Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR2GPPCTND5A0RE0TA4544

The yellow tape stretched across the mouth of the tunnel like a warning from some lesser god, flapping in the subterranean breeze that crawled up from the darkness below. Detective Harlow Quinn ducked beneath it, her worn leather watch catching on the plastic as she straightened. The timepiece left a smudge of residue on her wrist, a familiar weight she'd carried for fifteen years. "Down here, Detective. Mind the third rail—it's supposed to be dead, but I wouldn't trust it." The voice echoed up from the stairwell, and Quinn descended with the measured cadence of someone who had learned to walk toward trouble rather than away from it. Her flashlight cut a pale wedge through the gloom, illuminating graffiti that layered the walls like bruised skin. Tags and symbols, some of them old enough to have faded into ghost images beneath newer work. The abandoned Tube station stretched before her, a cathedral of forgotten transit. Tiles had peeled from the walls in places, revealing the brickwork beneath like exposed bone. The platform edge dropped away into darkness where the tracks had once carried commuters through Camden's belly. Now it held only dust, shadows, and the small cluster of figures huddled around something she couldn't yet see. DC Marcus Webb stood with his arms crossed, his young face caught in that particular expression of certainty that made Quinn's teeth set on edge. He was twenty-eight, ambitious, and possessed the kind of confidence that could only come from never having seen something truly wrong in the world. The kind that couldn't imagine a universe where the rules bent. "Body's over here," Webb said, jerking his chin toward the platform's edge. "Male, mid-thirties, no ID. Uniforms found him during a sweep for a missing persons case unrelated. Well, we thought it was unrelated." Quinn approached with her hands in the pockets of her coat. The temperature dropped as she drew closer to the platform's edge, a subtle shift that raised the hair on her forearms. She'd learned to trust that sensation. It had preceded the incident that took Morris, though she hadn't understood it then. Still didn't, not entirely. But she'd learned to recognize the shape of wrongness. The body lay in a graceless sprawl, limbs bent at angles that suggested collapse rather than struggle. The man's clothes were ordinary—dark jeans, a gray jumper, trainers that had seen better days. Nothing about his appearance suggested violence. But his face— Quinn crouched down, studying the expression frozen there. Not fear. Not pain. Something closer to rapture, though that word felt inadequate to describe the way his eyes had widened, the way his mouth had parted. Like he'd seen something so profound that death had been an acceptable price for the witnessing. "CSU been through?" she asked, not looking up. "First pass. They're waiting for the all-clear before they move him." Webb shifted his weight, his shoes scraping against the platform tiles. "Pretty straightforward, if you ask me. Drug deal gone wrong, maybe. This station's been used for deals before—secluded, hard to patrol. He probably took something bad, had a bad reaction, and that was that." Quinn reached toward the body's left hand, hovering above it without touching. The fingers were curled inward, the nails caked with something dark. Not blood, she realized. Dirt. Or ash. "His clothes are clean," she said. "No signs of a struggle. No defensive wounds visible. But look at his hands." Webb leaned in, his confidence flickering. "He could have been digging at something before he died. Paranoia, maybe, depending on what he took." "Digging where?" Quinn stood, scanning the platform. "The ground here is concrete covered in decades of grime. His nails would have broken if he'd tried to dig through that. And there's no corresponding debris on his palms." A flicker of movement near the far end of the platform caught her attention. A second figure had emerged from the shadows, shorter than Webb by a head, with a thatch of curly red hair that seemed to absorb what little light reached it. Round glasses perched on a freckled face, and a leather satchel hung from one shoulder, its weight evident in the way it pulled at her frame. "Who's this?" Quinn asked, her voice flat. Webb turned, his expression shifting to something defensive. "This is Eva Kowalski. She was found near the scene when uniforms arrived. Says she's a researcher at the British Museum, but I've got people checking that. Could be a witness, could be involved. I haven't formally interviewed her yet." The woman—Eva—stepped forward, and Quinn noticed the way her left hand kept drifting toward her hair, tucking an invisible strand behind her ear. A nervous habit, or something more deliberate. "Detective," Eva said, and her voice was steadier than her hands. "I can explain my presence here, though I suspect you won't believe me." "Try me." Eva's green eyes met Quinn's brown ones without flinching. "I'm a researcher. I specialize in certain... obscure histories. Folklore, mythology, the intersection of belief and practice across cultures. I've been studying this station for months. It has significance that most people don't recognize." "Significance." Quinn let the word hang between them. "What kind of significance?" "Architectural, primarily. But also historical. There are layers to this place that aren't immediately apparent." Eva's gaze drifted toward the body, and something flickered across her features—recognition, or perhaps caution. "The man you found. I didn't know him. But I know what happened to him wasn't a drug overdose." "That so." Webb's voice carried an edge. "And what makes you an expert on cause of death?" Eva's jaw tightened. "I'm not. But I've seen similar cases in the literature. Historical accounts, folklore records—people who died in places like this, with expressions like his. There's a pattern." Quinn's attention sharpened. Three years ago, Morris had been found in an abandoned building with an expression not unlike this man's. Not rapture exactly—something more complex. The official report had cited cardiac arrest, natural causes, a tragedy but not a crime. But Quinn had known something was wrong. Had felt it in the hollow space behind her ribs where certainty should have lived. "What pattern?" Quinn asked. Eva hesitated, her fingers curling around the strap of her satchel. "There are places in this city—old places, forgotten places—where the boundaries are thinner. Where people sometimes encounter things they can't explain. Most walk away with nothing more than a story they tell themselves was a dream. But some..." "Some don't walk away at all," Quinn finished. Webb made a sound of dismissal. "This is exactly what I mean. We've got a body and a