AI Rust clung to the wrought-iron gates, the flaking paint a dull echo of the night sky. Beyond them, a winding path, choked with weeds and broken flagstones, disappeared into the gloom . Detective Harlow Quinn stepped out of her unmarked car, the gravel crunching under her boots. A cold wind, smelling of damp earth and something acrid, whipped her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair across her sharp jaw. She pulled her coat tighter, the worn leather watch on her left wrist catching the faint glow of the crime scene lights.
“Another quiet night, then, Detective?”
Harlow turned. Detective Sergeant Miller, a man built like a bulldog with a permanent frown etched on his face, trudged toward her, a steaming polystyrene cup in his hand. Miller, seven years her junior but with ten more years on the force, carried himself with a weary cynicism that grated on Harlow's military precision.
“You call this quiet, Miller?” Harlow swept an arm towards the crumbling mansion dominating the hill. Its broken windows stared like vacant eyes, a skeletal silhouette against the bruised pre-dawn sky. “Looks like a horror film set.”
Miller grunted, taking a long swig of his coffee. “Estate agent’s dream, that one. Half a million quid, easy, once they clear out the ghosts.” He gestured with his chin towards the entrance, where uniformed officers moved like shadows. “Victim’s inside. Upstairs, master bedroom. Nasty business.”
Harlow followed him up the path, her gaze scanning the overgrown grounds. The air grew colder as they approached the house, the acrid smell intensifying, mingling now with something metallic and sweet. Her gut clenched. Three years. Three years since Morris. The memory, a persistent ache, tightened its grip. She pushed it down. Focus.
Inside, the mansion was a mausoleum of dust and decay. Rotting tapestries hung from the walls, revealing patches of damp-stained plaster. The floorboards groaned with every step. Harlow’s gaze swept the grand hallway, noting the heavy oak banister, carved with grotesque faces, and the shattered chandelier lying in shards on the marble floor.
“Forensics are already up there,” Miller said, noticing her pause . “Standard procedure. Break-in, struggle, victim found dead.”
“Standard?” Harlow raised an eyebrow . “In a place like this? Nothing about this feels standard , Miller.”
She ascended the creaking staircase, each step a protest against the silence . The upper landing was a maelstrom of activity. Blue lights pulsed , casting long, distorted shadows. Photographers’ flashes popped, illuminating the grim scene in stark bursts. The smell, here, was overpowering: cloying, sickly sweet, like an abattoir mixed with cheap perfume.
“Detective Quinn.” A young forensic officer, face pale, nodded curtly. “The body’s through here.”
Harlow stepped into the master bedroom. It was a cavernous space, draped in shadows despite the blazing floodlights. A four-poster bed, its velvet hangings ripped and tattered, dominated the centre. The air shimmered with an unsettling stillness.
Her eyes cut to the body. A man, early forties, lay sprawled across the floor beside the bed. His face, contorted in a silent scream, was ashen. A dark stain bloomed across his chest, soaking into the threadbare carpet.
Miller leaned in, his voice a low rumble. “Blunt force trauma. Looks like he put up a fight. Room’s tossed, drawers pulled out, everything scattered.” He pointed to a shattered porcelain vase near the victim's head. “Found this. Looks like our weapon.”
Harlow knelt beside the body, her gaze intense. She ignored Miller, ignored the forensics team working around her. Her eyes meticulously swept over every detail. The man’s clothes were dishevelled , his shirt ripped. Scratches marred his exposed arms. But something nagged at her. The position of the body. The lack of blood splatter.
She glanced at the porcelain vase. Fragments lay scattered on the rug, a delicate floral pattern now marred by reddish-brown streaks. “Did you bag that, Miller?”
“Of course, Detective. Just waiting for the report back from the lab.” Miller’s voice held a note of impatience. “It’s open and shut. Burglar surprised the owner, things got messy. Classic.”
Harlow moved her gaze around the room, taking in the chaos. Drawers hung open, their contents strewn across the floor. Books lay scattered, their pages dog-eared. A heavy oak armoire stood ajar, its shelves empty. It all pointed to a hurried search, a ransacking. But her gut churned . Something was off.
She focused on the victim's hand, stretched out, fingers almost brushing a small, intricate carving on the floorboards. It was a symbol, an interlocking pattern of circles and lines, etched deeply into the aged wood. She knew she had seen it before.
“What about the entry point?” Harlow asked, her voice low .
“Front door forced, lock picked. Amateur job.” Miller shrugged. “Like I said, classic. They probably expected an empty house, got a nasty surprise.”
Harlow stood, her gaze sweeping back to the bed. The ripped velvet hangings fluttered almost imperceptibly in a draft she couldn't account for. The air grew colder around them, the sweet, metallic tang becoming sharper, almost burning at the back of her throat.
“Any witnesses?”
“Nope. Neighbours heard nothing. Place has been empty for months, apparently. The victim was house-sitting for family, or so the initial reports say.”
Harlow walked slowly around the room, her brown eyes missing nothing. She stopped at the window. It was latched from the inside. Dust lay undisturbed on the sill. No footprints outside. No signs of forced entry.
“The front door was forced, you said?” Harlow’s voice was flat.
Miller nodded. “Yeah, splintered frame, lock’s busted. Clean entry.”
“And the window?”
“What about it?” Miller looked confused .
“It’s latched,” Harlow stated, turning back to him. “And the dust on the sill is undisturbed. No one went out this way, and no one came in.” She pointed to the intact pane. “No broken glass. So where did our burglar go after the ‘struggle’?”
Miller frowned, looking from the window to the body. He opened his mouth, then closed it. The usual confident smirk had evaporated from his face.
Harlow moved to the shattered vase, bending down again. She picked up a larger fragment, turning it over in her gloved hand. The floral pattern, faded and intricate , felt oddly smooth. She ran a thumb over the reddish-brown smears. The discolouration was consistent, but its texture felt… off. Too uniform. Too artificial.
She sniffed the fragment. The scent was faint here, but recognizable: the sickly-sweet tang of iron, overlaid with something else. It wasn’t blood. Not human blood, anyway.
“This blood, Miller,” Harlow said, her voice dropping, “it’s not human.”
Miller spluttered, “What are you talking about? Forensics will confirm it when they're done.”
“They will,” Harlow agreed, her gaze unfocused, distant. “And they'll also tell you that our victim wasn’t bludgeoned by this vase.” She gestured to the distinct, sharp edges of the ceramic. “Look at the wound. It’s too clean. Too precise for something so uneven. And the blood splatter… it makes no sense for the angle of impact and the force required to shatter this much porcelain .”
She pointed to the carving on the floorboards. “That’s a protective ward, Miller. An old one. And that smell… that acrid, metallic smell. It’s what you get when a ward is broken. Not just broken, but *burned *.”
Harlow stood up, her eyes finally meeting Miller’s. “Someone didn’t break in here, Miller. Someone knew exactly what they were looking for, and they knew how to get it without tripping alarms or smashing windows.” Her gaze went to the armoire, its empty shelves mocking the notion of a simple robbery. “And whatever they found, it was important enough to kill for, in a way that looks like something else.”
Miller stared at her, his jaw slack. The easy certainty of a routine case dissolved from his expression, replaced by a nascent unease.
“This wasn’t a burglary, Miller,” Harlow said, her voice firm, resolute . “This was a hunt.”