AI Harlow squeezed between the metal fence and the brick wall, dust blooming around her knees. She ducked under a sagging pipe, its rust flaking onto her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Her worn leather watch, a solid weight on her left wrist, showed 03:17. Moonlight bled a faint silver through cracks in the grime-coated vents above, slicing thin light across the derelict Tube station. Emergency lights strung by forensics cast long, skeletal shadows across the platforms, illuminating graffiti-scarred walls and twisted tracks. She took it all in, her sharp jaw set, a familiar cold knot tightening in her gut. She’d seen unusual. This felt… different.
DS Miller, a man built like a bulldog and just as subtle, waited for her at the base of the stairs, shrugging into his own forensic suit, the plastic crinkling with every movement. He wiped sweat from his brow, smearing it on the clear visor.
"Glad you could make it, Quinn," Miller’s gravelly voice echoed off the tiled walls. "Another Friday night special for Her Majesty's finest."
Harlow didn't acknowledge the comment. She pulled on her own suit, the sterile fabric a stark contrast to the grit underfoot. Her eyes swept the scene from the entrance, cataloging every detail before stepping further inside. She spotted the faint, almost imperceptible shimmer near the ventilation shafts, a distortion in the air. A trick of the light, perhaps, but it pricked at her.
"What have we got?" Harlow’s voice was low, cutting through the cavernous space between them. Her military precision in movement was a silent question.
Miller gestured towards the far end of the platform where a body lay. "Male, mid-thirties, looks like. Found by a pair of urban explorers. Didn't touch anything, apparently. Good kids, for once." He pointed to a small, discarded camera peeking from beneath a rusted metal barrel near the wall. "His, probably. Or theirs. We're still checking.”
"How?" Harlow’s gaze remained fixed on the far end.
"Blunt force trauma to the head, primary assessment," Miller explained, following her stare. "Looks like he tripped or fell, hit his head on the rail." He moved towards the body, his heavy boots crunching on loose debris. "Or someone helped him fall. Mugging gone sideways, maybe. No wallet, no phone. Pockets turned inside out."
Harlow stepped onto the platform, her boots quiet on the concrete. The smell was complex : damp concrete, rusty metal, something acrid beneath it, like burnt sugar. Forensic officers moved with practiced care, their flashlights dancing over the scene. The train tracks glinted under their beams, disappearing into the darkness of the tunnels.
She stopped several meters from the body, letting her eyes travel the length of the platform. This wasn't just an abandoned station. Signs of recent occupation laced the space. Not tramps, or kids with spray paint. Elaborate, faded chalk marks bloomed on the walls, strange symbols woven into complex patterns, almost hidden by layers of dust. Small, charred depressions marred the floor in irregular circles. Some, like shallow craters, indicated something intensely hot had rested there, briefly.
"Tripped?" Harlow walked slowly , her gaze sweeping from the man to the surroundings and back. Her bearing remained upright, unwavering . "In a place like this, he'd be lucky not to trip every five feet."
The victim lay slumped against a structural pillar, head angled unnaturally. A dark, tacky stain bloomed on the concrete beneath him. His clothes, practical and well-worn though without obvious labels, showed no signs of a struggle beyond the head wound. No torn fabric, no scuff marks on his knees or palms. His hands were clasped loosely , palms facing upwards, as if he had been holding something delicate before he fell. A faint reddish-brown residue coated his fingertips.
Miller knelt beside the body, careful not to disturb the scene. "Could have been unexpected. Came out of the tunnel, maybe surprising someone." He gestured down the track . "Found a length of rebar down there. Looks like the murder weapon."
Harlow didn’t follow his gaze down the dark tunnel. She focused on the victim’s hands. The absence of a defensive wound on his forearms, the way his hands rested… it didn't fit. A man fighting for his life would instinctively raise his arms. She stepped closer, her keen brown eyes narrowing. The reddish-brown stain on his fingertips wasn't just blood. It shimmered with an almost iridescent quality, like dried beetle wings, catching the faint light. And beneath his left hand, partially obscured by the sleeve of his jacket, lay a small, dark bone, carved crudely into the shape of a key.
"Rebar looks like a fit for the wound geometry," Miller continued, oblivious to Harlow's detailed observation. "The angle of impact, the sheer force... matches."
Harlow straightened, her gaze fixing on Miller. "Then why is there no secondary impact?"
Miller looked up from the victim. "What do you mean?"
"If he fell, hitting his head here," Harlow tapped the pillar beside the victim’s head wound, "his body would have continued its momentum. He'd have slid, or his head would bounce. There's no scuffing on the pillar, no secondary blood spatter further down. Just one neat, dark pool." She paused, her eyes sweeping over the intricate , faded chalk marks again. "And if he was mugged, why no signs of struggle beyond the blow? What did the mugger want? His wallet and phone? Nothing else valuable? Look at his clothes, quality fabric, no brand names – not the kind of target for a casual street mugging. He looks like someone who knew his way around."
