Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR0V403CV9QPDVDQQ1G49Z

The stink of ozone and old earth hit Harlow Quinn three steps down the abandoned stairwell, well before her torch beam cut through the permanent midnight of the Camden tube station. She kept her Glock holstered but unclipped, left wrist rotating just enough to feel the weight of her worn leather watch settle—a habit from her army days, a grounding mechanism. Eighteen years on the force had taught her that crime scenes underground carried their own gravity, but this one felt wrong in a way that prickled the skin beneath her close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. She ducked under the police tape strung across the platform’s mouth. The usual Market detritus littered the tiles—crushed bone tokens, scraps of silk that had wrapped god-knows-what, the chemical sweetness of spilled tinctures. The Veil Market had cleared out fast when the body dropped, leaving behind their trash and their secrets. “Detective.” Quinn turned, her sharp jaw casting a shadow across her collar. Eva Kowalski stood near the platform’s edge, her round glasses catching the blue glow of the forensic lamps. The girl—twenty-six, five-foot-four, freckles like scattered copper—shouldn’t have been past the cordon, but Quinn had learned not to underestimate civilians who carried worn leather satchels bulging with restricted archives material. Eva tucked a curl of red hair behind her left ear, a nervous tic that Quinn had catalogued during their three prior encounters, all of them involving cases that made the Metropolitan Police incident reports read like fiction. “You touch anything?” Quinn asked. “Only the atmosphere.” Eva’s voice carried the precise diction of an Oxford education, but her tone had gone flat, the way people spoke when their brains were busy reconciling impossible data. “He’s positioned, Harlow. Not fallen. Placed.” Quinn stepped closer to the body. Male, mid-thirties, athletic build now stiffening with rigor. He lay supine on the grimy tiles, arms spread wide, legs together—a geometric posture that suggested crucifixion without the cross. His clothing was unremarkable: canvas trousers, wool coat, sturdy boots. But Quinn’s brown eyes narrowed, her military precision clicking through the observations like a slide rule. His boots were clean. Not polished—clean. The soles showed no blackening from the station’s century of coal dust and brake grease. No scuff marks from being dragged. The heels were pristine, as if he’d levitated into position or been carried by hands careful enough to avoid scraping leather against tile. “No drag patterns,” Quinn murmured. She crouched, her left hand resting on her knee, the leather watch strap creaking softly. “No footprints leading in. Just… him.” Eva knelt opposite, her satchel thumping against her hip. “Look at his hands.” Quinn already had. The palms were blistered, the skin peeling back in symmetrical patterns that looked almost deliberate—alchemical burns, the kind that came from handling volatile substances without proper warding. But the symmetry was wrong. In a struggle, in an accident, burns were chaotic. These were mirrored, as if he’d pressed his hands against something that required exact placement. “He’s not a victim,” Eva said quietly. “He’s a seal.” Quinn’s sharp jaw tightened. She didn’t believe in seals, not the kind Eva meant. She believed in evidence, in the weight of her watch ticking against her wrist, in the eighteen years of cases that had logical explanations if you looked hard enough. But DS Morris had died three years ago in a warehouse that smelled like this—ozone and old earth—and the coroner’s report had listed the cause as “cardiac arrest” while the crime scene photos showed walls scorched with patterns that looked exactly like the burns on this man’s hands. Quinn reached into her coat pocket and withdrew an evidence bag. Inside, cradled in sterile plastic, lay a small brass compass. She’d found it clutched in the man’s right hand, the metal still warm when she’d pried it free. The casing bore a patina of verdigris, ancient and green, but the face was etched with sigils that seemed to shift when viewed peripherally. The needle didn’t point north. It pointed toward the bricked-up archway at the platform’s terminus, the one that led nowhere on any Transport for London map. “He was holding this,” Quinn said, her voice low. “It’s pointing at the wall.” Eva’s green eyes widened behind her glasses. She reached out, stopped herself before touching the bag. “That’s a Veil Compass. Crafted by Shade artisans. It doesn’t find magnetic north—it finds the nearest rift. The nearest tear.” Quinn looked at the wall. Victorian brickwork, black with moisture, seemingly solid. But the compass needle trembled there, insistent, as if pulled by a force that ignored physics. She thought of Morris again, of the way his body had been positioned in that warehouse, arms spread, legs together, a geometric posture that the investigating officers had dismissed as the convulsions of a dying heart. But Morris had been trying to close something. Just like this man. “He died sealing it,” Quinn said. The realization settled in her chest, heavy and cold. “The burns are from the Compass. He was holding the rift shut.” Eva nodded, her fingers finding her hair again, tucking that red curl behind her ear. “And if he died mid-ritual…” “It’s not sealed.” Quinn stood, her military bearing rigid, her hand resting on the grip of her Glock. The compass needle in the evidence bag twitched, pointing still at the brickwork, and Quinn understood with a clarity that transcended her usual logic that the wall wasn’t a wall anymore. It was a door, and something was pushing from the other side. She looked at Eva, at the satchel full of archives and the freckles standing out against her pale skin, and made a decision that would have horrified her superiors but would have made Morris proud. “Step back,” Quinn ordered, her voice carrying the snap of command. “And tell me how to finish what he started.” The brickwork groaned. The compass needle spun wildly. And Detective Harlow Quinn, who had spent eighteen years believing only in what she could see and touch and file in evidence bags, drew her weapon and prepared to fight a war she was only just beginning to understand.