Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQSFD4E6DM1PSRV71KXK36

The rain in Soho didn't wash the city clean; it made it shine, oily and treacherous under the sodium glow of the streetlamps. Detective Harlow Quinn adjusted her collar, the damp wool clinging uncomfortably to the base of her neck. The wind carried the scent of wet brick and exhaust, a sharp, metallic tang that always seemed to linger on the back of her tongue. She checked her watch. A worn leather strap on her left wrist; the metal casing was scratched, a testament to eighteen years of service. The hands pointed to 11:47 PM. Standard curfew time for trouble, or at least the kind she dealt with. She tightened her grip on the butt of her service weapon, the leather of the holster smooth against her palm. Her stride was long, each footfall hitting the pavement with a rhythmic, military precision that swallowed the sound of the traffic around her. She was fourteen years younger than she felt, her eyes trained on the silhouette moving ahead of her in the downpour. The figure ahead moved with a desperate, jittery energy, cutting through the throngs of late-night revelers who seemed oblivious to the danger closing in on them. Quinn didn’t need the uniform to command the street; she carried the presence of a woman who had stared down evil for a decade. The crowd parted instinctively, a dark river shifting around a stone thrown in the water. The target turned down a side street she hadn't expected. Narrow, choked with overturned bins and the skeletal remains of a weeping angel statue. Quinn surged forward, her breath hitching in her chest, a rare physical sign of fatigue or adrenaline. She had suspected the clique for years, suspected they were bleeding the city dry both metaphorically and, as the rumors persisted, physically. But until tonight, she had no proof. The figure paused in front of a brutalist concrete wall. Ahead, behind a tangle of scraggly bushes, a sliver of green neon light bled through the darkness. *The Veil Market.* Quinn skidded to a halt a few feet back, her boots finding no purchase. The air temperature seemed to drop ten degrees the moment she neared the spot. The sickly, romantic green of the sign was the only illumination, casting elongated shadows that danced like grasping fingers against the brickwork. She peered through the rain, watching the suspect fumble with something in their hand. A metallic jingle, the clink of a coin. The figure tapped a specific brick in the wall—a scarred masonry that didn't look any different from the rest—then pushed through into the gloom. The entrance vanished. Just like that. The wall was solid again, a dead end of stone and rain. Quinn stood under the awning of a shuttered newsagent’s, her chest heaving slightly. She pressed her hand against the cold concrete, grounding herself. Three years ago, three days before her partner, DS Morris, had been found at the bottom of a maintenance shaft, she would have hesitated. She would have radioed for backup, called for the chalk, and waited for the techs to trace a digital footprint. But the lost equipment. The witnesses who went silent. The unexplained bruises on the bodies of low-level dealers that were never cited in the police reports. Her instinct was screaming that this wasn't just a drugs run. This was something else. Something beneath the pavement, in the dark places the city forgot. She looked at the spot where the door had been. Then, her eyes drifted lower, scanning the ground. A bone token lay in the mud, half-buried in the runoff. It was small, jagged, and smelled of ancient decay. She crouched down, ignoring the way the water soaked instantly through the knee of her trousers. She didn't pick it up. She had nothing to barter. She pushed herself up, the leather of her watch catching the neon light. 11:49. Two minutes had vanished. The market was shifting. The schedule on the dossier had been vague, stating only that it moved with the lunar cycle, but the adrenaline in her veins matched the frantic, silent beat of a drum. She stepped out from under the shelter, the rain instantly drenching her again. The city sounds—the sirens, the taxis, the distant laughter—faded to a dull hum as she approached the blind spot. She had a choice. Go back to the station, process the disappearance, and wait for the paperwork to bury her. Or follow a lead that could get her suspended, reprimanded, or worse. If she was wrong, if this was just a black market for stolen bikes and counterfeit perfume, she would look like a fool. If she was right, she might find out what killed DS Morris. Quinn pushed through the bushes, the thorns snagging at her jacket. The rough brick of the wall pressed against her back. She closed her eyes for a second, remembering Morris’s face. He hadn’t been afraid. He had just been... gone. Silenced. There was no other way. She placed her hand on the cold, damp stone where the entrance had appeared. It felt like touching the mouth of