Neverwhere

One moment there were two men standing impassively, just looking at each other, then the Fop's head rocked back, as if he'd just been hit in the face. A small, reddish purple bruise appeared on his cheek. He pursed his lips and fluttered his eyelashes. "La," he said, then stretched his rouged lips wide, in a ghastly parody of a smile.

The Fop gestured. Ruislip staggered, and clutched his stomach.

The Fop With No Name smirked outrageously, waggled his fingers, and blew kisses to several spectators. Ruislip stared angrily at the Fop, redoubling his mental assault. Blood began to drip from the Fop's lips. His left eye started to swell. He staggered. The audience muttered appreciatively.

"It's not as impressive as it looks," whispered the marquis to Door.

The Fop With No Name stumbled, suddenly, going onto his knees, as if someone were forcing him down, and fell, awkwardly, to the floor. Then he jerked, as if someone had just kicked him, hard, in the stomach. Ruislip looked triumphant. The spectators clapped, politely. The Fop writhed and spat blood onto the sawdust on the floor of Harrods' Fish and Meat Hall. He was dragged off into the corner by some friends, and was violently sick.

"Next," said the marquis.

The next would-be bodyguard was again thi

"When you're ready, gentlemen," said the marquis.

Ruislip stamped his bare feet on the floor, sumo-like, one-two, one-two, and commenced to stare hard at Varney. A small cut opened on Varney's forehead, and blood began to drip from it into one eye. Varney ignored it; and instead appeared to be concentrating on his right arm. He pulled his arm up slowly, like a man fighting a great deal of pressure. Then he slammed his fist into Ruislip's nose, which began to spurt blood. Ruislip drew one long, horrible breath, and hit the ground with the sound of half a ton of wet liver being dropped into a bathtub. Varney giggled.

Ruislip slowly pulled himself back to his feet blood from his nose soaking his mouth and chest, dripping onto the sawdust. Varney wiped the blood from his forehead and bared his ruined mouth at the world in an appalling grin. "Come on," he said. "Fat bastard. Hit me again."

"That one's promising," muttered the marquis.

Door raised an eyebrow. "He doesn't look very nice."

"Nice in a bodyguard," lectured the marquis, "is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters. He looks dangerous." There was a murmur of appreciation, then, as Varney did something rather fast and painful to Ruislip, something that involved the sudden co

Varney looked at Door, and he winked at her, almost proprietarily, before he returned his attention to Ruislip. Door shivered.

Richard heard the clapping and walked toward it.

Five almost identically dressed, pale young women walked past him. They wore long dresses made of velvet, each dress as dark as night, one each of dark green, dark chocolate, royal blue, dark blood, and pure black. Each woman had black hair and wore silver jewelry; each was perfectly coifed, perfectly made up. They moved silently: Richard was aware only of a swish of heavy velvet as they went past, a swish that sounded almost like a sigh. The last of the women, the one dressed in utter black, the palest and the most beautiful, smiled at Richard. He smiled back at her, warily. Then he walked on toward the audition.

It was being held in the Fish and Meat Hall, on the open area of floor beneath Harrods' fish sculpture. The audience had their back to him, were standing two or three people deep. Richard wondered if he would easily be able to find Door and the marquis: and then the crowd parted, and he saw them both, sitting on the glass top of the smoked-salmon counter. He opened his mouth to shout out Door's name; and as he did so, he realized why the crowd had parted, as an enormous dreadlocked man, naked but for a green, yellow, and red cloth wrapped like a diaper around his middle, came catapulting through the crowd, as if tossed by a giant, landing squarely on top of him.

"Richard?" she said.

He opened his eyes. The face swam in and out of focus. Fire opal-colored eyes, peering into his, from a pale, elfin face.

"Door?" he said.

She looked furious; she looked beyond fury. "Temple and Arch, Richard. I don't believe it. What are you doing here?"

"It's nice to see you, too," said Richard, weakly. He sat up and wondered if he was suffering from a concussion. He wondered how he'd know if he was, and he wondered why he had ever thought that Door would have been pleased to see him. She stared intently at her nails, nostrils flaring, as if she did not trust herself to say anything else.

The big man with the very bad teeth, the man who had knocked Richard over on the bridge, was fighting with a dwarf. They were fighting with crowbars, and the fight was not as unequal as one might have imagined. The dwarf was preternaturally fast: he rolled, he struck, he bounced, he dove; his every movement made Varney appear lumbering and awkward by comparison.

Richard turned to the marquis, who was watching the fight intently. "What is happening?" he asked.

The marquis spared him a glance, and then returned his gaze to the action in front of them. "You," he said, "are out of your league, in deep shit, and, I would imagine, a few hours away from an untimely and undoubtedly messy end. We, on the other hand, are auditioning bodyguards." Varney co

"Why did you have to come here?" Door said to Richard, frostily.

"I didn't really have much choice," said Richard.

She sighed. The marquis was walking around the perimeter, dismissing the various bodyguards who had already auditioned, distributing a few words of praise here, of advice there. Varney waited patiently, off to one side. Richard essayed a smile at Door. It was ignored. "How did you get to the market?" she asked.

"There are these rat people—" Richard began.

"Rat-speakers," she said.

"And you see, the rat who brought us the marquis's message—"

"Master Longtail," she said.

"Well, he told them they had to get me here."

She raised an eyebrow, cocked her head slightly on one side. "A rat-speaker brought you here?"

He nodded. "Most of the way. Her name was Anaesthesia. She . . . well, something happened to her. On the bridge. This other lady brought me the rest of the way here. I think she was a . . . you know." He hesitated, then said it. "Hooker."

The marquis had returned. He stood in front of Varney, who looked obscenely pleased with himself. "Weapons expertise?" asked the marquis.

"Whew," said Varney. "Put it like this. If you can cut someone with it, blow someone's head off with it, break a bone with it, or make a nasty hole in someone with it, then Varney's the master of it."

"Previous satisfied employers include?"

"Olympia, the Shepherd Queen, the Crouch Enders. I done security for the May Fair for a bit, as well."