AI The suspect turned the corner onto Neal Street, the violent slap of his trainers on the wet pavement echoing between the brick walls. Harlow Quinn matched his pace, her own shoes hitting the ground with military precision, a steady counterpoint to his panic. Rain plastered his dark jacket to his back and her salt-and-pepper hair to her scalp.
She’d picked him up outside The Raven’s Nest, watching from her unmarked car as he’d argued with a tall man silhouetted in the green neon glow. The handoff was quick—a small, canvas-wrapped package for a thick envelope. When he’d spotted her, his eyes had widened with a recognition that told her everything she needed to know. He’d bolted, and she’d given chase. Now, the envelope was a sodden lump in her coat pocket, and the runner was leading her deeper into the labyrinthine streets of Covent Garden.
He darted right, into a service alley stacked with overflowing industrial bins. The air thickened with the sweet-rotten stench of decaying food and stale beer. Quinn didn't break stride, her sharp jaw set. *Predictable.* She drew her torch, the beam cutting a path through the gloom , illuminating scurrying shadows and puddles shimmering with oily rainbows.
He was trying to lose her in the maze, using knowledge of the backstreets she couldn't possibly possess. But eighteen years taught you patterns. The frantic glances over the shoulder, the slight stumble when uncertain—he was heading somewhere specific, not just running blind.
He burst out onto a busier street, earning a furious horn blast from a black cab. Quinn followed, her breath a pale cloud in the chilly air. He was faster, younger, desperation fuelling his legs. But desperation made you sloppy.
He vanished.
One moment he was there, a dark shape under a flickering streetlamp near Camden Lock. The next, he was gone .
Quinn slowed, her senses screaming. The worn leather watch on her wrist felt tight. She approached the spot where she’d lost him. No open doors, no alcoves deep enough to hide in. Just a grimy, disused phone box and a flight of concrete steps leading down, barred by a heavy iron gate that should have been chained shut.
The chain lay on the wet ground, cut clean through. The gate stood ajar.
A bad feeling, cold and familiar , settled in her gut. It was the same feeling she’d had three years ago, the night she’d lost Morris. The night the world had tilted off its axis and logic had bled away into something darker. She pushed the memory down. *Not now.*
She shone her torch down the steps. They descended into a deeper blackness than the night could account for. The air that wafted up was strange—damp, like the Tube, but carrying faint, discordant notes of incense, ozone, and something coppery.
This was it. His destination. An abandoned Tube station, according to the faded signage half-covered in graffiti. But she knew, with a certainty that chilled her bones, it was anything but abandoned.
She keyed her radio. "Dispatch, this is Quinn. In pursuit of male suspect, late twenties, dark clothing. Last seen entering the disused Camden Road station. Requesting immediate backup."
The radio crackled, spitting static. "...say again, Detective? Your signal's breaking up. Camden Road station is sealed."
"He's inside. I'm going in."
"Quinn, negative. Wait for support. That area's unstable."
The static worsened, swallowing the dispatcher's voice into meaningless noise. She tapped the device. Dead. Her phone, when she pulled it from her pocket, showed no signal. The blackness below seemed to drink the light from her torch beam.
*Unfamiliar territory. Potential hostiles. No comms.* Every tactical instinct told her to hold the entrance, to wait. Set a perimeter. But she saw Morris's face, smiling ruefully as he checked his own gear before that last, fatal raid. *"Sometimes, Harlow, the only way out is through."*
If she waited, whatever—whoever—was down there would vanish. The clues to Morris’s death, the threads of this new corruption she was chasing , they all led to places like this. Shadows within shadows.
She drew her service weapon, the weight comforting in her hand. With a final glance at the rain-swept street above, a world that still made a kind of sense, Detective Harlow Quinn stepped through the gate and started down.
The stairs were slick with moss and neglect. The air grew colder, the strange scent stronger with each step. It wasn't just damp; it was the smell of old magic and older secrets. At the bottom, the stairs opened onto a derelict ticket hall. Tiled walls were scarred with symbols she didn't recognise. But it was the far side of the hall that held her attention.
A archway, barely visible in the gloom , was flanked by two hulking figures. They weren't quite human—too tall, their proportions subtly wrong . One held a rusted spear, the other merely crossed its thick arms. A dim lantern hung between them, casting long, dancing shadows.
As she watched, her suspect approached them. He fumbled in his pocket and produced a small, pale object. A token of some kind. One of the guards took it, held it up to the light, and grunted. They stepped aside.
He glanced back once, his face a frightened moon in the darkness, and then he slipped through the archway. A wave of sound—muffled chatter, strange music, the clink of glass—washed out for a second before the silence rushed back in.
