AI The brass needle of the Veil Compass spun in a frenetic, nauseating circle before snapping toward the waterlogged platform of the South Kentish Town station. It didn't point north. It pointed at the slumped, greyish mass huddled against the rusted Victorian tiling.
"Keep that trinket out of sight, Quinn. Forensics are twitchy enough as it is."
Harlow Quinn snapped the small brass lid shut, the click echoing through the vaulted, tile-lined silence of the abandoned Tube station. She ignored the warning. Her worn leather watch marked the time as three minutes past midnight. The air down here tasted of ozone and ancient, damp soot, a cloying grit that settled on the tongue like graveyard dirt.
"Tell me why I was pulled out of a warm bed for a vagrant's overdose, Miller."
Detective Inspector Miller stood by the tracks, his silhouette framed by the harsh, artificial glare of a portable halogen work light. He gestured vaguely at the body.
"Not a vagrant. Look at the shoes."
Harlow stepped over a puddle of oily, iridescent water. She crouched beside the corpse, her joints popping in the subterranean quiet. Miller was right. The man wore bespoke Italian loafers, ruined now by the muck of the tunnels, but still screaming of Mayfair wages. His suit was charcoal silk , tailored to a sharp, athletic frame that had recently withered.
"He looks like he’s been dead for months," Harlow muttered. She didn't touch him yet. She studied the skin. It wasn't rot. It was desiccation. The flesh clung to the bone like shrink-wrapped parchment, turned a bruised, metallic violet.
"Pathologist says twelve hours. Max." Miller chewed on a piece of nicotine gum, the rhythmic smacking sound rhythmic and grating. "Heart failure. Sudden. Violent. The bruising is just... lividity, apparently."
"Lividity doesn't turn a man the colour of a bad sunrise," Harlow countered.
She leaned closer, her sharp jaw tightening. She spotted it then—a faint, jagged line trailing from the man's throat down into his collar. She reached out with a gloved hand and shifted the silk tie.
"Miller. Look."
"I've seen it. Fungal growth. Common in damp disused tunnels."
"Fungi don't grow in geometric patterns."
The markings weren't blisters or mould. They were etched into the skin, a series of interconnected, triangular sigils that pulsated with a faint, dying amber light.
"I don't see any patterns," Miller said. He stepped closer, squinting. "Just looks like a rash. You’re seeing ghosts again, Quinn. Ever since Morris..."
Harlow stood up abruptly, her 5'9" frame casting a long, jagged shadow against the emerald-green tiling. The mention of her old partner acted like a physical blow, a cold spike of grief and fury she kept buried under military precision.
"Morris saw exactly what was coming for him. And so do I. This man didn't die of heart failure. He was harvested."
"Harvested." Miller snorted, the sound damp and phlegm-heavy. "Right. By the Camden tunnel-elves, I suppose? It’s a drug overdose, Harlow. New synthetic . Causes rapid dehydration and vascular collapse. We found a small bone carving in his pocket. Probably a pipe."
Harlow’s hand went instinctively to her pocket, feeling the cold weight of her own bone token—the heavy, jagged coin needed to enter the Veil Market.
"Where is the carving?"
"Evidence bag. Forensics took it up five minutes ago."
Harlow turned away from the body, her eyes roaming the platform. The South Kentish Town station had been closed since 1924, a ghost in the belly of London. Usually, it was a tomb for dust and silence . Today, it felt electric . Her skin pricked.
She walked toward the edge of the platform, where the gloom swallowed the halogen light. There, tucked behind a rusted signal box, sat a small, battered leather satchel. It was out of place—too academic, too worn for a man in Italian loafers.
She knelt, unbuckling the brass clasp.
"Quinn! Don't touch that until the scene's mapped!"
She ignored him. Inside the satchel lay a stack of vellum pages, a silver-cased magnifying glass, and a photograph. She pulled the photo out. It showed a young woman with curly red hair and round glasses, smiling nervously while clutching a stack of books in front of the British Museum.
"Eva," Harlow whispered.
She knew that face . Eva Kowalski. The researcher she’d been tracking for months. If Eva’s satchel was here, the "overdose" wasn't a random tragedy. It was a transaction gone wrong.
