AI The bone token fell into the slot with a heavy, wet *thunk *.
Metal screeched against metal, a high-pitched grinding that vibrated in the teeth of Detective Harlow Quinn. The worn leather strap of her watch tightened around her wrist as she pulled her arm back, her gaze fixed on the iris scanner above the heavy blast doors. The station wasn't abandoned anymore. Not officially. The sign for Camden Town flickered , promising the Borough of Camden, but the air coming through the vents tasted of ozone, damp wool, and something sweeter—sandalwood and iron filings.
The doors slid open.
Harlow stepped into the dark, her heels clicking against tile that had once been white but was now a mosaic of yellowing popcorn ceilings and mold. The conductor’s booth was stuffed to the rafters with dried flowers and severed animal heads in formaldehyde. She ignored them.
The Veil Market was a living thing, twisting and shifting its geography even as she watched. Fog rolled across the platform in thick waves, obscuring the torn advertising banners for Krylon hair gel and forgotten electrical services. She clicked on her tactical flashlight, the beam cutting through the haze to reveal a cluster of rough timber stalls and haphazardly strung lights powered by glowing mushrooms.
"Right on time, Harlow. Or should I say, unlucky time?"
The voice came from behind a stack of crates. Harlow spun, the beam cutting a frantic circle through the fog until it landed on a woman trying to tuck a stray curl behind her left ear.
Eva Kowalski pushed her round glasses up the bridge of her nose, her hand trembling slightly as it brushed against the leather satchel strapped to her chest.
"Don't start with the spectral commentary, Evie. Report." Harlow kept her voice level, her military bearing locking her shoulders into a rigid posture. The compass in her pocket felt hot against her thigh.
"The fence? He’s dead." Eva didn't waste time on pleasantries. She pointed a gloved finger toward the center of the platform where a blue sheet had been hastily thrown over something huddled against the rusted tracks. "Heart stoppage. I checked."
Harlow moved forward, bypassing the gathered shifters and dealers who were huddled in the corners, murmuring in low growls. "Official police business. Step aside."
They parted like the Red Sea. Harlow reached the body.
She was used to blood. She’d cleaned up enough of it on the streets over eighteen years to know the smell of it—the copper tang, the metallic tang of adrenaline. This didn't smell like copper.
It smelled like burnt toast.
Harlow lifted the corner of the sheet. The man—middle-aged, balding, wearing a suit that had seen better decades—was slumped in a tangle of limbs. His face was blue, a horrifying, purplish bruise spreading from his temples down to his jawline. But it wasn't a bruise.
Harlow narrowed her eyes. She reached out with a latex-gloved finger and tapped the skin.
Hard as glass.
"What is it?" Eva asked, stepping up beside her . The detective could hear the hush in the younger woman’s voice.
"Skin turned to ceramic," Harlow muttered. She shone the light into the man’s eyes. They were wide, staring at nothing, the pupils blown wide . "DS Morris was right. It’s not natural."
"Natural is a loose term down here," Eva noted, her notepad flying open . "Look at the exposure of the chest."
Harlow looked. The man’s shirt was ripped open. The damage wasn't a gunshot wound, though the fabric around the hole was smooth. It looked like... molten wax had been poured onto him, then frozen? No.
She crouched, her nose inches from the stiffened skin. Her thumb brushed the material. It wasn't solid. It had cracked. And inside the cracks, a shimmering black fluid—more viscous than ink, more metallic than oil—was slowly leaking out, dripping onto the old platform tiles.
"It’s leaking," Harlow said, her voice dropping an octave . "Something was injected into him."
"And absorbed," Eva corrected. She leaned closer, tilting her head. "The hum. Do you hear it?"
Harlow paused. In the absolute silence of the Tube station, the air seemed to vibrate. A low-frequency thrumming that rattled her teeth.
"Static electricity? Faulty wiring?"
"Old world magic," Eva whispered. "The conduit. Whoever dealt with him... they used a rune of dissolution."
Harlow straightened up, scanning the stalls. The market bustled around them, oblivious. People sold potions in crystal vials and slabs of dried dreamcatchers. Nobody was panicking . That was the anomaly. A dead body on the floor of a black market was usually a goldmine for information, not a silent event.
"The blood," Harlow said. She gestured to the legs. The man’s slacks were dark, the fabric soaking wet, but there was no puddle. And the blood that had soaked through the material was a deep, rusted red, not the bright scarlet that was usually pumping out of a human.
"That’s the residual alchemical reaction," Eva said. "It’s already entering the geothermal pipes below. Sanitizing the scene before the police even arrived."
Harlow turned to her . "You’re telling me this looks like a medical error."
"We're telling you that industrial alchemy has a dangerous side effect when mishandled." Eva adjusted her glasses, the freckles on her nose standing out against her pale skin. "Look at the points of entry. On his chest, there are five puncture marks. Small. Neat. Surgical precision."
