Neverwhere(7)

“Richard,” she warned, and then she relented, a little, and offered a compromise. “Dial 999 and call an ambulance then. Quickly, now.”

Suddenly the girl’s eyes opened, white and wide in a face that was little more than a smudge of dust and blood. “Not a hospital, please. They’ll find me. Take me somewhere safe. Please.” Her voice was weak.

“You’re bleeding,” said Richard. He looked to see where she had come from, but the wall was blank and brick and unbroken. He looked back to her still form, and asked, “Why not a hospital?”

“Help me?” the girl whispered and her eyes closed.

Again he asked her, “Why don’t you want to go to the hospital?” This time there was no answer at all.

“When you call the ambulance,” said Jessica, “don’t give your name. You might have to make a statement or something, and then we’d be late . . . Richard? What are you doing?”

Richard had picked the girl up, cradling her in his arms. She was surprisingly light. “I’m taking her back to my place, Jess. I can’t just leave her. Tell Mister Stockton I’m really sorry, but it was an emergency. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Richard Oliver Mayhew,” said Jessica, coldly. “You put that girl down and come back here this minute. Or this engagement is at an end as of now. I’m warning you.”

Richard felt the sticky warmth of blood soaking into his shirt. Sometimes, he realized, there is nothing you can do. He walked away, leaving behind Jessica, who stood there on the sidewalk, her eyes stung with tears.



Richard did not, at any point on his walk, stop to think. It was not something over which he had any volition. Somewhere in the sensible part of his head, someone—a normal, sensible Richard Mayhew—was telling him how ridiculous he was being: that he should just have called the police, or an ambulance; that it was dangerous to lift an injured person; that he had really, seriously upset Jessica; that he was going to have to sleep on the sofa tonight; that he was ruining his only really good suit; that the girl smelled terrible . . . but Richard found himself placing one foot in front of the other, and, arms cramping and back hurting, ignoring the looks he got from passers-by, he just kept walking. And after a while he was at the ground floor door of his building, and he was stumbling up the staircase, and then he was standing in front of the door to his apartment and realizing that he had left his keys on the hall table, inside . . .

The girl reached out one filthy hand to the door, and it swung open.

Never thought I’d be pleased that the door hadn’t latched properly, thought Richard, and he carried the girl in—closing the door behind him with his foot—and put her down on his bed. His shirtfront was soaked in blood.

She seemed semiconscious; her eyes were closed, but fluttering. He peeled off her leather jacket. There was a long cut on her left upper arm and shoulder. Richard caught his breath. “Look, I’m going to call a doctor,” he said quietly. “Can you hear me?”

Her eyes opened, wide and scared. “Please, no. It’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it looks. I just need sleep. No doctors.”

“But your arm—your shoulder—“

“I’ll be fine. Tomorrow. Please?” It was little more than a whisper.

“Um, I suppose, all right,” and with sanity beginning to assert itself, he said, “Look, can I ask—?”

But she was asleep. Richard took an old scarf from his closet and wrapped it firmly around her left upper arm and shoulder; he did not want her to bleed to death on his bed before he could get her to a doctor. And then he tiptoed out of his bedroom and shut the door behind him. He sat down on the sofa, in front of the television, and wondered what he had done.





Neverwhere





TWO


He is somewhere deep beneath the ground: in a tunnel, perhaps, or a sewer. Light comes in flickers, defining the darkness, not dispelling it. He is not alone. There are other people walking beside him, although he cannot see their faces. They are running, now, through the inside of the sewer, splashing through the mud and filth. Droplets of water fall slowly through the air, crystal clear in the darkness.

He turns a corner, and the beast is waiting for him.

It is huge. It fills the space of the sewer: massive head down, bristled body and breath steaming in the chill of the air. Some kind of boar, he thinks at first, and then realizes that no boar could be so huge. It is the size of a bull, of a tiger, of an ox.

It stares at him, and it pauses for a hundred years, while he lifts his spear. He glances at his hand, holding the spear, and observes that it is not his hand: the arm is furred with dark hair, the nails are almost claws.