Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFHMMAMYEQ74B2H0FKX6Y1

Rain hammered the pavement like a thousand tiny fists, turning the neon signs into smeared watercolors of red and green. Detective Harlow Quinn's boots splashed through puddles as she sprinted after her quarry, the leather of her watch strap already soaked through to her skin. The suspect—a scrawny kid with more piercings than sense—darted left into a narrow alley, nearly disappearing into the shadows between buildings. Quinn didn't slow. She'd been running down leads on the Veil Market for three months, and this was the closest she'd gotten to someone who might actually know something. Her partner's face flashed through her mind—Morris, eyes wide with confusion in his final moments—and she pushed harder. "Stop!" she shouted, voice cutting through the downpour. The command carried the weight of eighteen years on the force, but the kid just laughed, a high-pitched sound swallowed by the rain. He made a sharp turn into an abandoned Tube station entrance, vaulting over the rusted turnstiles with practiced ease. Quinn followed, her badge catching on the metal as she slid through. The darkness swallowed them whole, and for a heartbeat she was back in that warehouse three years ago, chasing shadows that moved wrong, breathing that sounded like tearing paper. The kid was already halfway down the platform, heading for a door marked "Authorized Personnel Only" in peeling letters. Quinn's hand went to her holster out of habit, but she knew better than to draw her weapon in a space this confined. Instead, she pulled out her flashlight, the beam cutting through the gloom like a sword. The door at the end of the platform opened before the kid reached it. A figure stood in the threshold—tall, broad-shouldered, with a medallion glinting at his throat. For a second, Quinn thought she'd stumbled onto backup, but something about the way the kid relaxed told her otherwise. This was no cop. "Tomás," the kid gasped, words coming out in ragged bursts. "She's—" "I see her." The man—Tomás—stepped forward, blocking the doorway. His eyes, warm brown in the flashlight's glare, met Quinn's with an unsettling calm. "Detective Quinn, I presume?" Quinn skidded to a halt, boots scraping against the grimy tiles. The kid slipped past Tomás into whatever lay beyond the door. "You know who I am," she said, not a question. Her flashlight never wavered from Tomás's face, taking in the scar along his forearm, the way he stood like someone who'd seen worse than a pissed-off detective. "Everyone in the Veil knows the detective who won't stop asking questions." Tomás's voice carried a Spanish accent, soft consonants that didn't match the hard set of his shoulders. "You're a long way from your jurisdiction, Harlow." "Don't call me that." The words came out sharper than she intended. Morris had been the only one who got away with using her first name. "What is this place? What's beyond that door?" Tomás smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "The Veil Market. And you don't have a bone token, so you can't go in." Quinn's jaw tightened. She'd heard whispers about the bone tokens, about how they were carved from something that wasn't quite bone, from creatures that weren't quite dead. "I don't need an invitation to investigate a crime scene." "No crime has been committed here." Tomás took a step closer, and Quinn had to fight the urge to step back. "Not by any definition your laws would recognize." "The hell it hasn't." Her free hand found the photograph in her pocket—Morris, grinning in front of the precinct, taken two days before he died. "People are disappearing. Turning up with wounds that aren't natural. I followed the evidence here." "Did you?" Tomás's gaze drifted past her, toward the entrance they'd come through. "Or did something follow you?" The station suddenly felt smaller, the air thicker. Quinn's neck prickled, that cop instinct screaming that they weren't alone. She shifted her stance, putting her back to the wall, flashlight sweeping the platform. Shadows pooled in the corners, deep and hungry-looking. "Show yourself," she called out, voice steady despite the way her heart hammered against her ribs. A figure detached from the darkness near the turnstiles—a woman in a long coat, face obscured by a hood. She moved with a predator's grace, each step placing her precisely where the shadows were deepest. When she spoke, her voice carried an echo, like she was speaking from underwater. "The detective's persistence is noted," the woman said. "But some doors are meant to stay closed, Detective Quinn." Quinn's grip tightened on her flashlight. "I'm not leaving until I get answers about what happened to my partner." The woman paused, tilting her head in a way that wasn't quite human. "DS Morris's death was unfortunate but necessary. Some truths are too dangerous for mortal minds." "Necessary?" The word tasted like acid. "He was a good cop. He didn't deserve whatever ate him." "Eat is such a crude word." The woman stepped into a pool of light, and Quinn's breath caught. Her eyes reflected back yellow, like a cat's, and when she smiled, her teeth were too sharp. "Let's just say his curiosity exceeded his capacity." Quinn's hand found her gun this time, drawing it smooth and fast. "Step away from the door. Now." The woman laughed, a sound like breaking glass. "You think your little metal toy scares us? We've seen empires rise and fall, Detective. We've watched your kind stumble in the dark, grasping for answers that would shatter your fragile reality." "Then maybe it's time someone brought a little light." Quinn kept her gun trained on the woman's center mass, but her eyes flicked to Tomás. He hadn't moved, hadn't reached for a weapon, but there was something in his stance—ready, watchful, like he was waiting for a signal. The woman's form began to blur at the edges, like she was melting into the shadows. "The Market moves with the full moon. You'll never find it again." "Watch me." Quinn's voice was steel wrapped in velvet. "I'll burn down every abandoned station in this city if I have to." Something changed in the air then, a shift in pressure that made her ears pop. The woman's form solidified, her expression sharpening with something like respect. "Bold words for a mortal. Perhaps there's more of your partner in you than I thought." "Don't you dare—" Quinn's words cut off as the door behind Tomás opened wider, spilling golden light onto the platform. Music drifted out, strange and haunting, played on instruments she couldn't name. The scent of spices and something electric filled the space between them. Tomás turned slightly, offering Quinn a view of what lay beyond. The space was vast, bigger than the station could possibly contain, filled with stalls and people—if they could be called people. Some had too many limbs, others moved in ways that defied physics. Goods were displayed that made her eyes hurt to look at directly—crystals that swirled with inner light, books bound in something that glistened, jars filled with substances that shouldn't exist. "The Veil Market," Tomás said quietly. "Where the supernatural comes to trade. Where your partner learned things he shouldn't have." Quinn's finger tightened on the trigger, but she didn't fire. "What did he learn?" "That some doors, once opened, can never be closed." The woman was almost gone now, her form dissipating like smoke. "Your partner's death wasn't an ending, Detective. It was a beginning." And then she was gone, leaving only the scent of ozone and the echo of her words. Quinn stood frozen, gun still raised, staring at the impossible market that had swallowed her suspect and so much more. Tomás watched her, his expression unreadable. "You can't stop what's coming, Detective. But you can choose whether you face it blind or with your eyes open." The music from the Market swelled, a siren song promising answers, promising truths that would burn her to ash. Quinn's hand trembled, just once, before she lowered her gun. "Start talking," she said, voice rough. "And pray to whatever gods you believe in that you have answers worth the price of my partner's life." Tomás smiled, but this time it reached his eyes. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership, Detective Quinn." The door to the Veil Market stood open behind him, an invitation and a threat all at once. Quinn took a step forward, into the unknown, into the shadows her partner had chased three years ago. Some doors, once opened, can never be closed.