Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQXNQAN91K4FHDGHCKWQ72

The air down here tasted of wet iron and something older, something like ozone burnt into stone. Harlow Quinn checked her watch, the worn leather strap catching on the cuff of her trench coat. 03:14. The notification had come in forty minutes ago—unidentified disturbance, Sector 4, the abandoned extension of the Northern Line. Most of the Met called it the "Ghost Tunnel," a half-finished stop beneath Camden that had been bricked up in the twenties. But tonight, the heavy steel door at the top of the service stairs stood open, the lock sheared clean through. Quinn descended, her boots clicking with military precision against the concrete. The flashlight from her constable up ahead bobbed erratically, cutting through the gloom. She hated scenes like this. Underground scenes always smelled the same—decay and stagnant water—but this one had a metallic tang that set her teeth on edge. "Ma'am, it's just through here," Constable Reed called out, his voice echoing slightly. He sounded young, terrified. "It’s... I’ve never seen anything like it, ma'am." "Keep the beam steady, Reed," Quinn said, her voice low and calibrated. She didn't need panic; she needed geometry. They stepped onto the platform. It wasn't the abandoned ruin she expected. The graffiti was gone, scraped away or perhaps absorbed, revealing clean, dark brick. Where there should have been trash and rats, there were stalls—makeshift tables constructed of driftwood and bone, draped in velvet that shimmered even in the harsh LED light. It was a market. Or what was left of one. "Stay on the gravel," Quinn commanded, scanning the perimeter. In the center of the platform, illuminated by a trio of portable work lights, lay the body. A woman was crouching beside it, contrasting sharply with the police blues milling around the perimeter. She wore a oversized knit cardigan and had a mess of curly red hair that obscured her face. She was muttering to herself, ticking things off on her fingers. "That's the consultant, ma'am," Reed said, hovering near the edge of the light. "Ms. Kowalski. From the British Museum. She arrived with the first responding unit, apparently she has clearance for these... anomalies." Quinn approached the body, keeping her breathing even. The victim was male, heavy-set, dressed in a leather apron that was stained dark with fluids. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, the pupils blown wide to the edges of the irises. "Don't touch the table," the redhead said without looking up. She had a distinct, crisp accent, Oxford-educated. She tucked a lock of hair behind her left ear, a nervous, repetitive tic. "I'm Detective Quinn," Harlow said, flashing her badge reflexively though the woman hadn't asked. "And you are currently interfering with a crime scene." "I'm preserving the integrity of the anomaly," Eva Kowalski corrected, finally standing up. She adjusted her round glasses, her green eyes flicking over Quinn with a mixture of pity and impatience. She clutched a worn leather satchel tight against her hip. "If your techs start dusting for prints on the altar, they’re going to dissolve the residual aetheric signature." "Altar?" Quinn looked at the makeshift table. "It looks like a butcher block to me, Ms. Kowalski." "Because that is what he was," Eva said, gesturing to the dead man. "A butcher. A crafter. Look at his hands." Quinn crouched down, ignoring the protest in her bad knee. She gloved up and leaned in. The man’s hands were rough, calloused, stained with ink and silver dust. There was a tool resting near his open palm—a small, heavy hammer. "Cause of death looks like exsanguination," Reed offered from the sidelines, eager to please. "But there’s no wound on the body. The blood is... pooled around him, but his skin is intact." Quinn frowned. He leaned over the victim. The chest was still, the skin pale. The pool of liquid beneath the table was viscous, too dark to be arterial spray. It looked like oil, or perhaps ink. She dipped a finger into the liquid. It was warm. "No defensive wounds," Quinn noted aloud. "No signs of struggle. The table is clear." "He was taken by the Trade," Eva said softly. She opened her satchel and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book, flipping through pages filled with hand-drawn diagrams. "This is the Veil Market, Detective. It moves every full moon. Someone broke the rules. Someone bought something they couldn't pay for." "It's a murder, Kowalski," Quinn said, standing up. "Murders happen in Camden every day. Drug deals, gang violence, turf wars. This isn't magic; it's chemistry." She pointed to the dark liquid. "That's probably a cocktail of neurotoxins and anticoagulants. Stop reading the tea leaves and look at the evidence." "The evidence isn't on the body," Eva countered, her voice rising an octave. She tucked her hair behind her