Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9EPW37GCDSAHYTPBQ447D

Harlow’s polished boot heels thudded over Camden’s rain-slicked cobblestones at dawn, the leather of her left wrist watch—Morris’s old one, the strap cracked where he’d caught it on a suspect’s knife three years before—digging into her pulse point. She’d gotten the call at 4:17 a.m.: a body found in an abandoned Tube station beneath the market, no obvious cause of death, no ID, but graffiti that made the first officer on scene’s voice shake through the radio. Military precision kept her steps tight, her salt-and-pepper cropped hair pressed flat by the damp air, her sharp jaw set against the flicker of forensics van lights painting the brick buildings amber. The entrance was chained shut, a rusted sign reading CAMDEN TOWN (TEMPORARILY CLOSED) swinging from a nail above. Harlow flashed her Metropolitan Police badge at the uniformed officer guarding the chain, his fingers fumbling to unhook a link so she could slip through. The stairs down reeked of mold and stagnant water, the concrete slimy under her gloves. She clicked on her flashlight, the beam cutting through a curtain of mist that coiled around the handrail like a living thing. At the bottom, the abandoned ticket barriers loomed, their glass shattered, their metal frames etched with swirling silver sigils that glinted in the forensics team’s flashlights. A man slumped against the leftmost barrier, his ratty leather jacket unzipped to reveal a torso crisscrossed with the same silver marks. Forensics Tech Jake looked up as Harlow approached, his disposable mask askew. “Quinn,” he said, his voice tight. “No bullet holes, no stab wounds. Toxicology’s pending, but his pupils are blown wide enough to swallow his brown irises. Those marks—they’re not paint. We tried scrubbing ’em with acetone, nothing. They’re embedded in his skin like tattoos, but no needle marks. And check this.” He nodded to the man’s left hand, where a small, smooth bone token carved with a raven lay half-buried in the damp grit. Harlow knelt, her knees creaking, and picked up the token. It was light, its surface worn smooth by use, the raven’s wings etched so finely they seemed to flutter in her flashlight beam. She tucked it into her pocket, her fingers brushing the cold metal of her service weapon, and scanned the area. The station’s platforms stretched into darkness beyond the barriers, the tracks overgrown with weeds that glowed faintly silver in the low light—a detail Jake hadn’t mentioned. “Did you see the weeds?” she said, nodding toward the platforms. Jake blinked. “What weeds? They were just green when I got here.” Before he could say more, a voice cut through the mist: “Excuse me—you can’t be in there without a bone token.” Harlow stood, her movements sharp, and turned to see a woman in a frayed tweed coat hovering at the top of the stairs, a worn leather satchel bulging with books slung over her shoulder. Curly red hair spilled over her round glasses, her freckled complexion flushed with frustration, and when she tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear—her nervous habit, Harlow noted instantly—she revealed a second bone token, identical to the one in Harlow’s pocket, tied to her wrist with a leather thong. “Metropolitan Police,” Harlow said, stepping toward her, her badge flashing. “This is a crime scene. State your business.” The woman’s eyes widened—green, bright as emeralds—and she fumbled in her satchel, pulling out a British Museum ID card. “Eva Kowalski. Research assistant in the restricted archives. I’m here to document the Veil Market’s former location—this station was their spot until last night’s full moon. They move every full moon, you know.” Harlow’s jaw tightened. The Veil Market—she’d heard whispers, but dismissed them as urban legend, the kind of garbage Morris used to joke about before he died. Unexplained circumstances, the coroner had said. A fungal rash on his neck that looked like swirling marks. She’d buried the memory under 18 years of decorated case files, but now it clawed its way back. “Veil Market?” she said, her voice colder than the concrete beneath her boots. “What’s that—some teenaged prank?” Eva tucked another strand of hair behind her ear, her hands shaking slightly. “It’s a supernatural black market. They sell enchanted goods, banned alchemical substances, information. Entry requires a bone token—you have one in your pocket, don’t you?” She nodded to Harlow’s coat, where the token pressed against the fabric. “That man—Leo Voss, I think his name is. He’s a small-time smuggler who deals in their goods. Those silver marks on his skin? They’re a life-draining ritual sigil, sold by a Shade artisan at the market. It backfires if you use it without a Veil Compass to stabilize the energy.” Harlow stared at her. Shade artisan? Veil Compass? It sounded like nonsense, but Jake’s confusion about the weeds, the marks on Leo’s skin, the bone token—none of it added up to a human crime. She turned back to Leo’s body, slipping her hand into his jacket pocket. Her fingers closed around something small and heavy: a brass compass, its casing covered in a verdigris patina, its face etched with the same silver sigils as the barriers and Leo’s skin. She pulled it out, twisting the casing. The needle spun wildly for a second, then locked on a dark corner of the platform, where the silver weeds clustered thickest. Eva gasped. “That’s a Veil Compass,” she said, stepping past Harlow’s outstretched hand—Harlow let her, too caught off guard to stop her. “Crafted by a Shade artisan, attuned to supernatural rifts. It points to the nearest portal. Leo must have bought it to find a rift he heard about—maybe the same one that’s been draining energy from Camden’s supernatural community for months.” Harlow’s pulse quickened. She’d held Morris’s old watch a thousand times, but now the weight of the compass in her hand felt heavier, more urgent. She ran her thumb over the verdigris patina, the sigils digging into her skin like tiny needles. Jake was still muttering into his radio, trying to explain the glowing weeds to the lab, his voice cracking when the weeds flared brighter for a split second. “Jake,” Harlow