Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY98QAJM8JDCTBCJWB6QP24

The air tasted of dust and something else, something acrid and faintly metallic, like old blood. Detective Harlow Quinn scanned the cavernous space, her gaze sweeping over the damp concrete walls and the grimy tracks disappearing into the darkness. An abandoned Tube station. Not just any abandoned station, but a section of the Northern Line shuttered in the aftermath of the Blitz, rumored to have been repurposed decades ago for…well, rumors varied. Most centered on smuggling and illegal gambling. This? This was different. The victim lay sprawled on the tracks, a man in a tailored suit, impeccably dressed despite his demise. No obvious wounds. Just a stillness that felt wrong, unnatural. He hadn’t been shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned. He simply…stopped. “Tripped,” Sergeant Davies had called it over the radio. “Fell on the tracks. Tragic accident.” Quinn didn’t believe in tragic accidents, not in her eighteen years on the force. Especially not in places like this. She knelt beside the body, ignoring the grit that clung to her knees. The suit was expensive; Italian wool, hand-stitched. The man’s face was pale, almost translucent. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the vaulted ceiling. A single, perfect white rose lay on his chest. “Rose seems a bit much for a random fall,” she murmured, her voice echoing in the silence. Her gaze drifted to the tracks themselves. Clean. Too clean. There wasn't a smear of blood, not a single scuff mark to indicate a struggle or even a desperate grab for purchase as he fell. A man tumbling from the platform onto these tracks would leave a mess. This…this was staged. "Doesn't look like he was running from anything," Officer Miller offered, standing a little too far away from the body, his face pale in the flickering beam of his flashlight. "No sign of forced entry. Looks like he walked right in." Quinn ignored him, her attention caught by something glinting in the shadows near the tunnel entrance. She moved closer, her worn leather watch pressing against her wrist as she navigated the uneven ground. It was a small, brass object, tarnished with green verdigris. A compass. Not just any compass. It was intricately crafted, its casing etched with unfamiliar sigils. It hummed faintly in her hand, a subtle vibration she felt more than heard. A Veil Compass. She recognized it from whispered accounts and hushed conversations within the Met’s more discreet departments. A tool for navigating the supernatural undercurrents of London. “What’s that?” Davies asked, appearing beside her, his breath misting in the cold air. He was a young sergeant, eager to please, but easily distracted. “Evidence,” Quinn said, her voice clipped. “Bag it.” Davies fumbled with evidence bags, his brow furrowed in confusion. “A compass? What’s that got to do with anything? He could have been an explorer, a collector…” “This isn’t a collector’s item, Davies. This is something…else.” She turned her attention to the compass face. The needle spun wildly for a moment before settling, pointing directly towards the dark tunnel mouth. Not north. Not south. Toward something…else. "Agreed," a dry voice said from behind her. Quinn turned to see Eva Kowalski, bundled in a thick coat, her round glasses perched on her nose. Eva clutched her worn leather satchel, its buckles glinting in the flashlight beam. "Surreal, isn't it?" Eva said, her green eyes alight with a mixture of fascination and apprehension. "The rose, the pristine tracks...it’s all…theatrical." "That's what I'm saying," Quinn confirmed. "This wasn’t an accident. Someone wanted this to look like an accident." Eva nodded, tucking a strand of her curly red hair behind her left ear. A nervous habit Quinn had come to recognize. “The Veil Market. You think it's connected?” Quinn considered the question, her gaze returning to the compass. “It’s a possibility. A Veil Compass doesn’t just appear in abandoned Tube stations by chance.” The Veil Market, a notorious black market trading in enchanted goods and forbidden knowledge, only opened on the night of the full moon, shifting locations to avoid detection. This wasn't a full moon. But someone could’ve brought something from there… “The rose," Eva continued, her voice low. "Roses are often associated with portals, thresholds. Boundaries between worlds.” Quinn’s sharp jawline tightened. She felt that familiar gnawing sensation, the one that always accompanied a case that pricked at the edges of her understanding. The inexplicable. The impossible. The case that cost her DS Morris his life three years ago. “Morris would have seen this immediately,” she muttered, the memory of his sharp eyes and steady hand a painful ache in her gut. He’d always had an uncanny knack for spotting the inconsistencies, the gaps in the narrative. “He respected the unseen,” Eva said softly, as if reading her thoughts. “You do too, Quinn. You just don’t want to admit it.” Quinn ignored the comment, focusing on the layout of the station. The tracks split ahead, leading deeper into the subterranean labyrinth. There was a faint shimmer in the air down one of the tunnels, almost imperceptible, but it was there. A distortion, like heat rising off asphalt on a summer day. "Davies, Miller, secure the perimeter. No one leaves. Anyone coming in, I want their names, their stories, and what they're doing down here." She issued the orders, her voice ringing with the authority of years of experience. “Eva, I need you to run this compass. See if you can identify the symbols. And check the archives. See if there are any records of similar incidents—anyone found dead in this station, or any others, with a single white rose.” Eva nodded, already digging in her satchel. "And what about the victim? Any leads?" Quinn shook her head. "Nothing yet. Wallet's clean. No ID. But something about him…he looks familiar. I just can't place it.” Her eyes scanned the surrounding concrete and metal, as if searching for an invisible clue. "Maybe he *was* just passing through," Davies offered, still seeming unsure of himself. “Maybe he got lost, wandered down here, and…it was just bad luck.” Quinn fixed him with a look that could curdle milk. “Bad luck doesn’t leave sigils on a compass, Sergeant. Bad luck doesn’t plant a single white rose on a corpse. Bad luck doesn’t create a shimmering distortion in the air.” She pointed towards the tunnel where the shimmering distortion was most intense. The Veil Compass needle pulsed, vibrating urgently against her palm. “This isn’t a random event, Davies. This is a signal. And I think someone, or *something*, wanted us to find it.” She felt a chill crawl down her spine, a premonition of something dark and unsettling. The scent of dust and metal deepened, mingling with a new odor - ozone, like the aftermath of a lightning strike. And beneath it all, that faintest echo…something old, something powerful, something not of this world. "The question is," Quinn said, her gaze fixed on the dark tunnel, “what are we supposed to do with it now?”