Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR3492DE7N4M672TTFE4EA

Detective Harlow Quinn’s boot scuffed the last step, the thudding echo swallowed by rancid air. The platform lay deserted, its mosaic tiles pocked with grime. Flickering sodium bulbs cast jaundiced streaks across overturned benches. She flipped on her torch—its beam cut through the gloom like a scalpel. At the far end, Eva Kowalski knelt beside a pale figure. The researcher’s green eyes, magnified behind round glasses, were fixed on an odd chalk circle scrawled across the platform. Eva’s curly red hair flared under the torchlight; she tucked a tendril behind her left ear, the gesture betraying a nervous energy despite her calm focus. Quinn’s hand hovered near her holster. She moved forward, each step measured, military precision ingrained by eighteen years of service. No patrol car, no CCTV; this abandoned Tube station beneath Camden shouldn’t exist on any map. And now, it had a body. “Dr. Kowalski,” Quinn said, voice low. “Report.” Eva shifted, revealing a cluster of faint burn marks on the victim’s chest. “No obvious wounds,” she said. “No entry, no exit. Skin’s mottled pale, then these concentric burns.” She produced a loupe and a wax crayon from her leather satchel, traced one ring. “Matches a pattern in an 18th-century grimoire on portal invocations.” Quinn crouched, shining her torch across the tiles. The victim lay supine, arms splayed, mouth frozen in a silent scream. The burns were eerily symmetrical. Quinn wiped at one with a gloved thumb—it crumbled to gray ash. “Cause of death?” “Undetermined.” Eva tapped the chalk circle, a perfect ring etched with archaic runes. Dust motes drifted through the beam, settling on lines as precise as a stencil. “This isn’t your usual homicide. It looks…ritualistic.” “No fingerprints.” Quinn swept the beam over the floor. She unfolded a small brush from her coat, dipped it into powder, feathered it over tile. Nothing surfaced but a ghost of dust. The victim’s sneaker prints led into the circle, and nowhere else. “They didn’t carry him. They didn’t drag him. He walked in himself.” Eva bit her lip. “Or was drawn.” A metallic glint near the victim’s hand caught Quinn’s eye. Eva brushed away dust to reveal a small brass compass, patina freckling its casing with green. Protective sigils were etched around its face. Quinn picked it up. It felt almost warm against her palm. The moment she held it, the needle spun wildly, then jerked toward a service tunnel at the platform’s west end. Quinn’s sharp jaw clenched. “That’s not magnetic north.” She trained her torch on the yawning passage. The compass quivered, eager. “You know what this is?” Eva rose, sliding the compass into her satchel. “A Veil Compass. From the Veil Market. It points to the nearest supernatural rift.” Quinn stared at the chalk circle, the compass’s verdict, the absence of normal evidence. “Someone set this up,” she said. “Lured a subject here, activated a portal—” “Or tried to contain something,” Eva offered. Quinn stood. “Containment? With a live body? That ring’s perfect. No breaks, no hesitation. Whoever drew it knows exactly what those runes do.” Eva nodded, voice tight. “I collected chalk, burn residue, tissue samples. And I scraped off the violet sealant on the victim’s eyelids.” Quinn’s torch caught the victim’s face: eyelids sealed with a purple residue, as if to keep eyes closed for reasons beyond fear. “They didn’t want him to see.” She pocketed the compass in an evidence pouch, sealed it with care. Her watch—leather band worn thin—glinted 03:21. “Perimeter sweep. No one in, no one out. Drone footage inside the tunnels. And bring in K9 for chemical detection—phosphorus, mercury, any trace of alchemical byproducts.” Eva adjusted her satchel. “I’ll label it an occult incident. Forensics won’t know what hit them.” Quinn turned back to the circle, counting angles. “The Veil Market moves every full moon. They pick spots no one knows exist. This station’s been buried for fifty years. I want every scrap of station history—odd power surges, maintenance logs, trespass reports.” Eva’s freckles speckled pale under the torch. “You think this is connected to your partner’s case?” Quinn’s gaze flicked to the compass bag. The memory of DS Morris’s disappearance tightened her chest. “Might be. He vanished after chasing rumors of underground markets and ritual sites. I dismissed it. Now…” She shook off the doubt. “We follow the evidence.” She rose, boots echoing. “Light up that tunnel—UV, infrared. Anyone tampering with energy fields leaves a trace.” Eva hesitated. “Detective, this isn’t standard protocol.” Quinn met her eyes. “Not standard, not straightforward.” Eva nodded, slipping her glasses into place. She clicked open her satchel, withdrew vials. “Chalk, residue, tissue, sealant. I’ll fast-track them to the museum’s restricted archives. They’ve got the atmospheric analyzers.” Quinn unsealed the compass bag one last time. The needle spun, pointed deeper into darkness. She turned back to Eva. “We follow this.” A distant scuff echoed from the tunnel. A single footstep, too deliberate to be echo. Quinn stiffened, fingers brushing the holster. Eva caught her arm. “Detective—” Quinn signaled downward. “Stay behind me.” The tunnel air pressed in, heavy with stale breath and a hum of energy Quinn could almost hear. Her torch highlighted web-coated tracks that webbed toward a grated door set in the wall. The needle throbbed, swinging until its arrow aligned with a fractured tile at the door’s base. Quinn knelt, traced the compass’s direction. She slipped a slim pry bar from her belt, wedged it in the tile’s crack. It popped loose, revealing a handful of bone tokens carved into crescent shapes. Dust-covered, brittle. Eva crouched beside her. “Entry requirement for the Market. Whoever used these wasn’t an amateur.” Quinn pocketed two tokens and pressed her ear to the door. Faint voices murmured beyond. She stood, torch trained on Eva. “Secure the scene. I’m going in.” Eva’s eyes found Quinn’s sharp jaw and rigid shoulders. “Be careful.” Quinn gave a curt nod, then slipped through the door, leaving Eva to lock down the platform. The corridor beyond was narrower, plaster chipped in flaking curls. Sigils were smeared on the walls, half-washed by damp. The compass throbbed in Quinn’s pocket, a living heartbeat guiding her forward. She paused at the end where the corridor opened onto a vaulted chamber lit by a single exposed bulb. A low hum resonated through the stone. And in the center, etched in chalk, lay another circle—larger, incomplete. A man knelt beside it, chanting in a voice that rattled the spine. His hand hovered over the bones of an animal’s pelvis, arranged like an altar. Quinn stepped forward, torch high. The chant stopped mid-word. The man turned, eyes wild. Behind him, a swirling haze coalesced—a rift, pulsing. Through it, she glimpsed starlit skies that couldn’t belong to this world. The compass flared in her hand. She raised it, the beam catching the man’s face. Recognition struck her like a blow. He was her partner’s last suspect. Just as her training kicked in—draw weapon, secure perimeter—but she stood, breath caught between disbelief and resolve. Quinn’s voice was steady, cold. “Detective Quinn, Metropolitan Police. Drop your altar. Stand clear of the rift.” The man’s lips curled. “You can’t stop it now.” Quinn squared her shoulders. The edges of the circle began to glow. She lifted the compass higher, its needle quivering toward the center of the rift. She had no idea whether she was sealing a portal or opening one fully. But she knew one thing: she would not let another person vanish on her watch. And so, with everything she had learned—physical evidence, occult insight, every hard-won ounce of instinct—Detective Harlow Quinn took her stance, a lone figure in a hidden market beneath the city, determined to bend the rules of nature and reason until the truth would bleed through the Veil.