AI The rain had been a miserly drizzle an hour ago, enough to slick the Soho cobblestones and give the green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest a blurry halo. Now, it fell in sheets, a cold, driving downpour that soaked through Harlow Quinn’s trench coat and plastered her closely cropped salt-and-pepper hair to her scalp. She pulled further into the shadow of a recessed doorway, the worn leather watch on her left wrist glowing faintly under the streetlamp’s wash. Midnight passed. One AM. Patrol cars rolled by, their blue lights turning the streaming water on the pavement into fleeting rivers of colour.
Finally, the frosted glass door of the bar opened. A man slipped out, pulling his collar high against the deluge. Tomás Herrera. Harlow’s jaw tightened. She’d spent three nights outside Silas’s bar, three nights enduring the damp chill , for this. Tomás moved with a light, fluid grace that belied the weather, his short curly dark brown hair already plastered to his head, water sheeting down his olive skin. He turned left, melting into the downpour.
Harlow pushed off the cold stone, her movements precise, economical. Eighteen years on the force had ingrained military precision into her bones. She kept twenty feet back, her gait easy, her eyes fixed on the retreating figure of Herrera. He wasn’t running , not yet, but his pace was quick, purposeful . He moved like a man who knew he might be watched.
They cut through a warren of side streets, the stench of stale beer and overflowing bins mingling with the clean bite of the rain. Neon signs of closed shops cast lurid reflections in the puddles. Harlow’s breath plumed in the cold air, her heart a steady drum against her ribs. She was closing in. Herrera glanced over his shoulder, a quick, almost imperceptible flick of his head. He hadn’t seen her, not precisely , but the instinct was there. Someone had made him jumpy. Good.
He picked up the pace, breaking into a jog. Harlow matched him instantly. Adrenaline surged, cutting through the weariness. This was the chase. This was where the answers lay, just beyond the reach of her grasp. She saw the glint of his Saint Christopher medallion beneath his slicked shirt collar, a brief flash as he rounded a corner, disappearing behind a stack of overflowing refuse bins.
When Harlow cleared the bins, he was gone . No, not entirely. A fleeting shadow, glimpsed down a narrow service alley, barely wide enough for one person. She sprinted, her shoes skidding on the slick pavement, but her stride was sure. The alley was dark, lit only by a single weak bulb over a rusted fire escape. The air here was thick with industrial grime and something else, something cloying and strange, like damp earth and decaying flowers.
She emerged into an open space that felt like a derelict loading dock, surrounded by disused warehouses, their windows boarded up like dead eyes. The air here was strangely still, the sound of the falling rain muffled, distant. Herrera was a blur, making for a rusted corrugated iron door set into the concrete wall of one of the warehouses. It looked less like an entrance and more like a scar on the city’s face.
“Herrera! Stop!” Her voice, rough with the cold and exertion, cracked through the unnatural quiet.
He didn't pause. He wrenched the door open, a grating shriek of metal, and vanished into a deeper darkness. Harlow didn’t hesitate. She lunged, shoulders hitting the cold metal frame as she pushed through the narrow opening.
She stumbled, her fingers brushing the cold, slimy stone of a tunnel wall. The air down here was different, heavier, laced with a thousand unfamiliar scents. The sounds of the city, even the relentless drumming of the rain, vanished entirely. All that remained was a low, resonant thrum beneath her feet, like a waking beast.
Her eyes, accustomed to the dim light, strained. The tunnel opened into a vast, cavernous space. It was an abandoned Tube station, unmistakably, but one warped and repurposed. Tracks still ran through the centre, gleaming with a dark, oily sheen, but they were choked with refuse and strange, makeshift stalls. The platforms, long stripped of their advertisements, were now a grotesque bazaar.
Tomás Herrera was already halfway across the platform, threading his way through a throng of…people? Creatures? Harlow couldn't tell at first glance. Shapes, colours, movements she couldn't categorize. Her mind struggled to compute the scene. It was a market, an underground market, and it hummed with an unsettling energy.
The place smelled of arcane incense, roasted meat (or something that looked like it), mildew, and a faint, electric tang that made the hairs on her arms stand up. The light wasn't electric , not really . It pulsed from strange glowing orbs suspended from the vaulted ceiling, casting an eerie, amber glow that stretched shadows long and distorted. Whispers, chimes, guttural murmurs, and the shuffling of countless feet echoed in the cavernous space.