a sleeping dragon. With a low exhale, she pushed her shoulder against the wall, bracing for a solid impact. There was no impact. There was only a cold draft, and the smell of ozone and damp earth, rushing into her face like a slap of ice water. The wall yielded, the brickwork transforming in her periphery, dissolving into shadow and stairs descending into the earth. Quinn stepped through. The rain vanished, replaced by the low, buzzing hum of fluorescent strip lights and the murmur of hundreds of voices. She stood in the mouth of the tunnel, her boots finding solid concrete. The air was heavy, stale, filled with the scents of roasted meat and exotic spices, of iron and something sweet like burnt sugar. She adjusted her grip on her weapon, stepping forward into the dark. The Veil Market was open, and she was officially trespassing. Ahead, near the base of the escalator that led to the platform above, a figure was turning, looking back toward the entrance. It was a man, slighter than she had thought in the rain, his face pulled tight with anxiety. Quinn recognized the olive skin, the dark hair curling damp against his forehead, and the silver chain glinting around his neck. She had seen him at the precinct moments ago, an affidavit in his hand, looking for a way out. Tomás Herrera. He saw her. His eyes went wide, a distinct, warm brown that held a terror she hadn't seen when he was talking to the duty sergeant. He didn't run. He couldn't. There was a knot of people pushing past him, a river of noise and commerce. He looked at the entrance, then at her, a silent, pleading question forming on his lips. Quinn ignored it. She took a step, then another. The market was a living organism, a labyrinth of stalls carved out of the abandoned infrastructure of the Tube. Vendors called out prices for glowing potions and leather-bound grimoires. She pushed through a crowd of shift-workers in suits, their ties loosened, buying herbs from a stall that smelled like old books and dust. She spotted Herrera a moment later. He was trying to weave through the crowd, shielding his face with a newspaper, but it was too late. The detective was right on him. "Police," she said, her voice cutting through the ambient noise. It was a low growl, devoid of warmth. Herrera froze. He looked up, his body sagging with a visible weight he hadn't shown in the daylight. He raised his hands, the paper fluttering to the wet concrete. The silver medallion around his neck caught the harsh fluorescent light. He didn't speak. He just stood there, shaking, waiting for the handcuffs. Quinn stopped ten feet away, surveying the immediate area. It was a trap? A setup? She scanned the shadows between the stalls. She could hear the breathing of the crowd, the rustle of fabric. But there was no gunfire, no supernatural surge of power. Just merchants moving products. She pointed her gun at him, keeping the muzzle low but aimed directly at his chest. "Tomás Herrera," she said, though she knew he knew exactly who she was. "You're coming with me." "It's not what it looks like," he whispered, his voice a cracked croak. "You have to come with me. Please." Quinn narrowed her eyes, the military bearing returning to its rigid stance. "We’re going upstairs." "No. They’ll see you." He stepped closer, panic flaring in his eyes. "You don't want to go back up. You don't understand what’s happening here. They're closing in." "They?" "The clique. They're moving product, Detective. Bad product. And you're not just going to walk into an interrogation room and talk your way out of this." He swallowed hard, a scar on his left forearm visible as his sleeve pulled back. "I can take you to them. Or I can take you to the safe house." The safe house. Where he had been heading before he got spooked. Quinn looked him over. He was trembling, not from cold, but from fear. The medical medallion of St. Christopher was tarnished and heavy. He looked like a paramedic who had seen too much horror and tried to fix it with his own hands, only to have the patients bite back. But he had the bone token on the floor outside. That meant he was a trusted courier. Quinn holstered her weapon with a sharp click. She hated the feeling of disarming herself in a place like this, in a place she didn't understand. But she also hated the feeling of missing a lead. Especially one that smelled like the supernaturally unexplained. "If you lead me to a trap," she said, her voice flat, "I will put you in a cell for the next ten years." "I swear it," he said, relief washing over his face for a split second before turning into grim determination. "Follow me. But stay close. And don't touch anything." He turned and disappeared into the throng, heading toward the deeper shadows of the market, toward the labyrinth of tunnels beneath Camden. Quinn tightened her grip on her holster, stepping into the flow of the crowd. She had left the neon rain of Soho behind, but the storm she had walked into was only just beginning to break.