Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYS7DJCXSP8675TZXCNBWN

Water dripped from the arched brick ceiling of the abandoned Tube station, the sound rhythmic and echoing in the cavernous dark. The air smelled of ozone, wet rot, and the metallic tang of old blood. Detective Harlow Quinn ducked under the yellow police tape, her boots crunching on the debris-strewn concrete. She clicked the stopwatch on her wrist, the habit ingrained from eighteen years on the force, though there was no need to time the entry. Fluorescent lights on tripods bathed the platform in a harsh, clinical white, pushing back the shadows of the disused tunnel. In the centre of the illumination lay a body. DC Hayes stood by the corpse, a clipboard in one hand and a look of mild nausea on his face. He straightened as Harlow approached. "Detective. Messy one." Harlow ignored the pleasantry and stopped at the victim's feet. Male, mid-thirties, dressed in a bespoke suit that had seen better days. The fabric was torn at the chest, revealing a gaping wound. "ID?" "Wallet in the pocket. Julian Thorne. Address in Kensington. High-end corporate fixer." Hayes flipped a page on his clipboard. "Looks like a mugging gone wrong, or maybe a deal turned sour. This place isn't exactly tourist territory. He probably came down here to buy something illegal and got double-crossed." Harlow crouched. The knees of her trousers hit the damp ground. She didn't touch the body yet. She looked at the surrounding area. The platform was cluttered with old advertising posters from the nineties, peeling and faded. Dust lay thick on the rails, undisturbed except for a chaotic scuffle near the body. "Double-crossed?" "See the wallet?" Hayes pointed with his pen. "Cash and cards are still there. But the watch is gone. A Patek Philippe, judging by the tan line on his wrist. Cheap thief, left the money, took the timepiece." Harlow leaned closer to the wound. It wasn't a clean stab. The skin was jagged, as if something had twisted inside the chest cavity, but there was no bruising around the entry point. No defensive marks on the hands. "He didn't fight for his watch?" "Maybe he was drunk. Toxicology will tell us." "He's not drunk." Harlow reached into her pocket and pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves. She lifted the dead man's arm. It was stiff, rigor mortis setting in, but not fully established. The arm flopped back to the concrete with a heavy thud. She turned her attention to the victim's jacket. The lining had been ripped open, not from the outside, but from the inside out. The fabric was shredded by something pushing through the layers of wool and silk. "Eva." She spoke without looking up. From the shadows of the tunnel entrance, a woman stepped forward. Eva Kowalski adjusted her round glasses, her fingers white-knuckled around the strap of a worn leather satchel. She looked pale, her freckles standing out against the stark lighting. "Yes, Detective?" "You told me this location. The Veil Market. It moves." "Yes. Every full moon. Tonight is the new moon, so... it shouldn't be here. It moved three nights ago." "So the market is gone." "The physical stalls are gone. But the residue..." Eva tucked a strand of curly red hair behind her ear, her eyes darting around the platform. "It lingers. Like smoke in a curtain." Hayes scoffed. "Residue. Right. We're looking for a guy with a knife, not smoke." Harlow ignored him and pointed to the victim's chest. "Eva, look at the wound. No arterial spray. If the heart was pierced, this wall should be painted red." Eva approached tentatively. She peered at the tear in the suit, her nose wrinkling. She leaned in closer, hovering inches above the corpse. "It's not a knife wound," Eva whispered. "The edges are cauterized. And... do you smell that?" Harlow inhaled. Beneath the copper of blood was a scent like burnt sugar and sulfur. "Sulfur," Harlow said. "Ectoplasmic burn," Eva corrected, though she kept her voice low. "Magical discharge. High voltage." Hayes shook his head. "I'll stick to the knife theory, thanks. Maybe a heated blade." "He came for the market," Harlow said, standing up. She scanned the floor again, looking past the yellow tape. "He brought a guide. He brought a key." She walked toward the pile of rubbish swept into the corner of the platform near the ticket booth. Something glinted in the harsh light. Harlow kicked aside a soggy cardboard box. A small object lay in the grime. She picked it up. It was heavy, warm to the touch despite the chill of the underground station. A brass compass, no larger than a pocket watch. Green corrosion bloomed across the casing, but the face was clean, etched with intricate symbols that seemed to shift in the light. "Detective, you shouldn't touch that," Eva warned, stepping closer. "It's a Veil Compass. It tunes into rifts." Harlow held it up to the light. The needle inside didn't point north. It spun erratically, twitching like a trapped insect, before snapping to a stop. It pointed directly at the blank brick wall of the tunnel. "He was using this to find the entrance," Harlow said. "He knew the Market moved. He was tracking it." "Tracking it?" Hayes walked over, frowning. "It's a compass. Points north. That wall is east." "It points to what he's looking for," Harlow said. She held the compass steady. The needle vibrated against the glass. "He found a rift. Or he thought he did." "Maybe the seller didn't want to be found," Hayes suggested. "Stabbed him and left." "Look at his hands, Hayes." Harlow gestured to the corpse. Hayes looked. The dead man's fingers were curled into a claw. Clutched tightly in his right palm was a small, white object. Harlow pried the fingers open. A bone token fell onto her glove. Smooth, carved, stained with age. "A bone token," Eva said, her breath hitching. "Entry fee for the Market. He had it." "So he got in," Harlow said. She dropped the token into an evidence bag. "He paid the fee. He walked through the Veil. And something came back out with him. Or he came back wrong." She held up the brass compass again. The needle was now spinning counter-clockwise, a slow, lazy rotation that made the hairs on her arms stand up. "This isn't a robbery, Hayes. The watch wasn't taken by a thief." She pointed to the victim's wrist. The tan line was there, but the skin beneath was unblemished. No marks from a watch clasp. "He wasn't wearing a watch. The tan line is fake. Spray-on make-up or a bad sunbed session. He wanted us to think he was a wealthy mark." Hayes blinked, looking at the wrist, then back at the compass. "So who is he?" "A hunter," Eva said softly. She was looking at the symbols on the compass casing, fear widening her green eyes. "That compass is Shade-crafted. It's used to track entities that don't want to be found. He wasn't here to buy. He was here to poach." Harlow closed her fist around the compass. The warmth seeped into her skin, pulsing in time with a faint, low-frequency hum coming from the tunnel wall. "He followed something through the rift," Harlow said, her voice hard. "He underestimated it. It didn't stab him, Hayes. It reached through the protection he thought he had and took him apart from the inside." She looked at the brick wall where the compass pointed. The mortar between the bricks was black, scorched. "The evidence adds up if you stop looking for a human killer." Harlow pulled the radio from her shoulder. "This is a containment issue. Seal the station. No one enters or leaves." "And the body?" Hayes asked, his voice wavering slightly. "Leave it." Harlow clipped the radio back onto her lapel. She turned to Eva. "You said the Market moves. Where does it go next?" Eva swallowed hard, clutching her satchel tighter. "It... it depends on the alignment. But usually... usually it goes where the veil is thinnest." "Where is that?" "The British Museum. Restricted archives." Harlow nodded once. She dropped the compass into her pocket. The hum grew louder, echoing in the silence of the tube station. "Let's go."