Run: 2026-02-20-01KHXPMBWPSYETME578TV9C6NE

The rain came down in sheets, turning London’s neon glow into a smear of bleeding colors—crimson, amber, the sickly green of *The Raven’s Nest*’s sign flickering above the alley like a dying pulse. Detective Harlow Quinn didn’t break stride as she vaulted over a stack of sodden crates, her boots splashing through puddles deep enough to soak her ankles. The cold seeped in, but she barely registered it. Three years of chasing ghosts had taught her to ignore discomfort. What mattered was the figure ahead—lean, quick, a dark jacket flapping like broken wings as he ducked around the corner of Greek Street. She skidded on wet cobblestones, her left hand shooting out to brace against the brick wall of a closed kebab shop. The scent of grease and stale meat clung to the air, thick beneath the rain’s metallic tang. Her watch—leather worn smooth from years of service—glinted under a flickering streetlamp as she checked the time. 2:17 AM. The city was a graveyard at this hour, save for the drunks and the desperate. And her. And *him*. She pushed off the wall, muscles burning. The suspect—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the easy confidence of someone who knew these streets better than she did—had a twenty-meter lead. Not enough. Never enough. Not when she’d spent eighteen months tracing the edges of something rotten in this city, something that stank of the same wrongness that had swallowed Morris whole. A shout rose behind her—uniforms, late to the party as always. She didn’t turn. Didn’t slow. The radio at her hip crackled with static and the frantic voice of DC Whitaker, but she ignored it. This was hers. The suspect glanced back. Just for a second. Long enough for the green neon of *The Raven’s Nest* to catch the sharp angle of his jaw, the glint of something metallic at his throat—a chain, maybe. A medallion. Then he was gone again, slipping into the mouth of an alley so narrow her shoulders nearly brushed both walls. Harlow followed. The alley twisted, a serpent’s path lined with overflowing dumpsters and the rusted skeletons of fire escapes. The rain drummed against the metal, a discordant rhythm that set her teeth on edge. She drew her sidearm, the weight of it familiar in her grip. “Police! Stop where you are!” No response. Just the echo of footsteps splashing ahead, the scuffle of shoes on wet stone. Then—nothing. She skidded to a halt at the alley’s dead end, a brick wall slick with moss and the stench of urine. No doors. No windows. Just a drain grate, its iron bars bent outward like broken teeth. *Too easy.* Harlow crouched, rain dripping from her cropped hair into her eyes. The grate was old, the metal corroded, but the bend was fresh. She holstered her weapon and grabbed the bars, testing their give. They groaned but held. She gritted her teeth and pulled harder. The muscles in her arms trembled—*forty-one, Quinn, not twenty-one*—but the grate shrieked and gave way, tearing free with a sound like a dying animal. The drop beneath was black. Not the dark of a closed shop or a shadowed corner, but the absolute, suffocating dark of a throat waiting to swallow her whole. She reached for her torch, flicking it on. The beam cut through the gloom, revealing a ladder bolted to the wall, its rungs slick with moisture. The stink rising from below was worse than the alley—damp earth, something chemical, and beneath it all, the coppery reek of old blood. *Christ.* She swung her legs over the edge, boots finding the first rung. The ladder shuddered under her weight but held. The torchlight wavered as she descended, the circle of illumination shrinking until it was just her, the rungs, and the dark. The tunnel opened into a space so vast her torch couldn’t find the walls. The air was thicker here, humid and electric, like the moment before a storm breaks. She swept the beam left, right. Concrete pillars rose like the ribs of some buried beast, and between them— *Stalls.* Wooden tables laden with jars of murky liquids, bundles of herbs, things that might have been bones. A market. Not the kind that sold fruit and secondhand jumpers, but the kind that sold *secrets*. The Veil Market. She’d heard the whispers, of course—every cop who’d spent more than five minutes in Soho had. A black market for things that shouldn’t exist. Things that made men disappear. And there, at the far end of the chamber, the suspect. He was bent over a table, talking to a hooded figure, his back to her. Harlow killed the torch and slipped behind a pillar, pressing her spine against the cold concrete. Her pulse hammered in her throat. She should call it in. Should turn around, climb back up to the world where the rules made sense, where suspects didn’t vanish into underground labyrinths and partners didn’t get erased from existence mid-conversation. But Morris’s face floated behind her eyes—the way he’d looked that last night, pale under the flickering fluorescents of the station, his usual smirk replaced by something like fear. *“Quinn, listen to me—”* And then nothing. Harlow exhaled through her nose and stepped out from behind the pillar. The market’s denizens noticed her immediately. A woman with too many teeth hissed from behind a table of glass vials. A man with a face like melted wax went still, his milky eyes tracking her movement. The suspect—*Herrera*, the file had called him, Tomás Herrera, former paramedic, suspected clique affiliate—turned slowly, as if he’d been expecting her. Up close, he was younger than she’d thought. Late twenties, maybe. Olive skin, dark curls damp with rain, a scar running the length of his left forearm—defensive wound, if she had to guess. And the medallion, glinting against his chest. Saint Christopher. Patron of travelers. *Irony, that.