Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQYNS59BHW4JD08K4J98KE

Detective Harlow Quinn stepped off the creaking service ladder into the cavernous hush of the abandoned Camden Tube station. Above her head, flickering sodium lamps sputtered against riveted girders. The stale scent of damp concrete and rusty rails settled in her lungs. She adjusted the collar of her dark overcoat, eyes sweeping the platform’s edge. Her leather-strap watch glinted under the half-dead light—6:43 a.m. A single chalk outline, stark white against grime-dark tile, traced the shape of a body that no longer lay there. Quinn’s jaw tightened. She lowered her head to examine the smudge of crimson seeping at the circumference. The smear wasn’t fresh; it had crusted into a brittle residue, like coagulated oil. She tapped it with a gloved finger. It flaked, revealing pale stone beneath. “Blood would soak in,” she murmured. “This hauls on top.” Beside her, Eva Kowalski twisted a strand of curly red hair behind her ear. Her round glasses magnified green eyes alive with restless energy. A worn leather satchel hung at her side, heavy with books. She knelt by the chalk line and laid a palm flat inside the outline. The corner of her mouth dipped, curious. “It’s alchemical, not biological. Hemoglobin reacts differently under certain catalysts. This—” she tugged at the flaked residue “—is bound in a lead matrix. Someone’s masking what’s left of the body.” Quinn raised an eyebrow. She preferred facts grounded in fingerprints and fiber analysis, not arcane chemistry. Yet she’d learned to listen to Eva’s quiet insistence. Three years of off-case consultations had taught her intelligence like this demanded respect. “Where’s the rest of the body?” Eva shrugged. “Removed. Clean sweep.” She rose, brushing dust from faded denim. “No drag marks. Whoever took the corpse must’ve used a proper lifting technique—fasten straps, hooks, something hydraulic.” Quinn crouched, tracing the chalk curve with her fingertip. She flicked away loose grit and peered closer. A near-invisible groove scored the tile, as though a slender blade scraped at the edge. She stood, brushing gravel from her palms. “A hook, maybe. Deep, but narrow.” Up the platform, uniformed officers clustered under the sputtering lamp. One of them, PC Dana Reeves, approached. Her breath plumed in the cold air. “Detective Quinn,” she called, voice echoing against brick vaults. “We found this down by the rails.” She held out a gloved hand, revealing a tarnished brass compass no larger than a matchbox. The casing was speckled with a green patina. On its face, tiny sigils shimmered like runic scars. The needle trembled, settling at an impossible angle ninety degrees off true north. Quinn’s breath hitched. She took it, weighed its weight in her palm. It felt lighter than brass should be, as if gravity bent around it. “Where’d you get it?” she asked. “Beside the third rail. Stuck in the ballast.” Reeves shivered. “No one else touched it. I—” She hesitated. “It’s not police issue.” Quinn nodded. “Good.” She closed her fist around the compass, slipping it into the pocket of her coat. The needle spun once, twice, then jerked toward the tunnel opening. Her pulse pulsed against the leather case. Eva glanced from Quinn’s pocket to the tunnel yawning ahead. “It’s a Veil Compass,” she said. “Crafted by a Shade artisan. Points to the nearest supernatural rift or portal. I’ve only heard of them in…discussions.” Quinn inhaled. Shades were legends—beings of shadow who trafficked in secrets. A compass forged by one of them should have remained in the whispering confines of the Veil Market. She swallowed a pulse of disbelief. “Someone brought it here.” She flicked on her handheld torch, the beam carving a path through layered dust motes. The tunnel mouth stretched before them, steel rails vanishing into darkness. “Reeves, secure this platform. No one in or out without my say-so.” The constable bowed. Quinn exchanged a look with Eva—quiet urgency in the younger woman’s eyes. Eva’s satchel bulged, its leather worn smooth at the strap. Quinn had warned her not to carry forbidden tomes, but here they were, beneath London’s streets, on the edge of something that didn’t fit any standard case file. They moved down the rails, footsteps muffled by an ancient carpet of grit. Quinn’s torch painted water-stains on tunnel walls; iron rings hung at intervals, silent