Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQT656PD11AGTMJNP06ZC5

The rain came down in sheets, turning Soho into a maze of reflected neon and pooling shadows. Detective Harlow Quinn's boots slammed against the wet pavement, each impact sending up a spray of dirty water that soaked through her trousers. Ahead of her, maybe thirty meters and pulling away, Tomás Herrera ran like a man who knew exactly where he was going. She'd found him at The Raven's Nest, nursing a whiskey at the bar beneath that garish green sign. He'd spotted her the moment she walked through the door—something in the way his warm brown eyes had flicked to the exit, the way his hand had moved instinctively to the Saint Christopher medallion at his throat. He'd bolted before she could get within ten feet, shoving past a waitress and disappearing through a back door she hadn't even noticed. Now the chase had dragged them north through the rain-slicked streets, past the shuttered shops and late-night kebab joints, past the clusters of tourists huddled under awnings and the homeless man Quinn had nearly trampled coming around a corner. Her lungs burned. Eighteen years on the force had kept her fit, but this bastard was younger, faster, and apparently terrified enough to run until his heart gave out. "Metropolitan Police!" she shouted, the words torn away by wind and rain. "Stop!" Herrera didn't even glance back. He cut left into a narrow alley, his dark curly hair plastered to his skull, and Quinn followed, her worn leather watch catching briefly on a protruding brick as she cornered too tight. The alley stank of rotting vegetables and old beer. A cat yowled and scattered from an overturned bin. She was gaining on him. His olive skin gleamed under a security light as he vaulted a low fence, and Quinn was over it three seconds later, her sharp jaw set in determination. She could hear him breathing now, ragged gasps that matched her own. Camden Town opened up around them, the market stalls skeletal and empty in the darkness. Quinn knew these streets—she'd walked this beat as a constable, back when her hair was still fully brown and her partner Morris had been alive to watch her back. The memory flickered unbidden: Morris's face in the dim light of that warehouse, the fear in his eyes as something moved in the shadows behind him— She shoved the thought away. Focus. The suspect was what mattered. Herrera ducked beneath a half-lowered security gate and disappeared into a building that looked like it had been condemned for years. Quinn paused at the threshold, her hand moving automatically to her hip. No weapon. She was off-duty, following up on a lead that her superintendent had explicitly told her to drop. The clique, he'd called them. Just rumors and paranoid speculation. Let it go, Quinn. She couldn't let it go. Not when every thread she pulled led back to that night three years ago. Not when Morris's death still sat in her chest like a stone. The building's interior was gutted, stripped down to concrete and exposed wiring. Quinn moved through it with military precision, each step placed carefully to avoid debris. She could hear Herrera ahead of her, his footsteps echoing off the walls. He was heading down—she found the stairs and descended, one hand trailing along the damp wall for balance. The smell hit her first: incense and ozone, something coppery underneath. The sounds came next—voices, dozens of them, overlapping in languages she didn't recognize. And then she emerged from a narrow corridor into impossible space. The Veil Market spread out before her like something from a fever dream. It occupied what had clearly once been a Tube station, the curved walls still bearing faded advertisements for products that hadn't existed in decades. But the platform had been transformed into a labyrinthine bazaar, stalls and tents and makeshift structures crowding every available inch. Lanterns hung from wires strung across the ceiling, casting everything in shifting amber light. The rain was a distant memory down here; the air was thick and warm and carried scents Quinn couldn't identify. And the people—if they could all be called people—moved through the cramped spaces with the easy familiarity of regular customers. Quinn saw a woman with skin like polished obsidian examining a rack of dried herbs. A man with too many joints in his fingers haggled over a box of what looked like teeth. Something that might have been a child, if children came with pointed ears and eyes like molten gold, darted between the legs of the crowd. Quinn's breath caught in her throat. Her hand found the wall behind her, cold concrete reassuring her that she hadn't lost her mind entirely. Herrera had stopped running. He stood at the edge of the market, maybe twenty meters away, half-hidden behind a stall selling bottles filled with luminescent liquid. He was watching her, and for the first time she could read his expression clearly: not fear, exactly, but something more complex. Wariness. And underneath it, something that looked almost like pity. She could arrest him. March over there, grab him by his scarred forearm, drag him back to the surface and into a holding cell. Book him on suspicion of—what, exactly? Being present when the clique conducted their off-the-books business? Providing medical care to patients who didn't officially exist? Or she could turn around. Climb those stairs. Pretend she'd never found the entrance to this place. Go home to her empty flat, drink herself to sleep, and keep asking questions that nobody wanted to answer. The market swirled around her, unconcerned with her presence. A vendor called out in what might have been Arabic, or might have been something far older. Two figures in hooded cloaks brushed past her without a glance, their