Run: 2026-02-19-01KHT067ZSMJ9FCYBZJM1BA76X

The air in the abandoned Tube station was thick with the smell of damp concrete and decay. Detective Harlow Quinn descended the final flight of steps, her worn leather watch catching the single swinging bulb of light. The sound of her hard-soled boots echoed in the cavernous space, a sharp, rhythmic report against the silence. Tiles cracked and flaked away from the curved walls, revealing the dark brick beneath. A disused platform stretched into the darkness, a third rail gleaming like a metallic spine. Eva Kowalski stood near the edge of the platform, a small figure swallowed by the gloom. Her round glasses reflected the weak light, and she clutched the strap of her worn leather satchel like a shield. She’d tucked a strand of her curly red hair behind her left ear, a nervous gesture Harlow had already learned to recognise. ‘You’re late.’ ‘Traffic on the Euston Road is a special kind of hell, Evie.’ Harlow’s gaze swept the area. ‘Where is it?’ Eva pointed a trembling finger towards a dark archway, the entrance to an old service tunnel. ‘In there. It’s… not good, Harlow.’ Harlow moved towards the archway, her posture straight, her movements carrying the military precision that had become second nature. The air grew colder as she approached, a deep bone-chill that had nothing to do with the station’s subterranean location. A new smell cut through the dampness. Ozone. And something else, something sweet and acrid. Burnt sugar. She stepped through the archway. The service tunnel was a short, brick-lined corridor. At its far end, a man was slumped against the wall. He was dressed in fine, if slightly eccentric, clothes—a velvet waistcoat over a linen shirt. His skin, however, was the colour of old parchment, pulled tight over his cheekbones. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, but they were milky and clouded, like river stones. ‘No visible wounds,’ Eva said from behind her. ‘I checked. No punctures, no contusions, no signs of a struggle. Coroner’s preliminary on the phone agrees. It’s like he just… stopped.’ Harlow knelt. She didn’t touch the body yet. She observed. The victim’s hands were resting in his lap. His right hand was clenched in a tight fist. The space around him was a mess. Shelves along the wall had been pulled down, their contents—jars of strange herbs, bundles of dried flowers, intricately carved bones—scattered across the floor. It looked like a robbery gone wrong. A frantic, violent search. ‘A deal gone sour, perhaps,’ Eva offered, her voice a hushed whisper. ‘This is Silas. He was a Shade artisan. A craftsman. He dealt in rare items. Someone must have wanted something he had.’ ‘If they wanted something, they wouldn’t have left this.’ Harlow gestured with her chin towards the victim’s clenched hand. ‘And they wouldn’t have made this much of a mess. It’s too loud. Too obvious.’ She finally reached out, her gloved fingers gently prying open the dead man’s fist. It was stiff, resistant. Inside was a small brass compass, no bigger than a pocket watch. Its casing had a greenish patina of verdigris, and the face was etched with a series of complex, interlocking sigils. The needle wasn't pointing north. It was spinning, a frantic, silent blur of metal. ‘The Veil Compass,’ Eva breathed. ‘I’ve only read about these. They’re supposed to point toward the nearest supernatural rift. They’re incredibly rare. Silas must have made it himself.’ ‘It’s broken.’ ‘No, look.’ Eva knelt opposite her, pushing her glasses up her nose. ‘The casing is intact. The glass isn’t even cracked. It’s not broken. It’s… active. Overloaded, maybe. I’ve never seen one do this.’ Harlow stood up, her eyes scanning the scattered debris again. The mess. It was chaotic, but there was a pattern to it. The items closest to the victim were the least disturbed. A jar of pickled newts sat upright just inches from his shoe. Further away, a shelf had been completely torn from the wall. ‘You said a deal gone wrong,’ Harlow began, her voice low and steady. ‘Let’s walk through that. A rival artisan, or a dissatisfied customer, comes down here. They argue. Things get heated. They kill Silas. Why? How? There’s not a mark on him.’ ‘Magic? Some kind of curse?’ ‘Possible. But then, our killer ransacks the place, looking for something. The Compass, maybe. But they don’t take it. They leave it in his hand. Why smash up the room if you’re not going to take the prize? And look at his clothes. They’re pristine. No scuff marks on his shoes, no dirt on the knees of his trousers. If there was a struggle, he’d have fought back. He’d have been on the ground.’ Harlow walked to the far end of the corridor, where the wall was darkest. She ran her fingers over the brick. It was cold, almost painfully so. Colder than the rest of the tunnel. ‘The energy here is all wrong,’ Eva said, following her gaze. ‘It feels… thin. Frayed.’ ‘The Compass isn’t pointing at a rift, Evie.’ Harlow turned back to face the body. The spinning needle was a frantic, silver blur in the dead man’s hand. ‘It’s not a compass. It’s a gauge. And Silas wasn’t measuring a rift. He was creating one.’ Eva’s eyes widened. ‘That’s forbidden. The energy required… it’s unstable. It would tear him apart.’ ‘No.’ Harlow’s gaze was fixed on the victim’s desiccated form. ‘It didn’t tear him apart. It took something from him. Look at him. He’s been drained. Every last bit of it. The ransacked room wasn’t a search. It was the aftermath. A violent release of energy. He opened a door, and whatever was on the other side didn’t just walk through. It reached out and pulled him through, atom by atom, leaving only this shell behind.’ She pointed to the spinning needle. ‘That’s not a broken compass. That’s an open connection.’