Run: 2026-02-20-01KHXQ3RW5VK4CDV05ZVT82Z0H

The rain came down in sheets, turning London’s neon glow into a smeared watercolor of blues and reds. Detective Harlow Quinn didn’t slow her pace. Her boots splashed through ankle-deep puddles, each step deliberate, measured—military precision honed over two decades of chasing men who thought they could outrun the law. The suspect, a wiry figure in a black hoodie, darted around the corner of a shuttered kebab shop, his breath ragged. She heard it over the drumming rain, the way a predator hears the panic in its prey. She rounded the corner just as he vaulted over a stack of milk crates, sending them clattering. Harlow didn’t bother with the crates. She took the alley at a sprint, her leather watch strap damp against her wrist, the salt-and-pepper stubble of her hair plastered to her scalp. The suspect’s silhouette flickered under a flickering streetlamp—just long enough for her to see the glint of something metallic in his hand. A knife? A token? She couldn’t tell, but the way he clutched it told her it was worth the chase. “Police!” she barked, voice cutting through the downpour. “Stop now!” He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He skidded left into the mouth of an underground station, the green tilework slick with rain. Harlow followed, her fingers brushing the grip of her service weapon. She wouldn’t draw—not yet. Not unless she had to. The station was abandoned, the turnstiles rusted open, the air thick with the scent of damp concrete and something older, something metallic and faintly electric, like the aftertaste of a storm. The suspect’s footsteps echoed ahead of her, slapping against the stairs. Harlow descended, her free hand trailing the grimy wall for balance. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly yellow pallor over the graffiti-scarred tiles. At the bottom, the platform stretched into darkness, the tracks long since removed, replaced by a labyrinth of stalls and makeshift tents. The Veil Market. She’d heard the whispers, of course. Every cop in London had. A black market for things that shouldn’t exist—potions in glass vials, charms made of bone, information traded in hushed tones. The kind of place where men like her suspect disappeared into the shadows and never came back out. Harlow hesitated at the edge of the platform. The suspect was already weaving through the crowd, his hood pulled low. The market hummed with activity—hooded figures bartering over jars of swirling mist, a woman with too many teeth offering a vial of something black and viscous to a nervous buyer. The air smelled of burnt herbs and copper. She exhaled sharply. Three years ago, she’d lost Morris chasing a lead just like this—into the dark, into the unknown. They’d found his body two days later in a back alley, his eyes wide and unseeing, his skin marked with symbols that made the coroner cross herself. The case had been buried before Harlow could dig too deep. But she’d seen enough to know the world was sharper at the edges than she’d been taught. A hand clamped onto her shoulder. Harlow spun, her pistol drawn in one fluid motion, the muzzle pressing into the soft flesh under a man’s jaw. He didn’t flinch. Warm brown eyes met hers, steady, unarmed. Tomás Herrera. The Saint Christopher medallion at his throat caught the dim light as he raised his hands slowly, palms out. “Easy, Detective,” he said, his voice low, accented with the rolling cadence of Seville. “You don’t want to do that here.” Harlow didn’t lower the gun. “You know this place.” It wasn’t a question. Tomás’s gaze flicked toward the crowd, then back to her. The scar on his forearm—white against his olive skin—twitched as he tensed. “Better than you do.” “Then you know what he’s carrying.” She jerked her chin toward the suspect, now vanished into the press of bodies. Tomás exhaled through his nose. “A bone token. Gets you past the deeper stalls. The kind that sell things you *really* don’t want to see.” Harlow’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I don’t care what he’s buying. I care what he’s running from.” “Then you’re already in over your head.” Tomás’s voice dropped. “This isn’t your jurisdiction, Detective. Not anymore.” She knew what he meant. The Veil Market didn’t play by her rules. But Morris’s face flashed in her mind—his last case file, the one she’d “misplaced” before