Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere: A Novel

Neverwhere I have never been to St. Johns Wood. I dare not. I should be afraid of the innumerable night of fir trees, afraid to come upon a blood red cup and the bearing of the wings of the Eagle.The Napoleon of Netting Hill, G. K. Chesterton
If ever thou gavest hosen or shoonThen every night and allSit thou down and put them onAnd Christ receive thy soulThis aye night, this aye nightEvery night and allFire and fleet and candlelightAnd Christ receive they soulIf ever thou gavest meat or drinkThen every night and allThe fire shall never make thee shrinkAnd Christ receive thy soulThe Lyke Wake Dirge (traditional)
PROLOGUEThe night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.He had begun the evening by enjoying himself: he had enjoyed reading the good-bye cards, and receiving the hugs from several not entirely unattractive young ladies of his acquaintance; he had enjoyed the warnings about the evils and dangers of London, and the gift of the white umbrella with the map of the London Underground on it that his friends had chipped in money to buy; he had enjoyed the first few pints of ale; but then, with each successive pint he found that he was enjoying himself significantly less; until now he was sitting and shivering on the sidewalk outside the pub in a small Scottish town, weighing the relative merits of being sick and not being sick, and not enjoying himself at all.Inside the pub, Richards friends continued to celebrate his forthcoming departure with an enthusiasm that, to Richard, was beginning to border on the sinister. He sat on the sidewalk and held on tightly to the rolled-up umbrella, and wondered whether going south to London was really a good idea.You want to keep a eye out, said a cracked old voice. Theyll be moving you on before you can say Jack Robinson. Or taking you in, I wouldnt be surprised. Two sharp eyes stared out from a beaky, grimy face. You all right?Yes, thank you, said Richard. He was a fresh-faced, boyish young man, with dark, slightly curly hair and large hazel eyes; he had a rumpled, just-woken-up look to him, which made him more attractive to the opposite sex than he would ever understand or believe.The grimy face softened. Here, poor thing, she said, and pushed a fifty-pence piece into Richards hand. Ow long you been on the streets, then?Im not homeless, explained Richard, embarrassed, attempting to give the old woman her coin back. Pleasetake your money. Im fine. I just came out here to get some air. I go to London tomorrow, he added.She peered down at him suspiciously, then took back her fifty pence and made it vanish beneath the layers of coats and shawls in which she was enveloped. Ive been to London, she confided. I was married in London. But he was a bad lot. Me mam told me not to go marrying outside, but I was young and beautiful, although youd never credit it today, and I followed my heart.Im sure you did, said Richard. The conviction that he was about to be sick was starting, slowly, to fade.Fat lot of good it done me. I been homeless, so I know what its like, said the old woman. Thats why I thought you was. What you going to London for?Ive got a job, he told her proudly.Doing what? she asked.Um, Securities, said Richard.I was a dancer, said the old woman, and she tottered awkwardly around the sidewalk, humming tunelessly to herself. Then she teetered from side to side like a spinning top coming to rest, and finally she stopped, facing Richard. Hold out your hand, she told him, and Ill tell yer fortune. He did as he was told. She put her old hand into his, and held it tightly, and then she blinked a few times, like an owl who had swallowed a mouse that was beginning to disagree with it. You got a long way to go... she said, puzzled.London, Richard told her.Not just London... The old woman paused. Not any London I know. It started to rain then, softly. Im sorry, she said. It starts with doors.Doors?She nodded. The rain fell harder, pattering on the roofs and on the asphalt of the road. Id watch out for doors if I were you.Richard stood up, a little unsteadily. All right, he said, a little unsure of how he ought to treat information of this nature. I will. Thanks.The pub door was opened, and light and noise spilled out into the street. Richard? You all right?Yeah, Im fine. Ill be back in a second. The old lady was already wobbling down the street, into the pelting rain, getting wet. Richard felt he had to do something for her: he couldnt give her money, though. He hurried after her, down the narrow street, the cold rain drenching his face and hair. Here, said Richard. He fumbled with the handle of the umbrella, trying to find the button that opened it. Then a click, and it blossomed into a huge white map of the London Underground network, each line drawn in a different color, every station