AI The air specifically tasted of rust and ozone, a flavor Harlow Quinn hadn't experienced since the mess with Morris three years ago. She ducked under the yellow tape strung across the rusted iron gates of the service entrance, her boots crunching on grit that shouldn't exist in a municipal maintenance shaft.
"Mind the step, Guv. It's a proper death trap down here."
Detective Sergeant Miller waited at the bottom of the concrete spiral, his torch cutting a violent swathe through the gloom . The humidity clung to Quinn’s skin, dampening her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair. She ignored his hand, descending with the military precision that had defined the last eighteen years of her life.
"Talk to me, Miller. Why are we under Camden instead of in a warm interrogation room?"
Miller swept his light over the curved, tile-lined walls of the abandoned station. "Council workers found him an hour ago. Burst a pipe, came down to fix it, found a body instead. Looks like a squatter dispute gone wrong. Drugs, probably. Place stinks of chemicals."
Quinn reached the platform level. The smell wasn't chemicals. It was sulfur and something sweet, like rotting orchids. She adjusted the worn leather watch on her left wrist, a habitual tick when her instincts flared. The darkness here felt heavy, pressing against her temples.
"Squatter dispute," she repeated, her voice flat . "With no sleeping bags, no trash, and no needles?"
"They clear out fast when the heat comes." Miller led the way toward the edge of the platform. "Victim is a John Doe. Throat slit. Nasty business."
The body lay sprawled near the tunnel mouth, half-draped in shadow. Quinn crouched, her knees popping slightly . The victim was male, thirties, dressed in a long coat that looked more like period costume than streetwear. The fabric was heavy wool, stained dark around the neck, but the cut was immaculate.
"Forensics is on the way," Miller said, hovering . "But it's open and shut. Knife wound, robbery. Pockets are turned out."
Quinn peered closer. The blood pool was too small. A throat slit that deep should have painted the tiled walls red. Instead, the liquid on the floor was viscous, shimmering with an oily sheen that refracted Miller's torchlight into bruised purples and greens.
"Robbery," Quinn murmured. She reached out, gloved fingers brushing the floor near the victim's hand. "Miller, shine the light here. The dust."
"Just grime, Guv."
"Look at the pattern."
The dust hadn't been disturbed by a scuffle. It had been swept away in perfect concentric circles around the body. Char marks scored the concrete at the cardinal points.
"Weirdos," Miller scoffed, shifting his weight . "Probably some junkie cult. We see it all the time. Kids playing witch."
Quinn stood, her sharp jaw setting hard. "Kids don't clean a crime scene to this standard , Miller. And junkies don't leave behind..." She trailed off, spotting a glint of metal underneath the victim’s coat lining, which had been overlooked .
She knelt again, using a pen to leverage the object out.
It was a small brass compass, cased in metal that had turned green with age. Verdigris crusted the hinge.
"Broken compass," Miller dismissed. "Like I said, junkies collecting trash."
Quinn flipped the casing open. The face wasn't marked with North or South. Protective sigils, etched deep and filled with black enamel, swirled around the rim. The needle didn't settle. It spun wildly, vibrating against the glass, before snapping rigidly to point directly at the tunnel's pitch-black maw .
"That's not trash," a voice wavered from the darkness behind Miller.
Quinn snapped her head around. "Who is that?"
Miller sighed, shining his light toward a rusted bench near the stairs. "Civilian. Found her hiding in the ticket booth. claims she was doing 'historical research'. I was about to cut her loose, didn't seem involved."
Eva Kowalski sat on the bench, clutching a worn leather satchel to her chest as if it contained the crown jewels. Her round glasses were fogged , and strands of curly red hair had escaped her messy bun. She looked entirely out of place, a librarian dropped into a war zone.
Quinn stalked over, the brass compass heavy in her gloved hand. She recognized the fragility in the girl’s posture—the way she tucked a loose curl behind her left ear with a trembling finger. But Quinn also saw the intelligence in those green eyes, sharp and assessing despite the fear.
"Eva Kowalski," Quinn said, dredging the name from a file she’d reviewed two days ago regarding the clique she was monitoring . "British Museum. Ancient History."
Eva blinked, hugging the satchel tighter. "Detective Quinn. I didn't realize this was your case."
"It is now. Explain the compass, Miss Kowalski. And don't tell me it's for hiking."
"It's a navigational aid," Eva said, her voice barely rising above the drip of water from the ceiling. "For... specific electromagnetic fields."
"Miller calls this a drug deal." Quinn held up the brass object. The needle was still straining toward the tunnel. "I say this victim isn't dressed for a drug deal, and this 'compass' is pointing at nothing."
"It's not pointing at nothing," Eva blurted out, then clamped her mouth shut.
Quinn leaned in, looming over the younger woman. "Miller, give us a minute. Go check the perimeter at the street level. Make sure no one else 'wanders' into this maintenance shaft."
Miller looked relieved to leave the creepy basement. "Right you are, Guv. Shout if you need me."
