Neverwhere (London Below, #1)

by Neil Gaiman

Richard had been awed by Jessica, who was beautiful, and often quite funny, and was certainly going somewhere. And Jessica saw in Richard an enormous amount of potential, which, properly harnessed by the right woman, would have made him the perfect matrimonial accessory. If only he were a little more focused, she would murmur to herself, and so she gave him books with titles like Dress for Success and A Hundred and Twenty-Five Habits of Successful Men, and books on how to run a business like a military campaign, and Richard always said thank you, and always meant to read them.

He grinned, without humor. “Certainly. I’m a very busy man. Things to see. People to do.”

“There. There,” said the Marquis de Carabas, awkwardly, patting her shoulder. And he added, for good measure, “There.” He did not comfort well.

Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring—gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth . . .

Her skin was the color of burnt caramel, and her smile would have stopped a revolution.

And then, with more enthusiasm, she said, “Food!” She descended on the canapés like a small, smut-nosed, pixie-faced, red-haired, big-brown-leather-jacketed girl who hadn’t eaten properly in ages.

“Door,” called Richard. “Don’t do it. Don’t set it free. We don’t matter.” “Actually,” said the Marquis, “I matter very much. But I have to agree. Don’t do it.”