Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNF8DEN4C3SHHYDEGWN5VB3

The abandoned platform stretched before Detective Harlow Quinn like the ribcage of some buried leviathan, its Victorian tiles cracked and stained with more than just age. She descended the rusted maintenance ladder, her worn leather watch catching on a protruding bolt. The smell hit her immediately—copper and ozone, with something else underneath. Something that made her jaw clench with recognition. "Watch the third rung from the bottom," Eva Kowalski called from below, her voice echoing off the curved walls. "It's loose." Quinn skipped it, landing with military precision on the platform proper. The redheaded woman stood near what used to be the ticket booth, round glasses reflecting the harsh glare of police work lights that had been hastily strung along the tunnel entrance. Her leather satchel hung heavy at her hip, and she kept tucking escaped curls behind her left ear—a nervous tell Quinn had noticed during their previous encounters. "Dr. Kowalski." Quinn surveyed the scene, noting the positions of the forensics team. "The museum called you in?" "The Met did, actually." Eva's green eyes darted toward the tunnel mouth. "Someone thought my expertise might be... relevant." Quinn followed her gaze. The body lay twenty feet into the tunnel, just beyond where the platform lights reached. Male, mid-thirties, wearing what looked like an expensive suit. But it was what surrounded him that made Quinn's instincts scream. She approached slowly, pulling on nitrile gloves. The victim lay in a perfect circle of undisturbed dust, as if he'd been gently placed there by invisible hands. No drag marks. No footprints—not even his own. The tunnel floor beyond the circle was thick with decades of grime, but inside that precise boundary, the tiles gleamed like they'd been polished yesterday. "Time of death?" Quinn asked the nearest forensics officer. "Between two and four this morning, based on liver temp." The young man looked uncomfortable. "But Detective, the thing is—" "The doors." Quinn finished for him. She'd already noticed. Every entrance to this section of abandoned track had been sealed since 1952. Welded shut, bricked over, some filled with concrete. She'd checked them all herself on the way down. "There's no way in," the officer confirmed. "We had to use cutting torches just to access the maintenance shaft." Quinn crouched beside the body, careful not to disturb the circle. The victim's expression was peaceful, almost serene. No defensive wounds on his visible skin. His clothes were immaculate—not a wrinkle, not a speck of dust except where he touched the floor. "What do you see, Detective?" Eva had moved closer, staying just outside the ring of investigators. Quinn's sharp jaw tightened. "I see an impossible crime scene. No entry, no exit, no struggle." She pointed to the victim's shoes. "Italian leather, probably cost more than my monthly salary. But look at the soles." Eva leaned forward, adjusting her glasses. "They're... clean?" "Pristine. In a tunnel that hasn't been maintained in seventy years." Quinn stood, her brown eyes scanning the walls. "You ever see anything like this at the museum, Dr. Kowalski?" The question hung between them, loaded with subtext. Eva's hand drifted to her satchel, fingers brushing something inside. "Similar cases have been documented," Eva said carefully. "Though not recently." Quinn's attention sharpened. "How similar?" "The circle, for one." Eva gestured to the boundary. "It's not drawn or carved. The dust simply... stops. As if something prevented it from crossing that line." She paused, seeming to weigh her words. "In certain texts, such boundaries are described as protective. Or containing." "Protective from what?" Before Eva could answer, one of the forensics team called out. "Detective, you need to see this." Quinn moved to where the officer knelt beside the victim's outstretched hand. Clutched in his fingers was a small brass compass, its surface green with verdigris. Strange symbols were etched into the metal face. "Don't touch it," Eva said sharply, then caught herself. "I mean, it could be evidence." Quinn looked up at her. "You recognize it?" Eva's nervous hand went to her hair again, tucking and re-tucking the same curl. "It's... it looks like an antique. The symbols are protective sigils. Victorian era, maybe earlier." Quinn pulled out an evidence bag. As she carefully pried the compass from the victim's fingers, the needle swung wildly, then pointed directly down the tunnel into the darkness. She felt the hair on her arms rise. "The hell?" The forensics officer backed away. Quinn turned the compass. The needle didn't track north—it kept pointing down the tunnel, unwavering. Just like another compass had pointed, three years ago, leading her partner into shadows he'd never walked out of. "Dr. Kowalski," Quinn's voice had gone flat, professional. "I'm going to need you to tell me exactly why the museum thought your expertise was relevant to a murder in an abandoned Tube station." Eva's green eyes met hers, and for a moment, Quinn saw something flicker there—knowledge, fear, or maybe both. "Because," Eva said quietly, "this isn't the first body found like this. And according to the records I've been translating, it won't be the last." She gestured to the compass in Quinn's hands. "That's not pointing north, Detective. It's pointing toward something else entirely. Something that shouldn't exist but does." Quinn felt her world tilt, just a fraction. The same feeling she'd had the night Morris died, when the rational universe she'd built her career on had shown its first crack. "The killer," Quinn said slowly, testing the words. "They didn't break in here." "No." Eva's voice was barely above a whisper. "They were already here. They've always been here. The question is—" she nodded toward the compass needle, still pointing steadily into the darkness, "—are they still here now?" The lights flickered. For just a second, Quinn could have sworn she smelled it again—that same ozone scent from the night she'd lost Morris. When the lights steadied, every officer on the platform had instinctively moved closer together. Quinn pocketed the evidence bag with the compass. Whatever this was, wherever it led, she was going to follow it this time. She owed Morris that much. "Get me everything," she told Eva. "Every record, every similar case. And Dr. Kowalski?" She fixed the younger woman with her steady brown gaze. "The next time you recognize something at one of my crime scenes, you tell me immediately. Understood?" Eva nodded, but her attention had shifted to the tunnel. To whatever waited in that darkness that swallowed light and left bodies in impossible circles. Quinn turned to her team. "I want this entire platform mapped and photographed. Every tile, every mark. And nobody—" she emphasized the word, "—goes down that tunnel without my explicit permission." As her officers scrambled to comply, Quinn found herself staring at the victim's peaceful face. Whatever had killed him, he hadn't fought it. Maybe hadn't even seen it coming. Or maybe, like Morris, he'd seen something that had made fighting pointless. The compass needle pulled against the evidence bag, still pointing into the dark.