Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFESA264KQQ7WD1A3NTM4M

Quinn ducked under the yellow tape and descended the maintenance stairs into the abandoned Camden tube station. The smell hit her first—not the usual cocktail of piss and decay she expected from derelict Underground sites, but something else. Frankincense. Myrrh. And beneath it all, the copper tang of blood. The platform stretched before her in the beam of her torch, its tiles cracked and stained with decades of neglect. But the blood pooling near the edge was fresh. Very fresh. She checked her watch—3:47 AM. The call had come in twenty minutes ago. Anonymous tip, naturally. "Detective Quinn?" A voice echoed from the far end of the platform. "Down here." She followed the voice, her footsteps unnaturally loud in the tunnel's silence. Sergeant Peters stood beside the body, his face pale in the harsh light of the crime scene floods someone had managed to rig up. The victim lay sprawled across the tracks, limbs at unnatural angles. "Male, mid-thirties," Peters said without preamble. "No ID. Looks like he fell from the platform, cracked his skull on the rail." Quinn crouched beside the body, careful not to disturb the scene. The man wore expensive clothes—silk shirt, tailored trousers, Italian leather shoes that probably cost more than her monthly salary. His right hand clutched something small and brass. "Drunk, probably," Peters continued. "Stumbled down here for a piss, lost his footing in the dark." "In Camden's abandoned station?" Quinn pulled on latex gloves. "How'd he even get in? This place has been sealed since the eighties." Peters shrugged. "Urbex types break in all the time. We've chased kids out of here before." Quinn gently pried open the victim's fingers. A compass fell into her palm, its brass casing green with age. Strange markings covered its face—not directions, but symbols she didn't recognize. The needle spun lazily, pointing nowhere in particular. "What kind of compass doesn't point north?" she murmured. "Evidence bag's in my kit," Peters offered. But Quinn wasn't listening. She'd noticed something else. The blood pool was wrong. Given the position of the wound and the angle of the body, it should have spread toward the third rail. Instead, it formed an almost perfect circle around the victim's head. She stood, scanning the platform with fresh eyes. Those weren't random scuff marks on the tiles—they formed a pattern. A large circle, maybe twelve feet in diameter, with the body at its center. Candle stubs sat at regular intervals around the perimeter, their wax pooled and hardened. "Peters, look at this." She gestured to the candles. "Someone was here. This wasn't an accident." "Could be from the urbex kids. They light candles for atmosphere, post photos online." Quinn's jaw tightened. In eighteen years on the force, she'd learned to trust her instincts. And right now, every instinct screamed that Peters was being deliberately obtuse. She pocketed the compass—a breach of protocol she'd worry about later—and continued her examination. More wrong details jumped out. The dust on the platform had been disturbed in a wide area, but she could only find two sets of footprints: the victim's expensive shoes and Peters' police-issue boots. "Where are the other prints?" she asked. "What other prints?" "From whoever lit these candles. From whoever drew this circle." She pointed to the pattern on the floor. "From whoever called in the anonymous tip." Peters shifted his weight. "Rain last week could've washed them away. This place leaks like a sieve." Quinn bit back her response. There hadn't been rain in two weeks. She'd checked the weather reports before leaving the station—habit from years of outdoor crime scenes. A flutter of movement caught her eye. A business card, tucked beneath one of the candle stubs. She photographed it in place before picking it up. The Veil Market, it read in elegant script. Below that, an address that made no sense: Platform 9¾, Kings Cross. Someone's idea of a joke. "Ever heard of the Veil Market?" she asked Peters. His face went carefully blank. "No, ma'am." Another lie. Quinn had interviewed enough suspects to recognize the tells—the slight pause, the formal address when he'd been calling her Quinn all night, the way his hand drifted to his pocket like he was checking for something. She made a show of bagging the card, watching Peters from the corner of her eye. He relaxed slightly when she sealed the evidence bag. Whatever was in his pocket, he thought she hadn't noticed. The compass weighed heavy in her jacket. Its brass surface was warm, almost uncomfortably so, despite the underground chill. She needed to examine it properly, away from Peters' watchful eyes. "Call the coroner," she said. "I want a full autopsy, toxicology screen, the works." "Seems like overkill for a drunk who took a tumble." Quinn turned to face him fully. "A man in thousand-pound shoes accidentally wandered into a sealed tube station, accidentally arranged candles in a perfect circle, accidentally drew occult symbols on the floor, then accidentally fell to his death in the exact center of his creation?" Peters' adam's apple bobbed. "When you put it like that..." "I want CCTV footage from every camera in a six-block radius. I want to know how our victim got in here. I want to know who was with him." She paused. "And I want to know who really called this in." "I'll get right on it," Peters said, but his heart wasn't in it. Quinn climbed back toward the entrance, her mind racing. Three years ago, she'd lost Morris in a case that made no sense—witnesses who changed their stories, evidence that disappeared, and at the center of it all, whispers of something called the Veil Market. The brass had shut down her investigation, cited stress and grief, suggested she take leave. She'd let it go then. But now, standing in this abandoned station with its ritual circles and impossible blood patterns, she wondered if Morris had stumbled onto something real. Something that certain people wanted kept quiet. At street level, dawn was breaking over Camden. The market traders were setting up their stalls, normal London life beginning another day. Quinn's unmarked car sat where she'd left it, but something had been tucked under the windshield wiper. A bone, bleached white and carved with the same symbols she'd seen on the compass face. She glanced back at the station entrance. Peters hadn't followed her up. Probably on his phone already, reporting to whoever really ran this investigation. Quinn picked up the bone, surprised by its weight. A token, maybe? The compass in her pocket grew warmer, its hidden needle spinning faster. She had two choices. File her report, hand over the evidence, let the case disappear like Morris's had. Or follow this thread, see where it led, and finally get answers to questions she'd been afraid to ask. The bone was smooth beneath her fingers, worn by countless hands. Someone had left it for her. Someone wanted her to find the Veil Market. Quinn slipped the token into her pocket beside the compass and got into her car. She had a few hours before Peters' reports hit the system, before anyone realized she'd kept evidence. A few hours to find Platform 9¾ and discover what kind of market operated in the shadows of London. The compass needle had stopped spinning. When she pulled it out, it pointed steadily southeast. Toward Kings Cross. Toward answers.