conversation a low murmur of syllables that seemed to crawl along her skin. Quinn took a step forward. And then another. She pushed into the crowd, ignoring the curious looks from faces that were almost but not quite human. The floor beneath her feet was uneven, the old platform tiles cracked and worn by countless footsteps. She kept her eyes fixed on Herrera, who hadn't moved from his position near the glowing bottles. "Detective." His voice was softer than she'd expected, lightly accented. He didn't try to run again. "You shouldn't be here." "Neither should you." She stopped an arm's length away, close enough to see the scar that ran along his left forearm, a ridge of pale tissue against his olive skin. "You're going to answer some questions." "Here?" A faint, humorless smile. "These people don't take kindly to police." "I'm not police right now. I'm off-duty." "Then what are you?" The question hung between them. Behind Quinn, she could hear the crowd shifting, murmuring. She felt eyes on her back—too many eyes, some of them not positioned where eyes should be. "I'm someone looking for answers," she said. "About the clique. About what they do, who they protect." She paused. "About what happened to my partner three years ago." Something changed in Herrera's expression. The pity was still there, but now it was mixed with something else—recognition, maybe, or resignation. "Morris," he said quietly. "The warehouse case." Quinn's heart stuttered. She hadn't mentioned Morris's name. She hadn't mentioned any names. "You know what happened to him." "I know..." Herrera exhaled slowly, his fingers finding his Saint Christopher medallion again. "I know it wasn't what the official report said. And I know that if you keep asking questions, you're going to find answers that you can't un-learn." The market noise seemed to recede, leaving them in a bubble of relative silence. Quinn studied the young man's face—the deep brown eyes, the lines of tension around his mouth. He looked tired. He looked like someone who'd seen too much. "I was a paramedic once," he continued. "NHS. I helped people. And then one night I was called to a scene, and I saw something I couldn't explain. Someone who should have been dead, who had injuries that couldn't exist, who healed right in front of me while I was trying to administer treatment." He shook his head. "I reported it. Filed the paperwork. And a week later, I was out. License revoked. Career over." "So you came here." Quinn gestured at the market around them. "To this." "I came here because people still needed help. Because there's an entire world that exists alongside yours, Detective, and they don't have access to hospitals or clinics or anyone who understands what they are." Herrera's voice hardened. "The clique isn't what you think. They're not criminals. They're protectors. And sometimes protection means operating outside the law." Quinn opened her mouth to respond—and then stopped, because something was wrong. The crowd around them had gone quiet. The vendors had stopped calling out. Even the ambient sounds of the market—the haggling, the footsteps, the clink of commerce—had faded to silence. Everyone was looking at her. Quinn turned slowly, her police instincts screaming. The faces around her weren't hostile, not yet, but they were watchful. Assessing. She saw vendors reaching beneath their stalls, customers stepping back from the aisles, making room. "She doesn't have a bone token," someone said, their voice carrying in the sudden stillness. "She shouldn't be able to enter." "Detective." Herrera's hand closed around her elbow, his grip urgent. "We need to leave. Now." "I'm not done—" "You will be, if you don't move." He was already pulling her toward a side passage, a narrow gap between two stalls that she hadn't noticed before. "The Market has rules. You've broken them just by being here. And the people who enforce those rules don't negotiate." Quinn's training warred with her instinct. Every fiber of her being screamed to stand her ground, flash her badge, assert authority. But her badge meant nothing here. Her authority was worth less than the dirty water pooling in the gutters above. She let Herrera lead her into the passage. They emerged into another corridor, this one older and darker than the first. Quinn could hear sounds of pursuit behind them—not footsteps, exactly, but something that might have been footsteps if feet came in configurations she didn't want to imagine. "There's an exit ahead," Herrera said, not slowing. "It comes out near the canal. When we get there, don't look back. Don't stop. Just run." "And then?" "And then you go home, Detective. You forget you ever saw this place." His brown eyes met hers in the darkness. "Or you don't. And if you don't, you find me at the Nest next week. Same time." He pressed something into her palm—small, smooth, warm from his body heat. "That's a token. It'll get you back in when the Market moves." "Why are you helping me?" "Because Morris was a good man." Herrera's jaw tightened. "And because whatever killed him is still out there. And you're the first person in three years who seems to care enough to find out what." They burst out of the passage into cold night air, the rain still falling, the canal stretching out before them like a ribbon of black silk. Quinn's lungs burned as she ran, her boots splashing through puddles, and behind her the sounds of pursuit faded into the urban noise of the city. When she finally stopped, gasping, beneath a railway bridge, Herrera was gone. But the bone token was still in her hand, smooth and ancient and humming with possibilities she didn't understand. Quinn looked down at it, then up at the rain-soaked sky. Next week, she thought. Same time. She began the long walk home.