Quinn moved forward, keeping to the walls. She stopped a dozen feet from the guards. Their eyes, reflecting her torchlight with an animal shine, fixed on her.
"The Market's not for your kind," the one with the spear rumbled, his voice like grinding stones.
"I'm Metropolitan Police. I'm in pursuit of a suspect."
The guards exchanged a look that might have been amusement. "No jurisdiction here, little law-bringer," the second one said. "You want in, you pay the toll."
"I don't have a token."
"Then you don't get in."
She could try to force her way past. Two against one, but they were big, and she had no idea what they were truly capable of. A firefight in a confined space was a last resort. Her mind raced . The canvas-wrapped package. She’d forgotten it in the chase. She pulled it from her other pocket. It was small, heavy for its size. She unwrapped a corner. Inside was a smooth, off-white disc. Bone.
"This?" she asked, holding it up.
The guards fell silent. The spear-carrier leaned forward, sniffing the air around the token. He straightened up, his manner shifting from bored hostility to wary respect.
"Where'd you get that?"
"From the man I'm following."
A long pause. The sound from beyond the archway seemed to swell, beckoning.
"He paid for one," the guard said slowly . "The token grants passage to the bearer."
He gestured with his spear toward the archway. An invitation. A trap.
This was the point of no return. Upstairs was her career, her world, the rules she understood. Down here was the truth about what happened to Morris. Down here was everything she’d been hunting for three years.
Harlow Quinn tightened her grip on her weapon, slipped the bone token back into her pocket, and walked towards the archway. The guards watched her pass, their forms seeming to swell in the flickering light. She didn't look back.
The noise hit her first—a cacophony of bartering in a dozen languages, some human, some not. The smell was overwhelming: spiced meats, pungent herbs, ozone, and that faint, ever-present copper tang. The Veil Market stretched out before her, a bizarre carnival nestled in the cavernous space of the old station platform. Stalls constructed from scrap wood and rich silks sold things that made her skin crawl: glowing fungi in jars, intricate clockwork birds that sang in minor keys, vials of liquid that pulsed with inner light.
Her suspect was already halfway down the central aisle, weaving through a crowd of beings that were a far cry from the late-night revellers of Soho. A woman with eyes like a cat’s brushed past her, hissing softly . A hulking figure covered in coarse fur haggled over a glittering dagger.
She started after him, her police-issue boots sounding obtrusively loud on the grimy tiles. Eyes turned towards her. Human eyes, inhuman eyes. The chatter dipped slightly . She was a discordant note in their symphony .
He glanced back, saw her, and his face contorted in fresh terror. He broke into a run, shoving a stall selling dried medicinal herbs. Bunches of wolfsbane and mandrake root scattered across the floor.
"Stop! Police!" The word felt absurd here, but it was all she had.
He didn't stop. He ducked down a narrower side passage between two stalls draped with thick, patterned rugs. Quinn plunged after him.
The passage was a tight squeeze, the carpets brushing against her shoulders, smelling of dust and sandalwood. It opened into a smaller, darker alcove, a dead-end. A single oil lamp burned on a barrel, illuminating stacks of crates.
He was trapped. He turned to face her, chest heaving, back against a rusted metal door.
"Stay back!" he yelled, pulling a knife from his belt. It was a cheap, nasty thing, but it looked sharp.
"Put it down," Quinn said, her voice level, her gun aimed centre-mass. "It's over."
"You don't understand! They'll kill me! They'll kill both of us for being here!"
"Who will?"
His eyes darted around the alcove, wild with panic. "Just let me go. Please. You have no idea what you're walking into."
"I'm walking into a murder investigation," Quinn said, taking a step forward. "And you're a material witness. Now, drop the knife."
He shook his head, a frantic jerk of movement. "No. No, you don't get it. Morris didn't get it either."
The name hit her like a physical blow. The world seemed to narrow to the boy's terrified face and the flickering lamplight. "What did you say?"
"Morris. Your partner. He… he asked too many questions. Came to the wrong people."
Her finger tightened on the trigger. "What do you know about Morris?"
A scraping sound came from behind the rusted door. Heavy bolts being drawn back. The suspect's eyes widened further, pure horror replacing panic.
"They're here," he whispered.
The metal door groaned open, revealing a deeper darkness beyond. A tall, gaunt figure stood silhouetted in the doorway, features hidden in shadow. It raised a long-fingered hand.
Quinn swung her torch beam towards it.
The light illuminated a face that was pale and unnervingly smooth, with eyes like chunks of polished jet. It smiled, a thin, cruel slash of a mouth.
"Detective Quinn," it said, its voice a dry rustle . "We've been expecting you."