AI
The air tasted of dust and something else, something metallic and old. Detective Harlow Quinn adjusted the collar of her coat, the chill of the abandoned tube station clinging to the fabric despite the late spring evening. Camden Town, Above, throbbed with music and chatter, a world away from this damp, cavernous space. The sounds were muffled down here, swallowed by the earth. She hadn’t been underground in years, not since… she pushed the memory of DS Morris down, a familiar , unwelcome weight .
“Right mess, isn’t it?” Sergeant Miller said, his voice echoing off the curved tiles. He was young, eager, and—Harlow thought with a flicker of irritation—prone to jumping to conclusions. He gestured with a gloved hand towards the body.
The victim lay sprawled on the tracks, pale against the grimy concrete. Male, late thirties, expensive suit ruined. A single, precise wound marred his chest, almost surgical in its neatness. No blood splatter. Clean. Too clean.
“What are we thinking?” Harlow asked, already knowing Miller’s answer.
“Gang related, Detective. Definitely. This place… the Veil Market, I’ve heard stories. Drugs, illegal artifacts. He probably got on the wrong side of someone.”
Harlow grunted, circling the body. The Veil Market. She’d heard the whispers too, dismissed them as urban legend. A black market for the… unusual. Bone tokens for entry, rumors of enchanted objects, deals struck in shadows. It sounded like something out of a bad novel. Still, she’d pulled some strings, gotten a reluctant informant to confirm its existence, its shifting location tied to the lunar cycle. The informant hadn’t breathed a word about actual bodies turning up.
“No witnesses, of course,” Miller continued, meticulously bagging evidence – a dropped wallet, a single, tarnished coin. “It’s a ghost station. No cameras, no regular patrols.”
“What about the wound?” Harlow asked, crouching beside the body. Her worn leather watch, a gift from Morris, scratched against her wrist.
“Knife. Professional job, like I said. Someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Harlow ran a gloved hand along the victim's coat. Expensive Italian wool. The pockets were empty, but not rifled. The man hadn’t been robbed . He'd been *targeted *. She noticed something else - a faint scent, not of blood, but of ozone . A static charge prickling at the back of her nose. Odd.
“The coin,” she said, nodding towards the evidence bag. “What is it?”
Miller shrugged. “Looks old. Roman, maybe? I flagged it for forensics.”
“Get it to Eva Kowalski,” Harlow said.
Miller blinked. “Eva Kowalski? The museum girl? You think she can help with a murder?”
“She's an expert in ancient languages and iconography. Overspecialized for most cases, admittedly, but this… this feels different. This isn’t a typical gangland hit, Miller. Something’s off.”
Harlow rose, scanning the platform. The Market itself was gone , vanished as quickly as it appeared. Tonight’s location, a forgotten spur off the Northern Line, was now just an empty space, littered with the debris of hasty departure: discarded wrappers, crushed cigarette packets, a single playing card – the Queen of Swords. She picked up the card, turning it over in her hand.
“Look at this,” she said, pointing to the tracks. A series of almost imperceptible scratches marred the steel, not the gouges of metal-on-metal, but something finer, like…glass . She pulled out a small flashlight from her kit, sweeping the beam along the tunnel. Deeper in the darkness, she saw them: tiny, glittering fragments, barely visible to the naked eye.
“Forensics will miss those,” Miller said, looking over her shoulder. “They’re too small.”
“Exactly.” Harlow felt a growing unease. The scratch marks, the ozone smell, the lack of blood…something about this didn't fit.
“What do you think then, Detective?” Miller asked, his voice hesitant . “Some kind of…ritual killing?”
Harlow didn't dismiss the idea outright. She’d seen enough strange things in her eighteen years on the force to know that the world wasn’t always as it seemed. But she preferred evidence, concrete details she could build a case on. “Not necessarily a ritual, but… deliberate . Precise. The killer didn’t want to leave a mess.”
She walked further down the platform, her boots echoing on the stone. She found another oddity - a small brass compass lying near a ventilation shaft. It was tarnished with verdigris, its casing intricate with etched patterns. She picked it up, examining it closely. It wasn’t a standard navigational tool. The face was marked with unfamiliar symbols, a language she didn’t recognize. The needle, instead of pointing North, spun wildly, then settled, quivering, towards a solid wall.
“What’s that?” Miller asked, approaching cautiously .
“I think,” Harlow said slowly , “it’s a Veil Compass.”
She remembered the informant’s whispered description of the device - a tool used to locate supernatural rifts or… portals. It was a ridiculous notion, of course. But the evidence was mounting , pointing towards something beyond the mundane. Something *wrong *.
“A compass?” Miller scoffed. “For getting lost in fog?”
“It’s attuned to supernatural energy,” Harlow corrected, her voice flat . “Or that’s the theory.” She looked at the needle, still pointing at the wall. "And it's telling us there’s something *behind * that wall."
She ran her hand along the brickwork, searching for a seam, a hidden panel. It was solid, unyielding. But she noticed something else: a barely perceptible warmth radiating from the wall, a subtle energy that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
"Miller," she said, her voice sharp . "Get a team to scan this wall. Thermal imaging, sonar, everything. I want to know what's behind it."
“You think there’s a hidden room?”
“I think we’re not seeing the whole picture, Miller. We’re looking at a murder, yes, but I suspect it's a consequence of something…bigger. Something that operates outside the normal rules.”
Miller, still looking skeptical, nodded and reached for his radio. “Right you are, Detective. Sending the request now.”
Harlow turned back to the body, her gaze lingering on the precise wound. The lack of blood continued to bother her. “Find out everything you can about the victim. His associates, his business dealings, everything. And Miller…check if he has any connections to the occult.”
She paused, thinking of Eva. She needed a fresh perspective, an understanding of the symbols and artifacts that were starting to surround this case.
“And get me Kowalski,” she repeated. “I want her down here as soon as possible.”
As Miller barked orders into his radio, Harlow stared at the spinning Queen of Swords. It felt like a message, a warning . She didn't know what game was being played , but she knew, with a chilling certainty, that she'd just stepped onto the board. And that whatever had happened here tonight wasn't over. Not by a long shot.