Neverwhere

"It's a message," she said, when she gave it to him. "From the marquis de Carabas."

Richard was sure he had heard the name before. "That's nice," he said. "Out of postcards, was he?"

"This is quicker."

He passed the lights and the noise of the Virgin megastore, and the shop that sold souvenir London police helmets and little red London buses, and the place next door that sold individual slices of pizza, and then he turned right.

"You have to follow the directions written on here. Try not to let anyone follow you." Then she sighed, and said, "1 really shouldn't involve you this much."

"If I follow these directions . . . will it get you out of here faster?"

"Yes."

He turned into Hanway Street. Although he had taken only a few steps from the well-lit bustle of Oxford Street, he might have been in another city: Hanway Street was empty, forsaken; a narrow, dark road, little more than an alleyway, filled with gloomy record shops and closed restaurants, the only light spilling out from the secretive drinking clubs on the upper floors of buildings. He walked along it, feeling apprehensive.

" ' . . . turn right into Hanway Street, left into Hanway Place, then right again into Orme Passage. Stop at the first streetlight you come to . . . ' Are you sure this is right?"

"Yes."

He did not remember an Orme Passage, although he had been to Hanway Place before: there was an underground Indian restaurant there his friend Gary liked a lot. As far as Richard could remember, Hanway Place was a dead end. The Mandeer, that was the restaurant. He passed the brightly lit front door, the restaurant's steps leading invitingly down into the underground, and then he turned left . . .

He had been wrong. There was an Orme Passage. He could see the sign for it, high on the wall.

ORME PASSAGE Wl

No wonder he hadn't noticed it before: it was scarcely more than a narrow alleyway between houses, lit by a sputtering gas-jet. You don't see many of those anymore, thought Richard, and he held up his instructions to the gaslight, peering at them.

" 'Then turn around thrice, widdershins'?"

"Widdershins means counterclockwise, Richard."

He turned, three times, feeling stupid. "Look, why do I have to do all this, just to see your friend. I mean, all this nonsense . . . "

"It's not nonsense. Really. Just—humor me on this, okay?" And she had smiled at him.

He stopped turning. Then he walked down the alley to the end. Nothing. No one. Just a metal garbage can, and beside it something that might have been a pile of rags. "Hello?" called Richard. "Is anyone here? I'm Door's friend. Hello?"

No. There was no one there. Richard was relieved. Now he could go home and explain to the girl that nothing had happened. Then he would call in the appropriate authorities, and they would sort it all out. He crumpled the paper into a tight ball, and tossed it toward the bin.

What Richard had taken for a pile of rags unfolded, expanded, stood up in one fluid motion. A hand caught the crumpled paper in midair.

"Mine, I believe," said the marquis de Carabas. He wore a huge dandyish black coat that was not quite a frock coat nor exactly a trench coat, and high black boots, and, beneath his coat, raggedy clothes. His eyes burned white in an extremely dark face. And he gri

"Um," said Richard. "Er. Um."

"You are Richard Mayhew, the young man who rescued our wounded Door. How is she now?"

"Er. She's okay. Her arm's still a bit—"

"Her recovery time will undoubtedly astonish us all. Her family had remarkable recuperative powers. It's a wonder anyone managed to kill them at all, isn't it?" The man who called himself the marquis de Carabas walked restlessly up and down the alley. Richard could already tell that he was the type of person who was always in motion, like a great cat.

"Somebody killed Door's family?" asked Richard.

"We're not going to get very far if you keep repeating everything I say, now, are we?" said the marquis, who was now standing in front of Richard. "Sit down," he ordered. Richard looked around the alley for something to sit on. The marquis put a hand on his shoulder and sent him sprawling to the cobblestones. "She knows I don't come cheap. What exactly is she offering me?"

"Sorry?"

"What's the deal? She sent you here to negotiate, young man. I'm not cheap, and I never give freebies."

Richard shrugged, as well as he could shrug from a supine position. "She said to tell you that she wants you to accompany her home—wherever that is—and to fix her up with a bodyguard."

Even when the marquis was at rest, his eyes never ceased moving. Up, down, around, as if he were looking for something, thinking about something. Adding, subtracting, evaluating. Richard wondered whether the man was quite sane. "And she's offering me?"

"Well. Nothing."

The marquis blew on his fingernails and polished them on the lapel of his remarkable coat. Then he turned away. "She's offering me. Nothing." He sounded offended.

Richard scrambled back up to his feet. "Well, she didn't say anything about money. She just said she was going to have to owe you a favor."

The eyes flashed. "Exactly what kind of favor?"

"A really big one," said Richard. "She said she was going to have to owe you a really big favor."

De Carabas gri

"Can I ask a question?" said Richard.

"Certainly not," said the marquis. "You don't ask any questions. You don't get any answers. You don't stray from the path. You don't even think about what's happening to you right now. Got it?"

"But—"

"Most important of all: no buts," said de Carabas. "And time is of the essence. Move." He pointed into the depths revealed by the open manhole cover. Richard moved, clambering down the metal ladder set into the wall beneath the manhole, feeling so far out of his depth that it didn't even occur to him to question any further.

Richard wondered where they were. This didn't seem to be a sewer. Perhaps it was a tu

Richard ran to catch up. "Let's see . . . " said de Carabas. "I'll need to get her to the market. The next one's in, mm, two days' time, if I recall correctly, as of course I unfailingly do. I can hide her until then."

"Market?" asked Richard.

"The Floating Market. But you don't want to know about that. No more questions."

Richard looked around. "Well, I was going to ask you where we are now. But I suppose you were going to refuse to tell me."

The marquis gri