sentinels. Every few paces, the compass trembled in her breast pocket. She slowed, pressed a finger against a rivet. It hummed faintly—no static shock, but a vibration she couldn’t place. “There’s something electric running through these walls,” she said. “Power or…something else.” Eva bent to examine the ballast. “Residual echo. Ley lines,” she whispered. “This station sits on a crossroads of subterranean energy. It’s why the Veil Market moves here on full moons.” Quinn’s gaze sharpened. “You knew this place was due for a market night three days ago.” She felt the weight of a pattern clicking into place. A crime staged for the cloak of darkness. “Someone’s clearing out witnesses—maybe traders—before the next gathering.” Eva nodded, fingers trailing over a fracture in the stone. “Or someone’s hijacking the rift itself.” They reached a service alcove before a sealed maintenance door. The compass on Quinn’s wrist—the one she’d retrieved from her coat pocket—began to pulse against her skin. The leather casing had turned verdigris. The sigils glowed faintly. She held it up. The needle swung toward the door’s hinge. Quinn inhaled, feeling the familiar hum of adrenaline. Three years ago, DS Morris had vanished on a case that led her to similar anomalies—a hidden shrine, a bloodless sacrifice. She’d buried the supernatural under a mountain of procedure. Now the edges of her world were fraying. Eva slid a slender chisel from her satchel. She knelt at the door’s seam, tracing her finger along a line of hidden screws. “Let me,” she murmured. The chisel glinted as it caught lamp glow. Quinn nodded. “Be quick, Evie.” The sealed panel shuddered open to reveal a chamber. Inside, polished granite walls formed a rough circle. At its center, a collapsed ring of iron, scorched at the base. Scattered around the rim were shards of bone—too small to identify. A copper brazier, empty but for a residue of ashen dust, sat at the center. The smell of burnt ozone clung to the air. Eva pushed back curls from her face. “It’s a hastily abandoned ritual site.” She bent to scoop a fragment of bone onto gloved fingertips. “Bone token, maybe. But not one for entry—probably from the ritual itself.” Quinn stepped inside the circle, careful not to disturb any residue. She scanned the walls, saw faint drips of dried ichor. They retraced a triangular web of lines, faint grooves etched deep, as though carved by a trembling hand. The lines converged on a single point above the brazier. A half-erased symbol—two spirals unspooling into each other—marred the granite. Quinn’s chest tightened. That sigil matched the ones etched on the Veil Compass. She traced its arc with her finger, feeling a hollow in the stone. “They tried to open something here,” she whispered. “A portal, maybe. Something they couldn’t control.” Eva’s breath caught. “The bone dust—they were feeding the rite. Raising energy to tear open a gateway.” She straightened, eyes fixed on the brazier. “Someone aborted the ceremony. Pulled the…subject out.” Quinn kept her gaze on the brazier, noting the heat-blackened iron. No flesh remained, no charred muscle. It was as though a person had been here, undone and extracted whole. She remembered DS Morris’s final report—no body, just a smear of crimson run through a filter of stone. She turned to Eva. “We’re dealing with whatever did this to Morris.” Eva’s lips parted. “You don’t think—” Quinn shook her head, eyes hard. “I know.” The compass in her pocket pulsed once more. She drew it out and watched the needle lock onto the center of the brazier. It pointed not to north, but down—through the floor. A hidden ramp? A tunnel? Quinn’s fingers curled around the compass. She met Eva’s gaze. “Call Reeves, seal this off. We need heavy gear and a permit for subterranean entry. And, Evie…throw in everything you’ve got on rifts and gateways. We’re going deeper than any squad’s report.” Eva nodded, voice steady. “I’ll pack the Grimoire and the runic index. But be careful, Harlow…” Quinn’s stern face softened for a moment. “I will.” As they backed out of the chamber, the compass’s sigils dimmed, the needle stilled. The hush of the abandoned station closed in around them. Quinn pocketed the device, squared her shoulders, and set her jaw. The portal—whatever it was—was still active. And she was determined to uncover what lurked beyond, no matter how thin the line between the living world and shadows had become.