Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9MXQEXR27AWB509B2HN2E

The air in Camden smelled of coal smoke and rain as Detective Harlow Quinn adjusted her trench coat against the draft, her leather-soled shoes clicking past a stack of crates marked with faded alchemical symbols. She’d come to this part of town for the third time this week, each visit more shadowed than the last, but tonight the neon glow of the canal-side pubs failed to pierce the wall of damp that clung to her skin. The Veil Market moved locations every full moon, but she’d gotten word—through a source in the City’s underbelly, one who owed her a debt from Operation Ashdown—at dusk: *they’re here*. Her watch, a battered thing with a cracked crystal that was all the time she needed, read 11:17 PM as she paused at the mouth of the tunnel. The bone token hung heavy in her coat pocket—a molar, filed to a point, its surface scored with a script she couldn’t read but that hummed in her bones. The guard, a scalie with a forked tongue and eyes like cracked amber, didn’t even look up as she pressed it to the iron gate. It melted into the metal with a hiss, revealing a portal: not a door, but a seething black maw, lined with teeth. Quinn stepped through, her boots squelching on moss that shouldn’t grow here. The main chamber of the old Tube station was a cavern, its platforms buried under stalls stacked with gilded jars, rusted keys, and books with covers that changed color when she looked away. The air hummed with static, like a radio tuned to a dead frequency. Most of the vendors were gone—probably scared off by the noise, or by the *presence* in the room. Quinn’s jaw tightened. She’d smelled it before: ozone, and something sweeter, like burnt sugar. Morris’s case. Three years ago, he’d found a trail of the same scent in an abandoned warehouse in Whitechapel. They’d been closing in on a supplier, he’d radioed—*something’s not right, Quinn, it’s not human*—before his comms went silent. His body had been found twenty hours later, face-down in a puddle of water that had no business being there, his eyes wide and empty. No wounds. No footprints. Just that cursed smell, lingering in the air like a warning. “Detective.” Quinn turned. A young woman stood at the edge of the crowd, her curly red hair escaping the bun at the base of her neck, a satchel slung over one shoulder. She wore round glasses that smudged at the edges, and her freckles were more prominent than ever, as if she’d been running. Eva Kowalski. Her best friend since college, when they’d both stayed up all night discussing *Midsomer Murders* and ancient magic, and the woman who’d just told her about the body in the back. “Evie,” Quinn said, her voice gruff. “Took you long enough.” Eva tucked a loose strand of hair behind her left ear—nervous, always nervous— and pushed her glasses up. “I had to check the archives. The bone token—you saw it? The one the guards use?” She held up her own, a molar from a boar, and Quinn nodded. Eva’s satchel gaped open, spilling books: *Secrets of the Veil*, *Runes of the Unseen World*, *The Art of Closing Rifts*. “I cross-referenced. The script isn’t just decorative. It’s a warning. *Beware the Wraith’s Teeth.*” Quinn’s throat went dry. The Wraith’s Teeth were a myth, part of the lore Eva obsessed over—creatures that fed on supernatural energy, according to the old texts. They didn’t exist. Morris had laughed at her when she’d mentioned them. *“You’ve been reading too much of your friend’s trash, Harlow,”* he’d said, clapping her shoulder. *“Next you’ll tell me ghosts solve crimes.”* The crowd shifted. A stall had been torn apart—a pile of silver coins scattered on the ground, their edges jagged as if bitten. And there, in the center of the mess, was the body. Quinn’s boots crunched on glass as she crossed the platform. The victim was a man, mid-thirties, wearing a tailored suit that was stained with something black and sticky—*blood?*—but her first thought was *wrong*. The lighting here was pale, emanating from bioluminescent mushrooms that grew in clusters at the base of the tunnel, casting his face in an otherworldly green hue. His eyes were closed, his hands folded over his chest, fingers splayed. But his posture—relaxed, almost comfortable—was wrong for a dead man. Victims of the market didn’t *rest*; they contorted, their faces frozen in fear, their bodies drained of every ounce of life. “Stab wound?” she said, stopping beside Eva. She knelt, ignoring the dampness seeping into her trousers, and pressed a finger to the wound in his chest. It was shallow, no deeper than a knife’s point, but the skin around it was black, as if burned. Eva’s voice was tight. “The vendor said it was clean. No blood, no struggle—except for the stall. He found the body an hour ago, when the moon rose. Said the coins were still warm.” Quinn stood, her knees cracking. She scanned the area. The mushrooms were too bright, their glow unnatural. And the air—*thinner*. As if the room itself had been exhaled. “Where’s the body of the guard?” Eva flinched. “There isn’t one.” Quinn turned. The scalie was gone. So were the other vendors, the ones who’d been haggling over a jar of glowing sand when she’d arrived. The only sound was the drip of water from a rusted pipe high above, and the *tick-tick* of her watch. