Run: 2026-02-19-01KHSZ0S5AYKZ2YDQQXNRE57TX

The abandoned Camden Tube station smelled of damp concrete and rusted iron. Harlow Quinn’s boots echoed on the cracked platform tiles as she approached the cordon. Yellow police tape stretched across the arched entrance to what had once been the ticket hall. A uniformed officer lifted the tape for her without a word. Quinn paused just inside, her eyes scanning the space. The hall was vast, vaulted, empty except for a circle of evidence markers and two forensic technicians in white suits. In the centre of that circle lay a body—male, early thirties, dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. No visible wounds. His face was turned away from her, one arm outstretched as if reaching for something just beyond his fingertips. Detective Inspector Chen stood near the body, hands in his pockets, staring at the ground with a weary expression. He looked up as Quinn approached. “Quinn.” “Sir.” “What do you make of this?” She walked the perimeter first, ignoring the body for the moment. Her eyes tracked the pattern of the tiles, the dust, the way the light from the forensic lamps fell across the floor. “Point of entry?” she asked. “Wandered in. There’s no sign of forced entry anywhere in the station. Door at street level was propped open with a brick.” Chen shrugged. “Homeless, probably. Had a hit of something bad.” Quinn knelt beside the first evidence marker. It marked a small, dark smear on the tile. Dried blood? She leaned closer. No—it was something else, something that gleamed faintly iridescent under the lamplight. She took out her own torch, clicked it on, and held the beam at an angle. The smear wasn’t liquid. It was more like a stain, a discolouration burnt into the tile itself. It shimmered with a faint purplish hue. “This is part of the scene?” she said, not looking up. “One of them. There’s a few like it.” She moved to the next marker. Another patch, this one smaller, like a droplet spatter pattern. Then another, a handprint on the wall near the body—five fingers, a palm, but the edges were blurred as if the hand had been melting. Quinn stood up. “Was he alone?” “No witnesses. No ID. We’re running prints.” She turned her attention to the body. The man’s outstretched hand was inches from a small object on the floor—a twisted piece of brass, shaped like a compass, but the glass face was shattered. She could see intricate etchings on the casing even from this distance. “Has that been photographed?” “It’s part of the scene,” Chen said, his tone tightening. Quinn ignored him and crouched beside the body. She looked at the man’s face. His eyes were open, wide, staring at the ceiling with an expression of pure terror. No blood from the nose or mouth. No foam. No visible signs of a struggle. She checked his hands. No defensive wounds. Nails clean. She pulled back the collar of his jacket. No bruises on the neck. No injection marks. Her eyes drifted to the compass again. It lay between two tiles, lodged in a crack. The needle was bent, pointing not north, but toward the deepest part of the station, where the tunnel mouth yawned black. “He wasn’t homeless,” Quinn said. Chen came to stand beside her. “How do you figure?” “His boots.” She pointed. “Custom-made, good leather, barely scuffed. His watch is a vintage Breitling. His jacket’s tailored. He’s not sleeping rough. And he didn’t wander in.” She gestured toward the handprint on the wall. “He was running.” Chen frowned. “Running from what?” “Not from someone. Toward something.” Quinn stood, her gaze shifting from the body to the compass, then to the tunnel beyond. “He was holding that when he died.” “It’s junk.” “Is it?” she said quietly. She took out a pair of nitrile gloves, snapped them on, and picked up the compass. The brass was cold, colder than the air around them. The etchings on the casing weren’t decorative—they were symbols, angular and precise. Protective sigils. She’d seen them before, in files she wasn’t supposed to have, in notes left by a partner who’d disappeared three years ago. The needle trembled as she turned it over in her hand. It didn’t point north; it swung weakly toward the tunnel, then back toward the body, as if caught between two poles. “Put that down, Quinn.” Chen’s voice was flat. She ignored him. “These stains—they’re not blood. They’re not any substance I’ve seen at a crime scene. And this handprint.” She walked to the wall, studied the blurred edges. “He wasn’t leaving a print. He was trying to push himself away from the wall. But his hand slipped.” “Because he was high.” “No.” She turned to face Chen. “Because the wall was slick. Because something was coming out of it.” Chen stared at her. The forensic techs had stopped working, were watching them now. “Out of the wall?” Quinn went back to the first stain on the floor. She crouched, touched the tile with her gloved fingertip. It wasn’t sticky. It was smooth, like glass. “This isn’t a spill. It’s a residue. Something evaporated here. Or condensed.” She stood again, her mind racing. “He came here with that compass. He was looking for something. A door. A rift. He found it.” Chen shook his head. “You’re jumping to conclusions.” “Look at the evidence.” Her voice was low, controlled. “No signs of violence. No drugs in his system—we’ll confirm that, but I can see it in his eyes. He wasn’t overdosing. He was terrified. He saw something he couldn’t comprehend. He reached for the compass, dropped it, and whatever he’d found reached back.” She held up the compass again. The needle shivered, pointing insistently toward the tunnel. “This is pointing to where he came from. Where he breached.” Chen’s jaw tightened. “Quinn, this is a dead man in an abandoned station. Occam’s razor. He was high, he had a bad trip, he died. End of.” “Occam’s razor only works when you ignore the evidence that doesn’t fit.” She turned the compass over, examining the sigils. “This was made by someone who knew what they were doing. It’s a tool. A guide. He didn’t just stumble in here. He was guided.” She walked toward the tunnel mouth. The darkness swallowed the light from the forensic lamps after a few feet. She could feel a draft coming from it—cold, damp air that smelled of ozone and something else, something metallic. “There’s nothing down there,” Chen called after her. “How do you know? Have you searched it?” “It’s a dead end. The tunnel’s been sealed for twenty years.” “Sealed by who?” “By the city.” Quinn stood at the edge of the darkness, the compass cold in her hand. The needle pulled, like a magnet drawn to iron. She felt a chill crawl up her spine—not from the cold, but from recognition. This was how Morris had started. With anomalies. With evidence that didn’t add up. With things that couldn’t be explained. She looked back at Chen. He was watching her with a mixture of pity and frustration. “We’ll do a sweep of the tunnel,” he said. “For completeness. But Quinn—don’t go chasing ghosts.” Ghosts. She almost laughed. Ghosts were simple. Ghosts were folklore. What she was thinking of was something else entirely—something that left residues that shimmered purple, something that came out of walls, something that scared a man to death without touching him. She looked down at the compass again. The sigils seemed to pulse under the light. Protective sigils. Against what? “I want the lab to run a spectral analysis on these stains,” she said, walking back toward the body. “And I want to know what this is.” She held up the compass. “It’s evidence.” “It’s more than that.” She met his eyes. “This is a key. And I think our victim was trying to unlock something.”