marked and named.The old woman took the umbrella, gratefully, and smiled her thanks. Youve a good heart, she told him. Sometimes thats enough to see. you safe wherever you go. Then she shook her head. But mostly, its not. She clutched the umbrella tightly as a gust of wind threatened to tug it away from her or pull it inside out. She wrapped her arms around it and bent almost double against the rain and the wind. Then she walked away into the rain and the night, a round white shape covered with the names of London Tube stationsEarls Court, Marble Arch, Blackfriars, White City, Victoria, Angel, Oxford Circus...Richard found himself pondering, drunkenly, whether there really was a circus at Oxford Circus: a real circus with clowns, beautiful women, and dangerous beasts. The pub door opened once more: a blast of sound, as if the pubs volume control had just been turned up high. Richard, you idiot, its your bloody party, and youre missing all the fun. He walked back in the pub, the urge to be sick lost in all the oddness.You look like a drowned rat, said someone.Youve never seen a drowned rat, said Richard.Someone else handed him a large whisky. Here, get that down you. Thatll warm you up. You know, you wont be able to get real Scotch in London.Im sure I will, sighed Richard. Water was dripping from his hair into his drink. They have everything in London. And he downed the Scotch, and after that someone bought him another, and then the evening blurred and broke up into fragments: afterward he remembered only the feeling that he was about to leave somewhere small and rationala place that made sensefor somewhere huge and old that didnt; and vomiting interminably into a gutter flowing with rainwater, somewhere in the small hours of the morning; and a white shape marked with strange-colored symbols, like a little round beetle, walking away from him in the rain.The next morning he boarded the train for the six-hour journey south that would bring him to the strange gothic spires and arches of St. Pancras Station. His mother gave him a small walnut cake that she had made for the journey and a thermos filled with tea; and Richard Mayhew went to London feeling like hell.

Neverwhere ONE She had been running for four days now, a harum-scarum tumbling flight through passages and tunnels. She was hungry, and exhausted, and more tired than a body could stand, and each successive door was proving harder to open. After four days of flight, she had found a hiding place, a tiny stone burrow, under the world, where she would be safe, or so she prayed, and at last she slept.
Mr. Croup had hired Ross at the last Floating Market, which had been held in Westminster Abbey. Think of him, he told Mr. Vandemar, as a canary.Sings? asked Mr. Vandemar.I doubt it; I sincerely and utterly doubt it. Mr. Croup ran a hand through his lank orange hair. No, my fine friend, I was thinking metaphoricallymore along the lines of the birds they take down mines. Mr. Vandemar nodded, comprehension dawning slowly: yes, a canary. Mr. Ross had no other resemblance to a canary. He was hugealmost as big as Mr. Vandemarand extremely grubby, and quite hairless, and he said very little, although he had made a point of telling each of them that he liked to kill things, and he was good at it; and this amused Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. But he was a canary, and he never knew it. So Mr. Ross went first, in his filthy T-shirt and his crusted blue-jeans, and Croup and Vandemar walked behind him, in their elegant black suits.There are four simple ways for the observant to tell Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar apart: first, Mr. Vandemar is two and a half heads taller than Mr. Croup; second, Mr. Croup has eyes of a faded china blue, while Mr. Vandemars eyes are brown; third, while Mr. Vandemar fashioned the rings he wears on his right hand out of the skulls of four ravens, Mr. Croup has no obvious jewelery; fourth, Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing at all alike.A rustle in the tunnel darkness; Mr. Vandemars knife was in his hand, and then it was no longer in his hand, and it was quivering gently almost thirty feet away. He walked over to his knife and picked it up by the hilt. There was a gray rat impaled on the blade, its mouth opening and closing impotently as the life fled. He crushed its skull between finger and thumb.Now, theres one rat that wont be telling any more tales, said Mr. Croup. He chuckled at his own joke. Mr. Vandemar did not respond. Rat. Tales. Get it?Mr. Vandemar pulled the rat from the blade and began to munch on it, thoughtfully, head first. Mr. Croup slapped it out of his hands. Stop that, he said. Mr. Vandemar put his knife away, a little sullenly. Buck up, hissed Mr. Croup, encouragingly. There will always be another rat. Now: onward. Things to do. People to damage.