Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTYY6B5Q0BMCTZ40RM8ZGFS

The rain came down in sheets, turning the London pavement into a maze of reflections and shadows. Harlow Quinn's boots hammered against wet cobblestones, her breath coming in sharp bursts that burned her lungs. Twenty metres ahead, the figure in the dark jacket ducked around a corner, vanishing into the warren of alleyways that threaded through Camden. Quinn didn't slow. Her hand pressed against the damp brick as she swung round the corner, keeping her centre of gravity low. Military training. Eighteen years on the force hadn't dulled those instincts. The alley stretched ahead, narrow and reeking of stale beer and rotting rubbish. A single flickering streetlight cast long, skeletal shadows. The suspect was already at the far end, fumbling with something near a rusted service door. She needed to end this. "Stop! Police!" The figure's head snapped round. A young face, pale and terrified, eyes wide as dinner plates. Then he was through the door, and Quinn was running again, her shoulder slamming into the metal as she burst through after him. The stairwell on the other side plunged downward into darkness. The kind of darkness that swallowed sound and light whole. Her hand found the torch on her belt, the beam cutting through the black to reveal graffiti-covered walls and broken tiles underfoot. An abandoned Tube station. She'd heard whispers about places like this. Her watch — the old leather band worn smooth from years of wear — caught the light as she checked the time. Quarter past midnight. She'd been chasing this kid for six blocks. "Come on," she muttered, starting down the stairs. Each step echoed in the void. The air grew colder as she descended. Damp. Stale. But something else lingered beneath it — an odd sweetness, like incense burning in a church. The walls changed too. The graffiti gave way to older stonework, and strange symbols had been carved into the surfaces at irregular intervals. Quinn's jaw tightened. Three years ago, she'd have called this routine. Three years ago, she'd have charged in without a second thought. Three years ago, DS Morris was still alive. The stairs ended at a platform. Old tracks stretched into darkness on either side, the third rail rusted and useless. But the platform itself had been transformed. Canvas stalls lined the space, their awnings creating a patchwork roof beneath the vaulted ceiling. Candles flickered in glass jars, casting everything in amber light. She'd found it. The market she'd heard about in hushed conversations at The Raven's Nest, when they thought she wasn't listening. The place where people went when regular channels failed. The Veil Market. Quinn pressed herself against a pillar, pulse racing. The suspect was nowhere in sight. But the market — it was still active. People moved between the stalls, their faces obscured by hooded cloaks or theatrical masks. One vendor appeared to be selling jars of something that luminesced faintly. Another had laid out an array of crystals and dried herbs that seemed to shift colours when she wasn't looking directly at them. A woman passed within arm's reach, her basket filled with what looked like bones. Actual bones, some carved with symbols, others left raw and yellowed with age. Quinn's hand drifted to her hip. Her fingers brushed the grip of her service weapon, but she didn't draw. "Fresh vervain, gathered under the new moon!" a voice called out. "Dragon's blood resin, guaranteed authentic!" What the hell was dragon's blood resin? She counted the exits. Two tunnels at the far end of the platform, both disappearing into blackness. The way she'd come. And a service door near what looked like an old ticket booth, now converted into some kind of information kiosk. The suspect could have taken any of them. A man emerged from behind a curtain near one of the stalls. Olive skin, dark curly hair, a Saint Christopher medallion catching the candlelight. Tomás Herrera. Quinn recognised him from the surveillance photos. The paramedic who'd lost his license. The one who patched up people who couldn't go to hospitals. Their eyes met. Quinn stepped forward, keeping her movements slow and deliberate. She held up her badge, though she suspected identification meant little in a place like this. "Detective Quinn, Metropolitan Police. I'm looking for a young man who came through here. Dark jacket, ran like he had the devil on his heels." Herrera's expression gave nothing away. He glanced at the badge, then at her face, then at something over her shoulder. "You're a long way from your jurisdiction, Detective." "Camden's still London." A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Is it?" Quinn let that one sit. She'd learned, over the past three years, that the city had layers. Layers within layers. Places that didn't appear on any map. Places where the rules she'd spent her career upholding simply didn't apply. This appeared to be one of those places. "The boy," she pressed. "Where did he go?" "Might depend on who's asking. And why." "He's a person of interest in an ongoing investigation." Herrera crossed his arms. The movement shifted his sleeve, revealing the edge of a scar running along his forearm. Knife wound, by the look of it. Old, but deep. "Lot of people come through here, Detective. Lot of them running from something. Can't just hand out directions to anyone who asks." He paused, letting the sounds of the market fill the space between them. "Some doors, once you go through them, you can't come back the same." Was that a threat? A warning? Or something else entirely? Quinn thought about Morris. About the case that had killed him — though officially, it hadn't. About the things she'd seen in the weeks before his death that she'd forced herself to rationalise. The shadows that moved wrong. The witnesses who spoke of impossible things before clamming up entirely. The way her partner's notes had devolved into frantic scrawls about doors and thresholds and places between. She'd spent three years pretending none of it was real. Pretending the world still made sense. "The boy," she said again, quieter this time. "Please." Herrera studied her for a long moment. Then he stepped aside, gesturing toward the darker of the two tunnels. "He went that way. But Detective—" He caught her arm as she moved past, his grip firm but not aggressive. "Whatever you're chasing, make sure it's worth what you might find." Quinn looked at his hand until he released her. Then she walked toward the tunnel. The darkness swallowed the candlelight within a dozen steps. She clicked her torch back on, the beam revealing rough-hewn walls that looked far older than any Tube station had a right to be. The air had changed again — thicker now, charged with something that made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She could still turn back. Return to the world she understood. File a report about losing a suspect in unfamiliar territory. Let someone else handle whatever lay ahead. But that was the problem, wasn't it? There was no one else. There hadn't been since Morris. Her fingers found the worn leather of her watch band. A habit. A touchstone. Then she stepped forward into the unknown.