Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQJADGC50JS05AHTEQ5251

The rain lashed down, a cold front moving in, unforgiving and sudden. Detective Harlow Quinn, her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair plastered to her skull, didn’t spare it a thought. She was focused on the figure ahead, a fleeting shadow darting between the harsh sodium glow of streetlamps and the oppressive gloom of Soho’s back alleys. Tomás Herrera, she was sure of it. Or at least, the closest thing she had to a lead. He was fast, quicker than she’d given the former paramedic credit for. Harlow, despite her 5’9” frame and military precision in movement, felt the burn in her lungs, the stitch in her side. Eighteen years on the force, and she still hated a good foot chase. The worn leather watch on her left wrist showed a quarter past two. The city was mostly asleep, a scattering of late-night clubbers and the ever-present hum of traffic her only witnesses. Herrera, smaller at 5’10” with dark, curly hair, seemed to melt into the urban landscape. His olive skin, normally a friendly contrast to his warm brown eyes, was now just a darker patch against the grimy brickwork. She remembered the file: *Lost license for unauthorized treatments to supernatural patients.* The words had been sterile, bureaucratic, but in the depths of her gut, Harlow felt the chill of something else entirely. Three years ago, DS Morris. Unexplained circumstances. Supernatural origins she didn’t understand. She wasn't about to lose another one to the things that lurked in the dark. He cut down a narrow lane, slick with rain and refuse, toward the distinct green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest. *Silas’ bar,* the intel had called it. That made sense. This clique, as her notes called them, seemed to gravitate towards places with a certain… anonymity. She saw him hesitate, a momentary glance over his shoulder, the Saint Christopher medallion around his neck glinting under a brief burst of light. He knew she was still there. That was good. That meant she was close. He didn’t go into the bar. Instead, with a surprising agility, he slipped through a gap in a chain-link fence, disappearing into what looked like a derelict construction site. Harlow grit her teeth, her sharp jaw tight. The fence rattled as she pulled herself through, tearing a snag in her jacket. The ground here was uneven, a wasteland of broken concrete and rusting rebar. The rain intensified, drumming a furious rhythm on discarded sheets of corrugated iron. She heard him then, a heavy thud, followed by a scraping sound. He was descending. Into the ground. Harlow reached the edge of a gaping hole, barely visible in the downpour. A ladder, old and rickety, disappeared into the black. Below, a faint, almost musical hum resonated up. Not an electrical hum, but something deeper, more resonant. The air smelled of damp earth and something else… something sweet and metallic, like old blood and strange spices. Harlow gripped the cold metal rungs, her breath pluming in the frigid air. This was it. The line she'd been skirting for months. This wasn’t just a chase anymore. This was a descent. Into what, she didn't yet know, but the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She thought of Morris again, the blank look in his eyes that morning, the way he’d just… stopped. Her left forearm throbbed, an old scar from a knife attack she’d sustained years ago, a physical reminder of the tangible threats she normally faced. But this… this felt different. She started down the ladder, each rung creaking under her weight. The darkness swallowed her, until the only light was the faint glow filtering from the hole above. The hum grew louder, more distinct, like a thousand hushed voices just beyond the edge of hearing. She lowered herself slowly, methodically, her hand automatically reaching for the butt of her service pistol, though she knew, deep down, it might be useless here. Her feet landed on damp earth. The air was warmer down here, though still carrying that strange, cloying scent. The hum was now a definite cacophony, a constant murmur of sound. As her eyes adjusted, a dim, multicolored light flickered in the distance. Herrera was a small dot, moving away from her, deeper into the cavernous space. He'd led her into an abandoned Tube station. Rusting tracks stretched into the blackness, and the arched ceiling dripped with condensation. But this was no ordinary defunct station. Stalls, cobbled together from reclaimed materials, lined the platforms. They were lit by flickering lanterns, by strange, pulsing fungal growths, by globes of what looked like captured starlight. People moved between them, a strange, eclectic mix she’d never seen before. Some looked human, but others… others had a wrongness to them, a subtle shift in proportion, a too-bright gleam in their eyes, impossible shadows that clung to their forms. The Veil Market. The whispers of it had always been dismissed as urban legends, the ramblings of the truly deranged. *Moves locations every full moon. Entry requirement: bone token.* She’d never considered it real. Now, here it was, a chaotic, vibrant organism pulsing beneath the concrete heart of London. Herrera was threading his way through the crowd, his olive skin and short, curly hair a stark contrast to the bizarre inhabitants of the market. He moved with purpose, dodging grotesque figures haggling over what looked like vials of luminous liquid and shriveled, mummified limbs. Harlow felt a jolt of pure, unadulterated fear, cold and sharp. This was not her world. This was the world that had taken Morris from her. She pressed herself against a rusted pillar, trying to stay out of sight, trying to process the sheer impossibility of it all. A stall nearby offered what looked like human teeth strung on a necklace, another showcased intricately carved bone tokens, identical to the ones mentioned in the codex. The market was a sensory overload—the cloying scent now mingled with something akin to ozone and burnt sugar, the hum of voices layered with strange, animalistic calls and the melodic clinking of unseen instruments. Herrera was almost at the far end of the platform, nearing a dark tunnel. If he went in there, she knew he'd be gone for good. But to follow him? To step out from the relative obscurity of the pillar and plunge herself into the thick of this… this *abomination*? Her hand was still on her pistol, the cold steel a familiar comfort against the alien strangeness of the market. She was a detective, trained to uphold the law, to bring order to chaos. But this chaos felt ancient, primal, beyond any law she knew. Morris’s face flashed in her mind, the confusion in his eyes before they went blank. She couldn't let it happen again. She wouldn’t. She pushed off the pillar, her breath ragged. The market smelled like danger, like the unknown, but also like answers. And Harlow Quinn was a detective who always hunted for answers, no matter how deeply buried, no matter how dangerous the ground. She took a step, then another, moving out of the shadows and into the flickering, otherworldly light of the Veil Market.