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because you’d come storming in, and then you’d *see*,” Eva said, her voice rising. “The gills—why would a scalie guard just… disappear? They’re territorial. They’d tear the body apart before they let anyone take it.” She gestured to the wound. “And the stain—charcoal, not blood. The mushrooms are bioluminescent, but they don’t *burn*. I’ve seen them. They glow. That’s it.” Quinn squinted at the man’s hand. His fingers were curled around something small, half-buried in the moss. She knelt,小心翼翼拨开腐叶. A compass. Small brass, its casing etched with sigils that shifted as she watched—*protective* sigils, she realized, the ones Eva had mentioned in her books. The needle was broken, the tip bent. But it was *pointing*—not north, not south, but straight at the puddle at the man’s feet. The puddle. Quinn stepped closer. It was black, like oil, and it rippled. Not with water, but with a darkness that seemed to *move*, as if something was trying to get out. The smell hit her then: ozone, burnt sugar, *dead* air. And under it, a low, guttural hum. “Eva,” she said, her voice steady. “What’s the compass for? The one the artisans sell—what does it do?” Eva hesitated, then pulled a notebook from her satchel and flipped through it. “The Veil Compass. Crafted by Shade artisans. It’s attuned to supernatural energy. The needle… it points to rifts. Or portals. Or—” She looked up, her eyes wide. “The books say it can close them, too. If you know the right sigils.” Quinn traced the bent needle with her thumb. The sigils on the casing—she’d seen them before, on Morris’s body. The ones on his hands, etched into his skin in a frenzy, like he’d tried to carve them out. *“It’s closing in,”* he’d mouthed, as she’d found him. *“I should have left it alone.”* “You said the victim was a dealer,” she said, straightening. “What did he sell?” Eva bit her lip. “I don’t know. The vendor, Mr. Voss—he was scared. He wouldn’t say. But he mentioned ‘the key.’ Something that could open a rift. A *permanent* one.” She paused. “Harlow, the Wraith’s Teeth—they don’t feed on energy. They feed on *souls*. And if there’s a rift, if the barrier between worlds is thin… they could pour through.” Quinn’s watch ticked. Her mind was racing. The guard was gone. The victim’s wound was shallow, why no blood? The compass was broken, pointing to the puddle. Morris. Three years ago, his comms had gone silent during a raid on a supplier. He’d found a rift. He’d tried to close it with a compass. *That* was why his eyes were empty—he’d stared into the rift, and the Wraiths had taken his soul. “You think he was trying to close a rift,” Eva said, their voices overlapping. Quinn nodded. “But the vendor said the coins were warm. The guard is gone. So who took the body? Who’s covering it up?” Eva’s nervous habit flared—she tucked her hair behind her ear, twice. “The clique. The one you’ve been chasing. The one that deals with the Veil Market, right? The one that’s been moving bodies around London for months.” Quinn turned away from the puddle. The maw of the portal was still there, glowing faintly, as if it were waiting. She thought of the victim’s face, relaxed, almost at peace. He hadn’t been afraid. That was the worst part. He’d known what was coming, and he’d *let* it happen. “Put the books away,” she said, slinging her coat over her shoulder. “We’re going to the Museum.” Eva hesitated, then closed her satchel, her fingers brushing the compass in her pocket—the one Eva had given her for her birthday, three years ago, when Morris was still alive. “You’ll need it,” she said, quiet. Quinn took a step toward the portal. The hum in her bones was back, louder now, like a voice whispering *here* *here* *here*. She pulled the bone token from her pocket, and as she did, the sigils on it flared to life, glowing white against the dark. “The key,” she said, to herself. “It’s not the rift. It’s the *closing*.” The puddle rippled again, and this time, she saw it—a flash of white teeth, sharp and glinting, before the darkness swallowed it. Quinn walked through the portal, her boots clicking on the cobblestones of Camden High Street. The sky was pale, the sun rising, and for a moment, everything felt normal. Then her watch ticked. Three years, she thought. Three years too long. She turned toward the British Museum, her jaw set, her fingers tight around the bone token. The hunt was just beginning.