Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTZ3N8KGJ5APEF5F0FE1PTX

Rain hammered the pavement, a relentless curtain of grey that turned the London streetlights into smeared neon bruises against the wet asphalt. Harlow Quinn didn't feel the cold anymore. Her blood was up, hot and fast in her veins. She lunged over a discarded crate, boots landing with a heavy splash in a pothole. Water sheeted up her trousers, soaking into the heavy wool. Ten yards ahead, the runner—a lanky man in a hoodie that looked two sizes too big—skidded on the slick cobblestones. He corrected his balance with a frantic wave of his arms and sprinted toward the mouth of an alleyway. Quinn checked her watch. The leather strap was slick against her wrist, the face fogged with condensation. She didn't need to look to know she’d been chasing him for twelve minutes. Her lungs burned, a familiar fire that had nothing to do with the smoke in the air and everything to do with the gap in her fitness regime since Morris died. She pushed the thought down. She didn't need the ghost of her partner weighing her ankles tonight. "Stop! Metropolitan Police!" The words meant nothing. They never did. The runner vaulted a rusted fence at the end of the alley. Quinn followed, her shoulder catching the metal with a dull clang that vibrated through her bones. They were moving away from the familiar sprawl of Soho, heading north toward the shadows of Camden. The city noise faded here, replaced by the drumming of the rain and the scuffle of sneakers on wet stone. He was leading her somewhere. The streets grew narrower, the buildings leaning in as if conspiring to hide the track. The usual urban grime of takeaway wrappers and crushed beer cans gave way to something older. Moss slicked the brickwork. The air grew heavy, thick with a metallic tang that tasted of copper and ozone. The runner took a sharp left and vanished down a flight of concrete stairs. An old Tube station entrance. The sign was missing, leaving only rusted bolts jutting from the metal frame. Quinn hit the top of the stairs, gun drawn but held low against her thigh. The stone steps were slick with moss and slime. She descended, keeping her tread light. Down she went. Fifty steps. A hundred. The street-level noise—the distant sirens, the hum of traffic—died instantly. The bottom opened up into a cavernous space. It was wrong. The architecture suggested a Tube station, the tiled walls and arches were familiar, but the scale was too vast. The tracks were gone, replaced by a sprawling marketplace carved out of the dark earth. Quinn slowed to a walk, her breath hitching in her throat. Stalls lined the platforms, constructed from scrap wood and iron bones of old trains. But the goods on display defied logic. Jars filled with swirling violet mists that moved against the glass. Knives that glowed with a sickly, pale luminescence. Dried herbs that smelled of sulfur and sweets. The Veil Market. The files she wasn't supposed to have read whispered about places like this. The runner was at a stall further down, arguing with a merchant. The merchant was hooded, face obscured by shadows, but the hands gripping the counter were grey, the skin looking like wet clay. Quinn stayed in the cover of the stairwell shadows. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. This wasn't a drug bust. This wasn't a standard pursuit. The atmosphere pressed in on her, vibrating with a low hum that set her teeth on edge. She looked at the runner. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a token. A sliver of bone. He slapped it onto the counter. The merchant snatched it up, inspecting the fragment. Then the merchant tilted his head. The movement was jerky, unnatural, like a marionette with a snapped string. He pointed a long finger toward a tunnel at the far end of the platform. The runner grabbed a small pouch from the table and turned. Quinn stepped out. "Hands in the air." The market didn't fall silent. It couldn't. The low hum never stopped, but the chatter of the few patrons—some humanoid, some shapes that hurt Quinn’s eyes to look at—faded away. Dozens of eyes turned toward her. The runner froze. He looked at her, then at the tunnel. "You're a long way from home, Detective," the merchant rasped. The voice sounded like gravel grinding together. Quinn ignored him, keeping her weapon trained on the runner. "Drop the bag. On the floor. Now." "You don't know what you walked into," the runner said. He pulled his hood back. His face was gaunt, eyes wide and rimmed with red. He looked terrified, not of her, but of the place behind him. "They won't let you leave. Not with eyes like yours." "I'm not asking." Quinn took a step forward. Her boot heel clicked on the tile. The sound echoed, louder than it should have. The merchant slammed a fist onto the counter. The noise was a thunderclap in the enclosed space. "No steel here. No law." Shadows detached themselves from the corners of the room. Tall, thin figures with too many joints in their fingers. They didn't walk; they flowed. Quinn checked her peripherals. Three of them. Blocking the stairs she came down. "Look at the board," the runner whispered. He glanced at a rusted placard near the tunnel entrance. *Entry by Bone Token Only.* Quinn didn't have a token. She didn't belong here. She was an intruder in a world that operated on rules she didn't understand. Her grip tightened on the handle of her gun. It felt heavy, useless. Her police ID was a badge of authority in the city above, down here it was a target. The runner shifted his weight toward the tunnel. "Stop or I shoot," Quinn said. "You shoot, you die," the merchant said. He reached under the counter. Quinn looked at the runner, then at the tunnel mouth. He was getting away. But if she moved, she risked the swarm. If she stayed, she was surrounded. The military precision she usually relied on—clear the room, control the threat, neutralize the target—was dissolving in the face of this impossible geometry. She took a breath. The air tasted of ancient dust and magic. She holstered her weapon. It was a gesture, a surrender of the threat of force, a pivot to something else. The runner hesitated. Quinn took another step. Then another. She walked past the merchant, ignoring the grey hands reaching out. "You're letting him go?" the merchant hissed. "I'm following him," Quinn said. She locked eyes with the runner. "You lead, I follow. Or I shoot you in the leg and leave you for whatever those things are." The runner looked at the encroaching shadows. He looked at the detective standing in the center of the forbidden market, rain dripping from her salt-and-pepper hair, her stance rigid, her jaw set in a sharp line that dared the world to try and stop her. He turned and ran into the tunnel. Quinn sprinted after him.