Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT04571SP276EK8T29TSVV6

Detective Quinn’s boots echoed on damp tiles as she descended the grated stairs into the abandoned platform beneath Camden Road. A haze of dripping water and rusted metal filled the air. She swept her torch across crumbling stalls—splintered wood, shattered glass vials, bundles of bone trinkets discarded like litter. Beneath a flickering emergency lamp, DS Marcus Patel waited. “This your scene?” Quinn’s voice snapped through the chill. Patel shifted the clipboard in his hands. “Locker theft turned violent, by the looks of it. One witness heard shouting around midnight, found the body before I arrived.” Quinn crouched beside the corpse. A woman in her thirties, dark hair plastered to her skull, lips parted as if mid-cry. Her arms twisted under her, wrists bruised. Patel’s light played across a broken knife blade, its metal etched with something odd—tiny runic shapes. “Gang initiation?” Patel tapped his pen against the blade. “They do tattoos, knives. Territorial.” Quinn frowned. She leaned closer, fingertips hovering above a circle drawn in fine white dust around the corpse’s head. The lines curved into an unfamiliar sigil. She touched it. Grainy bits clung to her glove, cool as bone ash. “That paint,” she murmured. “Not chalk.” Patel peered. “Looks like chalk to me.” Quinn brushed a patch aside. The floor underneath gleamed damp, as if acid had eaten the tiles. “This dissolved after someone drew it.” Patel glanced at the stain. “Corrosive residue? Could be acid from a spray can.” Quinn studied the circle. The curves met at five points, each terminating in a jagged fork. They reminded her of nothing she’d seen in police files—more like the shapes Eva Kowalski had mentioned in letters about protective wards and old texts. “Where’s Kowalski when you need her?” Quinn muttered, then rose. She scanned the stalls. One corner held a half-open brass box, greenish patina pooling in its hinge. Her torch caught the box’s face: protective sigils etched across the lid, tiny spirals and inverted crescents. She knelt again, slid her gloved fingers under the lid. Inside lay a small compass. Brass casing, face ringed with more of those tiny wards. The needle trembled, pointing deep into the tunnel toward the disused track. The surface bore spots of verdigris—someone had carried it here. Patel crouched beside her. “Looks like evidence, boss.” Quinn didn’t reply. She set the compass gently on a paper sheet, leafing through her notebook. No entry for “supernatural compass,” no theft report matching this object. Whoever left it here intended someone to find it. Patel tagged the knife blade, the compass, a scrap of torn parchment riddled with the same sigil as the circle. “Victim carried this?” he asked. Quinn held the parchment to her torch. Words scrawled in a frantic hand—half Latin, half gibberish. She traced the letters with her fingertip. “Script matches other Veil Market items,” she said. Patel blinked. “Underground market? Thought that was myth.” Quinn pressed her jaw closed. “They really move every full moon, under different stations. This one’s set up in Camden. Victim probably had a bone token to get in.” Patel glanced around. Nothing stood between the platform and the tracks but rusted barriers. “No bone token, no entry. How’d someone sneak in?” Quinn rose slowly, torch trained on the tunnel mouth. Blackness swallowed the rails. Damp air pulsed out, warmer than the rest of the platform. A faint hum, like distant voices in a cavern. “She got lured. Or guided.” Quinn looked at Patel, eyes sharp. “Look at the rail joints—fresh scraped paint. Someone’s been down there.” Patel squared his shoulders. “Maintenance schedules say no one’s been here in months.” Quinn studied footprints in the dust—two sets, one large, one small. Both led toward the tunnel. “Footwear prints too fine to be maintenance boots. More like deck shoes, soft soles.” Patel knelt to inspect. “Deck shoes? Who wears those underground?” Quinn kept her gaze on the tunnel. “Shades. They move quiet.” Patel frowned. “You think this is—supernatural?” Quinn didn’t answer. She held up the compass; its needle quivered, now pointing not just down the tunnel but angling toward the east wall, where a boarded-up service door sagged. Faint etchings on the door frame—tiny sigils, the