Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTY94S73VNFN09Q9JTTD19B

The air in the abandoned Tube station hung thick with the smell of damp earth, ozone, and something else, something like burnt sugar and old spices. Detective Harlow Quinn descended the concrete steps, her worn leather watch a familiar weight on her wrist. The uniformed officer at the cordon nodded her through, his face pale under the flickering emergency lights. Down on the platform, the scene was a jarring collision of worlds. Police tape fluttered next to stalls draped in velvet, jars of shimmering liquid catching the blue and red strobes of the squad cars parked what felt like a mile above. "Quinn. Glad you could make it." DS Miller straightened up from where he was conferring with a forensics tech. He was a sturdy man, built like a wardrobe, with a face that seemed permanently set to 'unimpressed'. "Just another Tuesday in Camden, eh? Though usually the stiffs are above ground." Harlow’s eyes scanned the platform. This was the Veil Market, a place she’d only ever heard whispers of on the force, filed away under 'things we don't talk about'. It was even stranger than the rumours suggested. Stalls offered cages that hummed with a low energy, blades that seemed to drink the light, and books bound in something that wasn't leather. "What have we got, Miller?" "John Doe. No ID. Wallet's gone, watch too. Looks like a deal went south. Lot of dodgy types down here, you can imagine." He gestured with a gloved hand towards the far end of the platform where the body lay. "Forensics thinks blunt force trauma to the back of the head. One good whack, he goes down. Robber grabs his valuables and bolts. Simple enough." Harlow didn't answer. She walked towards the body, her footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. A small woman with curly red hair and round glasses stood a few feet away, clutching a worn leather satchel to her chest like a shield. Eva Kowalski. The department's 'consultant' on all things weird. She gave Harlow a tight, nervous smile. "Detective Quinn." "Eva. What are you seeing?" Eva pushed her glasses up her nose, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "The market's energy is… agitated. More than usual. It happens when there's a violent death. It's like a scream no one can hear." Harlow knelt beside the victim. A man in his late thirties, dressed in a simple, dark jacket. His face was slack, eyes staring at the arched brick ceiling. Miller's theory made sense on the surface. A mugging. It happened. But Harlow's gut, a finely tuned instrument after eighteen years on the force, was humming a different tune. She ignored the gaping wound on the man's head for a moment. Her gaze swept the floor around him. The ground was coated in a fine layer of dust and grit, disturbed by the shuffling feet of constables and techs. But beyond that, nothing. No scuff marks from a struggle. No drag marks where the body might have been moved. No footprints fleeing the scene. It was as if the man had simply lain down and died. "Miller, where's the blood?" she asked, her voice quiet. "What's that?" Miller ambled over. "Oh, head wounds don't always bleed that much. Especially a fast one." "This wasn't fast." Harlow pointed to the man's hands. They were clean, resting palms-up on the dusty ground. No dirt under his fingernails. No defensive wounds on his arms. If someone was attacking you, you fought back. You clawed, you grabbed, you scraped your hands on the concrete trying to crawl away. This man hadn't done any of that. "Maybe he was taken by surprise," Miller offered, a note of impatience in his voice. "Came from behind. He wouldn't have had time to do anything." Harlow stood up, her sharp jawline tight. "Then where's the weapon? Where's the blood spatter? A blow hard enough to kill him would have cast something. We're in a sealed environment. It has to be here." "We're looking. It's a mess down here, Quinn. Could be anywhere." "No." She shook her head. "It wouldn't be anywhere. It would be *here*." She indicated the immediate vicinity, a ten-foot radius that was disturbingly, unnervingly clean. The only thing out of place was the body itself. Eva stepped closer, her eyes wide. "She's right. Look at the dust. The vibrations from the trains on the other lines, they cause a constant, fine settling of dust. But the dust around him… it looks like it fell after he was already on the ground. There's no pattern to it, no disturbance." Miller sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Alright, so it's a weird one. What's your grand theory, then? A ghost did it?" Harlow ignored him. She knelt again, this time leaning in close to the victim's jacket. Her eyes narrowed, tracing the seam of the sleeve. There. Tucked into the cuff, almost invisible against the dark fabric, was a glint of metal. She reached out with a gloved finger and worked it free. It was a small brass compass, no bigger than her thumb. The casing had a greenish patina, its face etched with intricate, swirling sigils that seemed to shift if she stared at them too long. It wasn't a modern device. It looked ancient. "What's that?" Eva whispered, leaning over her shoulder. Harlow didn't answer. She held the compass flat in her palm. The needle inside didn't point north. It spun wildly for a moment, then stopped with a decisive click. It pointed directly at the victim's chest. She moved the compass. The needle stayed locked on the body. She held it over the man's heart. The needle vibrated, humming against the glass. "It's a Veil Compass," Eva breathed, her voice full of awe. "They're attuned to supernatural energy. They point toward rifts, portals… sources of power." Miller scoffed. "A toy. Probably part of the junk he was trying to sell." Harlow looked from the compass to the dead man's face, then back to the needle pointing at his heart. It wasn't pointing at a location. It was pointing at *him*. Or something inside him. She stood up slowly, her mind racing. The lack of a struggle. The pristine scene. The missing weapon. The victim's clean hands. A man who deals in supernatural goods, murdered in a supernatural market, with a device that points to supernatural energy. "He wasn't killed here," Harlow said, the certainty in her voice cutting through Miller's scepticism. "What? Of course he was. We found him here." "The scene is wrong. It's staged. He was killed somewhere else, and whatever killed him, it took everything. His wallet, his watch, his weapon. It left him clean. Then it dropped him here." She looked down at the compass in her hand. "And it left this behind. A message." Miller stared at her, then at the body, his expression shifting from annoyance to confusion. "A message? What kind of message?" Harlow’s gaze fell upon the solid brick wall at the end of the platform. The compass was still pointing at the body, but she had a feeling, a deep, instinctual pull, that if she moved to the other side of the station, it would point right back to this spot. Not to the man, but to the space he occupied. To the place where he had been placed. She looked at Eva, whose freckled face was pale with understanding. Then she looked back at the wall, a new and terrifying thought taking root in her mind. The killer hadn't just left the body. It had left a door.