Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQQSNZT7PKFFYHXZBBN9AB

The rain fell on London in sheets, a relentless curtain that blurred the neon signs and slicked the cobbles black. Detective Harlow Quinn moved against the downpour, a shadow with military precision. Her worn leather watch, a constant weight on her left wrist, was soaked through. She’d been six steps behind the runner for nine minutes. He was a spindly figure in a dark coat, vanishing and reappearing in the veils of rain, tracing a path westward from the grimy edges of King’s Cross. She’d picked him up outside The Raven’s Nest, seen the furtive exchange of a small wrapped package, and something in his darting, panicked look had triggered the instinct honed over eighteen years. He knew he was being followed. Her sharp jaw was set, teeth clenched against the cold. She kept her distance, using doorways and the swollen gutters for cover, a ghost in her own city. The streetlights swam in the puddles. He cut left down an alley, and she followed, her flat-soled boots silent on the wet asphalt. The alley opened onto a broader street near Camden, but he didn’t head for the main drag. Instead, he vaulted a low wall beside a shuttered newsagent’s and dropped from sight. Quinn scaled the wall without breaking stride, landing in a crouch. Before her was a rusted metal staircase, spiraling down into a maw of darkness beside the old roundel of a disused Tube station. The air that rose from it was warmer, thick with the smell of damp concrete and something else—incense and ozone. The runner had disappeared down those stairs. She hesitated for a fraction of a second. Protocol said call it in, request backup, secure the perimeter. But backup meant questions, meant explaining why she was tailing a suspect connected to Silas’s bar, meant the slow, grinding machinery of the Met. Morris had vanished following a lead off the books. She’d found his service pistol in a canal a week later, rusted shut. Her hand went to her own holster, the grip reassuringly solid under her damp coat. She took the stairs two at a time, descending into the earth. The clang of her footsteps echoed back at her. The light from the street faded, replaced by a flickering, guttering glow from below. The staircase ended in a broad, tiled corridor, part of the old station’s infrastructure. Graffiti covered the walls in chaotic swirls. Up ahead, a heavy-looking iron door stood ajar. Warm, smoky light bled from the crack. Quinn approached, back to the wall, and peered through the gap. The cavernous space of the abandoned ticket hall had been transformed. Dozens of makeshift stalls made of scrap wood and faded cloth were crammed together, lit by oil lamps, fairy lights, and strange, self-contained glowing orbs that hovered in the air. Stalls sold jars of viscous liquids that pulsed with faint light, carved bones, dried herbs hanging in bunches, and what looked like archaic, bladed weapons. People—if they were all people—moved through the crowded aisles. A tall figure with a stitched-together leather coat seemed to have an extra joint in its arms. A woman with skin the color of weathered bark was examining a necklace of sharp teeth. The hum of low conversation was punctuated by harsh bartering in languages Quinn didn’t recognize. The Veil Market. She’d heard the whispers, always dismissed them as junkie fantasy or the ramblings of unhinged informants. It was real. And her suspect was threading his way through the crowd, his dark coat easy to spot as he pushed toward the far end of the hall, where a heavier concentration of armed-looking individuals loitered near another arched exit. To follow him in there was to step into a world with its own rules. She saw no uniforms, no police presence. A stallholder with milky-white eyes turned his head slowly and seemed to look directly at her shadowed form in the doorway. Her pulse thrummed in her ears. This was the edge of everything she knew. Morris had been chasing whispers of something ‘other,’ something that didn’t fit the files. She’d filed his last report herself, a confused rant about ‘bleed-through’ and ‘bone tokens.’ She’d marked it as trauma-induced psychosis, a lie that had eaten at her every day since. The runner was getting away, about to vanish into the deeper tunnels. Quinn’s hand tightened on the doorframe. Another detective might have held back, set up surveillance, played it safe. But safe had gotten Morris killed and his death buried. Safe left these shadows undisturbed. She took a deep breath of the strange, spiced air and stepped across the threshold. The atmosphere changed immediately. The hum of conversation dipped for a moment as several nearby figures paused their haggling to watch her. She held her head high, projecting an authority she didn’t feel, and moved into the flow of traffic, heading in the direction her suspect had gone. Her eyes scanned, not just for him, but for exits, for threats. She passed a stall selling vials of what was labeled ‘Fae Moon Dew.’ Another had stacks of old books bound in what looked like human skin. The stallholder, a gaunt man with ink-stained fingers, grinned at her, revealing pointed teeth. “Looking for something specific, officer?” She ignored him, her focus ahead. She caught a glimpse of the dark coat slipping through a beaded curtain at the hall’s far end. Picking up her pace, she shouldered past a hulking figure wrapped in reeking furs. A hand closed around her upper arm, the grip like iron. “You’re a long way from your beat.” Quinn turned. The man holding her was broad-shouldered, with olive skin and short, curly dark brown hair. His eyes were a warm brown, but they held no warmth as they looked her over. A scar ran along his left forearm, pale against his skin. He wore a simple dark sweater, but around his neck, a Saint Christopher medallion glinted in the lamplight. She tried to pull her arm free. “Let go.” “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, his accent Spanish. Seville, if she had to guess. His voice was low, meant only for her. “This isn’t a place for your kind.” “My kind?” “The law-abiding. The daylight kind.” His gaze flicked over her shoulder, toward the beaded curtain. “You’re following Miguel. He’s small-time. Not worth what will happen if you keep going.” “You know him?” “I know he’s frightened. And frightened people do stupid things, especially here.” He released her arm but stepped into her path, blocking her way. “Turn around. Go back up the stairs.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?” “Someone who patches up the messes made when your world bumps into this one. My name is Tomás Herrera.” He said it like it should mean something to her. It didn’t. “You’re Quinn. Harlow Quinn. You were Morris’s partner.” The name hit her like a physical blow. The noise of the market seemed to recede. “How do you know that?” “Because he came here too. Once.” Tomás’s expression softened, but it was pity, not kindness. “He was asking the wrong questions in the wrong places. Like you are now.” “What happened to him?” “He found an answer.” Tomás glanced past her again, his body tensing. “You need to leave. Now.” Quinn followed his look. Three figures had detached themselves from the shadows near the beaded curtain. They weren’t looking at her; they were looking at Tomás. And they were moving toward them.