Internal Affairs could shred it. The symbols scrawled in the margins. The same ones she’d seen tattooed on a corpse last week, drained of blood but still warm. Harlow holstered her weapon. “Take me to him.” Tomás’s jaw worked. For a second, she thought he’d refuse. Then he gave a sharp nod. “Stay close. And *do not* touch anything.” She followed him into the throng, her shoulders brushing against cloaked figures who eyed her with open hostility. A man with a face like cracked leather hissed something in a language she didn’t recognize. Tomás answered in the same tongue, his voice smooth, placating. The man melted back into the shadows. “What’d you say?” Harlow muttered. “That you’re with me. And that I’d gut anyone who lays a finger on you.” Tomás didn’t look back. “They respect violence here. Not badges.” The deeper they went, the thicker the air became, cloying with the scent of incense and something darker—damp earth and old blood. The stalls here didn’t sell trinkets. They sold *things*. A jarred heart pulsed lazily on a bed of straw. A mirror reflected a face that wasn’t hers. Harlow averted her eyes. Then she saw him. The suspect—no, the *target*—was hunched over a table, sliding the bone token across the wood. The vendor, a gaunt woman with fingers like spider legs, plucked it up and examined it before producing a small wooden box. The target opened it, and even from ten feet away, Harlow felt the *wrongness* of whatever was inside. A low, resonant hum filled her skull, like a tuning fork struck against bone. Tomás grabbed her arm. “We need to go. *Now.*” Harlow shook him off. “Not without him.” She moved before Tomás could stop her, shoving through the crowd. The target snapped the box shut just as she reached him, his eyes wide, pupils blown black with fear—or something worse. She grabbed his collar, slamming him against the table. The wooden box skittered across the floor. “Police,” she snarled. “You’re under arrest.” The target laughed, a wet, rattling sound. Then his skin *split*. Not like a cut. Like a seam unraveling. His mouth stretched too wide, his jaw unhinging, and something *black* and *glistening* spilled out— Harlow recoiled, her training screaming at her to *shoot*, but her fingers wouldn’t obey. Tomás yanked her back just as the thing that had been a man lunged, its limbs bending in ways that made her stomach heave. The vendor hissed, her spider-fingers weaving through the air. The humming in Harlow’s skull became a shriek. Then the lights went out. Not the fluorescents—they still buzzed overhead, weak and yellow. But the *other* light, the one that had been casting long, wrong shadows, snuffed out like a candle. The market erupted into chaos. Stalls overturned. Glass shattered. Harlow’s boots slipped on something slick—blood? Oil? She didn’t want to know. Tomás dragged her toward the stairs, his breath coming fast. “We’re leaving. *Now.*” Harlow twisted free. “I’m not—” “You’re *not a cop here*,” he snapped, his voice raw. “You’re *prey*. That thing you just saw? It’s the *least* of what’s down here. And you’ve just made yourself interesting.” Harlow’s pulse hammered in her throat. She could still see Morris’s body, the symbols carved into his flesh. Still hear the way his voice had sounded on the radio that last night—*static-laced, wrong*. Tomás grabbed her wrist, his grip iron. “I’m not losing another one to this place.” She let him pull her up the stairs, her mind racing. The wooden box. The bone token. The way the target’s skin had *split*. At the top, the rain hit her like a slap. Harlow gasped, bending double, her hands on her knees. The street was empty. No suspects. No monsters. Just the drumming rain and the distant wail of a police siren. Tomás didn’t let go of her. “You need to forget you saw any of this.” Harlow straightened, wiping rain from her face. Her watch read 3:17 AM. The night was still young. “Tell me what he was buying,” she said. Tomás’s expression darkened. “A way to cross the Veil. Permanently.” She knew what that meant. Three years ago, Morris had been researching the same thing. Harlow met Tomás’s gaze. “I need to know where it leads.” “Somewhere you *can’t* follow.” His voice was low, urgent. “Detective, whatever you’re chasing—it’s chasing you back.” She looked down at her hands. They were steady. “Then it’s a good thing,” she said, “I’ve got a head start.”