Run: 2026-02-20-01KHY9QBWM396ZQ8WKAQJP8DW7

Detective Harlow Quinn descended the rusted metal stairs into the bowels of the abandoned Tube station beneath Camden, her worn leather watch ticking steadily against her left wrist. The air thickened with the stench of damp concrete and something sharper—ozone, like a storm trapped underground. Her torch beam sliced through the gloom, catching flickers of graffiti that glowed faintly under blacklight residue from forensics. Uniformed officers milled about the platform, their faces pale masks in the harsh portable lights, but Harlow moved with military precision, sharp jaw set, brown eyes scanning every shadow. The Veil Market. She'd heard whispers of it in the station's backrooms—supposed urban legend, a black market for the weird and forbidden, tucked away in places like this, vanishing every full moon. No one credible believed it existed, not until tonight. A body had turned up on what looked like a makeshift stall, surrounded by trinkets that screamed contraband: vials of shimmering liquid, amulets etched with symbols that made her skin crawl. PC Ellis had called it in as a junkie OD, but Harlow's gut twisted. Junkies didn't die clutching bone tokens carved like ancient keys. She ducked under the crime scene tape, salt-and-pepper hair brushing the low ceiling. DS Patel, her colleague from Vice, straightened from crouching beside the body. Mid-forties, rumpled suit, he flashed a tired grin. "Quinn. Glad you're here. This one's a head-scratcher." Harlow knelt beside the corpse, gloved hands hovering. Male, late thirties, gaunt face frozen in a rictus of terror. Throat slashed clean, arterial spray arcing across a stall piled with brass oddities and faded grimoires. No weapon in sight. Blood pooled thick on the cracked tiles, but it hadn't spread far—contained, almost deliberate. "Time of death?" she asked, voice clipped. "Coroner pegs it around midnight. Victim's name: Marcus Hale, small-time fence with priors for smuggling antiquities. Found by a couple of late-night ravers who slipped through a service hatch. They legged it before we could get names." Harlow's gaze flicked to the bone token in Hale's rigid fist, thumb-sized, etched with spirals that matched entry rumors for this so-called market. "Ravers don't wander into sealed stations. And this?" She nodded at the token. "Not your average rave accessory." Patel shrugged, rubbing his stubbled chin. "Kids these days. Probably part of some LARP cult or TikTok dare. Looks like he nicked something valuable, got jumped by rivals. Throat cut, wallet empty, stall ransacked. Classic robbery-homicide." She rose, torch sweeping the perimeter. The platform stretched into darkness, stalled train cars hulking like beached leviathans, their windows shattered into jagged teeth. Faded Tube signage hung crooked: "Mind the Gap." But gaps were everywhere here—gaping holes in the walls patched with modern concrete, as if the station had been hastily abandoned mid-repair. Her boot nudged a brass casing half-buried in debris: a compass, small, its face etched with protective sigils under a patina of verdigris. The needle quivered, not north, but toward a shadowed alcove where the air shimmered faintly, like heat haze. "Bag that," she told a SOCO tech, then turned back to Patel. "Ransacked? Those books are stacked neat as a library. Vials intact. Doesn't scream frenzy." He waved it off. "Perp grabbed the easy stuff. Hale surprised him mid-theft, slash and dash." Harlow's eyes narrowed. Military precision had taught her to question the obvious. She circled the body, noting the spray pattern: high velocity, but the arcs curved oddly, as if the blood had... hesitated mid-air before splattering. No footprints in the pool leading away, just Hale's own scuffed trainers. And the wounds—deep, precise, but no hesitation marks, no defensive cuts on his hands. Like he'd offered his throat willingly. Footsteps echoed from the stairs—soft, hesitant. A woman emerged into the light: curly red hair framing a freckled face, round glasses perched on a button nose, worn leather satchel slung over one shoulder, bulging with books. Eva Kowalski, 5'4" of nervous energy, tucking a strand behind her left ear. Harlow knew her by reputation—occult researcher at the British Museum's restricted archives, Oxford pedigree, and uncomfortably chummy with that Aurora girl her gut screamed was neck-deep in something shady. "Detective Quinn," Eva said, green eyes wide behind lenses. Voice breathy, academic. "They called me in for the symbols. British Museum consult." Patel nodded her over. "Kowalski here's our expert. Says it's some pagan ritual gig." Harlow's jaw tightened. Ritual. The word itched like an old scar—DS Morris, three years gone, vanished on a case with whispers of the unnatural. Unexplained. She gestured at the sigils on the compass. "Talk." Eva knelt, peering at the body, then the stall. Her fingers twitched toward her satchel, but she caught herself. "The token's a Veil Market pass—bone from a shade, or so the lore goes. This place... it's not just abandoned. It's a nexus. Full