Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYC76CVGKWCBAAW6J7R17Y

The rain fell in sheets, a relentless drumbeat on the asphalt that turned the city’s sodium-orange glow into a smear. Harlow Quinn’s breath was a sharp rasp, swallowed by the storm. Her leather watch strap was slick against her skin, the face fogged. Ahead, a figure in a dark coat—Tomás Herrera—splashed through a flooded gutter and ducked into a narrow service alley between a shuttered record shop and a takeaway. Quinn didn’t break stride. Her shoes, built for pavement not pursuit, skidded on wet brick. She caught herself against a damp wall, her sharp jaw set. Three years since Morris. Three years of dead ends that smelled of ozone and burnt sugar, of case files that dissolved into bureaucratic mist. This man, Herrera, was a thread. A thread that led to the others, the ones who moved through London like ghosts. The ones who might know what happened in that warehouse. “Herrera! Police! Stop!” Her shout was lost. He was already at the alley’s end, wrenching open a rusted metal door set into the ground. A maintenance hatch. He vanished into the dark. Quinn reached the hatch. A square of deeper blackness, a cold, damp breath rising from it. Metal rungs led down. She pulled a small torch from her coat, the beam cutting through the rain to illuminate the first few steps descending into the earth. The sound of footsteps echoed up from below, rapid and fading. This wasn’t on any map. This wasn’t a sewer access. She knew the city’s underbelly, the official one. This was something else. She went down. The rungs were icy, gritty with rust. The air changed. The clean, cold scent of rain gave way to damp concrete, mildew, and something else—ozone again, and a coppery tang, like old blood and hot wiring. The sound of the storm faded to a distant murmur. Below, a faint, greenish light pulsed. Her feet hit solid ground—a disused platform. Not just disused. Forgotten. The tiles were a pattern she didn’t recognize, the roundels on the walls devoid of any station name. The green light came from ahead, around a bend where the tunnel curved. The air thrummed with a low, sub-audible hum that set her teeth on edge. She moved with military precision, back to the wall, torch extinguished. She unclipped her holster, her hand resting on the grip of her service pistol. The weight was a familiar comfort in a place that felt profoundly wrong. Voices filtered down the tunnel. Not echoes, but a low babble of conversation. The clink of glass. The smell grew more complex—spices, incense, the acrid bite of chemicals. She peered around the curve. The abandoned Tube station was not abandoned. It was a bazaar. Stalls lined the old platform, cobbled together from scrap wood and old shipping containers, lit by flickering lanterns that burned with unnatural colours: violet, bile-green, a deep arterial red. Canopies of strange fabrics billowed in a non-existent breeze. Figures moved through the aisles—some human, some decidedly not. A vendor with skin like polished bark haggled with a woman whose shadow writhed independently on the wall. A creature covered in matted feathers clacked a beak over a tray of glittering stones. In the centre of it all, she saw him. Tomás Herrera, shaking rain from his dark curls, his hand instinctively going to the Saint Christopher medallion at his throat. He was speaking urgently to a tall individual in a long, grey coat, their face obscured by a deep hood. *The Veil Market.* The words surfaced from a stack of confiscated journals, from whispers in holding cells she’d been told to ignore. A supernatural black market. Moves every full moon. Entry required a bone token. Herrera had led her right to its heart. Her pulse hammered against her ribs. This was beyond her remit. Beyond any sane protocol. Following a suspect into an active railway tunnel was one thing. Following him into a hidden bazaar of… things… was career suicide at best. At worst, it was what happened to Morris. He’d chased a lead into a place that didn’t make sense, and he’d never come out. But Morris’s face, frozen in her memory, wasn’t the one of caution. It was the one from the pub, leaning forward, saying, “The truth’s down in the dark, Harlow. Always is.” Herrera was finishing his transaction. He took a small, wrapped parcel from the grey-coated figure and turned, his warm brown eyes scanning the crowd. They passed over the tunnel entrance, over the shadows where she stood. If she retreated now, called for backup, what would she say? *Suspect fled into a magical fairy market under Camden.* They’d suspend her on the spot. They’d bury it, like they’d buried everything about Morris. Herrera and his clique would vanish, and the thread would be lost forever. If she went in, she was unarmed in any way that mattered. Her badge meant nothing here. Her pistol might as well be a toy. Herrera began to move, not back towards the entrance, but deeper into the market, towards a curtained-off area at the far end of the platform. Decision point. Quinn’s hand left her gun. She stepped out of the tunnel and onto the platform. The atmosphere shifted instantly. Conversations dipped. Dozens of eyes, of all shapes and hues, turned towards her. The hum in the air sharpened. She felt exposed, a splash of drab reality in a sea of impossible colour. She kept her bearing straight, her gaze locked on Herrera’s retreating back, and walked forward as if she had every right to be there. A hand shot out from a stall—a hand with too many knuckles. Its owner, a wizened thing with milk-white eyes, blocked her path. “Token, walker.” She met its blank gaze. “I’m with him.” She jerked her chin towards Herrera, now almost at the far curtains. The creature sniffed, its nostrils flaring. “Smells of iron and paperwork. No token.” The dismissal was final. Other market-goers were watching, their postures shifting from curiosity to threat. Herrera heard the exchange. He stopped and looked back. His eyes widened in genuine shock when he saw her. Not fear, but a frantic, urgent surprise. He gave a sharp, almost imperceptible shake of his head. *Don’t.* It was the warning that decided her. Quinn ignored the creature. “Herrera! A word. Now.” The market seemed to hold its breath. Herrera’s shoulders slumped in resignation. He muttered something to the grey-coated figure, then turned and strode back towards her, his expression tight. He grabbed her arm, his grip firm. The scar on his forearm was a pale line against his olive skin. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” he hissed, pulling her away from the main thoroughfare towards a recessed doorway. “You can’t be here.” “I go where my suspects go.” “This isn’t a suspect. This is a feeding ground. Your badge is a dinner bell here.” He glanced over her shoulder, his body subtly positioning itself between her and the watching crowd. “You need to leave. The way you came. Right now.” “You’re coming with me.” “I can’t. I have people who need this.” He tapped the parcel in his coat. “Medicine. The kind you can’t get in your world.” “My world? This is London.” “Not this part.” His voice dropped lower. “Listen to me, Detective Quinn. Your partner. Morris.” Her blood went cold. “What about him?” “He was asking the right questions in the wrong places. Like you are now.” Tomás’s eyes were earnest, fearful for her. “He followed a lead to a procurement auction. For… subjects. He interrupted it. They didn’t know he was police. They just knew he was a mortal in a place he shouldn’t be.” The noise of the market faded. All she heard was the low thrum and his words. “Who are ‘they’?” “The people who run the things your department has a special filing cabinet for. The ‘ignore and discredit’ cabinet.” He looked past her again, his anxiety spiking. “You have to go. They’ve already marked you. Every second you stand here, you’re in more danger.” “Give me a name. For Morris.” “I can’t. Not here. And not if you’re in a body bag.” He pushed her gently but firmly back towards the tunnel entrance. “Go. Pretend you never saw this. For your sake.” A figure detached from the shadows near a stall selling jars of luminous liquid. Tall, slender, wearing an impeccably tailored suit that seemed to drink the light. Its attention was fixed on them. Tomás saw it too. “Too late,” he whispered, despair in his voice. “Run. Don’t look back. Don’t come here again.” He gave her a hard shove towards the dark mouth of the access tunnel. The suited figure began to move, cutting through the crowd with unnatural grace.