Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNETGZ4PJ0XJH5TW2E6YNSH

The rain hammered against Detective Harlow Quinn's shoulders as she rounded the corner onto Chalton Street, her boots splashing through oily puddles. Ahead, Tomás Herrera's figure darted between the amber pools of streetlight, his dark jacket billowing behind him like wings. She'd been watching the Raven's Nest for three weeks, and finally—finally—she'd caught one of them making a move. "Metropolitan Police! Stop where you are!" Her voice cut through the rain's percussion, but Herrera didn't slow. If anything, he picked up speed, vaulting over a row of chained bicycles with surprising agility. Quinn cursed under her breath and pushed harder, her lungs burning. The leather watch on her wrist caught on her jacket sleeve as she pumped her arms. Three years since Morris died, and she was still chasing shadows through London's labyrinth. But this time was different. This time she had a face, a name, a lead that might finally crack open whatever the hell was happening in that Soho bar. Herrera cut left into an alley. Quinn followed, her hand instinctively moving to the radio clipped to her belt before she thought better of it. No backup on this one—she'd learned that lesson the hard way. The moment she'd mentioned the Raven's Nest to her DI, she'd been reassigned to traffic violations for a month. Someone didn't want the police sniffing around that place. The alley dumped them out near Camden Market, its shuttered stalls looking skeletal in the rain. Herrera glanced back, and for a moment their eyes met. Even from twenty meters away, she could see something flash across his face—not just fear, but calculation. He was leading her somewhere specific. Quinn's military training kicked in, every sense sharpening. The rain masked sounds, but she caught the echo of their footsteps bouncing off the wet brick, the distant rumble of late-night traffic, the particular silence that meant they were moving away from populated areas. Her fingers found the grip of her asp baton. Herrera disappeared down a flight of stairs she hadn't even noticed—a dark mouth in the pavement surrounded by construction barriers. The old Camden tube extension, abandoned since the sixties. Quinn hesitated at the top, rain streaming down her salt-and-pepper hair. This was exactly the kind of place Morris would have charged into without thinking. The kind of place that got good cops killed. But Herrera knew something about the Raven's Nest. She'd seen him coming and going at odd hours, always through the back entrance. She'd run his prints—former NHS paramedic, license revoked for reasons that had been curiously redacted from the official records. He was connected to whatever was happening in that bar, and she wasn't letting him slip away. Quinn descended the stairs, each step taking her further from the streetlights above. The rain couldn't follow her here, but water dripped from her jacket, echoing in the tunnel. Emergency lighting cast everything in a sickly green glow. The air smelled of rust and something else—incense? Herbs? Twenty meters ahead, Herrera had stopped at what looked like a maintenance door. He was fumbling with something at his neck. Quinn drew her baton, extending it with a practiced flick. "Don't move, Herrera. Hands where I can see them." He turned slowly, hands raised. In his right fist, he clutched something that caught the emergency lighting—his Saint Christopher medallion. No, wait. As Quinn moved closer, she saw it wasn't the medallion at all, but something white and curved. Bone. "You don't want to be here, Detective." His Sevillian accent made the words musical despite their warning. "Turn around. Walk away. Forget you saw me." "Not happening." Quinn kept the baton between them, though Herrera made no aggressive moves. "You're going to tell me what's going on at the Raven's Nest. What are you people doing in that back room?" A sad smile crossed his face. "Trying to help people. People your system can't—or won't—protect." "Spare me the Robin Hood act. I've seen the types coming in and out of that place. Whatever you're dealing, whatever you're—" The maintenance door swung open behind Herrera, though he hadn't touched it. Quinn's words died as she stared into what should have been a utility closet but was instead a vast underground space lit by hundreds of paper lanterns. The smell of incense was stronger now, mixed with leather and spices and something animal. Figures moved between market stalls that shouldn't exist, couldn't exist, not here beneath Camden where she'd walked a thousand times before. "The Veil Market only opens to those who carry a token," Herrera said softly, holding up the piece of bone. "I'm sorry you followed me here, Detective Quinn. Truly. But now you have a choice to make." Quinn's mind raced. This was impossible. The kind of impossible that got Morris killed, that made the brass reassign anyone who asked too many questions. The kind of impossible that meant everything she thought she knew about the Raven's Nest and its patrons was just scratching the surface. "If you come through this door," Herrera continued, "you'll find answers. But they won't be the answers you want. They won't fit in a police report. They won't stand up in court. And they'll change everything you think you know about this city." Behind him, something large moved between the stalls—a shadow that didn't match any human silhouette Quinn had ever seen. Her hand trembled on the baton, but her jaw set with the same determination that had carried her through eighteen years on the force. "My partner died chasing answers," she said. "I've spent three years in the dark. So yes, Herrera. I'm coming through that door." He studied her for a long moment, then stepped aside. "Then may Saint Christopher protect us both. The Market doesn't usually allow entry to those who serve the Crown. You being here at all means something's changing. Something's coming." Quinn squared her shoulders and walked through the doorway into the impossible. The last normal thing she heard was the rain hammering on the London streets above, a world away from whatever waited in the lantern light below.