Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYARM1XRSXVC34P8HYQCRAW

Harlow Quinn’s boot crunched over a shard of cracked Tube tile as she descended the rusted metal staircase into the Camden underground. Dawn’s gray light didn’t reach this far down—her flashlight beam cut through a fog thick with the smell of moss, burnt sage, and something acrid, like singed hair, catching motes of dust that swirled like trapped ghosts. The bone token (a chipped raven’s talon she’d pried from a Coven of the Broken Veil gang member’s pocket two nights prior, his last words a gurgled warning about the “underground market”) still pressed a cold indent into her right palm; she’d fumbled with it for three minutes at the hidden entry hatch, her leather watch ticking a frantic countdown, before the iron lock had snarled open, granting her access to the Veil Market’s current lair. Eighteen years on the job, decorated with a shelf of commendations for closing gang rings and solving cold cases, and she’d never stepped into a crime scene that required a supernatural entry fee. The memory of DS Morris—his laugh, the way he’d teased her about her military rigidity—pricked at her throat as she stepped onto the platform; three years prior, he’d vanished while investigating a similar underground lead, his car found abandoned by the Thames, his phone dead, no sign of struggle beyond a faint, unidentifiable sigil etched into his neck. She found the victim slumped against the platform’s moss-caked central pillar, his form half-shrouded by a tattered black cloak that reeked of shadow energy (a scent she’d tried to forget since Morris’s body was pulled from the river). The first glance told her a textbook homicide: bullet wound to the chest, a clean hole just above the sternum, blood darkening the frayed fabric of his tunic to a sticky black. But even before she knelt, the inconsistencies pricked at her like thorns. No shell casing glinted in the damp concrete, not even a faint indent where one might have landed. No footprints marred the dust except her own—until she tilted her flashlight beam to the left, where a faint, shadowy smudge stretched from the pillar to the edge of the tracks, as if someone had dragged a pool of ink across the floor, its edges fading into nothingness. She marked it in her notebook, her sharp jaw tightening so fiercely her molars ached; Morris had taught her to never ignore the unseeable, to chase the gaps between the facts, and she’d failed him by dismissing that sigil on his neck as a gang tattoo. She reached for the victim’s hand to check for a pulse, then flinched so hard her flashlight clattered to the floor. His fingers were charred black, the skin cracked to reveal bone that glowed with a faint, greenish hue, as if lit from within by some unholy fire. Clutched in his singed grasp was a small brass compass, its casing coated in a thick verdigris patina that made it look older than the Tube station itself—older than London, even. Quinn pried it free with a pair of tweezers, her latex gloves protecting her from the residual heat that seeped through the metal, and held it up to her flashlight once she’d retrieved the device. The face was etched with looping protective sigils, their curves so intricate she couldn’t place them in any of the gang graffiti or ritual markings she’d studied, and the needle spun wildly, as if torn between a dozen invisible norths, its whirring a faint, high-pitched whine that cut through the station’s dripping water. She dropped it into an evidence bag, her brow furrowing so deeply a crease formed between her brown eyes; bullets didn’t char skin to the bone. Compasses didn’t spin for no reason. A floorboard creaked behind her, its groan echoing through the empty station like a ghost’s complaint. Quinn’s hand flew to her service weapon, her military bearing snapping into place as she spun, her boot sliding slightly on the damp concrete. A woman stood at the edge of the platform, her curly red hair tumbling over round glasses that slipped down a freckled nose dotted with specks of dust. She clutched a worn leather satchel to her chest, its straps frayed from years of use—she’d clearly hauled it through countless archives and hidden locations—and when she saw Quinn’s gun, she tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear—a nervous habit so pronounced, so repetitive, Quinn could spot it from ten feet away. The movement was familiar; Morris had a similar habit of twisting his wedding ring when he was anxious, a trait she’d watched vanish the night he disappeared. “Who are you?” Quinn’s voice was sharp, no room for pretense, her finger tightening on the trigger. The Coven of the Broken Veil she’d been investigating for six months had ties to occult researchers; she’d suspected the British Museum’s restricted archives were a front for their operations, a place where they could hoard enchanted goods and plan their raids on supernatural markets. “Eva Kowalski.” The woman’s voice trembled, but she stepped forward, her satchel bumping against her hip—she was 5’4”, short enough that Quinn had to tilt her head down to meet her green eyes. “Occult researcher. I’m a research assistant at the British Museum’s restricted archives—hold a master’s in Ancient History from Oxford, focused on Shade artisan craftsmanship. I’ve been tracking this man for three weeks.” She nodded at the victim, her glasses slipping further down her nose. “Kael,” she added, as if reading Quinn’s unspoken question. “He was one of the last Shade artisans making Veil Compasses. I found his name in a 17th-century manuscript in the archives—he’d been warning other artisans about the Coven’s attempts to exploit supernatural rifts for their black market goods.” Quinn’s finger tightened on the trigger. The Coven’s name was the same one the gang member had gurgled before he died. “You have no business here. This is a crime scene. Leave before I arrest you for trespassing.” “I know.” Eva tucked another strand of hair behind her left ear, her fingers fumbling slightly with the curly lock, then unslung her satchel and pulled out a thick leather-bound book—its cover embossed with the same looping sigils