Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTR1097WHR8VATSXXF7EREV

Harlow Quinn cut across the mouth of Berwick Street, boots hitting slick cobbles with unerring rhythm. The rain painted her bare scalp cold beneath the stubbled salt-and-pepper of her hair. She ignored the damp seeping through the shoulders of her cheap suit. Eyes up, body forwards, hand brushing the weight of her radio at the hip, she fixed every muscle on the man running ahead—a short, broad figure, the glint of a Saint Christopher medallion bouncing at his throat as he darted between cabs. That runner had already risked two southbound buses and a cyclist screeching curses as he skidded into a puddle. Not a junkie. Not this time. Something else made these men run at the whisper of police. Quinn’s breath drew tight, the air full of wet tarmac and fried onions from a cart packing up under a groaning tarp. The runner, Herrera the police file had called him, chanced a look over the shoulder. Brown eyes wide in his olive face, not wild—calculated. He vanished down an alley littered with bin bags leaking oily trails wherever the rain peeled away their black skin. Quinn surged forward. She pressed a hand to her comm. “Suspect heading east off Berwick, past the Caff. Alone. No backup required yet.” Her voice, clipped. No need to betray the slide of tension working its way up her spine. She trusted her training; she trusted the blade-like calm she’d forged after Morris— No sense thinking backwards. She darted down the alley, lungs beginning to burn, steps careful not to trip on soaked cardboard. Ahead the alley split, a slant of sickly streetlamp light falling over slick brick walls, and a corrugated door yawned open a fraction. Herrera ducked inside. Quinn pressed her back into the shadow, heart pounding steady in her chest. Rain dripped off her jaw, melted down her neck. Her hand hovered near her service weapon, thumb tracing absent circles over the old leather watch wrapping her wrist. A voice called out inside—low, harsh, not English. “Hurry. We haven’t got all night.” Another reply in the same tongue, the words tumbling fast. Sevilla accent. They were nervous in there, whoever was with Herrera. Quinn pushed herself off the wall, slid through the cracked door. Inside, light from mismatched bulbs flickered overhead, painting haloes over stacks of boxes. Herrera’s shape shot across her field of vision, ducking behind a wire cage stuffed with metal canisters and rolled tarps. Someone else shrouded in a hood stood at the back, hand pressed to a door that ought to have led to a broom cupboard. The door swung open. Not onto darkness. A steep stone stairwell plunged downward, framed by a gust of chill air carrying a tang—a sharp metallic scent, and something older, stranger, beneath it. Blood. Wet clay. Herrera’s voice, forced low, snapped over his shoulder. “Don’t make this worse. Walk away, Quinn!” She noted how he used her name, not ‘Detective.’ Personal, then. She remembered his file—a paramedic barred by the NHS for treating "odd" wounds. Off-the-books jobs flagged by informants, all in Soho and Camden, never a charge that stuck. Quinn took two steps forward, weapon still holstered. Her coat dripped onto the warped plywood floor. “You’re running,” her voice matched the cold eddy leaking from below. “Makes you look guilty. I don’t want to shoot anyone tonight.” The hooded figure jerked their chin, voice rough and bored. “She won’t shoot. There’s rules down there.” Herrera’s grip tightened on the railing. “She doesn’t know the rules.” The hooded one spat, a thick glob landing near Quinn’s boots. “Her problem.” They darted down the stairs, vanishing into gloom. Herrera hesitated, jaw hard, scar along his forearm pale in the flickering light. “What’s waiting?” Quinn’s tone sanded down, just enough patience laced through. “Tell me.” Herrera glanced back at her, rain pushing wet grooves through his curls. The medallion glinted—Saint Christopher, patron of travelers. A crack of longing in those eyes. “Not your world, Detective.” He dropped into the darkness. Quinn drew her pistol, flicked the safety off, and advanced. She crouched at the top of the stairs, listening. Voices filtered upward, a language she couldn’t grasp, but under it, London’s constant hum frayed—replaced by something older, like the trapped memory of train wheels and the heaviness of earth packed around the living. She forced herself down, boots echoing against the stone. The stairwell twisted; the concrete walls grew rougher, graffiti scratched in symbols that coiled then knotted on themselves. The air thickened with incense and tobacco and the sharp tang of hot iron. One level down, the tunnel opened wide. She entered The Veil Market. Stalls shouldered up to the curved platform wall. Smoke hung thick, sucked mercilessly into the ribbed tunnel roof, held by the ghosts of a thousand lost trains. Sellers perched behind crates stacked with jars throbbing with shifting light. Some faces too sharp, eyes too black, one jaw pocked by barnacles that glistened. Half the faces human. Half not. Herrera was nowhere in sight. Quinn pressed against the wall, weapon tucked at her thigh, dim yellow bulbs painting rings on the puddled platform. She scanned the crowd. Some stallholders looked away, studiously arranging rust-caked instruments on velvet. Others held her eye too long, reptilian pupils wide and unblinking. The market pressed on, the crowd shifting like the tide around her. A hunched vendor shuffled near, chin bristled with forked whiskers. “Lost, lovely?” She kept her voice flat. “Looking for someone.” Vendor snorted, lower set of teeth clicking over the upper. “Not unless you got entry.” He held up a pale chip—bone-white, carved with symbols. Quinn’s hand tightened on her watch. “Let me pass, or I’ll have to make things difficult.” A growl, almost mammalian, shivered from the crowd. Vendors watched her. A pale woman in a funeral veil paused, setting a jar done heavy with pink foam. Another stallholder muttered, voice wrapping around the pillar beside her. “She doesn’t belong. She’ll draw ‘em down.” Herrera’s voice knifed in, hard, from the end of the platform. “Let her through. I’ll vouch.” He stepped from a shadow beyond a stack of leather-bound tomes. One hand up, calm, showing empty palms. “Let’s talk somewhere quiet, Harlow.” The crowd flattened in a ripple, some stepping back—the market wary, not afraid, Quinn noted. Were they usually this contained around enforcement? She judged the distance, boots making muted contact on the platform, her damp shirt clinging to her back. Quinn kept her weapon pointed down, eyes locked on Herrera. “What is this place?” Herrera matched her pace, always just out of reach. “It’s business. Nobody gets hurt if you just listen for five minutes.” The hunched vendor spat at the tiles, hissed. “You don’t get it, policeman. Cross the wrong line, everyone bleeds.” Herrera looked back once—eyes warm, hand out. “She is with me!” Quinn stepped past, the circle opening enough for her to join Herrera near the entrance to a narrow corridor deeper underground. The air pulsed with heat from lanterns, heady with spices and coppery tang. She scanned the shadows, voice pressed low. “You’re going to explain what’s going on, Herrera. You have one minute.” Herrera’s mouth twisted, regret and fatigue working grooves into his cheeks. Still, he held her gaze, unblinking, fearless. “You’re in over your head, Detective. There’s rules down here. Rules you don’t get to break.” Quinn ran a thumb over her watch strap, jaw set. “Let’s see about that. Start talking.” A distant clang rang through the station—the wild echo of old tracks, or something heavier. Quinn’s pulse thrummed high, adrenaline sharpening her senses. All around, the market watched, the city above discarded for something older and waiting. Herrera led her farther in, voices and light closing behind them.