Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTQXKGQN35G00E18NN1Y7NN

Rain pounded the pavement in thick sheets. Harlow Quinn’s boots spat water as she crossed Old Compton Street. Steam hissed from a cracked manhole. Neon from The Raven’s Nest bled green across wet cobblestones. A tall shape darted past a parked cab. Quinn lunged, coat flapping behind her. Her leather watch slapped against her wrist. The suspect wore a threadbare overcoat, collar turned up against the storm. He vanished down a narrow alley between shuttered shops. Quinn followed. Slime slicked the walls; puddles swallowed her ankles. She risked a glance over her shoulder. No backup. Just the distant wail of sirens and the hiss of rain. He rounded a corner, shoulders hunched against the deluge. Quinn closed the gap in two strides, hand on her holster. He skidded on gravel, spun. Brown eyes flicked toward her. Recognition flashed, then panic. He bolted again. Footsteps echoed off brick. Quinn pushed the chill down her spine. Three years since Morris. Three years of questions without answers. Tonight she would nail this one. He fumbled a pocket. Something gleamed in his fist. A bone token carved with arcane symbols. Quinn caught the catch of moonlight on its edges. He sprinted toward a boarded-up Tube entrance. A rusted grate covered the steps. He kicked it aside, slipped through. Quinn’s boots struck metal rungs. She dropped into darkness, water dripping from the ceiling in staccato beats. Her pulse throbbed. At the bottom she scanned the platform. Flickering lights revealed decades-old advertisements peeling from tiled walls. No train. No suspect. Just a single set of footprints etched in mud, leading around a pillar. Quinn moved in a crouch, gun drawn. A faint murmur drifted from the tunnel. The footprints pointed toward it. She followed. The tunnel narrowed; brick gave way to rough stone. The air tasted of damp earth and oil. Faint glow flickered ahead. She stepped over a coil of rope and around a stack of wooden crates stamped with foreign letters. Something clattered inside—metal against glass. Then a low voice. Silken, urgent. “He won’t make it to the next full moon.” A rasp answered. Two shapes emerged into the glow of a single bare bulb. One held a vial that caught the light, red liquid swirling inside. The other toyed with what looked like a preserved horn, horns from some creature out of myth. Quinn flattened herself against the wall. Each breath billowed out in plumes. The first figure’s face came into focus under a hood: warm olive skin, short dark curls plastered to his head. A scar cut across his forearm, a Saint Christopher medallion resting against his chest. Tomás Herrera. Off-the-books medic for souls who breathed beyond science. His lips curved in a grim line. “Tomás.” Quinn’s voice cracked. She flicked her eyes to her watch, to the corridor beyond. Tomás paused. “Harlow.” A flick of his hand, a gesture toward the tunnel. “He’s this way.” Quinn peered past them. The tunnel split. One passage ended at a locked door, the other sloped downward, stairs hewn from stone. Water pooled at the foot, reflecting pinpricks of torchlight. Voices carried up, indistinct but urgent. She risked a step forward. Tomás closed the distance. “You don’t belong here.” He pressed a finger to his lips. “They’ll kill you on sight.” Quinn traced the stairwell with her gaze. The suspect waited at the landing, his shoulders hunched. He wore no hood now. Dark hair, a thin frame shaking in the glare. He clutched that token like a lifeline. “I need him alive.” Her jaw tightened. Morris had slipped through veils that night. She’d never stopped chasing shadows. “He knows where the council meets.” Tomás rubbed his scar. “That’s The Veil Market. You follow him down, you cross into a world you can’t arrest.” He sank to one knee and retrieved a bandage from inside his coat. “That council won’t hand you over.” Quinn expelled a breath. Her sharp jaw quivered. She flexed fingers around the grip of her gun. Steam curled from her breath. The stairwell yawned below, and somewhere deep echoes stirred life into the darkness. The suspect spotted her. He took a slow step back, bone token raised. A low hum vibrated through the air. The token glowed faintly, veins of ivory pulsing. Quinn’s throat went dry. That hum had accompaniment—other tokens, hundreds, lining stalls somewhere ahead. She risked another glance. The sound assembled around whispers and footsteps. Traders haggled. A shatter of glass. A stall lit by a lantern, crates of crooked teeth, feathers pinned to leather straps. Alchemical smells burned her nostrils. “Are you in or out?” Tomás’s voice came soft, tense. He held the bandage up, as if offering peace. His eyes flicked to her watch, then to the suspect on the stairs. His gaze begged restraint. “I can’t save you if they catch you.” Quinn’s heartbeat thudded in her ears. The lethal calm she cultivated in interviews, at crime scenes—gone. This was no precinct. No forensic lab. This was magic and risk and laws she barely understood. One wrong move and violence would bloom. And she’d have no backup. She edged backward. Rain pattered through the grate overhead. Water tricked between her shoulder blades. The suspect took that as his cue. He sprinted down the final rungs, token blazing bright. He vanished through a low arch. The hum turned to a pulse. Tomás rose. Lantern light flickered across his face. Shadows stretched deep beneath his eyes. He sounded older now, fatigue packed into his voice. “If you go that way, you’ll have to choose: your badge or your life.” He pulled a small vial from his pocket. Golden liquid. He pressed it into her palm. Quinn stared at it. Healing serum? Antidote? Poison? Her skin prickled. She tucked the vial into her coat. He stepped aside. The arch yawned, revealing a cavernous hall lined with stalls. Traders in cloaks leaned over tables. Flames licked a brazier in the center. A bell chimed somewhere, announcing newcomers. No uniformed officer had ever walked here with permission. Quinn lifted her gun. The crowd stilled. A woman slid from behind a cloth screen, eyes glinting. A crate opened to reveal jars of preserved hearts. A man in a powdered mask offered her a curving blade, spun it on his fingertip. The suspect crouched behind a stall. He scooped up a shard of something and swallowed it. Pain contorted his features. Quinn jogged forward. He seized a strap and hoisted himself onto a platform of stacked boxes. He glanced over his shoulder, fear pooling in his eyes. “Don’t come after me!” His voice echoed. He pounded a heavy drum beside him. The bars of the grate slammed shut above her head. A clank that stabbed into silence. Light snapped out. The brazier’s fire sputtered. Every trader froze, turning toward her. A swallow of fear hissed through the crowd. Quinn squinted at the exit. No way back the way she came. The only path wound through stall after stall. Each one a threat. Razor-lined vines. Orbs that blinked like hungry eyes. Books bound in human skin. She stepped forward. Water sloshed beneath her feet. Bronze scales of a large serpent flickered around a corner. A bell tolled. The crowd parted, making room. Quinn’s boots felt heavy. Her fingers trembled on the grip of her gun. She saw Tomás slip away, vanishing into shadows. He’d given no promise of return. One stall hawked bone tokens. Each one carved with a name. She recognized the face of her partner: DS Morris in bone. The skull token glowed faintly in a glass case. She froze, heart seizing. The memory of Morris’s last breath in her arms. The splintering of reality she still couldn’t explain. Her grip loosened. The token winked at her. From the end of the hall, the suspect bellowed. “Harlow! You’ve got one chance!” He slapped his token against the stone floor. A shockwave rattled the stalls. Traders shrank back, hoods whipping around. A corridor opened behind him. Quinn exhaled. Steam coiled from her mouth. She raised her gun. Torchlight gleamed off the metal, haloed by dripping water. She took a single step forward. A hush settled over the Market. Then the tokens pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Her footing found purchase. She locked eyes with the suspect, framed by rattling bells and whispering hooded figures. Ahead lay the unknown. The only way out. Or in. She inhaled, pushed off the floor and crossed the threshold.