon running along the curb in wavering ribbons of green. Detective Harlow Quinn ran at a steady clip, breath measured, eyes hard. She caught glimpses of her quarry—a tall man in a threadbare raincoat, face indistinct—lurching through rivers of people clutching umbrellas or shrugging up their collars. He slipped down Brewer Street, the sodium glow staining the wet tarmac. Quinn’s boots slapped through a gutter, her jaw clenched tight, her sodden shirt collar itching against the back of her neck. She’d nearly lost him when a clutch of cyclists swept past, but she caught the glint of something—a medallion?—as he darted across Wardour. There: heading toward The Raven’s Nest, its garish green sign flickering above an unremarkable door in a forest of takeaway wrappers and bin bags. Quinn’s heart thudded steady, the same cold certainty making each step efficient, unyielding. Eighteen years on the job taught her the rhythm of pursuit. Ignore the spectators. Focus on the angle of his shoulders, the set of his stride, the way panic blurs into desperation. She drew close enough to see the dark head duck low beneath the door frame of the Nest, the tail of a raincoat vanishing. She pushed in right behind him, the damp-furred warmth of the bar muffling the city’s cacophony. Maps curled along the walls, sepia faces peering from black-and-white prints; nothing saw, yet everything watched. Quinn scanned the room, quick, methodical—barflies hunched uncertain over cloudy glasses, a bartender cleaning the same spot for the third time, a tourist gawping at the nautical chart by the toilets. No sign of her suspect. She moved with purpose, rainwater trailing off her coat. The bartender barely flicked an eye; her badge had gotten her nowhere here last week, and she hadn’t forgotten the veiled amusement in his tone. Now, she peered past the booths, searching for a dark shape, a fleeting memory of a raincoat. The man was gone. A flicker—a twist in the air as a bookshelf in the far corner juddered back, wide enough for a slim figure to slip through. Quinn caught the movement an instant before it closed again. She strode across the boards, the old timber creaking under her weight, and pressed her palm flat to the shelf. No handle. Fingers found the tiny catch at the edge—a click, a breath, and the gap appeared. She slipped inside, letting the door reseal itself behind her. A cramped corridor unfurled, lit only by a bare red bulb. The suspect—raincoat shedding puddles with every step—glanced back. He bolted. Quinn gave chase. The world narrowed to the thud of her pulse, the slap of her boots, the acrid tang of metal pipes running low along the wall. Down twisting stairs slick with condensation, boots scraping against worn stone, ducking through a battered steel door that yawned open as if expecting her. At the bottom, the corridor dead-ended at a heavy wooden hatch—propped open. Down below, voices mingled with the hollow echo of running feet. She hesitated, just long enough to feel the weight of the world above pressing down. Her instincts screamed at her—Don’t. You’re out of your jurisdiction. You don’t know this ground. And yet, the memory of DS Morris—laughter cut short, the whiff of something other—spurred her forward. Quinn dropped through the door, landing in the gut of old city, her boots tapping out a rhythm that belonged to older, stranger times. A decommissioned Tube platform sprawled out before her, ringed with colored banners fluttering in a wind that shouldn’t exist underground. Trestle tables bore strange wares: glinting vials, jars fogged with smoke, knives that caught the light like oil on water. The air buzzed, thick with the scent of spices—and something chemical, both sweet and rotten. Cloaked shapes moved among the stalls, faces obscured by scarves, hoods, scraps of gold-lace masquerade. The Market. She didn’t need the whispered stories in the canteen to recognize it. Her suspect paused, just at the edge of the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder, his face at last visible in the phosphorescent glow—a young man with olive skin, brown eyes wide and frantic, a scar tracking his left forearm: Tomás Herrera, the ex-paramedic. Quinn filed the details away, even as her focus shifted to what hung at his throat—a Saint Christopher medallion, catching the wan light. He was lost in the thickening press of the Market now, moving faster, body angled like a man running on empty. Quinn surged after him. A stallholder intercepted her, thrusting a fistful of dried flowers toward her nose. “One accursed bloom, just a half-crown, miss—” She dodged, pushing past a woman draped in black veils, the scent of vinegar and rot hanging off her. A hand caught her arm, rough and eager. Another barked at her in a hissing tongue. The crowd pressed in, each face a mask. She felt eyes on her badge—even if she’d had it visible, it would mean nothing here. She reached into her coat and felt the grain of her leather watch—her anchor—and pressed on. Herrera had almost reached the far end, where a great shadowed arch gaped like a broken jaw, promising escape into deeper darkness. She caught him at the fringe—a tack of her hand on his shoulder, sharp as a gunshot. He spun, eyes darting, breath fast. “Let me go,” he snapped, glancing past her toward the archway. His accent flickered, Spanish burnishing each word. “Tomás Herrera,” Quinn said, breath steady, “You’re in enough trouble already.” He snarled, twisting, but she anticipated his move—military precision. She blocked, her body weight pinning him just enough to keep him from slipping away without drawing attention. Around them, the Market parted—a ripple of wariness running through the crowd. Whatever these people were selling, they wanted no police entanglement. “I need to get out of here,” Tomás hissed, low enough for her ears alone. “How did you get in?” Quinn demanded. “There’s supposed to be an entry requirement.” He fished into his coat with his free hand and produced a bone token, old as sin and carved with sigils that made her vision shimmer. “This place isn’t for you, Detective,” he muttered, voice gone hollow. “You don’t know what you’re walking into.” She glanced sideways: a stall peddling jars that bled light, a masked figure watching her from behind lenses that flickered green, a child with eyes too old to belong to this world. Danger gnashed at the air, razor-edged but just out of reach. Instinct tugged at her—get out, call for backup, call for anyone. But something in Herrera’s face, raw with fear, snared her. “What’s after you?” she asked, lowering her voice. “Why run?” “They said you’d come,” he whispered, the words tumbling free, “but it’s not you I’m afraid of.” A movement by the arch—another figure detached itself from the crowd, tall, coat hanging heavy, brim of a hat pulled low. The Market seemed to lean inward, like a storm about to break. Herrera tugged her sleeve. “You didn’t see me,” he rasped. “For your own sake, walk away. This isn’t your world.” Quinn felt the bone token pass into her palm, cold and slick. She looked at Herrera’s face—pleading now, the mask of bravado gone, raw panic erasing everything else. She loosened her grip. Any more struggle and the Market would turn—a feeling as sudden and certain as a change in weather. She stepped back, letting him slip through the arch, the Market’s shadows swallowing him whole. The other figure—another hunter, or something older—paused, watching her. Its eyes glimmered, knowing. Quinn closed her hand over the token. The Market seemed to breathe around her—accepting, not quite welcoming. She stood in the thrum of danger and commerce, old photographs and maps far above her, the city forgotten for a heartbeat. She could turn back. Forget what she’d seen, file a sanitized report, let the tunnels have their secrets. Or she could follow, bone token in hand, every nerve screaming that the unknown yawns wider than any case file. Detective Quinn squared her shoulders, leather watch ticking against her wrist. Rainwater dripped from her hair, tracking down her spine. She stepped deeper into the Veil Market, the crowd closing behind her, and the city above faded to a murmur, lost to the dark.