Neverwhere

Door. «We’re going to the British Museum.»
Hunter bit her lower lip. Then she shook her head. «I must stay in London Below,» she said. There was a tremble in her voice. Richard realized that this was the first time he had ever seen Hunter display any emotion other than effortless competence or, occasionally, tolerant amusement.
«Hunter,» said Door, bewildered. «You’re my bodyguard.»
Hunter looked ill at ease. «I am your bodyguard in London Below,» she said. «I cannot go with you to London Above.»
«But you have to.»
«My lady. I cannot. I thought you understood. The marquis knows.» Hunter will look after you as long as you stay in London Below, thought Richard. Yes.
«No,» said Door, her pointed chin pushed out and up, her odd-colored eyes narrowed. «I don’t understand. What is it?» she added, scornfully. «Some kind of curse or something?» Hunter hesitated, licked her lips, then nodded. It was as if she were admitting to having some socially embarrassing disease.
«Look, Hunter,» Richard heard his own voice saying, «don’t be silly.» For a moment he thought she was about to hit him, which would have been bad, or even to start crying, which would have been much, much worse. Then she took a deep breath, and said, in measured tones, «I will walk by your side when you are in London Below, my lady, and I shall guard your body from all harm that might befall you. But do not ask me to follow you to London Above. I cannot.» She folded her arms beneath her breasts, planted her legs a little apart, and looked for all the underworld like a statue of a woman not going anywhere, cast in brass and in bronze and in burnt caramel.
«Right,» said Door. «Come on, Richard.» And she set off up the steps.
«Look,» said Richard. «Why don’t we stay down here? We can find the marquis, and then all set off together, and—» Door was disappearing into the darkness above him. Hunter was planted at the foot of the stairs.
«I shall wait here until she returns,» Hunter told him. «You may go, or stay, as you will.»
Richard chased up the steps, as fast as he could, in the dark. Soon he saw Door’s lamp-light above him. «Wait,» he panted. «Please.» She stopped, and waited for him to catch up. And then, when he had caught up, and was standing next to her on a claustrophobically small landing, she waited for him to catch his breath. «You can’t just go running off like that,» said Richard. Door said nothing; the line of her lips became slightly more compressed; the angle of her chin was ever-so-slightly raised. «She’s your bodyguard,» he pointed out.
Door began to walk up the next flight of steps. Richard followed her. «Well, we’ll be back soon enough,» said Door. «She can start guarding me again then.»
The air was close, dank and oppressive. Richard wondered how you could tell if the air was bad, in the absence of a canary, and he contented himself with hoping that it wasn’t. «I think the marquis probably did know. About her curse, or whatever it is,» he said.
«Yes,» she said. «I expect he did.»
«He . . . » Richard began. «The marquis. Well, you know, to be honest, he seems a little bit dodgy to me.»
Door stopped. The steps dead-ended in a rough brick wall. «Mm,» she agreed. «He’s a little bit dodgy in the same way that rats are a little bit covered in fur.»
«Then why go to him for help? Wasn’t there someone else who could have helped you?»
«We’ll talk about it later.» She opened the scroll the earl had given her, glanced over the spidery handwriting, then rolled it back up. «We’ll be fine,» she said, decisively. «It’s all in here. We’ve just got to get into the British Museum. We find the Angelus, we get out. Easy. Nothing to it. Close your eyes.»
Richard closed his eyes, obediently. «Nothing to it,» he repeated. «When people say that on films, it always means that something awful is going to happen.»
He felt a breeze against his face. Something in the quality of the darkness beyond his closed eyelids changed. «So what’s your point?» asked Door. The acoustics had altered as well: they were in a bigger room. «You can open your eyes now.»
He opened his eyes. They were on the other side of the wall, he assumed, in what appeared to be a junk room. Not just any old junk room, though: there was something rather strange and special about the quality of this junk. It was the kind of magnificent, rare, strange, and expensive junk one would only expect to see somewhere like . . . «Are we in the British Museum?» he asked. She frowned, and seemed to be thinking, or listening. «Not exactly. We’re very near. I think this must be some kind of storage space or something.» She reached up to touch the fabric of a suit of antique clothing,