Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQKWR9FGJYD4YSTJ1TE472

The damp air of the abandoned Camden Tube station clung to Detective Harlow Quinn's coat, a cold sweat of condensation that smelled of rust and ozone. She checked the worn leather watch on her left wrist, the hands glowing faintly in the gloom. 03:14. Too late for commuters, too early for cleaners. Perfect for a murder. Quinn stepped over the yellow police tape, her boots clicking against the cracked tiles with military precision. She was forty-one, and the eighteen years of service sat heavy on her shoulders, but her spine remained straight, her sharp jaw set in a line that discouraged conversation. The crime scene was unusual, even for London. Bodies didn't usually turn up in decommissioned stations unless they'd been thrown from the tracks, but this victim was seated against the peeling wallpaper of the platform edge, legs neatly crossed, hands folded in his lap. No blood. No struggle. Just a man in a tailored suit looking like he'd fallen asleep waiting for a train that never arrived. You're overthinking it, Harlow, she told herself. It's a heart attack. Move on. But the hair on her arms stood up. It was the same feeling she'd had three years ago when DS Morris vanished. The air here felt thin, stretched like a rubber band ready to snap. Detective Sergeant Evans was already there, kneeling by the body with a torch beam cutting through the dust. He looked up as Quinn approached, his face pale under the fluorescent work lights rigged to the ceiling. "DOC says cause is cardiac arrest," Evans said, standing and brushing dirt from his knees. "No ID on the body. Wallet's empty. Looks like a junkie who got lucky with the suit, but the tox screens will tell." Quinn didn't look at the body yet. She scanned the perimeter. The shadows seemed to pool deeper here than they should, ignoring the angle of the lights. "Junkies don't die with their hands folded, Evans. And they don't die in suits worth more than your annual salary." She turned as a figure emerged from the tunnel darkness. Eva Kowalski adjusted the round glasses sliding down her nose, her curly red hair a stark violation of the station's monochrome grime. She clutched a worn leather satchel full of books against her chest like a shield. Quinn had pulled strings to get the British Museum researcher cleared for the scene, citing potential hazardous materials. In reality, Quinn needed someone who understood the weirdness she couldn't put in a report. "It's not cardiac," Eva said, her voice quiet but steady. She stopped beside Quinn, tucking a stray curl behind her left ear, a nervous habit Quinn had noted in their previous encounters. "And it's not drugs." Evans scoffed. "With respect, Miss Kowalski, I've got a dead body and a medical examiner who says heart failure. What do you have?" "Residue," Eva said, pointing to the tiles around the victim's shoes. "Look at the dust. It's not soot. It's ash. Biological ash." Quinn crouched, ignoring the protest in her knees. She ran a gloved finger over the grey powder. It smeared like charcoal. "Human remains don't turn to ash without extreme heat, Eva. There's no scorch marks on the walls. No smell of burning flesh." "Not fire," Eva corrected, her green eyes flashing behind the lenses. "Displacement. Something pulled the energy out of him. Like a vacuum." Evans shook his head. "Magic? Really? We're doing this now?" "Science we don't understand yet," Eva countered, though her hand trembled slightly as she adjusted her satchel strap. Quinn stood up, her brown eyes narrowing. She didn't believe in magic. She believed in motives, means, and opportunities. But she also believed in the gap where Morris had fallen out of the world. She reached into her pocket and fingered the cold brass casing of the Veil Compass. She'd confiscated it from a suspect two nights ago, a shady dealer near Camden Lock. The face was etched with protective sigils, the casing covered in a patina of verdigris. According to the dealer, it pointed to trouble. Quinn called it a magnetometer modified for parlor tricks. But since she'd taken it, the needle hadn't pointed North once. She pulled it out now. The brass was warm against her palm. "What is that?" Evans asked, squinting. "Evidence," Quinn said. She held the compass flat. The needle wasn't spinning; it was locked, vibrating with a low hum she could feel in her teeth. It wasn't pointing at the body. It was