Harlow felt the Compass in her pocket vibrate. Not a snap, but a low, rhythmic hum that synchronised with her own heartbeat. She pulled it out, shielding the face with her palm. The needle was no longer spinning. It was vibrating violently, pointing toward the dark mouth of the northbound tunnel.
"Move the lights," Harlow commanded.
"What? We’re processing the primary site, Quinn."
"The primary site is a diversion. Look at the dust, Miller. Use your eyes for once."
She pointed her torch at the ground near the tracks. The thick, grey silt of decades had been disturbed , but not by footsteps . Long, sweeping arcs marred the surface, as if something heavy and soft had been dragged toward the darkness. And between the arcs, small, pinpoint droplets of that same metallic violet fluid.
"He didn't walk here," Harlow said. "He was dumped here from the tracks. Something came out of the tunnel, left him on the platform, and went back in."
"Nothing’s been through these tunnels since the thirties, Harlow. The tracks are dead."
A low, metallic groan echoed from deep within the northbound tunnel. It wasn't the sound of a train. It was the sound of iron being bent by something immense and leisurely.
"The tracks are never dead," Harlow said, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous velvet .
She stepped off the platform, her boots crunching on the soot-covered sleepers. The darkness ahead was absolute, a hungry throat waiting to swallow the light of her torch.
"Quinn, get back up here! That’s an active safety hazard!"
She didn't stop. Ten paces into the tunnel, the temperature plummeted. Her breath hitched in the air, a white plume of frost. The walls here weren't brick anymore. They were coated in a thick, translucent resin that smelled like honey and rotting meat .
She shone her light upward. The ceiling was festooned with cocoons. Hundreds of them. Some were small, the size of a fist. Others were the size of a man.
One particular cocoon, hanging directly above the centre of the tracks, was shivering . A pale, freckled hand poked through a tear in the resin, the fingers twitching in a frantic, silent plea.
"Eva," Harlow breathed, her hand reaching for her service weapon .
A wet, sliding sound came from the shadows behind her. Harlow spun, her torch beam cutting through the gloom .
It wasn't a person. It was a mass of shifting, iridescent shadows, a Shade artisan from the Market, its limbs elongated and multi-jointed like a spider’s. In its uppermost hand, it gripped a long, curved needle made of human ivory.
"The Detective," the thing hissed, its voice like dry leaves skittering over pavement. "You have the token, but you do not have the invitation."
"I have a badge and a very short temper," Harlow snapped, her thumb clicking the safety off . "Lower her. Now."
The creature tilted its head, its eyes two pits of swirling, violet smoke. It gestured with the ivory needle toward the cocooned researcher.
"She paid in secrets. But secrets are light. We require... substance. Balance."
"I'm not interested in your ledger," Harlow said, stepping forward.
The Shade moved with sickening fluid grace, its body stretching until its face was inches from hers. It smelled of burnt sugar and old parchment.
"Then pay the difference, Harlow Quinn. Tell me what happened to Morris in the dark, and the girl lives."
The name hit like a gunshot. Harlow’s finger tightened on the trigger, her knuckles white. Behind her, out on the platform, she heard Miller’s heavy footsteps approaching the tunnel entrance.
"Stay back, Miller!" she screamed, but it was too late.
The halogen light from the platform caught the edge of the resin-coated walls, and the cocoons above began to pulse in unison, a hundred tiny hearts beating against the silence . The Shade grinned, revealing rows of needle-thin teeth.
"Decide," the creature whispered. "The truth, or the girl?"
The ceiling groaned. The resin holding Eva Kowalski to the roof began to tear. Harlow looked from the shaking cocoon to the monster's smoke-filled eyes, then back toward the light of the "real" world where Miller stood, oblivious, with a hand on his holster.
The Compass in her pocket burst into a searing , white-hot heat. Harlow didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she reached into her satchel and pulled out the bone token, snapping it in half between her fingers.
The sound wasn't a crack. It was a roar. The tunnel walls dissolved into a swirling vortex of grey mist and screaming wind, the emerald tiles of the station flying away like autumn leaves.
"I’m not paying with a story," Harlow growled, lunging into the mist. "I’m closing the account."
The Shade let out a shriek that shattered the magnifying glass in Eva's satchel, and the floor beneath Harlow’s feet simply ceased to exist.