Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ95QSTF0J4GCNKAZ64RWX9K

Detective Harlow Quinn descended the slick, metal steps, the air growing colder with each downward step. The scent of damp earth and stale ozone pricked her nostrils, a strange perfume overlaying the usual urban decay. Floodlights, harsh and alien, carved tunnels of stark white through the Stygian gloom of the abandoned Tube station. Yellow tape, a garish ribbon, cordoned off a section deeper in, near where the old ticket booths sagged like weary teeth. Uniformed officers patrolled the periphery, their movements precise but tense, accustomed to the mundane grit of London streets, but not this subterranean labyrinth. This was the Veil Market, a place whispered about in hushed tones in certain circles, a criminal bazaar for things that didn't belong in the daylight. Now, it was a crime scene. Officer Davies, a fresh-faced constable whose uniform looked too new, met her at the tape. His usual easy confidence had frayed at the edges. He gestured with a gloved hand, his eyes flicking around the cavernous space. "Detective Quinn. Glad you're here." Davies kept his voice low, the respect laced with relief. "It’s… odd." Quinn offered a curt nod, her gaze sweeping over the scene unfolding within the taped-off area. Her salt-and-pepper hair was closely cropped, framing a face where eighteen years on the force had etched lines of sharp intelligence around her brown eyes. Her movements held a military precision, economical and purposeful. She ducked under the tape, her worn leather watch glinting under the lights, and walked towards the centre of the disturbance. A man lay slumped against a decaying brick wall, his skinny frame draped over a disused luggage cart piled with refuse from past, illicit transactions. His pockets gaped open, turned out with the careless violence of a mugger. His eyes, wide and glassy, stared up at the vaulted shadows of the station ceiling, fixed on something no living person could see. Davies had called it a robbery gone wrong. "Victim's Silas Blackwood," Davies informed her, his voice tight. "Works as a runner, information broker. Low-level stuff, mostly. Forensics are bagging him now. They found him about an hour ago when they were sweeping the area – response team got a tip from one of the market regulars who wanted to stay anonymous." Quinn circled the body slowly, deliberately. Silas looked like a scarecrow stuffed with ill-fitting clothes. His skin had taken on a greyish hue, taut over his bones. Davies pointed to his neck. "Strangled," Davies stated, his tone matter-of-fact. "Ligature mark, straight across. We found bits of frayed rope not far off, looks like. Nasty business." Quinn crouched, her eyes narrowing. She didn't touch Silas, just hovered inches above him, her gaze dissecting the detail on his throat. It wasn't a bruise. It wasn't abrasion. It looked, she thought, more like a raw impression, a mark where something hot and impossibly precise had pressed. There was no skin broken, no charring, just an unnerving, smooth indentation running from ear to ear. Odd. A profession runner, a man who dealt in whispered secrets and hidden goods, wouldn’t likely sport a simple rope for his final negotiations. Her gaze shifted, scanning the immediate vicinity. Silas's jacket was unbuttoned. A small, tarnished silver amulet, shaped like a coiled serpent, lay tangled in the lapel. Beside it, clutched loosely in his stiffening fingers, was a small, dark velvet pouch. Davies had mentioned the rifled pockets. Quinn’s eyes caught sight of the amulet, the pouch. They looked undisturbed. "Rifled pockets," Quinn echoed Davies’ earlier assessment, her voice flat, cutting through the hum of the police equipment. "But he’s still wearing his amulet. And this pouch…" She gestured subtly with her chin. "What’s in it?" Davies shrugged, a gesture that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "We haven't opened it yet. Forensics wants to handle it. Might be the take. Or maybe the perp was in a hurry." "In a hurry?" Quinn straightened, taking a step back, the cavernous space of the station amplifying her words. The air seemed to vibrate with the question. She surveyed the tunnel beyond Silas. Deeper in, the abandoned market pulsed with a low thrum of residual energy, a faint shiver that spoke of its true nature. It was a place where power traded hands, not mere currency. "Pockets emptied, but the lucky charms left behind? A runner doesn't walk into the Veil Market without his luck. Or his tools." "Could be they didn't know what they were," Davies offered, his brow furrowed, trying to make the facts align with his training. "Just random debris." Quinn’s gaze swept towards the far end of the tunnel, where the shadows gathered thickest, swallowing the faint glow of the distant police lights. She thought of Eva, her friend, the one who catalogued the esoteric, who knew the language of such places. Eva had described whisperdust – a rare substance used for scrying, potent and extremely valuable. It was often carried in dark velvet pouches. "Random debris like that pouch of whisperdust?" Quinn’s voice was quiet, but laced with an edge that silenced Davies. "Or Silas's serpent charm? A mugger rips a man's pockets open, he's looking for quick cash, maybe small, easily fenced items. He’s not leaving behind valuables that fetch as much as a decent week’s wages from other runners. He's not leaving behind something that lets a person *see* the market's other secrets." She walked a slow circle around the body again, her gaze sharp, missing nothing. The floor around Silas was just damp concrete and discarded wrappers. No signs of a struggle, no overturned furniture, no scuffle marks that would indicate a desperate fight. Just Silas, slumped and dead, his pockets inside out. "And this mark," Quinn murmured, returning her attention to Silas's neck. She extended a gloved finger, not to touch, but to sweep through the air just above the unnatural line. A faint prickling sensation danced on her fingertip. It felt… wrong. Not the residual heat of a burn, but something colder, more abstract. "A ligature mark. But clean. Too clean. A fibre here, perhaps, but no tearing, no bruising. No arteries severed in the way a struggle would cause. No struggle." Davies shifted his weight. "But his pockets, Detective. They were inside out." "Someone wanted it to *look* like his pockets were emptied," Quinn stated, her voice gaining conviction. She stopped and bent down, her eyes tracing the faint scattering of greyish powder on Silas’s jacket, near where the pouch lay. "They wanted us to see a robbery. But the real intent wasn't the cash. It was either the mark he bears, or the contents of that pouch that they left deliberately. They staged the motive. They left Silas behind because Silas himself was merely the stage for the performance." She stood, facing Davies, her sharp jaw set. The distant hum of the Veil Market seemed to deepen, a low thrum that resonated in the ancient stone. "This wasn't a mugging, Davies. Not even close. This was a message. And the sender wasn't interested in what Silas carried, but in what he *was*."