Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMQZ8T0CXHBPCZB4TBZJ3SG

The rain came down in sheets, turning the Soho streets into rivers of reflected neon. Detective Harlow Quinn's boots slammed against the wet pavement as she rounded the corner onto Frith Street, her breath coming in controlled bursts. Eighteen years on the force had taught her how to pace herself during a pursuit, how to read the rhythm of a fleeing suspect's footfalls and anticipate their next move. Tomás Herrera was fast. She'd give him that. He'd spotted her the moment she walked into The Raven's Nest, his warm brown eyes meeting hers across the dimly lit bar before she'd even finished scanning the room. The green neon from the sign outside had cast strange shadows across the old maps and black-and-white photographs covering the walls, and in that fractured light, she'd seen the exact moment his expression shifted from recognition to flight. Now he was fifty meters ahead, his dark curly hair plastered to his skull, his olive skin gleaming under the streetlights. She caught glimpses of him between the late-night crowds spilling out of restaurants and clubs—young people who barely registered the chase happening around them, too absorbed in their phones and conversations to notice a man running for his life. Quinn pushed harder. Her worn leather watch slapped against her wrist with each stride, a metronome counting out the seconds she was losing. The rain had soaked through her jacket within the first block, and her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair was sending rivulets down her sharp jaw, but she'd chased suspects through worse conditions. What she hadn't anticipated was where this particular chase would lead. Herrera cut left onto Greek Street, then immediately right into an alley so narrow she almost missed it. Quinn followed, her shoulder grazing the brick wall as she squeezed through. The sounds of Soho nightlife faded behind her, replaced by the hollow echo of footsteps in an increasingly deserted space. She was gaining. He was favoring his left side slightly—she noticed it in the way he took corners, compensating for something. An old injury, maybe. The report she'd read mentioned a knife attack, a scar on his left forearm. Former paramedic, lost his license under suspicious circumstances. The kind of circumstances that had led her to spend six months building a case against him and the people he worked for. The people she suspected had something to do with what happened to Morris. Quinn shoved that thought down. Not now. Not during a pursuit. The alley opened into a small courtyard behind a row of restaurants, industrial bins overflowing with refuse, kitchen staff on smoke breaks who scattered when they saw Herrera burst through. He didn't slow down. Neither did she. "Metropolitan Police!" she shouted, more out of procedure than expectation that he'd stop. "Herrera!" He glanced back—just once—and in the dim light from a service entrance, she saw something that made her blood run cold. Not fear in his expression. Something closer to pity. Then he disappeared down a stairwell she hadn't even noticed, hidden behind a dumpster that had been pushed aside. Quinn skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs, rain streaming down her face. The steps descended into absolute darkness, the kind that seemed to swallow light rather than simply lacking it. She could hear Herrera's footsteps echoing somewhere below, growing fainter. Every instinct honed by eighteen years of police work screamed at her to call for backup. She reached for her radio, keyed the channel, and was met with static. Nothing but static. She tried her mobile. No signal. The rain hammered against her back as she stood at the threshold, one hand braced against the wet brick of the stairwell entrance. Below, the darkness waited. Below, Herrera was getting away—Herrera, who might be her best lead on the case she'd been building for three years. The case that had started with Morris's death and had led her through a labyrinth of dead ends, sealed files, and witnesses who seemed to forget everything the moment she asked the right questions. Quinn pulled her torch from her belt and clicked it on. The beam cut through the darkness, revealing concrete steps descending at a steeper angle than should have been architecturally possible. The walls were covered in graffiti she didn't recognize—symbols that seemed to shift and writhe when she didn't look at them directly. She took the first step. Then the second. By the fifth step, she could no longer hear the rain. The stairs went down much farther than they should have, given the geography of Soho. Quinn counted as she descended—a habit Morris had drilled into her during their first year as partners. Know your exits. Know your distance. Know how far you've traveled so you know how far you have to go to get back. She was at forty-seven steps when the stairwell opened into a tunnel. The walls here were old—Victorian, maybe older. The brick was dark with soot and something else, something organic that she chose not to examine too closely. Her torch beam caught glimpses of pipes and cables that shouldn't have existed in the same space, technology from different eras coexisting in a way that made her head hurt if she thought about it too hard. Ahead, she could hear voices. Many voices. And