potential witness who's talking about ghosts and fairy tales instead of facts. We should be canvassing for dealers, checking missing persons, doing actual police work." Quinn ignored him. She was looking at the platform wall behind the body, where the tiles had fallen away entirely. Symbols had been carved into the brickwork beneath, worn smooth by time but still visible if you knew how to look. She'd seen similar markings before—in the building where Morris had died. "Show me what you found," she said to Eva. "What brought you here tonight." Eva led her along the platform, past the crime scene tape and deeper into the station's recesses. Webb followed, his skepticism radiating from him. At a service door that hung partially open, Eva stopped and produced a small flashlight from her satchel. "Through here." The room beyond was small, perhaps a maintenance closet in the station's operational days. Now it served some other purpose. Quinn's flashlight joined Eva's, and together they illuminated the walls. Symbols. Hundreds of them, carved and painted and etched into every surface. Some Quinn recognized from crime scenes across her career—cases that had never quite made sense, that had been filed under "unsolved" and quietly forgotten. Others were entirely foreign, their meanings lost to time. "What is this?" Webb asked, his voice smaller now. "A door," Eva said quietly. "Or the representation of one. This station sits at a crossroads. Not a physical one—a metaphysical one. Every full moon, certain conditions align, and the door opens. People come here to trade. Goods, services, information. Things that can't be bought or sold anywhere else." Quinn's mind raced through the implications. A hidden market, operating beneath the city's notice. A man dead with rapture on his face, his hands stained with something that might be more than dirt. Symbols that connected to her partner's death. And this woman, this researcher who happened to be present when the body was found. "The man," Quinn said. "He had something on him. Something he was trying to use or protect." She turned back toward the platform, her pace quickening. At the body's side, she knelt again and reached into the man's jacket pocket. Her fingers closed around something cold and metal. She withdrew it slowly: a brass compass, its casing green with verdigris, its face etched with symbols that matched those on the maintenance room walls. The needle was spinning, not pointing north but rotating in slow, deliberate circles. "What the hell is that?" Webb asked from over her shoulder. Quinn didn't answer. She was watching the needle slow, steadying itself to point not toward any cardinal direction, but toward the service door. Toward the room covered in symbols. Toward whatever lay beyond the door that opened every full moon. "Tonight's the full moon," Eva said softly. "That's why I was here. To observe. The Market moves locations, but this is one of its regular sites. I've been documenting it for my research." "The Market." Quinn stood, the compass heavy in her palm. "You're telling me there's a supernatural black market operating in an abandoned Tube station, and you're just... studying it?" "I'm not the only one who knows about it," Eva replied. "But most people who do are either participants or prey. I try to be neither." She nodded toward the compass. "That's a Veil Compass. It points toward rifts, portals, places where the boundary is thin. Someone gave it to him, or he found it, or he earned it. But he must have used it wrong. Or gone somewhere he wasn't prepared to go." Quinn looked at the body again, seeing it differently now. Not a victim of bad drugs or a bad deal, but someone who had wandered into a world they didn't understand. Someone who had seen something that human minds weren't built to comprehend. Like Morris. "Three years ago," Quinn said, her voice quiet, "my partner died in circumstances that were never fully explained. Cardiac arrest, natural causes. He was thirty-four years old and in perfect health." She met Eva's gaze. "His body was found near markings like these. He had an expression on his face like this man's. Like he'd seen something that killed him by showing him too much." Eva's expression shifted, something like recognition flickering behind her glasses. "I'm sorry. That must have been—" "I don't need your sympathy. I need to understand." Quinn held up the compass, watching the needle quiver toward the door. "If this Market exists, if people can access it, then someone there might know what happened to him. Who he encountered. What killed him." Webb stepped forward, his hand raised as if to take the compass from her. "Detective Quinn, you can't seriously be entertaining this. There's a rational explanation for all of it—stolen goods, underground markets dealing in illicit materials, maybe even some kind of cult activity. But supernatural doors and magic compasses? That's not police work." "No," Quinn agreed. "It's not. But it's the truth." She pocketed the compass, feeling its weight settle against her hip. "Webb, you can process the scene and file your report. Write it up however makes you comfortable. I'll be pursuing a different angle." She turned toward the service door, then paused. "Eva. You said you've been studying this place. Documenting it. Do you have records? Names? Anything that could tell me who operates this Market and how to find them when it moves?" Eva's hand went to her ear again, tucking hair that didn't need tucking. "I have some information. But the people who run the Market—the things that run it—they don't welcome questions from outsiders. Especially not from the police." "I'm not asking to be welcomed. I'm asking to be pointed in the right direction." Quinn's jaw tightened, the sharp line of it catching the light. "Someone in that Market knows what happened to DS Morris. And this man, tonight—he's just the latest in a line of bodies that no one can explain. I'm going to find answers, with or without your help." Eva studied her for a long moment, her green eyes searching Quinn's face for something. Whatever she found there seemed to settle something within her. "The Market requires a token to enter," she said finally. "A bone token, carved in a specific way. Without it, the door won't open for you, no matter what that compass tells you." She reached into her satchel and withdrew a small, pale disc etched with spiraling lines. "I have one. It's how I've been able to observe from a distance. But going inside, actually participating—that's different. That's dangerous." Quinn took the token, her fingers closing around its smooth surface. It was warm, as if it held some inner heat. "Everything about this is dangerous. Has been for three years. But someone knows what's happening in this city, and I'm done waiting for them to tell me."