AI Harlow descended the narrow, reeking stairwell, each step a deliberate placement of her polished heel. The air grew colder, thicker, laced with the metallic tang of damp concrete and something else… something like old blood and ozone . Detective Quinn pulled her collar tighter, her salt-and-pepper hair barely visible beneath the brim of her fedora. Eighteen years on the force, and she’d never quite gotten used to the smell of places forgotten by the city above. This was worse than any abandoned warehouse or derelict dockside. This was *underneath *.
The uniformed officers guarding the makeshift cordon looked pale, their flashlights cutting shaky beams through the gloom . They’d clearly never expected to be assigned a scene like this. Harlow nodded curtly, not breaking stride. Her sharp jawline was set, her brown eyes scanning , cataloging every detail. The worn leather watch on her left wrist ticked with a silence loud in the oppressive hush.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped into a vast, cavernous space. An abandoned Tube station. Not just derelict; this place had been *activated *. Banners of faded, midnight-blue silk hung from the arched ceiling, strung between corroded metal supports. Alcoves carved into the tunnel walls, usually for emergency equipment, were now draped with shimmering fabrics or filled with oddly shaped, dark wooden crates. An undeniable current of unseen energy thrummed beneath the decay. This was the Veil Market, and it had moved its current haunt to this forgotten artery beneath Camden. They’d bypassed the usual entry protocols, but the bone token requirement still spoke volumes about the ‘clients’ who frequented this place. And the reason for which she was here.
The crime scene itself was cordoned off near what might have once been a ticket booth. It wasn’t a body. Not this time. It was worse. It was an absence, a void where something significant had been, and the chaotic residue it left behind.
She ducked under the yellow tape. A young constable, barely out of his teens, flinched. “Detective Quinn. We’ve secured the area. Forensics are on their way, but… well, it’s a bit weird.”
“Weird is my specialty, Constable,” Harlow clipped, her voice low and steady, carrying the authority of her military-grade bearing. Her eyes swept over the scene. A raised platform, now bare, was surrounded by a scattering of what looked like finely ground obsidian, not dust but something that caught the faint emergency lighting like crushed night. There were no footprints here that made sense, no forced entry marks on the metal shutters of the alcoves, no sign of a conventional struggle. Just this immaculate spill of the dark powder. And a faint, persistent scent of bitter almonds, too faint for the rookies to notice, but sharp enough to prick Harlow’s senses.
Then she saw her. Standing by a display case that held what looked like intricately carved lockets, her curly red hair a vibrant splash against the muted, oppressive tones, was Eva Kowalski. Eva, her informant, her reluctant expert on the city’s underbelly of the arcane. Eva, with her round glasses perched on her nose and a worn leather satchel brimming with books slung over her shoulder. She was adjusting her glasses, a nervous habit of tucking a stray curl behind her left ear, her freckled face scrunched in concentration.
Harlow felt a familiar flicker of annoyance mixed with reluctant gratitude. “Kowalski? What are you doing here? Did you call this in?”
Eva looked up, her green eyes widening slightly behind her lenses. “Detective. No, not me. I was … following a lead on the purported ‘Whispers of Eldoria’ auction. Heard this market might be setting up shop around here. I have a… friend in the Met who knows I have an interest in these things. He thought I might be able to identify some of the merchandise if anything turned up. I was looking into that display case when they found… whatever this is.” She gestured vaguely at the obsidian dust.
Harlow crossed the gap between them, her boots crunching softly on patches of grit. “Friend in the Met? Thorne?”
Eva gave a small nod, tucking her hair again. “He mentioned the unusual access required for this particular venue was being handled by a special unit. He didn’t say why. Until you arrived. And then he called me.”
“He knows I’ve been hunting for this place,” Harlow said, her gaze sweeping back to the obsidian spill . “And the people who use it. The ones trafficking in… unusual commodities. Commodities that might be connected to Morris’s case.” The unexplained circumstances, the supernatural origins she couldn't articulate but felt in her bones. That gnawing uncertainty that haunted her.
“This isn’t a theft, is it?” Eva asked softly , stepping closer, her own keen eyes examining the area. “There’s no disruption. No signs of forced retrieval. Just… an offering? Or a residue left behind.”
Harlow knelt, her movements economical, almost military. She scooped a tiny amount of the obsidian dust into a clear plastic evidence bag. It felt unnaturally cold, even through the plastic. “The official report is a missing artifact. Something called the ‘Heartstone of Aethelred.’ Apparently, it was stored on that platform. High value, black market. Expected it to be a smash-and-grab through the back service tunnels, or a deal gone wrong. But there’s no indication of either.”
“The Heartstone,” Eva murmured, her brow furrowing . She reached into her satchel, her fingers sifting through papers and small cloth-bound books. “From what I recall from ancient texts… the Heartstone wasn't a gem in the traditional sense. It was said to be a focal point, a binding agent. Responsible for anchoring certain dimensional doorways. Or, conversely, for sealing them. It’s incredibly dangerous if misused. The ‘missing artifact’ explanation feels… insufficient, doesn’t it?” Eva’s voice was quiet, filled with academic observation, yet edged with a growing unease.
“Insufficient is an understatement,” Harlow agreed, standing up. Her eyes were fixed on the edge of the obsidian spill. It wasn’t a perfect circle. It was irregular, almost… flowing. As if it had spilled from an invisible point, not a physical object being dragged away. “There’s no drag marks, no signs of a tool being used to pry it loose. But the powder… it’s not just obsidian dust, is it? It feels… charged .”