ear again, faster this time. "It's in the absence." "The absence?" "The theft," Eva said. She pointed a trembling finger at the empty space at the head of the table. "Look at the dust. Look at the sigils etched into the wood. The center of the array is empty. Something was taken." Quinn looked where the researcher was pointing. The wood surface was scarred, gouged with intricate, circular patterns that defied simple tool work. In the exact center, the dust was disturbed in a perfect circle. Something heavy had sat there. Something valuable. "A robbery gone wrong," Quinn said, her mind racing to fit the pieces into the logic she knew. "He resisted. They dosed him. They took the goods." "If it was a robbery, where is the mess?" Eva challenged. "Where are the footprints in the blood? There is only one set of footprints leaving this stall, Detective. Yours. And mine. The perpetrator didn't walk away." Quinn paused. She looked down at the floor. The victim was sprawled awkwardly, half-on, half-off the platform edge. But the dust around the stall was pristine. Aside from the settling grit of the last century, there were no scuffs. No fleeing footsteps. It was impossible. Unless they flew. Or unless they were never there. Quinn moved around the table, her eyes narrowing. She scanned the brick walls, the shadows pooling in the archways. Her eyes snagged on a small object near the victim’s left elbow, half-hidden beneath a fold of the velvet cloth. She reached out and lifted it with a pair of tweezers. It was a compass. Small, brass, heavy for its size. The casing had a patina of verdigris, suggesting great age, but the glass face was pristine. Etched into the brass rim were tiny, protective sigils—interlocking triangles and geometric spirals. "Put that down!" Eva hissed, stepping back. "That is a Veil Compass. It’s a resonance anchor. If you activate it—" "I'm not activating anything," Quinn said. She held it up to the light. "I'm observing." Inside the glass, the needle was trembling. It wasn't pointing North. It wasn't pointing to the exit. It was spinning violently, whirling like a drill bit trying to bore through the glass. "The needle is magnetized," Quinn said, though the words tasted like ash. "It must be interference from the power lines above." "It's not the power lines," Eva said, her voice barely a whisper. "It’s pointing to the breach. The door is still open." Quinn looked at the compass again. The needle stopped spinning abruptly, snapping to point directly at the dead man’s chest. Then, slowly, it began to rise. The needle lifted off the face of the compass, straining against the glass, pointing not at a direction on a map, but *up*. Towards the ceiling. Towards the empty air three feet above the corpse. Quinn felt a cold prickle at the base of her neck, the same sensation she’d had three years ago in the warehouse with Morris. The feeling that the world had slid sideways, just an inch, and nothing lined up anymore. She looked at the body again. The lack of wounds. The lack of footprints. The terrified expression on a man who hadn't had time to raise his hammer. If the needle was pointing at a rift—a tear in the space above the table—and the blood had been drained... "Reed," Quinn said, her voice tight. "Get the UV light. Scan the air directly above the victim." "Ma'am?" Reed blinked, confused. "The air?" "Do it." Reed fumbled with his kit, pulling out the handheld ultraviolet lamp. He clicked it on and aimed the beam at the empty space above the butcher block. The purple beam cut through the gloom. And there, floating in the stillness of the tunnel, a faint, misty silhouette illuminated. It wasn't a ghost. It was a spray pattern. A fan of microscopic droplets suspended in mid-air, defying gravity, painting a violent arc in the void. It was a shadow of blood that had no business being there. "It didn't run off," Quinn whispered, the logic finally clicking into place, horrific and undeniable. "It didn't walk away. It opened up right on top of him." Eva nodded, her face pale. "The Market demands balance, Detective. He tried to craft a bridge he couldn't control. The compass tried to warn him." Quinn lowered the tweezers, the Veil Compass ticking softly in her hand. She looked at the shadows stretching away from the light, the empty stalls of the Veil Market watching them in silence. This wasn't a gang hit. This was a boundary violation. And for the first time since Morris died, she was looking at the mechanism of the impossible, cataloged and cold in her palm. "Bag the compass," Quinn ordered, her voice hardening, sliding back into the armor of her rank. "And get Kowalski a transport back to the Museum. She's now a material witness." She looked down at the suspended blood in the UV light, then at the compass in her hand. The needle was still pointing up, straining toward the dark. Quinn checked her watch again. 03:22. Time to get to work.