Run: 2026-02-20-01KHYB7WRA5WBW86WJ0AWR5G5J

The rain slashes down, a steel curtain over London. Harlow Quinn’s boots hit the pavement in staccato bursts, each step driving water up her cuffs. Her breath comes sharp, hot against the cold, and she ignores the way her lungs burn—ignores the man at her heels, too. The suspect, she thinks. The one who slipped through her fingers at The Raven’s Nest. She skids around a corner, the neon green of the bar’s sign bleeding into the wet tiles of the alley. The streets thin here, potholes holding black water that ripples as she runs. Her watch ticks, loud in her ear, the second hand a metronome for the chase. Seventeen years on the force doesn’t teach you to slow down—doesn’t teach you to *stop* when the dark hums like a live wire. That part, she learned three years ago, when Morris went quiet in a basement off Fleet Street. Her suspect, a man she’d seen lurking outside Silas’ bar for weeks, turns a corner down an alley she doesn’t recognize. Quinn follows, her hand drifting to the holster at her waist—empty. Of course it is. She’d left the damn thing at the station, chasing a lead on the clique. Stupid. Fucking stupid. But the adrenaline’s already in her veins, a wild thing, and it doesn’t care about stupid. The alley dead-ends at a brick wall, but the suspect doesn’t stop. He dives to his left, shoving at a stack of crates. A door creaks open behind them, and a woman’s scream cuts through the rain. Quinn veers, skidding on a puddle, and catches a glimpse of the man’s back—tattoos of scales snaking up his neck, a cut on his cheek that bleeds into the water. He’s one of them. The clique. The ones who’d laughed when Morris’s body was found, eyes milky, tongue black. The ones who’d left a coin—cold, metallic, *wrong*—on his chest. He reaches the door, shoves through it, and it slams shut. Quinn slams into it, palm flat. It’s wood, heavy, but the edge vibrates under her hand, like a heartbeat. She kicks it, once, twice, and it caves in with a splintering crack. Behind her, the woman from the alleyway catches up. “You shouldn’t have come,” she says, voice tight. She’s young, maybe twenty, with a bruise blooming on her jaw. But her eyes—hollow, gray—tell Quinn she’s got teeth. The clique made her, too. Quinn doesn’t answer. She steps over the broken door, into a room reeking of mold and iron. The walls are lined with books, their pages yellowed, and the floor tilts downward, a staircase spiraling into darkness. The air smells like ozone, and somewhere far below, a bell rings—low, deep, like a gong struck underwater. The woman lunges. Quinn ducks, grabs her arm, twists. The woman grunts, but her strength is wrong, too—pale, brittle, like a reed. She headbutts Quinn, hard, and the detective staggers back, blood trickling from her nose. “Go back,” the woman says, spitting. “They’ll—” Quinn slams her into the wall, her fist raised, but the woman disappears. One moment she’s there, the next she’s gone, leaving only a faint scent of jasmine. Quinn pauses, listens. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, but the city is quiet, too quiet. She turns, stares down the staircase. The light from the alley is a sliver, but she can see the steps curving downward, endless. Somewhere below, a voice—male, low, speaking a language she doesn’t recognize. Her watch ticks again. Seventeen years of chasing perps, of walking into dark places because the job said so. This is no different, she tells herself. Just another lead. Just another dead end. But her throat is tight. Morris’s face, white, slack, in that basement. The way the air had felt, thick with something rotten. She’d never been superstitious, but after that night, she’d started to see things—shadows that moved when she wasn’t looking, whispers in empty rooms. Morris had laughed at that, too, until he didn’t. Quinn draws a breath, steps onto the first step. It’s cold, damp, covered in something slimy. She goes lower, her boots making squelching noises. The walls close in, the bookshelf above her eye-level—old, leather-bound, titles she can’t read. One of them creaks, and she freezes. Then, movement. A man, leaning against the wall, a cigarette in his hand. He’s tall, broad, with a tattoo of a raven on his neck. His eyes—amber, slitted—meet hers. “Lost?” he asks, voice smooth. “Looking for a man,” Quinn says, her voice steady. “Scale tattoos, cut on his cheek.” The man takes a drag, exhales. “Scale tattoos. Cut cheek. You mean *him*?” He nods to her left, where a door stands, half-open. Quinn doesn’t hesitate. She starts toward the door, but the man moves in front of her, blocking her way. “Can’t let you do that,” he says. “We don’t *welcome* nosy cops here.” “Tell that to the clique,” Quinn says. “Tell them I’m here to take them down.” The man smiles, slow, and flicks his cigarette into the fire. It hisses, turns to ash. “The clique doesn’t take kindly to being followed, Detective.” “Quinn.” Her voice is cold. “And neither do I.” She tries to go around him, but he steps in front of her, his shoulder hard as steel. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to hit her, but then he nods to the door. “Last chance,” he says. “Step through that door, and you’re in. No going back.” Quinn stares at him. The door is black, the frame carved with symbols she doesn’t recognize—twisted lines, eyes, a crescent moon. She can hear music now, low and thrumming, and the sound of voices, speaking in a mix of languages. Somewhere below, a bell rings again. Her watch ticks. Fifteen years of following cases, of making choices. This one—she can’t walk away. Not after Morris. She steps past the man, her boot catching on a loose brick. He grabs her arm, his hand hot, but not human. She yanks away, and he doesn’t stop her. The door opens inward, and she steps through. The Veil Market hits her like a wave—smells of sweat and sandalwood, of something sweet and rotting. The ceiling is low, the walls lined with stalls, their stalls covered in cloth, their goods glinting in the light of torches. People move between them, but they’re