Neverwhere

They reminded Richard horridly of an exhibition of contemporary art Jessica had once taken him to: an exciting young artist had announced that he would break down all the Taboos of Art, and to this end, had embarked on a campaign of systematic grave robbery, displaying the thirty most interesting results of his depredations in glass cases. The exhibit was closed after the artist sold Stolen Cadaver Number 25 to an advertising agency for a six-figure sum, and the relatives of Stolen Cadaver Number 25, seeing a photo of the sculpture in the Sun, had sued both for a share of the proceeds and to change the name of the art piece to Edgar Fospring, 1919-1987 Loving Husband, Father and Uncle. Rest in Peace, Daddy. Richard had stared at the glass-bound corpses in their stained suits and damaged dresses with horror: he hated himself for looking, but he had not been able to turn away.

Mr. Croup smiled like a snake with a crescent moon stuck in its mouth, and his resemblance to Stolen Cadavers Numbers 1 to 30 was, if anything, increased by this. "What?" said the smiling Mr. Croup. "No Mister 'I'm So Clever and Know Everything' Marquis? No 'Oh, didn't I tell you? Whoops! I can't go upstairs?' Hunter?" He paused, for dramatic effect. "So paint me gray and call me a dire wolf if it isn't two little lost lambs, out on their own, after dark."

"You could call me a wolf, too, Mister Croup," said Mr. Vandemar, helpfully.

Mr. Croup clambered down from his plinth. "A gentle word in your woolly ears, little lambkins," he said. Richard looked around them. There had to be somewhere they could run. He reached down, clasped Door's hand, and looked around, desperately.

"No, please. Stay just where you are," said Mr. Croup. "We like you like that. And we don't want to have to hurt you."

"We do," said Mr. Vandemar.

"Well, yes, Mister Vandemar, once you put it like that. We want to hurt you both. We want to hurt you a lot. But that's not why we're here right now. We're here to make things more interesting. You see, when things get dull, my partner and I become restive and, hard as you may find this to believe, we lose our sunny and delightful dispositions."

Mr. Vandemar showed them his teeth, demonstrating his sunny and delightful disposition. It was unquestionably the most horrible thing that Richard had ever seen.

"Leave us alone," said Door. Her voice was clear and steady. Richard squeezed her hand. If she could be brave, so could he. "If you want to hurt her," he said, "you'll have to kill me first."

Mr. Vandemar seemed genuinely pleased by this. "All right," he said. "Thanks."

"And we'll hurt you, too," said Mr. Croup.

"Not yet, though," said Mr. Vandemar.

"You see," explained Mr. Croup, in a voice like rancid butter, "right now, we're just here to worry you."

Mr. Vandemar's voice was a night wind blowing over a desert of bones. "Make you suffer," he said. "Spoil your day."

Mr. Croup sat down at the base of Mr. Vandemar's plinth. "You visited Earl's Court today," he said, in what Richard suspected he fondly imagined were light and conversational tones.

"So?" said Door. She was edging away from them, now.

Mr. Croup smiled. "How did we know that? How did we know where to find you now?"

"Can get to you any time at all," said Mr. Vandemar, almost in a whisper.

"You've been sold out, little ladybird," said Mr. Croup to Door—and, Richard realized, to Door alone. "There's a traitor in your nest. A cuckoo."

"Come on," she said, and she ran. Richard ran with her, through the hall filled with junk, toward a door. At Door's touch, it opened.

"Bid them farewell, Mister Vandemar," said Mr. Croup's voice, from behind them.

"Bye bye," said Mr. Vandemar.

"No-no," corrected Mr. Croup. "Au revoir." He made a noise then—the cuck-koo cuck-koo that a cuckoo might make, if it were five and a half feet high and had a weakness for human flesh—while Mr. Vandemar, truer to his nature, threw back his bullet head and howled like a wolf, ghostly and feral and mad.

They were outside, in the open air, at night, running down a pavement in Bloomsbury's Russell Street. Richard thought his heart would pound its way through his chest. A large black car went by. The British Museum was on the other side of some high, black-painted railings. Discreet concealed lights illuminated the outside of the high white Victorian building, the huge pillars of the facade, the steps up to the front door. This was the repository of so many of the world's treasures, looted and found and rescued and donated over hundreds of years.

They reached a gate in the railings. Door grabbed it with both hands and pushed against it. Nothing happened. "Can't you make it open?" asked Richard.