Run: 2026-02-17-01KHMR8QBQATJY920Q1219MJRY

Rain lashed the streets of Soho, turning the pavement into a slick, black mirror that fractured the glare of headlights and neon signs. Detective Harlow Quinn’s lungs burned, a familiar fire that did little to slow the relentless, rhythmic pump of her legs. Ahead of her, the figure of Tomás Herrera was a fleeting shadow, his dark curls plastered to his skull, the worn leather of his jacket darkening with every second he spent in the downpour. He was fast, she’d give him that. Not the trained, efficient speed of a professional, but the panicked, desperate scramble of a cornered animal. He vaulted over a overflowing bin, sending a cascade of refuse onto the pavement, and Quinn followed with a economy of motion that bordered on instinct. Her 41 years felt like 21 in moments like this, the muscle memory of eighteen years on the force taking over. She ignored the cold seeping through her coat, the water dripping from her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair into her eyes. Her focus was a pinpoint, locked onto the back of Herrera’s neck. He’d slipped out of The Raven’s Nest just as she’d been closing in. She’d been watching the place for a week, certain the bar’s quiet owner, Silas, was a hub for the strange little clique she’d been tracking. Herrera was a known associate, an off-the-books medic with a history of treating patients who didn’t, couldn’t, exist in any official NHS database. The moment he’d seen her unmarked car, he’d bolted. “Police! Stop!” she’d yelled, the command swallowed by the storm. Useless. He cut left down a narrow, gas-lit alley that stank of damp brick and overflowing skips. Quinn’s worn leather watch on her left wrist slapped against her bone as she pumped her arms, the only sound besides their ragged breathing and the drumming of the rain. She saw him stumble, a sharp cry swallowed by the storm, and for a fleeting second, she thought she had him. He’d gone down on one knee, his hand flying to his left forearm, to the scar she knew was there from a knife fight years ago. But he was up again in a flash, his Saint Christopher medallion a brief, golden glint against his olive skin before it disappeared under his collar. The alley opened onto a wider street, quieter, lined with shuttered shops. This was Camden. He was leading her away from his territory, or maybe toward it. She couldn’t be sure. The chase had become a puzzle. He wasn’t just running; he was navigating. He dodged across the road, forcing a taxi to slam on its brakes, its horn blaring a useless, angry protest into the night. Quinn didn’t hesitate, her gaze fixed on her quarry. He was heading for the Tube station. A dead end at this hour. Trains weren’t running. He was cornered. But Herrera didn’t run for the main entrance. He skirted the building, his feet splashing through deep puddles that collected in the shadows, and disappeared down a steep, unmarked decline. A service entrance. Abandoned. Quinn followed, her hand instinctively dropping to rest on the grip of her sidearm. The air changed here. It grew colder, thick with the smell of damp earth, rot, and something else. Something acrid and metallic, like old blood and ozone. The sound of the rain faded to a distant drumming, replaced by the drip-drip-drip of water from the arched brick ceiling above. The passage opened into a small, tiled area. Faded posters for long-defunct musicals peeled from the walls. It was the disused entrance to an abandoned part of the station. Herrera was standing before a set of heavy steel doors, his back to her, his shoulders heaving. He wasn’t trying to force them open. He was fumbling with something in his pocket. “Herrera,” Quinn said, her voice sharp and clear in the enclosed space. She had him. “It’s over.” He turned slowly. His warm brown eyes, usually so calm and reassuring in the photos she’d seen, were wide with a mixture of terror and defiance. Rainwater streamed down his face. In his hand, he held a small, carved object. It looked like bone. “You don’t want to do this, Detective,” he said, his voice raspy. He had a Spanish accent, thicker now with stress. “You need to turn around.” “I’m not turning around,” she said, taking a step forward. “You’re coming with me. We have a lot to talk about. The Raven’s Nest. Your patients. Silas.” He shook his head, a sad, almost pitying gesture. “You don’t understand anything.” He held up the bone token. It was intricately carved, a series of interlocking spirals. As he pressed it against a small, dark recess on the steel door, a low hum vibrated through the floor, up Quinn’s legs. There was no click of a lock. The air simply… parted. A seam of light, sickly and green, appeared in the center of the door, widening into a vertical slit that wasn’t a door at all, but a tear in the world. A wave of air hit her, carrying a cacophony of smells and sounds. Spices she couldn’t name, the sweet cloy of burnt sugar, the sharp tang of chemicals, and beneath it all, a low, chattering murmur of dozens of voices. It was the sound of a marketplace, but one that existed in the gutters of a nightmare. Herrera didn’t hesitate. He stepped through the tear of light and vanished. Quinn froze, her training screaming at her. This was impossible. This was the kind of thing that had gotten her partner, DS Morris, killed. Unexplained. Supernatural. The official report had cited a freak gas explosion, a structural collapse. But Harlow had been there. She’d seen the impossible geometry of the room, felt the cold that wasn’t just a lack of heat. She’d seen the look in Morris’s eyes right before… before. They’d called her traumatized. Grief-stricken. They’d gently sidelined her, passed her over for promotion, until she’d become a ghost in her own department, chasing whispers and rumors on her own time. And here it was again. The Veil. The Market. The thing she’d only read about in fragmented, redacted reports she wasn’t supposed to have access to. The tear in the door began to shrink, the green light pulsing like a dying heart. Herrera was gone. The evidence was gone. Her entire case, built on months of painstaking surveillance, was about to literally disappear into another reality. She could call it in. She could report a suspect fled into a secured area. They’d send a unit, they’d find a set of locked, rusted doors. They’d think she was crazy, or worse, that she was lying to cover up her failure. They’d take her badge. For good this time. Or she could follow. She thought of Morris, of his easy smile, of the way he’d bought her coffee on cold mornings. He’d walked into a room like this, and he’d never walked out. Fear, cold and sharp, coiled in her gut. But beneath it, something else stirred. A grim, relentless curiosity. A need to know. A need for answers that had festered for three years. The tear was now no wider than her hand. The sounds from within were fading, the light dimming. Quinn didn’t remember making a decision. She only remembered moving. Her body acted on an impulse she didn’t know she possessed. She took three long strides, covering the distance to the door, and plunged her hand into the shrinking, green-tinged wound in the world. It felt like plunging her arm into ice water and static electricity at the same time. The pull was immense. She braced herself, closed her eyes, and stepped through after him.