Neverwhere(104)

The girl pushed the silver key into the keyhole. There was a pause, and then she turned it in the lock. Something went click, and there was a chiming noise, and suddenly the door was framed in light. “When I am gone,” said the angel, very quietly, to Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, with charm, and with kindness, and with compassion, “kill them all, howsoever, you wish.” It turned back to the door, which Door was pulling open: it was opening slowly, as if there was great resistance. She was sweating.

“So your employer’s leaving,” said the marquis to Mr. Croup. “I hope you’ve both been paid in full.”

Croup peered at the marquis, and said, “What?”

“Well,” said Richard, wondering what the marquis was trying to do, but willing to play along, “you don’t think you’re ever going to see him again, do you?”

Mr. Vandemar blinked, slowly, like an antique camera, and said, “What?”

Mr. Croup scratched his chin. “The corpses-to-be have a point,” he said to Mr. Vandemar. He walked toward the angel, who stood, arms folded, in front of the door. “Sir? It might be wise for you to settle up, before you commence the next stage of your travels.”

The angel turned, and looked down at him as if he were less important than the least speck of dirt. Then it turned away. Richard wondered what it was contemplating. “It is of no matter now,” said the angel. “Soon, all the rewards your revolting little minds can conceive of will be yours. When I have my throne.”

“Jam tomorrow, eh?” said Richard.

“Don’t like jam,” said Mr. Vandemar. “Makes me belch.”

Mr. Croup waggled a finger at Mr. Vandemar, “He’s welching out on us,” he said. “You don’t welch on Mister Croup and Mister Vandemar, me bucko. We collect our debts.”

Mr. Vandemar walked over to where Mr. Croup was standing. “In full,” he said.

“With interest,” barked Mr. Croup.

“And meat hooks,” said Mr. Vandemar

“From Heaven?” called Richard, from behind them. Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar walked toward the contemplative angel. “Hey!” said Mr. Croup.

The door had opened, only a crack, but it was open. Light flooded through the crack in the door. The angel took a step forward. It was as if it were dreaming with its eyes wide open. The light from the crack in the door bathed its face, and it drank it in like wine. “Have no fear,” it said. “For when the vastness of creation is mine, and they gather about my throne to sing hosannas to my name, I shall reward the worthy and cast down those who are hateful in my sight.”

With an effort, Door wrenched the black door fully open. The view through the door was blinding in its intensity: a swirling maelstrom of color and light. Richard squinted his eyes, and turned his head away from the glare, all vicious orange and retinal purple. Is that what Heaven looks like? It seems more like Hell.

And then he felt the wind. A candle flew past his head, and vanished through the door. And then another. And then the air was filled with candles, all spinning and tumbling through the air, heading for the light. If was as if the whole room were being sucked through the door. It was more than a wind, though. Richard knew that. His wrists began to hurt where they were manacled—it was as if, suddenly, he weighed twice as much as he ever had before. And then his perspective changed. The view through the doorway— it was looking down: it was not merely the wind that was pulling everything toward the door. It was gravity. The wind was only the air in the hall being sucked into the place on the other side of the door. He wondered what was on the other side of the door—the surface of a star, perhaps, or the event horizon of a black hole, or something he could not even imagine.

Islington grabbed hold of the pillar beside the door, and held on desperately. “That’s not Heaven,” it shouted, gray eyes flashing, spittle on its perfect lips. “You mad little witch. What have you done?”

Door was clutching the chains that held her to the black pillar, white-knuckled. There was triumph in her eyes. Mr. Vandemar had caught hold of a table leg, while Mr. Croup, in his turn, had caught hold of Mr. Vandemar. “It wasn’t the real key,” said Door, triumphantly, over the roar of the wind. “That was just a copy of the key I had Hammersmith make in the market.”

“But it opened the door,” screamed the angel.

“No,” said the girl with the opal eyes, distantly. “I opened a door. As far and hard away as I could, I opened a door.”

There was no longer any trace of kindness or compassion on the angel’s face; only hatred, pure and honest and cold. “I will kill you,” it told her.