Miller frowned, slowly rising. "He could have been stunned by the first blow. Dropped instantly."
"Perhaps," Harlow conceded, her tone flat . Her gaze rested on the small bone key again. "And this?" She nudged it carefully with the toe of her boot, indicating it to the attending forensic technician.
The technician, a young woman with nervous eyes, carefully bagged the bone. "Looks like carved bone, Detective. Lucky we spotted it."
"Lucky indeed," Harlow murmured, more to herself than to the tech . She remembered vague reports from other precincts, whispers of strange tokens found at unusual scenes. Unexplained circumstances. Morris's ghost stirred in the dust of her memory.
She moved away from the body, walking the perimeter of the platform. Her eyes caught on something else. A faint, almost transparent residue clinging to the rough concrete near one of the chalk circles. It wasn't dust. It shifted, reflecting the emergency lights with an inner glow, like powdered mother-of-pearl. She crouched, examining it closely. It carried that acrid, burnt-sugar smell, but with something else: ozone, like after a lightning strike.
"Miller," she called, without turning . "Did the explorers note anything else, anything unusual prior to finding the body?"
Miller pulled out his notepad. "Just that the tunnels felt 'weird.' Said they heard strange noises, like whispers, but put it down to the acoustics. Kids." He shook his head.
Harlow didn’t dismiss it. She remembered the shimmer she’d seen upon entering. The subtle distortion in the air. The whispers Morris had reported before… before.
"The head wound you described," Harlow continued, her voice gaining a sharper edge, "blunt force trauma. Is it consistent with a normal rebar strike?"
Miller thumbed through his notes. "Seems to be, Detective. Pretty nasty."
"I ask because a fall or a single blow from an attacker would not leave the specific kind of indentation I'm seeing," Harlow stated, her brown eyes fixed on the victim's injury, even from across the platform. "The wound on his scalp looks too clean, too… precise. As though something, perhaps something with a sharper edge than rebar, but just as heavy, struck him once, perfectly . Not a chaotic blow, not a struggle. An execution."
Miller walked back towards her, a skeptical line forming between his eyebrows. "Execution, Quinn? In a derelict Tube station? For what? A bone? You're grasping at straws. It's a mugging, plain and simple."
Harlow stood, turning to face him. Her gaze was steady, unwavering . "His pockets are turned out, you said. What about the absence of anything else? No empty wallet, no phone case left behind. No keys? No watch ?" She looked at her own worn leather watch . "Most people wear a watch ."
Miller paused, running a hand over his chin. "We're still processing. Could be the attacker took everything."
"Everything valuable, yes. But the victim doesn't have the typical profile of someone carrying significant cash or high-end electronics for a 'casual' mugging. And the bone key. Why leave that? Unless it was considered worthless." Harlow gestured around the platform, encompassing the strange markings, the almost invisible residue, the very air itself. "This isn't a mugging, Miller. This is a transaction."
She walked back to the victim. The reddish-brown residue on his fingers now fascinated her. She remembered Miller saying the urban explorers found him. But the crime scene, despite the body, seemed too quiet, too undisturbed for a natural death or a violent struggle. It hinted at a rushed departure, not a meticulous cleanup.
"Look at the hands again," Harlow pointed. "They're not clenched, not in defense. They're open, as if releasing something. And that residue… it's not blood. Not entirely. It's iridescent. When did you last see blood shimmer like that?"
Miller leaned closer, squinting. "Never. But it could be some chemical, something he'd touched."
"Or something he *was *," Harlow countered, her voice a low murmur . She knelt, ignoring the discomfort of the plastic suit against the cold concrete. Her eyes scanned the blood pool. It was dark, almost black in places, but at its very edges, she saw it: tiny, intricate spirals, like miniature sea shells, visible only to the keenest eye. Patterns woven into the drying fluid.
Harlow stood, her gaze moving from the patterned blood to the victim’s body, then sweeping across the entire platform, finally landing on the distant, shadowy mouth of the tunnel. This man hadn't just tripped while being mugged . He had been part of something far more complex , something that whispered from the fringes of understanding. The Veil Market, some old-timer on the force had once drunkenly muttered about. Supernatural black market. A hidden place that moved.
"Get me a full chemical analysis on that residue," Harlow told Miller, her eyes now burning with a quiet intensity . "And I want a specialist to examine those chalk markings. Someone who knows things beyond graffiti." She pointed to the iridescent stain. "And I want a full breakdown of the victim's pockets, every fibre, every speck of dust. If he was mugged, the perp would have been looking for quick cash, not for specific, arcane items. Unless..."
She left the implication hanging in the stale air, allowing Miller to ponder it as she turned to stare into the vast, echoing darkness of the tunnel mouth. The mundane interpretation suddenly seemed too flimsy, too thin to hold the weight of what lay before them.