Neverwhere(72)

“I worked for all the Seven Sisters.”

“I thought that they hadn’t spoken to each other for, oh, at least thirty years,” said Door.

“Quite possibly. But they were still talking then.”

“How old are you?” asked Door. Richard was pleased she had asked; he would never have dared.

“As old as my tongue,” said Hunter, primly, “and a little older than my teeth.”

“Anyway,” said Richard, in the untroubled tone of voice of one whose hangover had left him and who knew that, somewhere far above them, someone was having a beautiful day, “that was okay. Nice food. And no one was trying to kill us.”

“I’m sure that will remedy itself as the day goes on,” said Hunter, accurately. “Which way to the Black Friars, my lady?”

Door paused and concentrated. “We’ll go the river way,” she said. “Over here.”



“Is he coming round yet?” asked Mr. Croup.

Mr. Vandemar prodded the marquis’s prone body with one long finger. The breathing was shallow. “Not yet, Mister Croup. I think I broke him.”

“You must be more careful with your toys, Mister Vandemar,” said Mr. Croup.





Neverwhere





ELEVEN


“So what are you after?” Richard asked Hunter. The three of them were walking, with extreme care, along the bank of an underground river. The bank was slippery, a narrow path along dark rock and sharp masonry. Richard watched with respect as the gray water rushed and tumbled, within arm’s reach. This was not the kind of river you fell into and got out of again; it was the other kind.

“After?”

“Well,” he said. “Personally, I’m trying to get back to the real London, and my old life. Door wants to find out who killed her family. What are you after?” They edged along the bank, a step at a time, Hunter in the lead. She said nothing in reply. The river slowed and fed into a small underground lake. They walked beside the water, their lamps reflecting in the black surface, their reflections smudged by the river mist. “So what is it?” asked Richard. He did not expect any kind of answer.

Hunter’s voice was quiet and intense. She did not break her step as she spoke. “I fought in the sewers beneath New York with the great blind white alligator-king. He was thirty feet long, fat from sewage and fierce in battle. And I bested him, and I killed him. His eyes were like huge pearls in the darkness.” Her strangely accented voice echoed in the underground, twined in the mist, in the night beneath the Earth.

“I fought the bear that stalked the city beneath Berlin. He had killed a thousand men, and his claws were stained brown and black from the dried blood of a hundred years, but he fell to me. He whispered words in a human tongue as he died.” The mist hung low on the lake. Richard fancied that he could see the creatures she spoke of, white shapes writhing in the vapor.

“There was a black tiger in the undercity of Calcutta. A man-eater, brilliant and bitter, the size of a small elephant. A tiger is a worthy adversary. I took him with my bare hands.” Richard glanced at Door. She was listening to Hunter intently: this was news to her too, then. “And I shall slay the Beast of London. They say his hide bristles with swords and spears and knives stuck in him by those who have tried and failed. His tusks are razors, and his hooves are thunderbolts. I will kill him, or I will die in the attempt.”

Her eyes shone as she spoke of her prey. The river mist had become a thick yellow fog.

A bell was struck, a little way away, three times, the sound carrying across the water. The world began to lighten. Richard thought he could see the squat shapes of buildings around them. The yellow-green fog became thicker: it tasted of ash, and soot, and the grime of a thousand urban years. It clung to their lamps, muffling the light. “What is this?” he asked.

“London fog,” said Hunter.

“But they stopped years ago, didn’t they? Clean Air Act, smokeless fuels, all that?” Richard found himself remembering the Sherlock Holmes books of his childhood. “What did they call them again?”

“Pea-soupers,” said Door. “London Particulars. Thick yellow river fogs, mixed with coal-smoke and whatever rubbish was going into the air for the last five centuries. Hasn’t been one in the Upworld for, oh, forty years now. We get the ghosts of them down here. Mm. Not ghosts. More like echoes.” Richard breathed in a strand of the yellow-green fog and began to cough. “That doesn’t sound good,” said Door.

“Fog in my throat,” said Richard. The ground was becoming stickier, muddier: it sucked at Richard’s feet as he walked. “Still,” he said, to reassure himself, “a little fog never hurt anyone.”