as the compass in Quinn’s evidence bag. The book’s pages were yellowed, its spine cracked, and she flipped to a marked page with a fumbling hand. “I followed Kael here last night. He met me at the entry hatch, his hands already charred, and told me about a rift opening beneath Camden—one the Coven was trying to widen to extract shadow energy. The bullet wound’s a decoy.” Quinn scoffed, but her eyes darted back to Kael’s charred hands. “Decoy? He’s got a bullet hole in his chest. I don’t care about your fairy tales or your Oxford degrees. This is a murder investigation.” But she found herself glancing at the evidence bag in her hand, the Veil Compass’s needle still whirring faintly. Eva stepped closer, her glasses slipping so far she had to push them up with her thumb, and nodded at the bag. “That’s a Veil Compass. Made by Shade artisans like Kael—points to the nearest supernatural rift. The verdigris patina is from prolonged exposure to shadow energy; it’s a sign the compass has been near an unstable rift for weeks. The needle’s spinning because the rift Kael was trying to seal is still fluctuating—he didn’t finish the ritual before he was interrupted.” Quinn’s leather watch ticked loudly in the silence, its sound amplified by the empty station. She’d dismissed the supernatural after Morris’s disappearance—refused to believe his death was anything other than a gang hit, even when the coroner had noted the unidentifiable sigil on his neck and the lack of any bullet or knife wound. She’d buried herself in case files, in gang raids, in anything to avoid facing the possibility that something unseeable had taken her partner. But the inconsistencies were piling up: no shell casing, no footprints beyond her own and Kael’s shadowy smudge, charred bones that glowed green, a compass that wouldn’t stop spinning. “Prove it,” she said, her voice softer now, the edge gone. Eva’s eyes lit up, a flash of excitement cutting through her nervousness. She knelt beside Kael, her satchel spilling open to reveal a stack of ancient scrolls tied with leather thongs and a small bone token of her own— a rabbit’s paw, polished smooth from use. She pointed to a faint carving on Kael’s forearm, one Quinn had missed in her initial sweep, its edges hidden beneath the tattered sleeve of his cloak. “That’s a sealing sigil. Same as the one on the compass and my book. He was trying to etch it into the pillar when he was hit. The charred hands are from a failed ritual—shadow energy backfired on him when he was interrupted, burning through his fingers before he could finish the sigil.” Quinn leaned in, her salt-and-pepper cropped hair falling forward slightly as she studied the carving. It was faint, almost invisible beneath the grime and blood, but it was there—its loops identical to the ones on the compass. She thought of Morris’s body, the sigil on his neck, the way the coroner had said it looked like it had been burned into his skin. She’d ignored it then. She couldn’t ignore it now. “What about the bullet wound?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper. “Magical projectile.” Eva flipped to another page in her book, pointing to a drawing of a glowing black pellet, its surface etched with the same sigil as the others. “Disguised as a bullet. No shell casing, no ballistic match—they dissolve into shadow energy within minutes of hitting a target. The Coven uses them to silence anyone who tries to stop their rift experiments. Kael told me they killed your partner.” Quinn’s blood ran cold. She’d never told anyone outside the department about Morris’s case. “How do you know about Morris?” “Kael was there.” Eva tucked another strand of hair behind her left ear, her voice trembling again. “He saw the Coven open a small rift by the Thames three years ago. They used a Veil Compass to find it. Morris stumbled on them while he was investigating a gang raid. They used a projectile on him, too—burned the sigil into his neck before he vanished into the rift.” Quinn pulled out her notebook, flipping to the page with Morris’s case notes, and found the same sigil scribbled in the margin—she’d thought it was a random doodle he’d made during a boring briefing. She looked back at the Veil Compass in the evidence bag; the needle had stopped spinning, now pointing directly at the pillar’s base. She shone her flashlight there, and found a small crack in the concrete, its edges glowing with the same greenish hue as Kael’s charred bones, a faint wisp of shadow energy curling out of it like smoke. “The rift’s still open?” she asked, her voice tight. “Barely.” Eva packed her scrolls back into her satchel, her hands fumbling slightly. “Kael sealed most of it before he was hit. But the Coven will be back tonight—full moon. The Veil Market moves locations then, and they’ll use the chaos to widen the rift.” Quinn glanced at her watch, its leather band scuffed and worn, and noted the time: 6:30 a.m. The full moon would rise at 9:00 p.m. She had less than 15 hours to stop the Coven, to close the rift, to finally get answers about Morris’s death. She slipped the bone token from her pocket, its cold surface pressing into her palm again, and nodded at Eva’s satchel. “Tell me everything you know about the sealing ritual. And don’t leave out a single detail.” Eva pushed her glasses up her nose and pulled a crinkled scroll from the bottom of her satchel, its edges frayed from being rolled and unrolled a dozen times. “It requires a bone token, a drop of shadow energy from the rift, and the full sigil carved into a solid surface. Kael’s half-finished sigil is a start, but we need to complete it before the moon peaks. If we don’t, the rift will swallow half of Camden by midnight.” Quinn looked at Kael’s charred hands, at the Veil Compass in the evidence bag, at the crack in the pillar glowing green. For three years, she’d run from the supernatural, from the truth about Morris’s death. But now, standing in that damp, ghostly Tube station, she realized running had only let the Coven grow stronger. She tucked the bone token back into her pocket, adjusted her watch’s leather strap, and nodded at the scroll. “Let’s get to work. We’ve got a sigil to finish.”