Run: 2026-02-24-01KJ8X0WJRRAW7KD53A0397Z2S

The rain fell in relentless, diagonal sheets, turning the Soho pavements into black mirrors. Detective Harlow Quinn leaned against the brick wall in the shadow of a delivery doorway, the collar of her trench coat turned up. Across the street, the distinctive green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest buzzed and flickered, painting the wet asphalt in sickly emerald hues. She’d been here for two hours, watching the door. Her left wrist ached dully beneath the worn leather strap of her watch—a relic, like most of her now. Movement. The bar door swung open, spilling out a wedge of amber light and the low thrum of bass. A figure emerged, pulling a hood up against the downpour. Even in the gloom, Quinn recognized the set of the shoulders, the short, curly dark hair now beaded with rain. Tomás Herrera. He paused, glanced left then right, his hand going to the Saint Christopher medallion at his throat—a nervous tic she’d noted in the surveillance photos. Quinn pushed off the wall. Her movements were economical, born of military precision. She waited until he turned north, then stepped into the rain, falling into a parallel track on the other side of the street. The water soaked through her trousers instantly, chilling her skin. Her sharp jaw was set, her brown eyes fixed on her target. He was a link. A small one, perhaps, but in the three years since Morris had vanished into a case that made no sense—since the official report had been a masterpiece of obfuscation and the truth had curdled into something she could taste in her nightmares—every link mattered. Herrera picked up his pace. He’d made her. A reflex glance over his shoulder, a slight hitch in his stride. Quinn abandoned subtlety. “Herrera! Police! Stop!” He ran. Quinn swore, the curse lost in the drumming rain, and broke into a sprint. Her shoes skidded on the slick cobbles of an alley shortcut he’d taken. She righted herself, hand slapping against wet brick. He was faster, younger, fueled by panic. She was driven by something colder and more enduring: a need to pin down the phantom that had taken her partner. The ghost in the machine of her city. The chase became a blur of refracted neon, pounding footsteps, and the burn in her lungs. He led her through a maze of backstreets, past overflowing bins and startled late-night smokers huddled under awnings. Quinn’s world narrowed to the fleeing shape ahead, the slap of her own footsteps, the weight of the service pistol holstered under her arm. She gained on him on a long straightaway, close enough to see the scar running along his left forearm as his sleeve rode up. He vaulted a low iron fence. Quinn followed, the metal cold and slippery in her grasp. They spilled out onto a broader street—Charing Cross Road. A night bus hissed by, spraying a wall of water. Herrera dodged through stalled traffic, horns blaring. Quinn darted after him, holding up a hand to a taxi that screeched to a halt, the driver’s angry yell fading behind her. He was heading for the Tube. She saw him duck into the entrance for Tottenham Court Road station. She pushed through the crowd of damp, disgruntled commuters, her eyes scanning the barriers. There—the flash of a dark jacket disappearing down the escalator to the Northern line. She flashed her badge at the bewildered staff, bypassed the gates, and took the stairs two at a time. The platform was a cavern of white tiles and humid, grimy air. A train was just pulling in, doors sighing open. Herrera looked back, saw her, and shoved his way into a carriage just as the doors began to chime. Quinn lunged, catching the door with her shoulder, and forced herself into the same car. Passengers stared. Herrera was already moving, pushing towards the connecting door. The train lurched into the dark tunnel. Quinn stabilized herself against a pole, her breath coming in sharp gasps. She locked eyes with him across the crowded car. His olive skin was sheened with sweat and rain, his expression not just fearful, but resolved. He knew where he was going. He had a destination. At Camden Town, he was out the door before the train had fully stopped. Quinn followed, a relentless shadow. He didn’t exit to the street. Instead, he turned into a lesser-used passageway, one marked ‘Maintenance – No Entry’. He pushed through a heavy, unlocked door. Quinn hesitated for a single heartbeat at the threshold. The air from beyond was cooler, smelling of damp concrete and something else—ozone, and a faint, coppery tang. Morris had mentioned a smell like that, in his final, fragmented notes. *Like old blood and lightning.* She went in. The corridor was poorly lit, descending. The sounds of the station faded, replaced by the drip of water and the echo of Herrera’s fleeing footsteps. The walls were tagged with graffiti that seemed to shift in her peripheral vision. She unholstered her pistol, holding it down by her leg. The corridor ended at a rusted metal gate. Beyond it was darkness, and a set of disused tracks. Herrera was a silhouette scrambling over the edge of the platform onto the ballast. Quinn climbed over the gate, the metal rough and cold. She dropped onto the gravel beside the tracks. “Herrera! It’s over!” Her voice echoed in the vast, empty tunnel. He didn’t stop. He was running towards a service alcove where a single, naked bulb burned above a heavy, riveted iron door. As Quinn watched, he pulled something from his pocket—a small, pale object—and slotted it into a crevice beside the door. A bone token. The door swung inward, revealing not darkness, but a pulsating, multicoloured glow. For a moment, she saw his profile against the light, saw him look back at her one last time. Then he stepped through, and the door began to close. Quinn ran. She reached the door just as it sealed with a solid, final *thunk*. She pushed against it. Nothing. She examined the crevice. It was empty. The token was gone. She pressed her ear to the cold iron. From within came a murmur of countless voices, a strange, discordant music, the clink of glass and metal. The Veil Market. A name she’d heard only in whispers, in the most classified and redacted sections of files she wasn’t supposed to have seen. This was it. The underground. The real one. The place where the rules of her world bent and broke. Where Morris’s trail had gone cold. Her hand went to her watch, her thumb rubbing the cracked leather. Eighteen years of decorated service. Procedure dictated she call for backup, for a tactical unit. But what would she tell them? That she’d followed a suspect into a fairy tale? They’d relieve her of duty, just as they’d quietly closed Morris’s case. From beyond the door, a laugh echoed—high, clear, and utterly inhuman. Quinn’s breath fogged in the cold air. She thought of Morris’s empty desk. His laugh, which had been warm and loud. The way the light had left his eyes in that final, chaotic moment she still couldn’t fully reconstruct. The explanation that explained nothing. She holstered her pistol. She wasn’t leaving. Not this time. Her eyes scanned the alcove. In a shadowed corner, partly hidden by rubble, was a small, rough-hewn wooden stall, unattended. On its counter lay a few odd items: a vial of shimmering dust, a twisted piece of iron, and two small, off-white tokens, like knuckle bones. The vendor was gone, perhaps drawn inside by the commotion. Quinn snatched a token. It was warm in her palm, and vibrated with a faint, unpleasant energy. She stood before the iron door, the bone token slick in her sweating hand. To go in was to step off the map. To acknowledge that the world was far stranger and more terrible than her service manual allowed. It was to risk becoming another unexplained circumstance. Detective Harlow Quinn slotted the bone token into the crevice. The door swung open silently. The sound and smell and light of the market washed over her—a cacophony of the impossible. She took one last breath of the tunnel’s damp, familiar air. Then she stepped across the threshold, and the door sealed shut behind her.