Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXW7YBZ4WNGPC6DQ98W1X9

Rain hammered the streets of Soho. It slicked the cobblestones and turned the neon glow of bar signs into watercolour blurs. Detective Harlow Quinn’s feet pounded the pavement, each stride a controlled splash that sent dirty water spraying against her trousers. Ahead, a dark shape darted through the oblivious theatre crowds, a ghost in a black coat. Tomás Herrera. The green neon of The Raven’s Nest sizzled overhead, its reflection warping in the puddles under her boots. He was fast, faster than his file suggested. He moved with a desperate, frantic energy, all flailing limbs and sharp turns. Quinn moved with the economy of a predator. Her lungs burned with the cold, wet air but her focus remained pinned to the Saint Christopher medallion swinging wildly at his neck as he risked a glance over his shoulder. “Herrera! Police! Stop right now!” Her voice was a sharp crack in the urban symphony of sirens and car horns. He didn't listen. Of course, he didn't listen. He vaulted a stack of overflowing rubbish bins behind a restaurant, his movements surprisingly nimble. Quinn followed without breaking stride, her hand landing flat on the wet metal top as she swung her legs over. She landed cleanly, the impact jarring up her spine. The alley stank of stale beer and old grease. Herrera was already at the far end, fumbling with a rusted metal door marked with the faded, peeling emblem of the London Underground. Quinn drew her service weapon, the cool weight of it a familiar comfort in her hand. “Don’t do it, Herrera. There’s nowhere to go.” The lock clicked. He wrenched the door open and plunged into the darkness beyond. The heavy door swung shut behind him, its slam echoing off the narrow brick walls. Quinn reached it in seconds, shoving it open with her shoulder. A wave of cold, stagnant air washed over her, thick with the scent of damp earth and decay. The city's noise vanished, sucked into the sudden, pressing silence of the space below. She descended a set of steep concrete steps, her weapon held low and ready. Her own breathing sounded unnaturally loud. Her footsteps crunched on loose gravel. The only light filtered down from the alley, a weak grey rectangle that barely illuminated the oppressive blackness. The worn leather of her watch felt tight and slick against her wrist. This was the part of the job she hated. The enclosed spaces. The unknown. She reached the bottom and paused, letting her eyes adjust. She stood on an abandoned Tube platform. A string of emergency lights flickered on the curved ceiling, casting long, dancing shadows. Peeling posters from a forgotten decade clung to the grimy tiles. The tracks were gone, replaced by a wide, dusty concourse that stretched into impenetrable darkness. And there, at the far end, was Herrera. He stood before a makeshift archway, a grotesque thing of twisted wrought iron and what looked like carved animal bone, shimmering with a faint, sickly luminescence. He wasn’t running anymore. He was panting, his shoulders heaving, his hand pressed to his side. As he turned to face her, his olive skin was pale in the ghostly light, his warm brown eyes wide with something more than fear. It was a warning. He fumbled inside his jacket, his hand emerging with a small, flat object. It was white, carved, and seemed to drink the dim light. A bone token. A figure detached itself from the shadows beside the archway, a hulking shape whose features remained indistinct. Herrera presented the token. The shape nodded once, a slow, deliberate motion. Herrera locked eyes with Quinn across the hundred feet of dead air that separated them. He gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head. Then he turned and stepped through the archway, disappearing instantly into a riot of impossible colours and sounds that abruptly flared into existence. Quinn moved forward, her steps slow, measured. Her boots made no sound on the dusty floor. The air grew colder as she approached the arch, humming with a low-frequency vibration she felt in her teeth. It wasn't electricity. It was something else, something primal. She stopped just short of the threshold, weapon still raised. Through the archway was not another tunnel, but a sprawling, chaotic marketplace. Stalls crafted from glowing fungi and petrified wood lined a crowded thoroughfare. Strange creatures with too many limbs or eyes that shone with their own internal light haggled with cloaked figures over bubbling potions and artefacts that pulsed with contained energy. The air that drifted out carried an alien scent—ozone, cinnamon, and something thick and coppery, like old blood. This was not London. Not the London she knew. The memory hit her with the force of a physical blow. A derelict warehouse. The scent of ozone, just like this. The look on DS Morris's face, not of pain or fear, but of blank, utter confusion, just before the light consumed him. Eighteen years of service, of chasing down the worst of humanity, and it had all been a lie. There were other things, worse things, hiding in the cracks. Things she'd spent three years trying to forget. Her protocol was clear. Secure the scene. Call for backup. Do not engage an unknown subject in a hostile environment alone. But Herrera was in there. The man who had been at the warehouse with Morris three years ago, the off-the-books paramedic who stitched up the unexplainable. Herrera had answers. Her radio felt a thousand miles away. Backup would be useless here. They would see an abandoned station, a brick wall. They wouldn't see the market. They wouldn't understand. She would lose him. She would lose the only link she had to Morris's death. Quinn lowered her weapon, her jaw tight. The dull throb of the market pulsed against her senses, a siren call to a place where all the rules were broken. She holstered her firearm, the click echoing in the silence of the platform. She took one last look back at the grey light of the real world, then squared her shoulders to the impossible glow of the Veil Market and stepped through.