Harlow nodded. She crouched again, running a finger over the ceramic-hard chest. "And the exit wounds? They’re on his back."
"Explosive decomposition," Eva supplied. "A dimensional anchor. Someone used a spell to open a rift, tried to punch through with an anchor to stabilize it, and the feedback killed him instantly. The cosmetic is the shell, the real damage is internal."
Harlow felt a cold prickle on the back of her neck. She pulled the Veil Compass from her pocket. The casing was brass, polished to a dull sheen with a patina of verdigris that made it look ancient. She flicked the open cover.
The needle spun erratically at first, a blur of metal chaos, before settling. It wasn't pointing north. It wasn't pointing at the tunnels leading to the surface.
It was pointing directly at Eva.
Harlow’s grip tightened on the compass. She looked at the small red-haired woman with the trembling hands and the bag full of forbidden books. Eva was staring back, her green eyes wide, her mouth slightly open as if she were holding her breath.
"It's not a rift," Harlow said, her voice hard, commanding . "It's a seal."
"Excuse me?" Eva blinked. "I didn't say it was a rift, I said—"
"Step away from the body." Harlow raised her hand, her gun drawn.
Eva didn't move. She just looked at the compass needle, which now flipped 180 degrees, pointing back at the dead man’s chest.
"The needle is mapping the energy flow, Evie," Harlow said, anger lacing her words. "Someone used you. They used an anchor based on your magical signature. He didn't die of a medical error. He died because of *her *."
"You're being ridiculous," Eva snapped, finally finding her courage, stepping forward. "I've been standing next to him for twenty minutes. If I was the anchor, I'd be ash by now. You're projecting because you're tired."
Harlow stepped closer, the muzzle of her pistol boring into Eva’s chest. "Show me your hands."
"Just bring the coroner," Eva said, hands raised slowly . "Let's get this classified. I have a master's degree in Ancient History, Detective, not a certification in murder prevention."
"I brought you here for a reason," Harlow hissed, her eyes locked onto the dead man’s face. The ceramic had a strange texture. It wasn't polished. It was scratched . "That's not magic. That's technology disguised as magic."
"What is it then?"
"Look at his jacket pocket," Harlow commanded, keeping the gun trained on Eva. "Open it."
Eva hesitated, her fingers fumbling with the button of the man's coat. She pulled out a small, leather-bound book. "The ledger?"
"Open it."
Eva flipped it open. The pages were blank. But there was a thin line of black carbon paper inside the cover.
"Carbon," Harlow realized. "He was going to buy something from you."
"No," Eva said, looking up, panic finally bleeding through her expertise. "He was going to sell it."
"Who sold it?"
"I don't know."
Harlow looked back at the compass. The needle was still vibrating. Not from the magical energy. It was picking up a different frequency. A mechanical one.
She turned back to the body. The "ceramic" skin had a hairline fracture near the collarbone.
"A hybrid," Harlow said, lowering the gun slightly but keeping it ready. "This isn't a necromancer's experiment. This is a rogue cyborg. Someone modified a dead body using a Veil compass to anchor aetheric propulsion systems."
Eva’s jaw dropped. "In that economy? No. The energy requirements would be astronomical."
"But the result," Harlow stepped closer, ignoring the smell of burnt toast, "is a walking biological battery that doesn't need to sleep. And the ignition system?" Harlow tapped the dead man’s chest. "It uses magical residue as fuel. The 'injection' wasn't alchemy. It was a charge."
Harlow looked at Eva. "He didn't die of an anchor. He died because the engine overloaded. And the signature that overloaded it? It matches the erratic frequency of the needles in your books, Eva. You've been doing research on unstable aetheric engines, haven't you?"
Eva lowered her hands, looking at the floor. "I'm studying the physics of dimensional breach containment. The 'unstable engines' are theoretical models."
"The body on the floor is the prototype," Harlow said, holstering her weapon with a sharp click. She stepped over the blue sheet, inspecting the dead man's grip. His fingers were clenched . In his other hand, a small bone token.
"Bone token," Harlow muttered. "Entry fee."
She picked it up. It was jagged, stained with old blood. On the reverse side, a symbol was scratched into the ivory. A geometric shape that reminded Harlow of the runes DS Morris had talked about—patterns that shouldn't exist in nature.
Eva looked at the token, then at Harlow. "You're not going to arrest me."
"I'm not arresting anyone," Harlow said, turning her back on the body. "I'm figuring out which branch of the Clique uses experimental death-machines fueled by street-level occult residue."
"Which branch?"
Harlow looked out into the fog of the market, watching a figure in a trench coat walk away from the platform, heading for the tunnel exit. She checked her watch . The time on the face, etched with sigils, was flickering .
"The branch that thinks they can play god with the resources of the Veil," Harlow said. "Come on, Evie. Let's go shopping."
"And leave the token?" Eva asked, her voice tight .
"You leave it," Harlow said, tucking the bone token into her pocket. "Leave it as bait. I want to see who comes back for the wreckage."