same design she’d seen on the parchment and knife. The hum grew louder. Quinn slid her torch along the tunnel’s bricks. In the corner, a scorch mark, thin black cracks radiating like spider legs. The tile around it felt hot, damp. Patel glanced at the scorch. “Electrical fault?” Quinn pressed her palm against the tile. Heat hissed beneath her glove. “No fuse box here. No cables.” Patel straightened. “Boss, maybe we should call someone. Forensics. Fire brigade.” Quinn pocketed the compass. “Call them.” She forced calm. “But not before we figure this out. This isn’t gang violence, Marcus. This is something else.” Patel’s lips tightened. He sighed. “You’re chasing ghosts, Quinn.” She stepped toward the boarded door. The hum grew a whispering chant. She straightened, hand on her watch—an old leather strap worn from years of service. The unknown pressed in. She pressed her lips together and tapped the door with her palm. The wood fractured, a line of light slashing through. Patel raised a hand. “Boss—” Quinn pried a board loose, stepped through. The echo of her boots shifted, became a soft thudding like blood pulsing in her ears. The tunnel yawned wider. Moist air swirled. She clicked on her torch’s second beam—brighter, colder. A stall lay ahead: crooked shelving lined with jars, each lid sealed with wax and bone dust, swirling contents caught in the beam. Paper tags marked them: “Dreamscales,” “Root of Waking,” “Ashes of Sundering.” The hum rose and fell, as if the items themselves breathed. Patel followed, flashlight shaking. “Really? A market stall down here?” Quinn knelt at the nearest jar. The liquid inside glowed a pale violet. She tapped the lid. The hum stuttered. She flicked it open. A drop of liquid slipped onto the tile. Instantly, the floor beneath fizzed, etching new symbols around her knee. Patel jerked back. “Move!” Quinn ignored him. She traced the new symbols. They matched the circled ward around the corpse—a portal glyph, inscribed to hold something in place. She pressed her finger in the dusty groove; the glyph sank out of sight. A rush of air erupted from behind the stall, carrying a clatter of bones. Patel spun, gun drawn. Quinn stood, flashlight grazing the tunnel wall. A hidden niche gaped there, lined with cracked mirrors and broken frames. Through one, she caught a flicker—shadows flickering inside the mirror, as if a pair of pale eyes watched. She swallowed, mind racing. The corpse outside, the knife, the compass—all pointed here. Someone had staged a killing to anchor a portal. The victim’s blood fed the wards. The compass tracked the rift. Now this stall, these jars, all part of a ritual market beyond lawful sight. Patel cleared his throat. “Boss?” Quinn turned, voice low. “They’re using human sacrifice to open a doorway. And this market… it’s no black market for smuggled drugs. It’s a crossroads.” Patel’s jaw clenched. “Crossroads to what?” Quinn watched her torch’s beam settle on a chipped sign nailed above the niche: THE VEIL MARKET. Beneath, faded letters spelled “NEXT STOP: REALM BEYOND.” Her heart sped as she pieced it together. The victim didn’t steal a token. She brought one. She triggered the portal. Someone wanted to cross—and they needed blood to pour through. Patel’s brow rose. “So you’re telling me we’re investigating… magic?” Quinn slid the compass from her pocket. The needle spun, then settled pointing into the mirror’s dark surface. She held it at eye level. “Not magic. The real thing.” She tucked her torch under her arm, raised her hand to Patel. “Stay here. Seal the platform. I’m going in.” Patel hesitated. “Boss—” Quinn offered a stiff nod. The lens of her watch caught the glow of the compass’s sigils. The mirror’s surface rippled. A pulse thrummed through the air. She stepped forward, boots leaving prints on the ancient glyphs as the boards of the niche fell away behind her. Silence swallowed the platform. Patel’s flashlight beam trembled on the jars, on the chalk circle fading where the acid had done its work. Quinn’s form vanished into the mirror’s darkness. A soft click echoed—a new board sealing itself across the niche. Patel stilled, breathing shallow. He lowered his gun, eyes fixed on the closed niche. Then he reached for his radio. But Quinn didn’t wait for backup. She moved deeper, following the pulse of the Veil Compass toward whatever lay beyond.