Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTR6R24JM7GRJW3M7XXCMXN

Detective Harlow Quinn stood beneath the flickering light of a rusted iron lamp, its weak glow swallowing the narrow stairwell that led down from Camden’s bustling streets. The stench hit her first: stale air thick with damp concrete and something faintly metallic. The abandoned Tube station stretched out below, a hollow shell with graffiti bleeding across broken tiles and puddles reflecting the scant illumination. “This can’t be right,” she muttered under her breath, eyeing the yellow tape strung haphazardly around the platform edge where a shattered body lay sprawled. The man’s eyes stared into nothing, frozen mid-glance—no shock, no fear. Just the cold glaze of death. “Looks like your usual overdose,” said DS Bennett, stooping near the corpse, his voice casual like he’d seen a hundred of these before. His fingers poked at the broken syringe lodged near the man’s outstretched hand. “Heroin, maybe fentanyl. Typical Camden.” Quinn’s gaze didn’t waver from the scene. “Look at the puncture angle.” She crouched by the victim’s arm, back pressed against the graffiti’d wall. “Too clean. Too precise. No track marks anywhere else. Someone who’s used needles would leave bruises, scars. This man’s skin looks like porcelain.” Bennett frowned, brushing dirt off his jacket. “You’re saying it wasn’t an overdose?” His tone sharpened, skepticism breaking through his earlier calm. “What, murder by injection? That’s a stretch.” “Not just that.” Quinn’s fingers traced the faint neon-green stain smeared over his palm—something she recognised instantly from her cases, a mark she’d seen before but never correctly identified. “This dye. It’s rare, synthetic. From the Veil Market.” Bennett spat on the ground. “The Veil Market? Come on, Harlow. That underground black market’s a myth. Local legend to scare drunks.” “Not a myth.” Quinn tapped the little brass Veil Compass in her palm—her fingers feeling the ridges of its elaborate sigils. She’d borrowed it from Eva a few days ago, unsure why, but now the needle trembled toward the shadowed archway behind the platforms. “It points here. And this—” she held up the steely green dye trace, “—suggests something dark’s involved.” Bennett took a step back. “You’re chasing shadows, Quinn. You always do.” Quinn glared at him. “Maybe. But shadows are the only things that move around here without leaving a trace.” She stood, pulling her coat tighter against the dank air. The corpse lay grotesque, yet pristine, as if placed there deliberately and not the product of a tragic street overdose. “Look at his expression more closely,” she said, bending closer. “He died with something. Not terror—more like confusion or... surprise. And the body’s position? His wrist twisted back unnaturally, like someone forced him to hold onto something.” Bennett’s eyes drifted towards the shattered fragments near the platform edge. “A watch maybe?” Harlow nodded. Her sharp jaw clenched as she crossed to the debris, identifying a battered leather watch with a cracked glass face—its hands frozen at 2:17 a.m. She sifted through the scattered fragments until her fingers found a small, curious object underneath—a bone token. “That,” she said softly, fingers curling around the token’s delicate shape, “is no accident.” Bennett scrutinised it like it was a trick mirror. “Bone token. You think this guy got himself into the Market and didn’t come back clean?” She didn’t answer. Instead, she looked deeper beneath the flickering lamp light at the walls and floors, catching the faint glimmer of footprints—too faded for the casual observer. Someone had moved here recently, left subtle traces. “You know,” Bennett said quietly, kicking a loose tile, “I heard about those who deal in cursed objects getting death visits like this. But myth or not, who the hell would bring something like that into an old Tube station?” Quinn’s eyes flicked upward, half expecting the emptiness to aggress her reply. “I’ll ask the same question when we find out what he was doing here.” “Or what,” Bennett pressed, not moving from his spot, “what pulled him in.” Her breath hitched a fraction. The unnatural twist of the corpse, the mysterious dye, the compass needle pointing unerringly toward the sealed archway leading into shadow—the story was fragmenting, the pieces not quite fitting into the neat narrative her partner wanted to believe. “You said it yourself,” she said, voice dropping, “the Market moves every full moon. It’s alive.” Bennett snorted. “Alive and well, huh? Maybe it’s you, just chasing ghosts.” Quinn smiled thinly. “Ghosts catch you when you stop looking. I’m not stopping.” From the corner of her eye, the Veil Compass vibrated softly in her palm, a faint hum that tugged her gaze again toward the arch. Eva’s warnings whispered through her mind—the Market was no place for the faint-hearted, and those who crossed its threshold did so rarely and never by accident. Bennett moved toward the archway, shining his torch light against layers of grime and rusted metal bars sealing it shut. There, faint scratches marred the rust—like desperate hands had clawed at the seal. “No simple overdose,” Quinn said, stepping beside him. “This man was pulled into something... elemental.” Bennett glanced over, a flicker of doubt clouding his features. “Elemental? You mean it’s the supernatural?” Her salt-and-pepper hair caught the weak light as she nodded. “I’m done pretending otherwise.” The detective crouched again near the corpse, eyes sharp under the furrowed brow. “Look at his right pupil. Dilated when the light hits just right.” Bennett leaned closer, squinting. “You’re imagining things now, Harlow.” “Look for yourself.” She pulled out a compact torch, adjusting the beam. The victim’s eyes flickered with a slight iridescence beneath the surface, almost like a reflection from another reality. Bennett swallowed. His face went pale beneath the grime. “I guess... I never thought it’d be right here in Camden’s shadows.” Quinn’s gloved hand closed around the bone token again. “Not right here. Right now.” She let the silence stretch, the soft murmur of distant city noise above pairing oddly with the hush of the old station. Bennett gave her a long look before finally exhaling. “Alright,” he said, voice low. “What’s our next move? We can’t just leave him here, and I’m not sure this is something we can clean off a police report.” Quinn stood, eyes skimming the platform, the broken tiles, and the locked archway beyond. “We find out who he met, what he touched last, and why he had that token. The Market doesn’t deal in accidents.” She slipped the token into her pocket and glanced once more at the Veil Compass, its needle set unwavering, pulling them deeper into a mystery that no one in the force wanted to admit existed. The night pressed in, heavy and watching. The station waited. “Let’s start with local cameras,” Quinn said, voice steady and cold as iron. “Somebody brought him here. And he’s trying to tell us something before all this goes dark.”