Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR15JVDNHRFCN53M09S1A0

Rain sluiced down the windscreen, turning the Soho night into a watercolour of bleeding neon. Detective Harlow Quinn killed the engine, the wipers sighing to a halt. The quiet cocoon of the car amplified the drumming on the roof. Across the street, the distinctive green sign of The Raven’s Nest sizzled, its reflection writhing on the wet asphalt. For three hours, she had watched that sign, a fixed point in the storm, letting the familiar ache settle into her bones. Patience was a muscle, and after eighteen years on the force, hers was honed to a razor’s edge. A figure pushed through the bar’s heavy door, hunching his shoulders against the downpour. Tomás Herrera. Quinn’s focus narrowed, the rest of the street dissolving. He matched the file perfectly: short, curly dark hair already plastered to his skull, olive skin pale under the lurid green light. He clutched the collar of his jacket, his warm brown eyes scanning the street with a frantic energy that had nothing to do with the weather. He wasn’t looking for a cab. He was looking for a shadow. And Quinn was it. Herrera set off, his pace a clipped, urgent walk that threatened to break into a run. Quinn gave him a ten-second lead before easing her door open. The cold shock of the rain hit her instantly, plastering the cropped salt-and-pepper strands to her scalp. She pulled up the collar of her own coat, the familiar scent of wet wool and London air filling her senses. Her worn leather watch felt tight on her wrist, its steady tick a counterpoint to her pounding heart. She moved with the military precision that had never left her, a ghost in the deluge. Her footsteps were silent splashes on the pavement, her gaze locked on Herrera’s back sixty feet ahead. He navigated the crowded pavement with jerky, desperate movements, a stark contrast to her own fluid economy of motion. He was prey, and he knew it. He risked a glance over his shoulder, and for a half-second, their eyes met across the rain-swept street. Panic flared in his face, bright and raw. He ran. Quinn didn’t hesitate. She lengthened her stride, the ache in her knees a dull throb. The chase was on. Concrete and glass blurred past. She vaulted a low barrier separating the pavement from the road, a car horn blaring in protest as she cut across the street. Herrera was younger, but he ran on fear. Quinn ran on purpose. She saw the route in her head, a strategic map of alleys and shortcuts. He ducked into a narrow passage between a theatre and a bookshop, and she followed without breaking her stride. The noise of the city muted, replaced by the echo of their footfalls and the gurgle of water rushing through a drainpipe. The air grew thick with the smell of wet brick and refuse. Herrera scrambled over a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes, sending them sliding across the slick cobblestones. Quinn sidestepped the mess, her eyes never leaving him. His breath came in ragged bursts she could hear even over the storm. He fumbled with the clasp on a metal gate, his hands shaking. The gate screeched open. He slipped through, trying to slam it shut behind him, but Quinn was too close. She slammed her shoulder into the latticed steel, the impact jarring through her frame. The gate flew back, striking the wall with a deafening clang. Herrera stumbled, catching himself on the brickwork. He spared her another terrified look before bolting again, back out onto a wider, emptier street heading north, towards Camden. He was leading her away from the crowded heart of the city, towards the quieter, more derelict fringes. A tactic. Or a destination. Quinn pushed the thought aside, focusing on the burn in her lungs, the rhythm of the pursuit. She was gaining. The gap between them closed from twenty feet to ten. She could see the details now: the faded Saint Christopher medallion bouncing against his chest, the jagged white line of a scar on his left forearm. He was a medic, not a professional runner. He was running out of steam. He veered suddenly, making for a graffiti-scrawled service entrance set into the tiled wall of a Tube underpass. It was an old, forgotten door, streaked with grime and rust. He reached it, his back pressed against the metal as he fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out a small, pale object. In the low light, it looked like a piece of carved bone. He pressed it against a spot on the door Quinn couldn't see. There was no click, no sound of a lock disengaging, but the door swung silently inward. He threw himself through the opening, and the door swung shut with a heavy, final thud. Quinn reached it two seconds later. She grabbed the handle, a solid, unmoving bar of cold iron. Locked. Cursing under her breath, she pulled a small tension wrench and a pick from an inner pocket. Her fingers, numb with cold, felt clumsy, but the familiar motions steadied her. This was her world. Locks, doors, and the secrets they kept. She worked by feel, her ear pressed to the cold metal, listening for the faint clicks of the tumblers. The lock was old but complex. Not standard issue. It gave way with a soft snap that was more felt than heard. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, gun drawn. The world changed. The roar of the rain vanished, swallowed by a profound, humming silence. The air tasted of ozone, damp earth, and something else… a faint, cloying sweetness like overripe fruit. She was in a disused Tube tunnel. A string of emergency lights cast a sickly yellow glow down a long, curved platform, illuminating rails that disappeared into an abyss of black. Water dripped from the arched ceiling, each drop echoing in the vast space. Herrera was gone. A set of wet footprints led away from the door, down the platform, and into the darkness. Quinn followed, her footsteps loud against the concrete. The only other sound was the steady drip, drip, drip from above and the low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate up through the soles of her shoes. She felt a prickle of unease, a cold dread that had nothing to do with the damp air. It was a feeling she hadn't experienced in three years. Not since the night she’d found DS Morris in that warehouse, the air thick with the same cloying sweetness, his eyes wide with a terror she could never decipher. She rounded a wide curve in the tunnel, and the humming grew louder. Light spilled from an archway ahead, not the sterile yellow of the emergency lamps, but a shifting, vibrant kaleidoscope of colours. And with the light came noise. A low murmur of voices, strange music, the chittering of creatures she couldn't name. Quinn slowed, pressing herself against the damp, curved wall. She peered around the edge of the archway. It wasn't a tunnel. It was a cavernous station, a long-forgotten stop on a dead line, and it was alive. The platform was packed with stalls, lit by glowing crystals and flitting balls of light. A market. A crowd of beings milled between the vendors, their forms and faces a dizzying, impossible mosaic. A man with skin like polished obsidian bargained with a vendor whose hands ended in delicate, feathery talons. A woman in a silk robe laughed, her teeth a row of sharpened pearls. Cages held creatures that skittered and glowed, and jars on shelves contained swirling nebulae of coloured dust. This was where Herrera had run. This was his world. Her gaze swept the impossible scene, and she saw him. Across the bustling platform, near a stall selling what looked like bottled lightning, Tomás Herrera was talking animatedly to a tall figure cloaked in shadow. He gestured back the way he had come, his expression still laced with fear. He was seeking refuge. Or reporting in. Quinn’s blood ran cold. Every instinct screamed at her to retreat, to call for backup that would never believe her, to seal the door and pretend this place didn't exist. This was the unexplained. This was the world that had swallowed her partner whole. To step through that archway was to leave behind everything she knew, every rule and regulation that gave her work meaning. Her authority was a worthless token here. Her gun felt like a child’s toy. She looked at Herrera, at the secrets he so clearly harboured. The answers she'd been chasing for three years felt impossibly close, just on the other side of that threshold. A choice. Turn back to the rain and the familiar, broken world, or step into the abyss that took Morris. Her sharp jaw tightened. Her hand was steady as she checked the safety on her weapon. Taking a breath that tasted of ozone and magic, Detective Harlow Quinn stepped out of the shadows and into the light of the Veil Market.