Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT02AV4ZDEB512ZHQBJN2Z6

The air tasted of rust and damp concrete, thick with the residue of forgotten commuters and something sharper—something wrong. Detective Harlow Quinn descended the crumbling staircase into the belly of the abandoned Camden Underground station, her boots striking each step with measured precision. The beam of her torch cut through the black like a scalpel, revealing cracked tiling, graffiti swallowed by mold, and the skeletal remains of a ticket booth choked in ivy. Her breath came steady, but her jaw tightened with every step. This wasn’t just another crime scene. Not with the bone token still warm in her coat pocket. She’d found it on the victim—an art dealer named Lorne Pryce—clutched so tightly in his right hand that the coroner had to pry open the fingers at the mortuary. No fingerprints, no signs of struggle in his flat, yet he’d been dead less than four hours when the call came in. And now here she was, standing in a sealed-off substation that hadn’t seen human traffic in over thirty years, the official records showing its decommission in 1988. Except someone had been here tonight. “Over here.” The voice came from the far end of the platform. Quinn turned. A figure emerged from behind a collapsed service kiosk—short, wiry, hunched slightly under the weight of a battered leather satchel. Curly red hair caught the torchlight like flame. Round glasses reflected the beam back at her in fractured glimmers. Eva Kowalski. Research assistant. Occult historian. And, until three nights ago, a name Quinn had never heard. “You’re late,” Eva said, tucking a loose coil of hair behind her left ear. She didn’t look nervous. Not exactly. But she did it again, seconds later, as if pulled by a wire. “I don’t take orders from museum staff,” Quinn replied, sweeping the torch across the platform. “You called it in?” Eva nodded. “Night watchman found Pryce. Thought he was trespassing. Called Security. They recognised him from the news. Called you.” “Which one of them found the body?” “The younger one. Jenkins.” “And you were here why?” “I had access. Research permissions. Restricted access to subterranean infrastructures with pre-industrial architectural elements.” She shrugged. “It’s a niche. But useful.” Quinn studied her. Sharp green eyes, flicking too fast between Quinn and the spot near the tracks. Nervous energy, but not fear. Not the kind that came from guilt, anyway. More like she was counting seconds. She stepped forward, her leather watch creaking against her cuff. “Let’s see it.” Pryce lay facedown at the edge of the platform, one arm flung forward as if he’d been reaching for the rails. No blood. No trauma visible. The pathologist’s preliminary report said cardiac arrest. But the skin on his neck was mottled with a web of violet lines—like bruising, but too symmetrical, too deliberate. Quinn knelt, gloved fingers brushing the collar of his coat. The fabric was dry. The floor beneath him, too. No moisture, even here, where condensation wept down the walls. Then she saw it. A faint shimmer in the air above his outstretched hand—like heat haze on tarmac, but cold to the touch when she passed her palm over it. “See that?” she asked. Eva didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was low. “You weren’t supposed to.” Quinn stood. “Explain.” “It’s a residual trace. A bleed-through. Like when a radio picks up a dead station.” “A bleed-through from what?” Eva hesitated. Then reached into her satchel. Pulled out a small brass compass, its surface streaked with green corrosion. The needle spun wildly, then locked—not north, but toward the center of the platform, where the air seemed to dip, like an invisible funnel. “This is a Veil Compass,” Eva said. “It points to ruptures. Weak spots between this world and others.” Quinn’s hand instinctively went to her sidearm. “You’re telling me there’s a portal here?” “I’m telling you one opened. Recently. Long enough for something to come through. Or for something to be taken.” Quinn turned back to the body. Pryce had been an art dealer, yes—but his last acquisition had been a 15th-century grimoire linked to banned Hermetic sects. She’d seen the file. Seized from a private collector in Prague. Supposedly destroyed in transit. It hadn’t been. “He didn’t die of a heart attack,” she said slowly. “No,” Eva agreed. “He was unraveled.” “Unraveled.” “The energy signature… it doesn’t match any known cause of death. But in the texts, it’s described as a ‘soul-tear.’ When a person is caught between worlds. Their essence gets… fragmented.” Quinn stepped toward the center of the platform, where the compass needle trembled. The air hummed. Faint, but unmistakable. Like the aftermath of a struck tuning fork. She dropped to one knee, scanning the ground. The dirt was packed down, but near the rails, something glinted—tiny, metallic. She brushed it clear. A shard of brass. Etched with symbols. She pulled out her notepad, snapped a photo with her phone, then held it up to Eva. “That’s a binding sigil,” Eva said. “Protective. But broken. Someone was trying to seal something. Or keep it contained.” “And Pryce had the other half,” Quinn realized. “The token. Not just access. A counterweight.” Eva’s breath caught. “You’ve seen this before?” Quinn didn’t answer. Three years ago. The warehouse by the Thames. Morris—her partner—had gone in first. Radio silence. They found his body slumped against a rusted chain, his face frozen in terror. No wounds. No tox screen anomalies. Just those same violet tracings on his neck. The case was closed as unexplained cardiac trauma. Buried under red tape. Forgotten. Until now. “This wasn’t a murder,” Quinn said, standing. “It was a summoning. Pryce wasn’t the target. He was the key.” Eva’s fingers tightened around the compass. “Then whoever used him is still out there. And they’re not done.” Quinn looked down at the dead man’s hand. The bone token had been confiscated as evidence. But now she saw something the coroner had missed—a thin groove carved into the inside of his ring finger. Not a wedding band. Too wide. A channel. For a seal. “He wasn’t just holding the token,” she said. “He wore it. Until the moment it broke free.” Eva exhaled. “The Market moves tomorrow. Full moon. If they’re using Pryce’s access…” “They’ll be back,” Quinn finished. “And I’ll be waiting.”