AI The stench hit Harlow first: a metallic, cloying sweetness that clung to the damp air. She ducked under the sagging yellow tape, the plastic scratching her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair. Her worn leather watch read '03:17', but the time meant little out here in the abandoned printing press, two decades past its last run. Muted spotlights cast long, skeletal shadows of rusted machinery across the factory floor.
"Morning, guv'nor." Davies, a younger constable whose uniform always seemed just a touch too large, wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. He stood beside a colossal printing press, its defunct rollers like giant, frozen teeth. "Or what's left of it."
Harlow scanned the vast space. Dust motes danced in the artificial light, thick as fog. Cobwebs draped from girders, heavy with years of accumulated grime. Her gaze settled on the press. It was a dark, hulking beast, a relic of forgotten industry.
"Victim's under the platen, sir." Davies pointed with a gloved hand. "Looks like some sort of industrial accident, only... not."
Harlow stepped closer, her military precision dictating her careful movements between oily puddles and fallen tools. A lone figure lay pinned beneath the heavy, steel platen of the press. Blood had welled from beneath them, a dark, rich pool that spread across the concrete, almost too perfect a circle. Even from a distance, the lack of struggle surprised her. This wasn't some poor sod caught in machinery.
"Any ID?"
"Nothing on him. No wallet, no phone. Looks cleared out," Davies answered, pulling at the collar of his shirt. "Dr. Vance is running priors, but it's a mess. Face..." He trailed off, gesturing vaguely towards the obscured head.
Harlow knelt beside the body, ignoring the chill seeping into her trousers. The victim was male, mid-twenties perhaps, clad in threadbare jeans and a faded band t-shirt. His arm, partially visible, ended in a hand splayed flat on the floor, palm up. His fingers were unnaturally long. Twisted.
"No, he's not under the platen, Davies. He's *on * it." Harlow’s voice cut through the cavernous space.
Davies blinked. "Right. Well, whatever. Same result. Been here a while, too. Rigor's set in."
Harlow ignored him. She circled the scene slowly , her keen brown eyes taking in every detail. The blood: too much of it, almost ceremonial in its precise pooling. It wasn't splashed, not sprayed, but *poured *. And the press itself.
"This thing's been out of commission for years," she observed, running a gloved finger along a layer of dust on the frame next to the platen. "Decades, by the looks of it. How'd it crush him?"
"We think it was dropped on him. Some local kids probably messing around, broke the lock, then either triggered something or accidentally dropped it while climbing on it." Davies sounded confident, already building his narrative. "It wasn't found until a security guard on his rounds spotted the open door."
"A security guard in an abandoned factory?"
"Well, for *other * buildings on the estate, but he checks this one sometimes. Said he heard a noise."
"And didn't investigate the noise last night?"
Davies shrugged. "Probably thought it was foxes. Or just a weird draft."
Harlow leaned in close to the platen. Not only was it covered in a thick layer of industrial dust, almost fur-like, but some of the blood beneath the body had seeped *into * the dust, rather than just sitting on top. And there, near the victim's head, where the pooling was thickest, a faint, almost imperceptible shimmer caught her eye.
"Someone cleaned this place recently." She straightened, turning to Davies .
"No way, guv. Look at the dust. Everywhere." Davies waved a hand around.
"Not everywhere. Look at these specific sections of the floor. See how the dust is evenly spread, not disturbed by footsteps or wind? And look at the platen itself." She pointed to the edge of the blood pool. "The dust here looks... settled. Compressed. But around the body, on the top of the platen, there's a thin layer of fresh dust, disturbed, then resettled by the blood."
Davies squinted. "Are you saying someone dropped dust on him after he was dead?"
"I'm saying the dust pattern is inconsistent with a sudden, accidental drop." Harlow moved back to the victim. The peculiar length of the fingers nagged at her. Something about it echoed other , suppressed memories. "Tell me again, what did the security guard hear?"
"Just a kind of... heavy thud, he said. Like a load dropped. Around midnight." Davies checked his notepad.
Harlow bent lower, pulling out a small pen light. She shone it along the victim's exposed arm. His shirt sleeve was torn , revealing skin that was eerily pale. No, not just pale. Almost translucent. And tracing the veins, a fine network of dark lines, like brittle, ancient script.
"Davies, did anyone look for residue here? Any strange particles?"
"CSI just finished their passes. Standard forensics. Nothing unusual. No accelerants, no footprints from the perp, just the security guard's and ours." Davies's voice held a slight edge of defensiveness.
But Harlow wasn't listening . Her gaze had fixed on something else. Embedded firmly in the concrete, just inches from the spread fingers of the victim, was a bone token. Small, smooth, intricately carved with symbols she couldn't quite decipher, but recognised, deep down . Her blood ran cold . The token pulsed faintly with a faint, almost invisible light, visible only when she moved just so.
"Get Dr. Vance back here," Harlow ordered, her voice low, tight . "Tell him to bring every damned black light, Geiger counter, and spectral analyser he's got. Tell him... this isn't an accident."
Davies opened his mouth, then closed it. The urgency in Harlow's tone was unmistakable. He nodded sharply, turning to make the call.
Harlow knelt again. The bone token. She'd only heard whispers of such things, always dismissed them as urban myths. They were entry requirements, she recalled, for some kind of gathering. A market. A place where things traded were not currency.
She reached out a gloved hand and gently nudged the token. It was unnaturally cold, radiating a subtle chill despite the oppressive warmth of the night. Her fingers brushed against one of the victim's splayed, translucent fingertips. A jolt, like static electricity, shot up her arm. As she recoiled, she saw it: a faint, dark ripple spread across the victim's skin, starting from the point of contact, like ink bleeding through parchment. She followed the ripple with her eyes, up his arm, towards his shoulder, and then, inexorably , towards his chest.
Beneath his t-shirt, where the blood pooled so neatly, a section of his flesh had not completely solidified. It still moved. Not a shudder, not a twitch, but a slow, rhythmic undulation, as if something was breathing within the chest cavity itself. A dark, impossibly long tendril of shadow stretched out from beneath the platen, reaching for the shimmering bone token, then swiftly retreated back into the darkness beneath the victim. The light from her pen beam seemed to dim near the shadow.
This wasn't just murder. It was far, far worse.