Run: 2026-02-25-01KJ95S879GN8PF1TAVW6EQJ7E

The green neon sign of The Raven’s Nest blurred into a long, emerald smear against the rain-slicked pavement of Soho. Detective Harlow Quinn stood in the recessed doorway of a closed tailor’s shop across the street, her breath hitching in soft, rhythmic plumes. She checked the worn leather strap of the watch on her left wrist. 11:14 PM. She had been following Tomás Herrera for three days, ever since a tip from a nervous informant suggested the former paramedic was the primary medical patch-up man for the group Quinn had come to call the Clique. She watched the door of the Nest. It creaked open, spilling amber light and the muffled thump of bass into the rainy night. Herrera stepped out. He was younger than her by a decade, twenty-nine with the kind of restless energy that made him hard to pin down. His dark, curly hair was already beginning to flatten in the downpour. He pulled his collar up, but not before Quinn saw the glint of the Saint Christopher medallion swinging against his olive skin. He looked left, then right—a jerky, paranoid motion—before setting off toward the north. Quinn waited five seconds, then stepped into the rain. Her eighteen years on the force had taught her how to move without being seen, a skill honed to military precision. She kept her distance, using the late-night foot traffic and the delivery vans to mask her silhouette. Her joints ached—a dull thrum in her knees that reminded her she was forty-one, not thirty—but she didn't slow. She couldn't. Not after what happened to Morris. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her old partner’s face, frozen in an expression of pure, unadulterated terror that no autopsy could explain. Herrera was the closest she’d come to the truth in three years. The chase led them out of Soho and into the belly of Camden. Herrera was fast, his boots splashing through puddles, his gait showing the practiced navigation of someone who knew these streets as a map of escape routes. He turned into a narrow alleyway behind a row of Victorian terraces, and Quinn broke into a sprint. She rounded the corner just in time to see him descend a set of rusted iron stairs leading toward an abandoned Tube station entrance. The signs were gone, the gates chained shut—or they should have been. As Quinn reached the top of the stairs, she saw Herrera stop at a side door that had been pry-barred open. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something small and white. He held it up to a slot in the door Quinn hadn't noticed before. There was a sickening, organic *click*. Quinn pressed herself against the cold brick wall, watching through the downpour. Herrera slipped inside, and the door began to hiss shut. Quinn didn't hesitate. She threw her weight against the heavy metal just before the latch caught. It yielded with a groan of unlubricated hinges. Inside, the air changed. The scent of rain and exhaust was replaced by something heavy and cloyingly sweet, like rotting lilies mixed with ozone. The station wasn't dark. A dim, flickering light emanated from further down the escalator shaft—a pulsing violet hue that made the hair on Quinn’s neck stand up. She drew her service weapon, her thumb resting on the safety. Her sharp jaw tightened. This was far outside the Metropolitan Police handbook. This was the territory that had swallowed DS Morris whole, a world of shadows she didn't yet understand but was determined to break. She descended the dead escalator, her boots clicking softly on the metal treads. Below her, the platform opened up into a space that defied the geometry of the London Underground. This was the Veil Market. The abandoned station had been transformed into a sprawling, subterranean bazaar. Stalls made of salvaged timber and scrap metal lined the tracks. Instead of commuters, the space was filled with figures draped in heavy cloaks and masks of bone. Blue-flame lanterns hung from the vaulted ceiling, casting long, wavering shadows that seemed to move independently of their owners. Quinn spotted Herrera’s dark curls moving through the crowd. He was heading toward a stall draped in crimson silk, where a woman with fingers too long to be human was weighing out silver powder. "Herrera!" Quinn’s voice cut through the low hum of the market. It was a tactical error—the instinct of a street cop in a place that didn't respect the law—but she needed him to stop before he vanished into the throng. Tomás spun around, his warm brown eyes widening in shock. He stumbled back, his left hand instinctively clutching his forearm, where Quinn knew a jagged scar ran from a knife attack six months prior. "Detective?" he gasped, his Spanish accent thick with panic. "You shouldn't be here. You don't have a token." "I don't need a token for an arrest," Quinn said, her voice steady despite the way the air seemed to vibrate against her skin. She kept her gun lowered but visible. "You’re coming with me, Tomás. We’re going to talk about the Clique. We’re going to talk about Morris." Tomás looked around frantically. Several of the masked patrons had stopped to stare at Quinn. The silence that began to spread through the market was heavy, physical. "You don't understand," Tomás whispered, taking a step toward her, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "This isn't a precinct. There are things here that don't care about your badge." "I’ve spent three years looking for 'things' that don't care," Quinn snapped. She adjusted her grip on the weapon. Her salt-and-pepper hair was plastered to her forehead, and her brown eyes were hard as flint. "Move. Now." Before Tomás could respond, a low, guttural vibration shook the floorboards. At the far end of the platform, a group of three tall, thin figures in grey drapes began to glide toward them. They didn't walk so much as flow across the tiles, their faces obscured by hoods. "The Enforcers," Tomás hissed. He lunged forward, not to attack Quinn, but to grab her arm. "If they find a blank-soul in here with a weapon, they won't just kill you, Quinn. They’ll harvest you. Give me the gun." "Get your hands off me," she growled, twisting her arm in a professional break-away. "Listen to me!" Tomás’s voice was desperate. "Give me the gun and tell them you’re my ward. I’ll get you out. But if you fire that thing, we're both dead." Quinn looked at the approaching figures. They were less than twenty yards away now, and she could see what lay beneath the hoods—nothing but swirling grey mist and two pinpricks of icy light. Her logical mind, the one that had earned her eighteen years of decorated service, told her to stand her ground. But something deeper, the primal part of her that remembered the look on Morris’s face, screamed that she was outmatched. The Saint Christopher medallion on Tomás’s neck caught the violet light. He looked terrified, but beneath the fear, Quinn saw a flicker of that same paramedic instinct—the urge to save a life, even one that was threatening him. The grey figures stopped. One of them raised a hand—a pale, translucent thing with too many joints. The air in the station began to turn cold, a frost creeping along the edges of the nearby stalls. Quinn looked at Tomás, then at the skeletal hand. She made her choice. She flipped the safety on, reversed the grip, and handed the heavy semi-automatic to the man she’d been hunting. "Thirteen rounds in the magazine," she said, her voice a cold rasp. "Make them count if this goes sideways." Tomás tucked the gun into his waistband, hiding it beneath his damp jacket. He stepped in front of her just as the first Enforcer reached them. The temperature dropped so sharply Quinn’s next breath turned to ice in her lungs. "She is with the healer," Tomás said, his voice trembling but clear, speaking to the mist beneath the hood. He reached into his pocket and produced a second bone token—this one charred and blackened. "A debt is being paid." The Enforcer tilted its head. Quinn felt a pressure in her mind, a scraping sensation like a fingernail on a chalkboard. It lasted for five agonizing seconds before the figure lowered its hand and glided past them, its companions following in its wake. Quinn didn't breathe until they were gone. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. "The exit is through the maintenance tunnels," Tomás whispered, not looking back. "But you’re not getting your gun back until we’re top-side. And Detective? After tonight, you stop following me. This world... it doesn't want you in it." Quinn straightened her shoulders, her sharp jaw set in a line of grim defiance. She looked around the Veil Market, at the impossible goods and the nightmares in human skin, and she knew she wasn't going anywhere. "We'll see about that," she said, her voice regaining its iron. "Lead the way, Herrera."