Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTZ3T5GSASG8WK8YRKB5F4M

Yellow tape whipped against the rusted iron gates in the wind, a rhythmic snapping that cut through the drone of London traffic above. Harlow Quinn ducked under the plastic barrier, her trench coat heavy with rainwater. The stairs leading down into the darkness of the disused Camden service tunnels smelled of wet concrete and something sharper, distinct—like a battery shorting out in a damp room. DC Miller was already halfway down, his torch beam dancing erratically over peeling posters from the nineties. "Watch your step, Guv. It's a proper death trap down here." Quinn didn't answer. She focused on the descent, boots finding traction on the slick, refuse-strewn steps with practiced ease. Eighteen years on the force taught her that the ground was rarely as stable as it looked. Near the bottom, the air temperature dropped ten degrees. Her breath plumed in the beam of her own heavy Maglite. "Where is he?" Miller swung his light toward a recessed alcove, formerly a maintenance closet, now a tomb without a door. "Tucked in the back. Looks like a routine overdose or a deal went south. Wallet’s gone, pockets turned out. Standard junkie tossing." Quinn moved past him, the space claiming her attention. The silence down here felt pressurized, heavy against the eardrums. She approached the body. A male, mid-thirties, crumpled against the far wall. He wore a heavy wool coat, tailored, significantly more expensive than the rags usually found in these subterranean squats. She crouched, knees cracking slightly. The sharp jaw set tight as she scanned the immediate perimeter. No needles. No foil wraps. No tourniquets. "You found paraphernalia?" Miller shifted his weight, boots squeaking on the grit. "Not on him, strictly speaking. But the tunnel is littered with it. Place is a shooting gallery. Probably choked on his own vomit, panicked his mates, and they stripped him." Quinn ignored the hypothesis and pulled a pair of latex gloves from her pocket. She snapped them on. The sound echoed like a gunshot in the confined space. She reached for the victim’s face. Pale, waxy skin. But no cyanosis around the lips. No foam. The eyes were open, staring at the ceiling with an expression of frozen, absolute terror. The capillaries in the sclera hadn't burst; they were black. Not dark red. Pitch black. "Light here. Closer." Miller obliged, bringing the beam down to the victim's neck. "See? Bruising. Someone grabbed him." Quinn traced the marks. Four distinct burns, arranged like fingertips, but the tissue wasn't crushed; it was carbonized. The skin had been seared instantly. "Heat, Miller. Not pressure. Look at the edges. This is a thermal injury." "A lighter?" Miller scoffed but leaned in. "Who burns a guy during a mugging? Torture?" "Torture implies they wanted information. This looks like a defensive wound. Or a warning." Quinn shifted her position, her leather watch strap catching the light as she maneuvered the corpse's rigid arm. Rigor was setting in fast—too fast for a body that was still warm to the touch. She checked the hands. The fingernails were torn, packed with grey dust. She scraped a sample onto a small evidence card. It wasn't concrete dust or dirt. It shimmered slightly, iridescent under the torchlight. "Stone dust?" Miller asked, sounding bored. "Mortar. But old. Ancient." She stood up, brushing the knees of her trousers. "This man wasn't a junkie, Miller. Look at his shoes." Miller shone the light on the leather brogues. "Nice kicks. Scuffed to hell, though." "Scuffed on the uppers. Drag marks. But the soles are clean. He didn't walk down here. He was carried, or..." She trailed off, looking at the ceiling. No hatch. No vent. "Or what? Dropped?" "Dragged," Quinn corrected, though the geometry made no sense. "Dragged from where?" She turned her attention to the scattered rubbish around the body. Fast food wrappers, rusted cans, damp newspapers. Something metal glinted beneath a sodden copy of the Metro. Quinn reached down, retrieving the object. It was heavy, brass, coated in a thick layer of verdigris that stained her latex glove green. A compass. "Steampunk rubbish," Miller muttered. "Market stuff. Camden Lock is just upstairs. Probably bought a trinket before getting jumped." Quinn wiped the glass face with her thumb. The casing was etched, not with manufacturer stamps, but with geometric sigils—sharp, angular lines that hurt the eyes if you stared too long. *Face etched with protective sigils*. She had seen similar scratchings in the files Eva Kowalski used to shove across her desk at the precinct, blathering about occult history while Quinn tried to file reports. The needle inside didn't float. It vibrated. She held it flat. "Miller, check your compass. North." "Phone has one." Miller fumbled with his