As the heavy footsteps receded up the metal stairs, Quinn turned her full attention to Eva. The silence of the station amplified the strange humming noise Quinn had felt in her teeth since arriving.
"The needle," Quinn said, lowering her voice. "It's tracking energy. Like a Geiger counter."
Eva uncurled slightly , adjusting her glasses. "You could say that. It points to rifts. Thin spots."
"Rifts in what?"
"Reality."
Quinn didn't flinch. She had stood over Morris's body while the coroner listed causes of death that defied physics. She was done flinching. "The body. He's not a junkie."
Eva stood up, legs shaking, and walked tentatively toward the corpse. She kept a wide berth from the charcoal circles. "He’s a courier. A runner for the Veil Market."
"The Veil Market," Quinn repeated, testing the words. "Underground trade?"
"Very. They move locations every full moon. This station... it hasn't been on the Maps for fifty years. It’s a perfect anchor point." Eva crouched, but unlike Miller, she didn't look at the pockets. She looked at the victim's hands. "Look at his fingertips. The burnt skin."
Quinn shone her own torch. The pads of the victim's fingers were blackened , cauterized.
"He was holding something," Quinn deduced. "Something hot."
"Something volatile," Eva corrected. She opened her satchel, revealing rows of old, leather-bound books and a few glass vials. She pulled out a small loupe. "May I?"
Quinn nodded.
Eva leaned over the body. "The Police see a robbery. But nothing of monetary value was taken. His boots are high quality leather, his coat is tailored. If this was a mugging, they would have stripped him."
"So, a hit."
"A interception." Eva pointed to the chest. "There's a residue here. Faint, silvery dust."
Quinn shined the light at an oblique angle. The dust glittered. "I saw it on the floor. Miller thought it was grime."
"It's crushed moonstone mixed with salt," Eva whispered, the academic in her taking over the fear. "It’s used to break containment seals. He was carrying a package, Detective. Someone used an alchemical explosive to breach the courier's warding."
Quinn stood, pacing the small space of the platform. The pieces clicked into place, but the picture they formed was impossible. "Explosives that don't scorch clothes. Wards. You're telling me this man was killed for a delivery."
"A very dangerous one." Eva stood up, dusting off her knees. "And whoever took it went that way." She pointed toward the tunnel, exactly where the compass needle was fixated .
Quinn looked down the tracks. The darkness seemed to ripple, breathless and expectant. "Miller thinks the killer ran to the street."
"Miller sees a dead addict," Eva said softly . "The killer didn't go up, Detective. They went deeper. Into the Market's old territory."
Quinn looked at the compass in her hand. The patina of verdigris felt rough against her thumb. "This thing. It was in his lining. Why didn't they take it?"
"Because only a Shade artisan can calibrate it," Eva said. "It's useless to a thief. But to you..."
"To me, it's a bloodhound."
Quinn walked to the edge of the platform again. The "crime scene" was a farce. The concentric circles weren't trash; they were a failed protection circle. The lack of blood wasn't because of a clean cut; the weapon had likely cauterized the wound instantly or the blade itself wasn't steel.
She turned to Eva. "You're coming with me."
Eva’s eyes widened behind her lenses. "Into the tunnel? I—I really think I should wait for the uniformed officers."
"You know what this dust is. You know what this compass does. And you know what the Veil Market is." Quinn offered a smile that didn't reach her eyes; it was a predator 's bating grin. "Unless you want to explain to Sergeant Miller why you're trespassing on a murder scene with a bag full of occult contraband?"
Eva swallowed hard, her hand going to her ear again. "The tunnel... it's not just a tunnel. It requires a token to pass safely."
"Then we find one." Quinn shone her light back on the body. "If he was a courier, he had a pass."
Quinn knelt by the corpse, ignoring the standard procedure prohibiting interaction before forensics arrived. She needed answers that forensics couldn't give. She patted down the inside of the wool coat again, going deeper than Miller had dared.
Her fingers brushed against a small, hard lump sewn into the collar.
She ripped the stitching. A small piece of polished bone fell into her palm. It was carved with a symbol that made her eyes water if she stared at it too long.
"A bone token," Eva breathed, stepping closer despite herself. "That grants entry."
Quinn stood up, clutching the bone in one hand and the compass in the other. The needle on the compass steadied, locking onto the darkness ahead with renewed intensity .
"Miller sees a dead end," Quinn said, her voice dropping to a register of cold command . "I see a door."
She stepped off the platform, lowering herself onto the tracks. The air down here was colder, vibrating with that ozone taste, sharp and electric .
"Coming, Miss Kowalski?"
Eva hesitated on the edge of the platform, looking back toward the stairs where safety lay, then down at the detective standing in the forbidden dark. She gripped her satchel strap until her knuckles turned white , then hopped down onto the sleepers.
"The Market moves," Eva warned, her voice trembling . "If we go too deep, we might not come out in Camden."
Quinn checked her watch . The second hand was ticking backward.
"I'm counting on it."
Quinn strode into the tunnel, the brass compass leading the way, leaving the safe, comprehensible world of Sergeant Miller far behind.