moon shifts it, but rifts linger." She pointed to the alcove where the compass needle strained. "Supernatural black market. Enchanted goods, alchemicals. Hale wasn't fencing junk; he dealt in the real stuff." Patel snorted. "Come on, Evie. Black market fairy tales? Killer's human, flesh and blood. Occam's razor—simplest explanation." Eva shot him a look, tucking hair again. "Simplest isn't always true. Look at the wounds. No blade leaves a cut that cauterizes itself." She indicated the throat: edges blackened, not ragged. "Like a plasma torch, or... energy discharge. And the blood—coagulated too fast. Not natural." Harlow crouched again, torch inches from the pool. Patel was right about one thing: simplest. But her instincts screamed otherwise. She traced the spray with her light. Droplets suspended? No—dried in mid-pattern, crystalline edges glinting. She scraped a sample into a vial, mind racing. Hale's eyes stared glassily at the alcove, pupils blown wide. Terror, yes, but pinpoint pupils under the dilation? Reaction to alkaloids? Or something mimicking them. "Compass," Harlow said, holding it up. Needle rigid, pointing dead at the alcove. She strode over, ignoring Patel's mutter of "waste of time." The air there hummed, a low vibration up her spine. Concrete wall, but irregular—scratches like claw marks, and a faint outline, rectangular, glowing under UV. Door? No hinges. Rift, the Compass said. Eva followed, whispering, "Veil Compass. Points to portals, rifts. Crafted by Shade artisans. If it's locked on this..." Harlow pressed a palm to the wall. Cold, but pulsing warmth beneath, like a vein. She glanced back—Patel's watching, skeptical, but the uniforms had edged away, spooked. Evidence didn't add up: no exit wounds on Hale, but blood everywhere. No weapon, but cauterized cut. Token gripped post-mortem rigor, as if he'd clutched it for entry after death. Impossible. Deduction clicked, piece by jagged piece. Hale hadn't been killed here. The body was staged. Blood spray wrong—gravity-defying arcs suggested vertical force, like he'd been dropped from height. But platform level. Unless... from above the rift. She scanned up: train car roof, accessible by ladder, undisturbed dust except one set of prints, size ten, Hale's. "Patel," she barked. "Ladder marks on the car. Hale climbs up, why?" "Lookout?" he hazarded. "No." Her voice hardened. "He came from there." She jabbed at the alcove. "Rift drops him, body hits stall, blood sprays. But coagulant in the air—rift residue? Explains the edges." Eva's eyes lit. "Supernatural bleed-through. Markets like this border realms. He crossed, something followed. Or he stole from it." Patel crossed his arms. "You're both mental. No such thing as rifts. Killer lured him here, did the deed, walked out the service hatch. Footprints'll match some Camden lowlife." Harlow ignored him, climbing the ladder with precise grips, torch probing. Train roof flat, littered with market leavings: empty vials, a singed feather that crumbled to ash. Drag marks—body weight, from alcove edge to here. Fresh. She dropped down, faced Patel. "No hatch prints outside. SOCO confirmed sealed. Killer didn't walk out." He faltered. "Hidden exit, then." "Or no killer." Harlow's mind whirred. Hale's terror—pre-death. Token in fist: he'd used it to enter the market, crossed a rift chasing a deal. Compass on stall—his? Stolen? Needle pointed to rift because that's where the action was. Symbols on stall matched compass sigils—protective. Hale activated them wrong, rift destabilized, energy backlash slashed him mid-crossing. Body tumbled back through, landed here. No human perp. Accidental death, supernatural style. But that gnawed. Her clique suspects—Aurora's crew, Eva's circle—trafficked here? Morris died chasing similar shadows. Harlow's gaze locked on Eva, who tucked hair nervously. "You know this market. Consults like this—how many?" Eva blinked. "First official. But the archives... rumors." "Lore," Harlow echoed, flat. "Hale fenced for your type. Occult enthusiasts. He crossed, paid the price. Evidence says accident, but staging? Someone wanted it found. Warning?" Patel's radio crackled—backup arriving. He shook his head. "You're seeing ghosts, Quinn. Write it as robbery gone wrong." She pocketed the compass vial, watch ticking eleven. Midnight toll. Full moon tomorrow—no, tonight crested. Market shifting? Air hummed louder. "Ghosts leave footprints. Get thermal on that alcove. And Kowalski—your books. Cross-reference sigils with Hale's priors." Eva nodded, satchel creaking. "Already on it." Harlow stepped back, platform lights flickering. Evidence didn't add up because it wasn't mundane. Rift, market, shades—real. Her partner had glimpsed it, paid. She wouldn't. Precision demanded truth, however shadowed. As techs swarmed the wall, needle in compass twitched—market calling, or fleeing. She glanced at Eva's freckled profile, green eyes sharp now. Colleague? Or thread to pull? The hum deepened. Something watched from the dark. Harlow's hand rested on her holster. Mystery half-cracked, but the real game's just begun.