Harlow stood at the mouth of the tunnel, just short of the main platform, a detective out of her element in a way she'd never experienced. Her hand instinctively went to the Glock at her hip. Useless. This wasn't a riot or a pub brawl. This was something else entirely. She took a step forward, her boot scraping on the grimy concrete.
A figure, tall and gaunt, draped in what looked like stitched hides, turned its head. Its eyes, luminous and yellow in the amber light, fixed on her. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold air crawled down her spine . These weren't the hardened faces of London's underworld. These were…different.
She watched Herrera. He moved with practiced ease through the crowd, past stalls laden with items that defied description: glowing fungi, vials of shimmering liquids, charms carved from unknown bone, intricate mechanical devices that whirred and clicked to themselves. People – or whatever they were – wore cloaks, masks, strange head coverings. No one here looked like they belonged on a Metropolitan Police Most Wanted list, not in the way she understood it.
Tomás paused at a stall piled high with what looked like dried herbs and withered animal parts. He produced something from his pocket, a small white object, and handed it to the vendor. The vendor, a squat individual with eyes like polished agate, nodded, and Tomás slipped through an almost invisible gap behind the stall, vanishing into the maze of the market. It had been quick, just a flicker of movement, but Harlow had seen it – the exchange, the ease of entry. A token. A bone token. The whispers she’d heard on the fringes of some of her colder cases, dismissed as gutter rumor or mad ramblings, echoed in her mind. Entry to the Veil Market. An old Tube station. Camden. Everything clicked into place with a horrifying, sickening thud. The supernatural wasn’t just a whisper in the gloom ; it had a marketplace.
Harlow shifted her weight , testing the ground. Her training screamed at her. Assess the threat. Secure the perimeter. Call for backup. But who would she call? What would she say? "Sir, I'm pursuing a suspect into a magical black market beneath Camden. Requesting armed response and perhaps an exorcist." She could almost hear the snorts, the incredulity, the disciplinary hearing.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment, picturing Morris. Three years. Unexplained circumstances. Supernatural origins she didn’t understand. The feeling of helplessness, the gnawing certainty that there was a hidden world she’d brushed against and been blind to. A world that had taken her partner and left her with only questions.
This was that world . Right here. Humming beneath her feet, smelling of strange things, shimmering with unknown lights. Herrera, the paramedic who had lost his license for “unauthorized treatments to supernatural patients,” was clearly one of its inhabitants. And she had him. Almost.
She opened her eyes, fixing on the spot where Herrera had disappeared. The dense throng of market-goers was a shifting tapestry of colours and bizarre forms. She was a human, a *cop *, walking into a den of gods and monsters, with nothing but a standard -issue firearm and the bleak determination of a woman who refused to be blind again.
Go in, and risk everything. Her career, her life, her sanity. Stay out, and let Tomás Herrera, likely a key to understanding what happened to Morris, slip away. He could vanish into this labyrinth, never to be seen again. And the questions, the quiet, persistent questions, would continue to haunt her. The feeling of helplessness would return, sharper, more bitter than ever before.
She could stand here, on the precipice, and pretend this wasn't real. Pretend the lights weren't glowing , the voices weren't inhuman, the very air wasn't thick with magic. Or she could step through.
A sigh escaped her lips, a thin plume of vapor in the cold, strange air. She pushed past the hesitation. Fear was a luxury she couldn't afford. Not now. Not ever again. She peered down at the bone token she’d seen. There wasn’t a gate, per se, but the air thickened at certain points, like a shimmering haze. No use trying to bluff her way past that with her badge. She’d have to find another way in, or a way through.
Her hand tightened on the grip of her pistol, the familiar weight a small comfort in this alien world. She took a deep breath, sucking in the cloying, electric air of the Veil Market, and stepped onto the platform. The yellow eyes she’d seen before were gone . But she could feel the weight of countless other eyes on her, cutting through the amber gloom . This wasn't a chase anymore. This was a descent. And Harlow Quinn had always been good at bringing things to light, no matter how deep they were buried .