called, tossing him the bone token from her pocket. “Bag that. Get it to the lab—tell them to test for organic residue, anything unusual. And look for more tokens, more sigils, anything that doesn’t belong.” Jake fumbled to catch it, his eyes wide. “Yes, ma’am.” Harlow turned back to Eva, her voice lower now. “You said the market moves every full moon. Last night was the full moon—so they left here when?” “Midnight,” Eva said, pulling a tattered Oxford-pressed ancient history book from her satchel—proof of her master’s degree, Harlow noted. “I’ve been monitoring their movements for six months. They leave no trace, usually, but Leo must have stayed behind. His text log—if you check his phone—will probably mention meeting someone here after they left. A Shade artisan, maybe, to pick up the compass.” Harlow’s jaw tightened. She’d already asked Jake to check the phone, but now she was certain it would hold clues she’d have dismissed a day ago. Morris’s case files flashed through her mind: the swirling marks on his neck, the coroner’s dismissive fungal rash diagnosis, the missing bone token she’d found in his pocket after he died—she’d thrown it away, thinking it was a trinket from a suspect. “Morris’s case,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “You mentioned it. How do you know about it?” Eva tucked hair behind her ear again, her eyes softening. “The restricted archives have cross-referenced police cases with supernatural activity for decades. Morris’s case was flagged six months ago, when I started researching the Veil Market. The marks on his neck are identical to Leo’s. He was found two blocks from the market’s former location three years ago—same full moon cycle, same bone token in his pocket.” Harlow’s breath caught. She’d forgotten the bone token. She’d thrown it in a trash can outside the morgue, too grief-stricken to care. Now, standing in an abandoned Tube station, holding a compass that pointed to a rift, she realized she’d thrown away the key to his death. She grabbed Eva’s arm—gentle, but firm—her military training keeping her hands steady. “You’re going to come with me. You’re going to explain every sigil, every detail about this market, every rift you know about. And if you’re lying—” “I’m not lying,” Eva said, her voice steady now. “I’ve spent two years in London, working in those archives, studying ancient history to decode these sigils. I know what’s happening here. You know something’s wrong. You just don’t want to believe it’s supernatural.” Harlow did know. She’d known since the day Morris died, but she’d buried it under case files and coffee and 18 years of police work. Now, standing in an abandoned Tube station, holding a brass compass that vibrated in her pocket, she couldn’t bury it anymore. The hum from the platform corner grew louder, like a distant train approaching, and the silver weeds flared so bright they illuminated the entire station. Jake yelped, dropping his radio, as a shadow slithered across the platform—too fast to be a rat, too dark to be a cloud. Harlow pulled her service weapon, her finger hovering over the trigger, and nodded toward the platform. “Come on. Let’s find that rift. You explain the sigils. I’ll cover us.” Eva grabbed her satchel, pulling out a notebook and a pencil, and followed her past the ticket barriers. The silver weeds crunched under their boots, releasing a faint scent of burnt incense that made Harlow’s eyes water. The compass in her pocket vibrated harder, its needle still locked on the corner. As they approached, Harlow saw it: a small, circular rift in the concrete wall, glowing black with faint silver sigils etched around its edge. The hum was coming from the rift, and she could see shadows swirling inside it—shapes that looked like people, but not quite, their forms shifting like smoke. Eva stopped, her pencil flying across her notebook. “That’s it. The rift. The compass points to it because it’s attuned to the supernatural energy. Leo was trying to use the sigils on his skin to drain energy from the rift—maybe to power a spell, maybe to sell the energy to someone. But he didn’t calibrate the compass right. The energy backfired.” Harlow thought of Morris, his eyes wide, his neck covered in swirling marks, his last words a whisper about a black market and a compass. She’d thought he was delirious, but now she knew he was telling the truth. She slipped the compass from her pocket, holding it up to the rift. The sigils on the compass flared, matching the sigils around the rift, and the vibration stopped. Eva gasped. “Calibrate it,” she said. “Twist the top casing three times to the left. That will stabilize the rift—for now.” Harlow did as she said, her fingers steady. The rift’s glow dimmed, the hum faded, and the shadows inside stilled. She slipped the compass back into her pocket, her eyes fixed on the rift. “Who made this compass?” she said. “Shade artisans,” Eva said, her pencil still moving. “They’re a supernatural species that crafts enchanted tools for the Veil Market. They’re hard to find—they move with the market. But Leo’s phone will have a contact for one. A ‘Smith’—that’s their alias.” Harlow’s jaw tightened. She’d find Smith. She’d find the market. She’d find out what happened to Morris, and she’d make them pay. “Let’s get back to Jake,” she said, turning toward the ticket barriers. “You’re going to write down every detail you know about Shade artisans, every sigil, every rift. And you’re going to meet me at the station tomorrow—with all your research. No exceptions.” Eva nodded, tucking hair behind her ear again. “I will. But you need to be careful. The Veil Market doesn’t like police. They’ll do anything to keep their secrets.” Harlow smiled, a sharp, cold smile. “I’ve spent 18 years keeping secrets. Now it’s their turn to talk.” She stepped past the silver weeds, her boots thudding on the concrete, the compass and bone token heavy in her pocket. Jake was still muttering into his radio, the lab finally agreeing to send a supernatural specialist—something Harlow would have mocked a day ago. Now, she was grateful. For the first time in three years, she didn’t feel like she was chasing a ghost. She felt like she was chasing answers.