Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8W5GVB2DHGEA3HZSRFRY67

The damp, cold air of the abandoned Camden Tube station clung to Detective Harlow Quinn’s skin like a second shirt. Her torch beam cut through the absolute black, illuminating arched brickwork slick with condensation and the ghostly outlines of market stalls long since deserted. The Veil Market had moved on, leaving behind the detritus of its trade: scattered chicken bones, spilt powders that glimmered faintly, and the lingering scent of ozone and decay. “Over here, Quinn.” DS Liam Patel’s voice echoed from the platform ahead. His own torch was trained on a shape slumped against a rusted ticket booth. Harlow approached, her boots crunching on broken ceramic. The military precision of her stride didn’t falter, but her sharp jaw tightened. The body was a man, late fifties, dressed in a fine but now torn velvet waistcoat. His eyes were open, milky with death, fixed on the vaulted ceiling. No visible blood, no obvious wounds. His hands were curled into loose fists at his sides. “Walter Finch,” Patel said, not looking up from his notebook. He was a compact man with a perpetual five-o’clock shadow and the pragmatic weariness of a detective who’d seen too many basement overdoses. “Known to us. Small-time fence for antique jewellery. Had a booth here, according to the snitch who called it in.” Harlow crouched, the worn leather of her watch strap digging into her wrist. She played her light over Finch’s face, his clothes, the ground around him. “Cause?” “Looks like cardiac arrest. Natural causes, maybe. Or a shock.” Patel gestured with his pen at a small, overturned table nearby. A few tarnished silver rings and a broken vial lay scattered. “Robbery gone sideways? He sees a threat, heart gives out. Scavengers took anything valuable and ran.” “In a market that requires a bone token to enter?” Harlow’s voice was flat. “Scavengers would have taken the token from his body. It’s not here.” Patel shrugged. “Maybe they did. Or he didn’t have it on him. Point is, Quinn, we’ve got a dead fence in an illegal bazaar. The why isn’t a mystery. The who might be.” Harlow stood, her beam sweeping the area. It wasn’t adding up. The stall was too orderly for a struggle. The fallen items seemed placed, not thrown. And Finch… his expression wasn’t one of fear or surprise. It was blank. Empty. Her light caught a glint of brass under the edge of the overturned table. She nudged the table leg with her toe. A small compass lay there, half-hidden. She picked it up, careful not to touch the face. “What’s that?” Patel came closer. “Compass.” She turned it in her light. The casing was brass, aged with a greenish patina of verdigris. The face was etched with intricate, interlocking symbols—sigils she didn’t recognize but that made the hair on her neck prickle. The needle inside didn’t point north. It trembled, then swung decisively to point off into the darkness of the tunnel leading southbound. “Probably part of his stock.” Patel peered at it. “Weird-looking thing. Tourist tat, maybe.” “Tourists don’t come here.” Harlow’s thumb brushed the edge of the casing. The verdigris was smudged in one spot, recently disturbed by fingers. “This was handled. Recently.” “So he was looking at it before he died. Big deal.” “Look at his hands, Liam.” Patel shone his light on Finch’s curled fingers. They were clean. No trace of the green oxidation. “He didn’t handle it,” Harlow said. “Someone else did. After he was dead. Or as he was dying.” “That’s a leap. Gloves.” “In a panic robbery? They’d have grabbed and run. This was placed under the table, almost hidden.” She held the compass flat on her palm. The needle didn’t waver. It pointed along the tunnel like an accusing finger. “And it’s not pointing north.” “Probably broken. Old crap.” “Sigils on the face. Protective markings. I’ve seen… similar things.” She didn’t elaborate. DS Morris’s notebook, found in the rain three years ago, had contained rough sketches of symbols that made no sense to the evidence board. She’d kept that page. Patel sighed, the sound loud in the silent station. “Quinn, you’re doing it again. Looking for patterns in the static. The man died. It’s sad, but it’s not a conspiracy. This place gives anyone the creeps. Your mind starts inventing things.” Harlow ignored him. She moved past the body, following the line the compass indicated. Her torch beam revealed the tunnel mouth, a maw of darkness. The old tracks were gone, replaced by a floor of compacted earth and stone. About twenty feet in, something gleamed. She walked forward, Patel’s reluctant footsteps following. On the ground lay a small, carved bone token—the entry requirement for the Veil Market. It was clean, untouched by the grime around it. “His token,” Patel said. “Must have dropped it.” “It’s twenty feet from his body. In a straight line from where the compass points.” Harlow crouched again. The earth here was different. Not disturbed, but… faded. The layer of dust and soot that coated everything else seemed thinner in a rough circle about three feet across. The bricks of the tunnel wall within that zone looked older, more weathered, as if they’d aged decades faster than the rest. She held the compass over the spot. The needle spun once, then dipped downward, pointing at the centre of the faded circle. “What is that?” Patel asked, his skepticism edged with a new curiosity. “A lack,” Harlow said quietly. “Energy was pulled from here. Sucked out.” She thought of Morris, found in that alley, no mark on him but his face frozen in that same blank emptiness as Walter Finch. The coroner had called it cardiac arrest. Unexplained circumstances. “Energy? What, like electrical?” “Like life.” She stood, looking from the token to the compass to the faint circle on the ground. “Finch was here. He had the compass. It started pointing this way. He came to investigate, maybe saw something forming. The token fell from his hand. Then something… reached through. Not to rob him. To feed.” Patel stared at her. “Feed. You’re talking about a ghost.” “I’m talking about a rift. A weak spot. This compass doesn’t point north. It points toward the nearest supernatural rift or portal.” She tapped the etched face. “Someone crafted this to find them. Finch probably bought it to protect himself, to know where not to go. But he got too close.” “That’s a fantastic story, Harlow. But we deal in evidence. Facts.” “The facts are a dead man with no wounds, a missing robbery motive, a compass that doesn’t work like a compass, and a patch of ground that looks like it’s been bleached by time.” Her voice was low, intense. “The fact is my partner died the same way three years ago. No cause. Just empty. This,” she held up the compass, “is evidence. You’re just not reading it right.” Patel was silent for a long moment, his torch beam fixed on the bleached earth. “Okay. Say you’re right. Say some… thing came out of thin air and killed him. What do we do? Write that in the report?” Harlow looked at the compass needle, steady and sure. “We follow the evidence. And we find out what’s on the other end of this.” She pocketed the compass. The brass felt cold against her leg, a persistent, silent signal in the dark.