* His hands were empty. Relaxed. “Detective Quinn,” he said, voice low, accented. Seville, if the intel was right. “You’re a long way from the station.” She didn’t draw her weapon. Not yet. “Tomás Herrera. Or do you prefer ‘Tommy’?” A flicker of something crossed his face—amusement, maybe. “Depends on who’s asking.” “You’re under arrest for the possession and distribution of controlled substances.” She kept her voice steady, but her fingers twitched at her sides. The market’s silence was a living thing, pressing in. “Turn around. Hands behind your back.” Herrera didn’t move. “You don’t want to do that.” “Funny. That’s what Morris said, right before he vanished into thin air.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Too personal. Too *raw*. Something shifted in his expression. Not pity. Recognition. “You don’t know what you’re walking into.” “I know you’re running.” She took a step forward. The stench of the market—damp, metallic, *wrong*—filled her lungs. “I know you’re part of the clique. And I know you’ve got something to do with whatever the hell is happening in this city.” Herrera’s gaze flicked to the shadows behind her. “Detective—” She didn’t let him finish. She lunged, grabbing for his arm, but he twisted away, faster than she expected. His hand shot out, gripping her wrist, fingers digging into the tendon just above her watch. Pain lanced up her arm, sharp and bright. “Let go,” she snarled. “You don’t understand,” he hissed. “This isn’t just drugs. This isn’t just *people*.” His other hand came up, fingers brushing the Saint Christopher medallion. “There are things down here that’ll eat you alive.” She drove her knee into his thigh, aiming for the nerve cluster. He grunted but didn’t release her. Instead, he yanked her closer, his breath hot against her ear. “Look around you, *detective*.” The emphasis on her title was a blade. “You think this is a market? It’s a *hunting ground*.” A sound cut through the tension—a wet, clicking noise, like bones knocking together. Harlow twisted in Herrera’s grip, torch snapping back on. The thing that had been the wax-faced man was no longer a man at all. Its limbs had elongated, joints bending the wrong way, its skin sloughing off in thick, gelatinous strips. Black eyes, too large for its skull, reflected the torchlight like oil on water. It *clicked* again, a sound that vibrated in Harlow’s teeth, and then it *moved*, scuttling toward them on too many legs, too many *fingers*. Herrera cursed and shoved her backward. “Run.” She didn’t. She drew her sidearm, the motion smooth, practiced. The thing—*the thing*—hissed, its mouth splitting wider than a human’s should, rows of needle teeth glistening. Harlow fired. The shot echoed, deafening in the confined space. The creature shrieked, its body jerking, but the bullet didn’t slow it. Black ichor sprayed the stall behind it, sizzling where it landed. “It won’t die like that!” Herrera grabbed her arm again, dragging her toward the far end of the market. “We have to go *now*!” Harlow let him pull her, but only because the alternative was standing her ground and dying on principle. They wove between stalls, knocking over tables, sending jars crashing to the ground. The market erupted into chaos—shouts, screams, the wet, tearing sounds of things that weren’t human giving chase. A tunnel yawned ahead, darker than the rest. Herrera didn’t hesitate. He plunged into it, and Harlow followed, the torchlight bouncing wildly off the walls. The tunnel sloped downward, the air growing colder, the stench of decay stronger. “Where the hell are we going?” she demanded, her voice raw. “Somewhere it can’t follow!” He skidded to a halt at a junction, pressing his back to the wall. Three tunnels branched off. All identical. All black. Harlow’s torch flickered. The batteries were dying. She swallowed hard, the taste of gunpowder and fear thick on her tongue. “You’re telling me that *thing* is what you’ve been running from?” Herrera’s chest heaved. “No. I’ve been running from *them*.” He jerked his chin upward. “The clique. The market. All of it.” His fingers tightened around the medallion. “I didn’t have a choice.” “Bullshit.” She holstered her weapon—what good was it now?—and wiped rain and sweat from her brow. “You always have a choice.” “Not when you’ve seen what I’ve seen.” His voice dropped. “Not when you know what’s coming.” A sound echoed down the tunnel—a wet, dragging noise, like something heavy being pulled across stone. Harlow’s skin prickled. “What the hell *is* coming?” Herrera met her gaze. For the first time, she saw real fear in his eyes. “The end of this city.” He pushed off the wall. “Come on. Before it’s too late.” Harlow hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her to turn back, to climb out of this nightmare and pretend she’d never seen it. But Morris’s face was there again, his last words unspoken, his fate unknown. She followed Herrera into the dark.