Eva nodded her assent. “It’s infused with residual energy. The ‘Shade’ crafters who make these tools… they often imbue them with safeguards. Or anchors. This feels like the remnants of a successful extraction, but done by means that bypassed physical interaction.” She paused, a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “It’s how some entities can pull objects, or even people, from one plane to another without leaving a trace of their passage. They leave behind a… signature of displacement.”
Harlow’s gaze sharpened. “A signature of displacement. You mean like… like when Morris…” She stopped herself, the words catching in her throat. The memory of her partner, dissolved into nothingness during a raid three years ago, a raid that had seemed impossibly supernatural even then, but she'd dismissed it as shock, as hallucination . Now, here again. “Like when something is ripped from its mooring.”
Eva’s green eyes met hers, softening with understanding. “Something like that, Detective. This powder… it’s a detritus. A consequence.”
Harlow walked slowly around the platform, her military bearing unwavering , but her mind racing . She circled the area where the missing Heartstone had been. She noted the faint, almost imperceptible scent of bitter almonds again. It wasn't associated with decomposition. It was … something else. A chemical, perhaps. Or a ritualistic component.
“Forensics will get bogged down trying to identify this powder as a mineral. They won’t find anything conventional,” Harlow mused aloud, more to herself than to Eva . “They’ll miss the energy. The *wrongness * of it.” She looked at the smooth, unblemished metal of the platform. No scratches, no dents. If the Heartstone was physically pried away, there should be *some * mark.
“The Veil Market is known for its Shade artisans,” Eva said, pulling a small, tarnished brass object from another pocket in her satchel. It was a compass, its casing etched with intricate , interlocking sigils that seemed to shift in the dim light . A faint patina of verdigris clung to its surface. “This is a Veil Compass. Crafted by one of them. A tool to navigate dimensional currents, or locate supernatural points of interest. The needle… it’s supposed to point towards the nearest rift or portal. Mine has been twitching erratically since I entered this station.”
Harlow took the compass, turning it over in her gloved hand. The needle, usually steady, was quivering, oscillating wildly between the cardinal points, as if overwhelmed by the ambient energy. “So, the energy signature here is strong enough to throw this off?”
“Or it’s very close to several points of disruption,” Eva corrected. “Which is concerning. The Heartstone being used as a lock is one thing. But if it’s been *taken *… and this market is active… it means whatever took it is using this space to operate, or perhaps returning to it.”
Harlow handed the compass back. “The bitter almond scent,” she said, focusing. “I’ve smelled it before. Not in a crime scene, but during some simulations . Chemical warfare training. Certain nerve gases had that smell. Cyanides.”
Eva frowned, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Cyanide often leaves residue. Chemical analysis would pick that up. But this… this doesn’t feel like a chemical weapon, Detective. The nature of the energy here is far more… esoteric.”
Harlow ignored her. Her eyes were once again fixed on the obsidian powder. She looked past it, towards the shadowed alcoves, the draped fabrics. They fluttered slightly , though there was no discernible draft. The silence in the vast space wasn't empty; it was filled with waiting.
“They didn’t *take * it,” Harlow murmured, the pieces clicking into place with a chilling finality . It wasn't about forceful removal. It was about *activation *. “They didn’t pry it loose. They *used * it. The Heartstone wasn't stolen; it was deployed. It wasn't removed from its mooring; it *was * the mooring, and it's been… awakened.”
Eva tilted her head, listening intently. “Awakened? You mean it’s active, not missing?”
“The ‘missing artifact’ is a cover,” Harlow said, her voice hardening . “Or a misunderstanding by whoever reported it. Whoever was here didn't steal the Heartstone. They harnessed it. Used its properties to open something. Or to move something through. The obsidian powder isn't evidence of extraction; it’s the *byproduct * of the process. Like exhaust fumes. And the bitter almond scent… it’s not cyanide. It’s the residue of whatever energy or substance was *channeled *. This isn’t a theft; it’s a gateway being opened.”
She stood, her gaze sweeping across the dark, cavernous space. The Veil Market wasn't just a place for illicit trade. It was a nexus. A point where the fabric of reality could be thinned, or breached. And whatever had been accessed , or whatever had accessed this place, was now loose in her city.
“This isn’t about a missing object,” Harlow concluded, her gaze meeting Eva’s, a grim understanding dawning. “This is about containment. And Morris… he must have stumbled into something like this. Directly. And they… they just dissolved him.” Her voice was barely a whisper , the military precision cracking for just a moment, revealing the raw fear and resolve beneath. They hadn't just killed her partner; something had *unmade * him. And based on the void left where the Heartstone had been, and the lingering, unnatural chill in the air, whatever that something was , it was still very close.
Harlow’s eyes scanned the cavernous space again, her deductive mind already working past the ‘what’ and ‘how’ towards the ‘who’ or ‘what else.’ The chalk outline was missing, but the impression was burned into her vision. She followed the irregular spill of obsidian dust with her eyes, tracing its impossible flow. It didn’t lead to a door, or a tunnel, or any conventional exit. It simply dissipated into the shadows, into the unnerving, pulsating darkness of the Veil Market. And the needle on Eva's Veil Compass, now resting on a nearby crate, finally stopped its frantic spinning and settled, pointing resolutely into the deepest, darkest part of the abandoned station. Not towards an exit. But deeper in.