beneath them, something like music, but wrong somehow. A melody that seemed to move in directions that melodies shouldn't go. Quinn pressed forward. The tunnel curved, and then curved again, and she lost count of how many times she turned before she saw the light. Not electric light—something warmer, flickering. Candles, maybe. Or torches. The kind of light that predated electricity and had no business existing beneath a modern city. She emerged onto a platform. The sight that greeted her stopped her cold. It was an underground station—she recognized the bones of it, the Victorian tile work, the curved ceiling. But it had been transformed into something else entirely. Stalls lined what had once been the platform, displaying goods that caught the torchlight and threw it back in colors she couldn't name. Figures moved between the stalls, haggling in languages she didn't recognize. Some of them looked human. Some of them very much did not. The Veil Market. She'd heard whispers of it in interrogation rooms, caught fragments of references in confiscated correspondence. A supernatural black market that moved locations with the lunar cycle, accessible only to those who possessed a bone token. She didn't have a token. She'd followed Herrera down here without one, which meant— A hand closed around her upper arm. Quinn spun, her training kicking in before conscious thought could catch up. She had the figure pressed against the tunnel wall with her forearm across their throat before she registered who it was. Herrera's warm brown eyes stared back at her, wide with something between fear and resignation. Up close, she could see the Saint Christopher medallion around his neck, the chain tangled in the collar of his soaked shirt. The patron saint of travelers, she remembered. Protector of those in danger. "You shouldn't be here," he said quietly. His accent was faint, almost entirely subsumed by years of living in London, but she could hear traces of Seville in the way he shaped certain consonants. "And yet here I am." She didn't release the pressure on his throat. "Tomás Herrera. I have questions about your medical practice." "You have questions about more than that." He wasn't struggling, wasn't trying to escape. That bothered her more than resistance would have. "You have questions about your partner. About what really happened to him." Quinn's grip tightened involuntarily. "What do you know about Morris?" "More than you do. Less than you need to." Herrera's gaze shifted past her, toward the market. "And none of it matters if you don't leave. Now. Before they realize you don't belong here." "They?" As if in answer, the ambient noise of the market shifted. The bartering voices fell silent, one by one, like candles being snuffed. The strange music stopped. Quinn became aware of eyes turning toward them—dozens of eyes, some the wrong color, some with pupils that didn't contract correctly in the dim light. "You don't have a token," Herrera said. "You're not a customer. You're not a vendor. You're—" "Police," someone said. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing off the Victorian tile. "The detective who's been asking questions. The one who doesn't understand what she's looking for." Quinn released Herrera and turned to face the market. Her hand moved to her holster, fingers closing around the grip of her service weapon. Eighteen years of training told her that what she was seeing wasn't possible. Three years of chasing shadows told her that possible had stopped meaning anything the night Morris died. "My name is Detective Harlow Quinn," she said, her voice steady despite the hammering of her heart. "I'm investigating criminal activities connected to this location. I'm going to need everyone to—" Laughter. Low, dark, and multiplied across the crowd. "She doesn't know," someone said. "How delightful," said another. Herrera grabbed her arm again, and this time she let him. "Run," he whispered. "When I tell you. There's another exit, behind the apothecary stall. I can get you out." "I'm not running from—" "You are going to die down here." His voice was urgent, stripped of pretense. "Whatever you think you know about what happened to DS Morris, whatever case you think you're building—none of it matters if you're dead. I can help you. But not here. Not now." The crowd was moving closer. Quinn could see details now that she wished she couldn't—teeth that were too sharp, skin that was too smooth, eyes that reflected no light at all. "Why would you help me?" she demanded. "You're one of them. You work for them." "I work for myself." Herrera's hand was shaking where it gripped her arm. "And I lost someone too. Someone the same people took. The same people who took your partner." He met her eyes, and in his gaze she saw something she recognized. The same hollow determination that had kept her going for three years. "Run with me now, and I'll tell you everything I know. About Morris. About what's really happening in this city. About what killed him and why." Quinn looked at the approaching crowd. She looked at the exits, calculated the distance, measured her chances. Then she looked at Tomás Herrera, at the Saint Christopher medallion around his neck, at the scar on his forearm that spoke of violence survived. "When I say run," she said. His shoulders sagged with relief. "When you say run." She raised her weapon.