not all human—scales, horns, skin that shifts color. A woman with a tail of silver scales sells vials of glowing liquid. A man with antlers argues with a human, a coin in his hand. Quinn’s boots sink into the mud. She looks around, her heart pounding. The man she’s chasing is somewhere in here—she can feel it, a hot, foul presence. But she doesn’t know which stall to check, which person to ask. “Lost, detective?” Quinn turns. Tomás Herrera stands behind her, a medallion hanging around his neck, a scar snaking up his forearm. He’s holding a syringe, capped, but his eyes are soft—kind, even here. “Tomás,” she says, surprised. “What are you doing here?” He gestures to a stall, where a woman with a face like a bird’s is stacking jars of something that glitters. “Supplies. The clique needs painkillers. For… *accidents*.” He nods to the ceiling. “The market moves again next week. Back under Camden.” Quinn stares at him. “You work here.” He smiles, tight. “I make a living.” “Is he here?” she asks, nodding to the crowd. “The man with the scale tattoos?” Tomás’s smile fades. He looks around, then leans in, his voice low. “He’s in the back. The hidden room. Silas uses it for meetings. But you can’t go there. It’s—” “Dangerous?” Quinn says. “I know the feeling.” He shakes his head. “Not like that. The room… it’s got a door. A real door. Metal. With a lock. He’s got the key.” Quinn pulls a photo from her pocket—the man from The Raven’s Nest, his face blurred, but the scales visible. “Is this him?” Tomás studies the photo. “That’s…” He swallows. “That’s Marcus. He works for Silas. Delivers messages. But he shouldn’t be here.” “Why?” “Because the market’s strict,” Tomás says. “No one brings secrets. Not if they don’t want to lose them.” Quinn nods. She tucks the photo back into her pocket, then meets Tomás’s eyes. “You’re with the clique, aren’t you?” He doesn’t answer. “Last year, I followed a lead to a warehouse in Bethnal Green,” Quinn says. “There was a woman there—your age, maybe. Olive skin, a mole on her neck. She said something about a medallion. About a man who’d saved her life.” Tomás’s hand tightens around the syringe. Quinn takes a step closer. “Morris would’ve found her. But I got there too late. She was dead. Her tongue black, like—” “Like Morris,” Tomás finishes, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry.” “You’re part of this,” Quinn says. “You’re the one fixing them. The one making them human.” He looks away. “They’re not monsters. They’re just… lost. The same as I was.” Quinn’s watch ticks. She glances at the crowd, at the stalls, at the shadows. Marcus is somewhere back there—she can feel his fear, his desperation. “Where’s the hidden room?” she asks. Tomás sighs. “Through the bookshelf. Second row, left. The one with the crest.” Quinn turns, follows his gaze. A bookshelf stands at the back of the market, its shelves filled with books, one of them carved with a raven crest. She walks toward it, her hand on the hilt of her knife—nowhere near her, but it’s there. The shelf rumbles, and she steps back. Then, a section of it slides open, revealing a staircase. Quinn pauses, looks at Tomás. “You want me to stop?” He shakes his head. “They need to be stopped. But not by *you*.” “Why not?” “Because you’re angry,” he says. “Angry for Morris. But anger won’t heal them. It’ll just… make them worse.” Quinn stares at him. For a moment, she sees Morris—smiling, hand on her shoulder, telling her to take a breath. Then, she turns, steps into the staircase. The room is small, lit by a single candle. Marcus stands in the center, his hands shaking, a coin in his hand—the same coin from Morris’s body. He turns as she enters, and his face hardens. “Detective,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d follow.” “You didn’t think I’d catch up,” Quinn says. He takes a step back, reaches into his pocket. “This is yours. Maybe it’ll help you sleep.” He throws the coin at her. Quinn catches it. It’s cold, heavier than she expects, and when she looks at it, she sees Morris’s face, smiling at her. “You took too long,” Marcus says. “They’re coming. The ones who made me. The ones who—” Two men enter the room, blocking the door. They’re tall, their eyes black, their skin gray. “Run” is all Marcus says before the first man hits him, hard. Marcus collapses, blood trickling from his nose. Quinn steps forward, her back to the wall. The men move closer, their hands in their pockets—she can see the knives, the blades glinting. “Detective Quinn,” one of them says, his voice a growl. “Such a pretty little bird. But birds don’t belong in the dark.” Quinn doesn’t answer. She draws a breath, and she thinks of Morris—of the way he’d laughed when she’d botched her first case, of the way he’d said, *“You’ll get better. I know you will.”* The first man swings, and she ducks, jabs him in the stomach. He grunts, steps back. The second man moves to grab her, but she twists, slams his head into the wall. He falls, unconscious. The first man recovers, swings again. Quinn avoids it, her boot catching his ankle. He falls, and she kneels, drives her fist into his face. He goes still. She stands, looks at Marcus. He’s groaning, his eyes opening. “Get out,” she says. “Run. And don’t come back.” Marcus nods, crawls to the door. He pauses, looks back. “Thank you.” Then, he’s gone. Quinn turns, looks at the coin in her hand. She throws it to the floor, where it shatters, leaving a trail of light. Footsteps echo in the hallway. She draws a breath, reaches for her phone, and dials. “Dispatch,” she says. “We’ve got a situation in Camden. Abandoned Tube station. Clique activity. Send backup—now.” She hangs up, tucks the phone into her pocket, and walks back into the Veil Market. The crowd parts, watching her, but she doesn’t look at them. She walks to the bookshelf, steps back, and the shelf slides shut. The rain has stopped, and the sky is clearing, a sliver of moon visible through the clouds. Quinn looks up, at the sky, and for a moment, she thinks she sees Morris—smiling, waving. She smiles, too. Then, she turns, and walks away.