AI Rain lashed against the concrete ceiling of the abandoned Tube station, a relentless drumming that swallowed the city’s usual drone. Water pooled on the tracks, reflecting the weak beams of my flashlight. The air tasted of mildew and something ancient, metallic.
“Doesn’t scream ‘crime scene’ to me,” Eva muttered, her round glasses sliding down her nose as she tucked a stubborn curl behind her ear. She held her leather satchel tighter, the pages rustling softly .
“It’s quiet,” I replied, my voice clipped . “Too quiet.”
Detective Harlow Quinn. Metropolitan Police, eighteen years decorated. Military precision was ingrained in my movements, a habit formed from years of structured training. And right now, that precision felt strained, brittle.
The victim lay sprawled on the platform, a tableau of crimson against the damp stone. A man, mid-forties, dressed in a tailored suit – ridiculously out of place here. No obvious wounds. Just… stillness. His eyes were open, staring at a point above the tracks, a vacant, unsettling expression.
“Cause of death?” I asked, kneeling beside him .
“Preliminary report says cardiac arrest,” Sergeant Davies stated, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous space. He was a plodding, by-the-book type, and frankly, he always seemed a little overwhelmed by anything remotely unusual. “But there’s something… off.”
I ignored him, focusing on the details. The suit was immaculate, despite the grime. No struggle marks. The rain hadn't touched him, not really . It beaded off his jacket, skipping down his expensive trousers. A silver pen lay clutched in his hand, its nib snapped.
“Anything in his pockets?”
Davies rummaged through the man’s inside jacket. “Wallet, phone, keys. Driver’s license – Charles Beaumont. Investment banker. No known enemies.”
“Let’s see the phone,” I said, taking the device . It was locked , of course. Standard procedure.
Eva moved closer, her freckled face a study in concentration. “The ambient energy is… chaotic ,” she said, her voice hushed . “Like a disrupted current. Strongest near the body.”
I glanced at her, acknowledging her observation without commenting. Eva’s expertise in the occult was invaluable, if occasionally unsettling. She’d been tracking strange energy fluctuations for months, pinpointing their source to this… place. The Veil Market.
“The bone token,” I said, pulling a small, bleached animal bone from my pocket. It was my key, my entry into this underworld of the strange and the forbidden. I pressed it to the ground beside the victim’s hand.
A ripple shimmered through the air, almost imperceptible. The rain intensified, swirling around the bone before fading back to a steady deluge. The silence returned, thicker now, heavier.
“Davies, secure the perimeter,” I ordered, my voice firm . “No one in or out.”
He nodded, turning to radio for backup. I knelt again, examining the victim’s hand more closely. The silver pen. The way his fingers were curled around it. It wasn’t a desperate grip. It was… deliberate.
“He was trying to write something,” I said, my voice low .
Eva approached, studying the pen with a magnifying glass she’d pulled from her satchel. “Look,” she said, pointing to a faint residue on the nib. “Trace elements of shadowed ink. Very rare. Only used by Shade artisans at The Veil Market.”
Shade artisans. Craftspeople who dealt in enchanted goods, bound to the darker energies of the supernatural. The Veil Market itself was a chaotic , ever-shifting black market that operated beneath London, accessible only through specific, often dangerous, portals.
“This isn’t a natural death,” I stated, my gaze sweeping across the platform . “This is something… else.”
Davies returned, followed by two uniformed officers. “Forensics are on their way, Detective.”
“Hold off on the forensic sweep,” I said. “I want a full spectral analysis. And I want to know everything you can find on Charles Beaumont. His contacts, his investments, his… associates.”
He raised an eyebrow . “Associates? With whom?”
“Anyone who might have a reason to silence him,” I replied, my eyes fixed on the object in Beaumont’s hand. The broken pen. “This wasn’t a random act. It was a message.”
I stood, my hand instinctively reaching for my worn leather watch . It wasn’t just a timepiece; it contained a minuscule, shielded device, capable of detecting and analyzing supernatural signatures. I activated it, directing the scanner towards the victim’s body.
The watch ’s display flickered , then settled on a complex waveform. “Significant energy signature detected,” a synthesized voice announced. “Complex, layered. Matching the Veil Compass.”
The Veil Compass. A small, brass compass crafted by Shade artisans, its needle attuned to supernatural rifts. It was extremely rare, and incredibly valuable.
“He was tracking something,” I muttered, a chilling realization dawning on me . “Something he shouldn’t have been.”
Eva was examining the walls of the platform, running her fingers along the rough concrete. “There’s a faint etching here,” she said, pointing to a barely visible symbol. “A warding sigil. Ancient. Protective. But it’s been… disrupted .”
“Disrupted how?”
She traced the lines of the sigil with her finger. “The energy flow is like a river, diverted. Someone—or something—forced it to flow in a different direction.”
I stepped closer, examining the sigil myself. It depicted a stylized eye, surrounded by swirling lines. A classic symbol of protection, but the disruption suggested a violation. A deliberate act.
“Davies, check the ventilation shafts,” I ordered. “See if you can find any recent activity. And Eva, what kind of energy signature are we dealing with? What’s the Compass pointing towards ?”
Eva fiddled with her satchel, pulling out a small notebook and a miniature spectrometer. “The Compass is reacting strongly to a convergence point – a weak spot in the veil. It’s fluctuating wildly. The energy is… resonant. Like a memory, imprinted on the fabric of reality.”
I continued my investigation, my focus narrowing. The victim’s stance, the unbroken pen, the disrupted warding sigil, the Veil Compass needle. It all pointed to a deliberate act of silencing, one shrouded in supernatural intent. This wasn't a simple murder. This was an interference.
“There’s something else,” Eva said, her voice suddenly urgent . “The ambient energy… it’s not just chaotic . There’s a trace of *familiarity *. Like a signature from someone who’s been here before.” She paused, her green eyes widening . “Someone who knows about the Veil Market.”
I felt a prickle of unease, a shadow of recognition. Three years. Three years since Detective Morris had vanished during a case involving a similar, unexplained event – a ritualistic killing with no earthly explanation. The circumstances had been officially ruled as a suicide, but I'd always suspected something far darker. Perhaps Morris had stumbled upon something he shouldn’t have within the Veil Market.
“Davies, contact control,” I said, my voice hardening . “Inform them we have a potential connection to the Veil Market. And tell them to pull up everything they have on Charles Beaumont’s recent financial transactions. I want to know who he was dealing with, and how much money he was moving into and out of this city.”
As Davies radioed for backup, I turned back to the victim’s body, studying his face. His vacant stare suddenly seemed less unsettling, more… mournful. He hadn't died of a broken heart, or a sudden illness. He'd been silenced . And the silence , I realized, was only the beginning.
My watch beeped, alerting me to a sustained spike in the spectral analysis. I followed the line of energy, the Veil Compass needle spinning wildly, before settling on a single, specific point on the far wall of the platform. Behind a crumbling section of concrete, barely visible in the dim light, I found it – a hairline crack, a shimmering distortion. A gateway.
“That’s where he was going,” I said, my hand instinctively reaching for my service pistol . The air grew colder, the smell of mildew intensifying. “Someone wanted to keep him from crossing that threshold.”
Eva moved beside me, her face pale. “Detective Quinn,” she whispered, pointing to the crack in the wall. "The Compass isn’t just pointing *towards * a rift. It’s pointing *back *.”