pointing at the wall behind him. "See?" Eva whispered. "The rift." "Don't start," Quinn snapped, though her heart hammered against her ribs. She walked toward the wall. The tiles here were different. Older. The grout was black, not grey. She held the compass closer. The needle swung wildly, then settled, pointing directly at a specific patch of peeling paint. Quinn holstered the compass and pulled her torch. She swept the beam over the wall. Nothing but concrete and decay. But when she angled the light low, raking across the surface, she saw it. Scratches. Not tool marks. Claw marks. Deep gouges in the concrete that looked fresh. "He didn't die here," Quinn said, the deduction forming in real-time. "Look at the dust distribution. It's heavier on the front of his suit than the back. He was facing the wall when he died. Or when he changed." "Changed?" Evans asked. "Transferred," Quinn said, her voice dropping. She remembered the files on Morris. The lack of a body. The witnesses who claimed he walked into a shadow and didn't come out. She had spent three years chasing ghosts because she refused to accept the impossible. Now the impossible was standing in front of her, wearing a leather satchel and round glasses. Quinn turned to Eva. "You said displacement. What displaces mass without heat?" "Energy conversion," Eva said, stepping closer, emboldened by Quinn's attention. "Or portal travel. If something tried to pull him through and failed... or if he was pushed." Quinn looked back at the wall. The compass needle twitched. She realized the evidence didn't add up because the crime scene was incomplete. The weapon wasn't a gun or a knife. It was the station itself. The Veil Market moved every full moon, according to the intel she'd scraped together from informants. Tonight was the full moon. "This wasn't a murder scene," Quinn said, her mind racing, connecting the dots with the precision of a sniper. "It was a border crossing. He was a straggler. The Market moved, and he got left behind. Or he was sacrificed to keep the door open." "That's insane," Evans said, but he sounded less sure now. He was looking at the claw marks. Quinn walked back to the body. She checked the man's wrists. There were faint burns around the pulse points. Circular marks. She'd seen those before on the dealer who owned the compass. Sigil burns. "He wasn't killed," Quinn said, straightening up. "He was used. A battery." She looked at Eva. "You know who runs the Market." Eva stiffened, her hand freezing halfway to her ear. "I know rumors. I know history. The Market doesn't belong to anyone, Detective. It belongs to the things that live in the gaps." "Everything belongs to someone," Quinn said, her voice hard. "And someone left this man here to burn out." She tucked the compass back into her pocket, feeling the heat of it against her thigh. "Bag the ash. Take samples of the wall. And Evans, get a structural team down here. I want to know what's behind this concrete." "There's nothing behind it," Evans said. "It's the tunnel lining. Beyond that is earth." "Then we dig," Quinn said. She looked at Eva, seeing the fear hidden behind the researcher's academic curiosity. Quinn didn't trust her. Eva was too connected, too knowledgeable. But she was the only map Quinn had to the territory where Morris had been lost. "Kowalski," Quinn said. "Walk with me." Eva nodded, falling into step beside the detective as they moved away from the body, leaving Evans to his standard procedures. The tunnel stretched out before them, dark and endless. "You think this leads to him," Eva said softly. "Morris." "I think this leads to the people who took him," Quinn corrected. "And I think you're going to help me find them." "The compass," Eva said. "It's reacting to the rift. If you follow it, it won't lead you to people. It will lead you to places that don't exist on any map." Quinn stopped and looked down at the smaller woman. The flickering light caught the freckles on Eva's nose and the sharp determination in her green eyes. "Good," Quinn said. "I'm tired of the ones that do." She checked her watch again. 03:22. Time was moving normally here, at least. But the air was getting colder, the smell of ozone stronger. The needle in her pocket pulsed against her leg, a heartbeat not her own. Quinn tightened her grip on her torch and stepped into the dark, the mystery unfolding not in the evidence left behind, but in the space where the evidence should have been.