AI The chill seeped into Harlow Quinn’s bones the moment she stepped from the marked response vehicle, an old dread clenching in her gut. London’s chill was one thing; this was something else. A heavy, damp air, thick with the scent of stagnant water and old earth, clung to her coat. Above ground, the night hummed with the distant rumble of the Northern Line, a stark contrast to the silence that swallowed her whole as she descended into the abandoned Tube station.
Headlamps cut crude paths through the gloom . The Metropolitan Police had sealed off the entrance to what locals called ‘Tufnell Park’s forgotten platform,’ a disused sideling beneath the bustling main line. Concrete steps, slick with condensation, stretched down into a vast, cavernous space. Here, the air tasted of metal and something sharper, something almost electrical. Crime scene tape, stark yellow against the prevailing grey, crisscrossed the opening. Forensic teams, their blue suits glowing under their portable lights, moved with methodical efficiency around the scene.
Quinn’s boots crunched on loose gravel and bits of broken concrete. Her hand instinctively went to her left wrist, her fingers tracing the worn leather of her watch . Forty-one years, eighteen of them in uniform, and the unfamiliar still made her pause. Most crime scenes, no matter how grisly, held a grotesque familiarity. This place spoke a different language. Corroded tracks gleamed under arc lights, running parallel to a crumbling platform. Graffiti, intricate and aggressive, clawed across the peeling paint of the station walls.
DS Miller, a younger detective with a perpetually harried expression, met her at the bottom of the steps. He pushed a hand through his sandy hair, dark crescents hanging beneath his eyes.
“Glad you’re here , Guv,” he called out, his voice echoing too loudly in the cavern. “This is… a bit much.”
Quinn gave a terse nod, her brown eyes already scanning the wide, echoing space. She saw the familiar cluster of forensics, the flash of cameras. A body, or what remained of one, lay sprawled near a rusted ventilation shaft, nestled against a pillar. Her jaw worked, a sharp line. The scene felt too theatrical, the staging too deliberate.
“Walk me through it, Miller,” Quinn’s voice cut through the damp air, crisp and low.
Miller gestured vaguely towards the victim. His hand shook. “Maintenance found him. Came down here checking the old lines. Thought it was a tramp, passed out. Then they saw… this.” He swallowed, adjusting his tie . “Male, age looks mid-forties. Cause of death, well, that’s where it gets complicated. Looks like a ritual gone wrong. Or right, depending on who you ask.”
Quinn moved with military precision, her gaze sweeping over the scene. She took in the wide berth the forensic team gave the immediate vicinity of the body. She ignored Miller’s summary, her attention fixed on the still figure on the platform. The victim lay on his back, eyes open and wide. His clothes, a faded jacket and trousers, seemed undisturbed, not torn or dishevelled from a struggle.
“Ritual?” Quinn asked, not looking at Miller . She reached the edge of the crime scene perimeter, her eyes narrowing.
“The chalk marks, Guv,” Miller pointed, his voice regaining a semblance of professional calm . “Looks like pentagrams, strange symbols. And the body… the way it’s positioned.” He paused. “And the wound.”
Quinn stepped past the perimeter, a forensic tech stepping aside. She knelt, her movements fluid and economical. The victim’s face was grotesque. His mouth stretched into a silent scream, his eyes bulging, reflecting the stark glare of a floodlight. But that expression, that horrifying rictus, contrasted sharply with the rest of him. No broken bones jutted through his skin. No bruises marred his neck or arms. His hands lay open, palms up, fingers slightly curled, as if in repose.
She studied the clothing. No tears, no blood spatter. Then she focused on the wound Miller mentioned. A single incision, precise and clean, sliced directly over the victim’s heart. The edges were sharp, almost surgical. But what truly grabbed Quinn’s attention was the absence of blood. Not a single drop pooled around the wound. No saturation of the victim’s shirt. Instead, a strange, dark, almost crystalline residue coated the edges of the cut, glinting dully in the artificial light. It looked like obsidian shards, or solidified, burnt sugar. The residue continued in a faint, concentric pattern on the fabric around the incision.
“Odd, innit?” Miller knelt beside her, keeping a respectful distance from the body. “Forensics thought it might be some kind of coagulant, but they haven’t identified it yet. No blood trail either, leading to or from him. Just…” He gestured around . “This.”
Quinn ignored Miller for a moment, her eyes tracing the chalk markings he’d pointed out. Faint, almost ghost-like, they formed a rough circle around the body, complete with several interlocking, angular symbols. She ran a gloved finger along one chalk line. The powder was smudged , brittle, and faded. It looked old, days, maybe weeks old, certainly not drawn fresh for a recent murder. Her gaze lingered on the pattern, then flicked to the body again, then to the residue. The symbols and the precise, strange wound did not belong together.
“He didn’t die here , Miller,” Quinn murmured, rising to her full height. Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
Miller blinked, pushing himself up. “Beg pardon, Guv? The body’s right here . It’s got a fresh incision.”
“It has a fresh incision,” Quinn corrected, her eyes sweeping the wider scene, ignoring the body for a moment. Her gaze settled on the pillar against which the victim lay. It was old, grimy concrete, but near the top, almost two meters from the floor, a patch of the grime had been scrubbed clean in a crude oval. Within that oval, a faint scorch mark, about the size of a man’s palm, blackened the pale concrete. No one had taped it off. No one had marked it. It was too high up, too far from the body to be obviously connected by casual observance. Except to Quinn, it wasn’t.
She walked towards the pillar, her gaze fixed on the scorch mark. The air here , near it, was faintly warmer, with that same electrical tang she registered earlier. The crystalline residue on the body, the clean cut, the lack of blood, the perfectly preserved clothing, the silent scream. And this, the subtle scorch mark on the pillar, smelling faintly of ozone.
“No blood. No defensive wounds. His clothes are untouched,” Quinn stated, her back to Miller, her fingers brushing the rough concrete near the scorch mark. It felt strangely smooth, almost vitrified. “The chalk is old, probably drawn by some kids playing down here weeks ago. It’s not part of the crime.”
Miller frowned. “But the cut, Guv. And that face. He’s clearly been killed here .”
Quinn turned, her sharp jaw set. “His face tells a story of terror, yes. But not necessarily of death *here *. The clean cut, that residue without a drop of blood… it’s not a stab wound in the traditional sense, Miller. It’s too precise. Too… sterile. And that residue isn’t coagulated blood. It’s something else entirely. Something alien to the human body.” She tapped her finger on the concrete, near the scorch. Her brown eyes held a knowing glint . “He wasn’t murdered at this spot. He was *left * here . Or parts of him were.”
Her gaze drifted back to the body, then to the ventilation shaft above it. The shaft was metal, old and corroded, but a section of it, higher up, gleamed almost unnaturally under the floodlights, as if recently warped by intense heat. She saw what the others had overlooked, what Miller’s simple explanation of a ‘ritual sacrifice’ failed to account for.
“This isn’t where he died,” Quinn repeated, her voice clearer now, her deduction solidifying . “This is where he *arrived *.”