Run: 2026-02-17-01KHNFTQCNJSKBASRDYR6Z3P9F

The air in the abandoned Tube station was thick with the scent of damp stone and something metallic underneath—blood, maybe, or rust from the old tracks. Detective Harlow Quinn stepped carefully over the threshold, her boots crunching on broken glass and scattered bone tokens. The Veil Market was supposed to be empty at this hour, its stalls packed up, its vendors long gone to wherever creatures of the night went when the sun rose. But the call had come in at 5:47 AM: a body, unnatural causes, no ID. Quinn’s sharp jaw tightened as she surveyed the scene. The market’s usual eerie glow of witchlight had dimmed to near-darkness, leaving only the flicker of her flashlight to cut through the shadows. The body lay sprawled near what had once been a ticket booth, now repurposed as an apothecary stand. A man, late thirties, dressed in a suit that looked too expensive for this place. No visible wounds. No blood. Just... gone, like someone had snuffed out a candle. "Quinn." She turned. Eva Kowalski stood a few feet away, her round glasses catching the dim light, her freckled face pale. She clutched her worn leather satchel like a shield, fingers digging into the strap. "You shouldn’t be here," Quinn said, voice low. Eva tucked a curl of red hair behind her ear, a nervous habit. "I was already in the archives when they called you. Thought you might need... context." Quinn exhaled through her nose. Eva had a way of showing up where she wasn’t wanted, armed with knowledge no one else had. It was useful. It was also infuriating. She crouched beside the body, leather watch creaking against her wrist as she pulled on gloves. "No signs of violence," she muttered, more to herself than Eva. "No defensive wounds. He didn’t fight. So either he knew his killer, or he never saw them coming." Eva knelt beside her, careful not to touch anything. "Or it wasn’t a person." Quinn shot her a look. Eva met her gaze, unflinching. "You’ve seen the Market. You know what trades here. This isn’t a normal crime scene." Quinn’s fingers brushed the man’s lapel, finding something stiff tucked inside his jacket. She pulled it free—a small brass compass, its face etched with sigils, the needle spinning lazily despite the stillness of the air. Eva sucked in a breath. "That’s a Veil Compass." Quinn turned it over in her palm. The verdigris on the casing was old, the craftsmanship precise. "What’s it for?" "Finding rifts. Portals. Places where the boundaries between worlds are thin." Eva’s voice dropped. "If he had this, he was looking for something. Or running from it." Quinn’s mind raced. The body was too clean. No signs of a struggle, no evidence of a weapon. But the compass... that was out of place. A tool for navigating the supernatural, clutched by a dead man in a suit. She stood abruptly, scanning the ground. "There’s no blood, but look—" She pointed to the dust near the body. The faintest scuff marks, like something had been dragged. Not toward the exits, but deeper into the station, toward the old tracks. Eva followed her gaze. "You think something took him?" Quinn didn’t answer. She followed the trail, her flashlight beam cutting through the dark. The tracks were empty, the tunnels stretching into blackness. But there, just beyond the edge of the platform—a shimmer in the air, like heat off pavement. She reached for her sidearm out of habit, though she doubted bullets would help here. Eva grabbed her arm. "Don’t. If that’s a rift, you don’t know what’s on the other side." Quinn shook her off. "He didn’t die here. He was dumped. Which means someone—or something—wanted us to find him." Eva’s fingers tightened on her satchel. "Or they wanted us to follow." The compass in Quinn’s hand suddenly jerked, the needle snapping straight toward the distortion in the air. A cold draft curled up from the tracks, carrying the scent of ozone and something older, something sharp as a blade. Quinn’s pulse thudded in her throat. She had spent eighteen years solving cases that made sense. But this—this was something else. And Eva, with her books and her sigils and her too-knowing eyes, was the only one who seemed to understand. Quinn exhaled. "Tell me what we’re dealing with." Eva’s mouth pressed into a thin line. "Nothing good." The needle of the compass trembled. The air rippled. And somewhere in the dark, something watched back.