mobile. "North is... that way. Towards the tunnel exit." The needle in Quinn’s hand pointed violently toward the solid brick wall behind the victim. It wasn't drifting; it was pulling, tapping against the glass as if trying to break through. "Broken," Miller stated. "Magnetic interference," Quinn countered, though the hair on her arms stood up. A sensation she hadn't felt in three years. Not since the warehouse. Not since Morris started screaming at things Quinn couldn't see. She pocketed the brass device. "Bag the hands. I want swabs of that black residue in the eyes, and I want a full toxicology screen, focusing on neurotoxins and alkaloids. Specific instructions to look for heavy metals." Miller blinked. "Heavy metals? Guv, it's just a dead tosser in a tube station. Forensics will laugh at me." "Let them laugh. Do it." She stepped over the legs, moving toward the wall the compass had pointed at. "And get a team to sweep this area. Not for drugs. I want to know if anyone has seen structural disturbances. Vibrations. Weird lights." Miller sighed, a long, exasperated exhalation. "You think the ceiling is caving in?" Quinn ran her gloved hand over the soot-stained bricks. The air here was colder, biting. The mortar between the bricks wasn't crumbling; it was missing entirely in a perfect rectangular outline, yet the bricks held firm. "I think this isn't a wall," Quinn murmured. "Looks like a wall to me." "That's the problem, Miller. You're only looking." She pressed her ear against the cold surface. Silence. Then, a low, thrumming resonance, like a massive generator humming miles beneath the earth. Or a heartbeat. She pulled back, her eyes narrowing. On the ground, right at the base of the wall, wedged into a crack in the concrete floor, was a small, white disc. Quinn retrieved it with tweezers. A bone token. Crude, carved from a knuckle—human or animal, difficult to tell—with a single rune burned into the center. "Another trinket?" Miller asked, stepping close, invading her personal space. "Currency," Quinn said, her voice dropping to a register that brooked no argument. She stood to her full height, the military bearing snapping her spine straight. "He was trying to buy his way in." "In where? It's a dead end." "Into the market." Quinn turned the token over in the light. It was greasy. "This wasn't a robbery. The wallet was taken to make it look like one. They left the expensive watch." She pointed to the victim's wrist, which Miller had missed. A silver chronograph, ticking away seconds that no longer mattered to its owner. "Thieves take the Rolex first. Murderers trying to hide a motive take the ID." Miller looked at the watch, then back to the wall. He looked unsettled now. Quinn’s certainty was a force of nature. "So, what? Gang hit?" "Something like that." Quinn stripped off her gloves, staring at the carbonized burns on the victim's neck. "But the weapon wasn't standard and the location moves." "Moves?" "The timeline doesn't fit, Miller. Rigor signals he's been dead six hours. Body temp says one. The blood settling—lividity—is on his back, but we found him slumped forward. He was killed somewhere else, somewhere cold, and dumped here less than an hour ago." Miller looked around the empty, silent tunnel. "Nobody walked past us." "Exactly." Quinn looked back at the wall. The compass in her pocket felt warm against her hip, a steady, localized heat. The Veil Market. The name drifted up from the recesses of her memory, a fragment of a conversation she’d overheard between Morris and a snitch years ago. A place that wasn't a place, moving with the moon. "Pack it up," Quinn ordered, turning on her heel. "I want the body moved to the morgue. No shortcuts. I'm taking the personal effects." "You can't just—" "I am the Senior Investigating Officer, Miller. I can do whatever is required to catch the killer. And the killer isn't down here." She walked back toward the stairs, the darkness seemingly parting around her. The air in the tunnel felt thin, used up. She needed to breathe. She needed to make a phone call to a researcher at the British Museum who dealt with things that didn't make sense. Miller’s voice echoed behind her, weak and confused. "So where do we start looking?" Quinn paused at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at the slice of rainy London night visible through the iron grate. "We start by finding out where that wall goes when the moon is full." She climbed, the bone token clutched tight in her hand, the ghost of Morris walking in step beside her, unseen but felt. The game had changed. The pieces were moving on a board she was only just beginning to see, but Harlow Quinn never walked away from a fight. Even if she had to punch a hole in reality to finish it. "Get the car, Miller," she called down without looking back. "We're going to the Museum."