“I do,” gasped Richard. “You can search me, if you like. Look.” He fumbled in his pockets—noticing something hard and unfamiliar in his back pocket, but there was no time to investigate that now—and he pulled out the front-door key of his old flat. He dragged himself to his feet and staggered over to Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. “Here.”
Mr. Croup reached over and took the key from him. “Good gracious me,” he said; scarcely glancing at it. “I find myself utterly taken in by his cunning ploy, Mister Vandemar.” He passed the key to Mr. Vandemar, who held it up between finger and thumb, and crushed it like brass foil. “Fooled again, Mister Croup,” he said.
“Hurt him, Mister Vandemar,” said Mr. Croup.
“With pleasure, Mister Croup,” said Mr. Vandemar, and he kicked Richard in the kneecap. Richard fell to the ground, in agony. As if from a long way away, he could hear Mr. Vandemar’s voice; it appeared to be lecturing him. “People think it’s how hard you kick that hurts,” Mr. Vandemar’s voice was saying. “But it’s not how hard you kick. It’s where. I mean, this’s really a very gentle kick . . . “— something slammed into Richard’s left shoulder. His left arm went numb, and a purple-white blossom of pain opened up in his shoulder. It felt like his whole arm was on fire, and freezing, as if someone had jabbed an electrical prod deep into his flesh, and turned up the current as high as it would go. He whimpered. And Mr. Vandemar was saying, ” . . . but it hurts just as much as this—which is much harder . . . ” and the boot rammed into Richard’s side like a cannonball. He could hear himself screaming.
“I’ve got the key,” he heard Door say.
“If only you had a Swiss army knife,” Mr. Vandemar told Richard, helpfully, “I could show you what I do with all the different bits. Even the bottle-opener, and the thing for getting stones out of horses’ hooves.”
“Leave him, Mister Vandemar. There will be time enough for Swiss army knives. Does she have the token?” Mr. Croup fumbled in Door’s pockets, and took out the carved obsidian figure: the tiny Beast the angel had given her.
Hunter’s voice was low and resonant. “What about me? Where’s my payment?”
Mr. Croup sniffed. He tossed her the fishing pole case. She caught it one-handed. “Good hunting,” said Mr. Croup. Then he and Mr. Vandemar turned and walked off down the twisting slope of Down Street, with Door between them. Richard lay on the floor and watched them go, with a terrible feeling of despair spreading outward from his heart.
Hunter knelt on the ground and began to undo the straps on the case. Her eyes were wide and shining. Richard ached. “What is it?” he asked. “Thirty pieces of silver?” She pulled it, slowly, from its fabric cover, her fingers caressing it, stroking it, loving it. “A spear,” she said, simply.
It was made of a bronze-colored metal; the blade was long, and it curved like a kris, sharp on one side, serrated on the other; there were faces carved into the side of the haft, which was green with verdigris, and decorated with strange designs and odd curlicues. It was about five feet long, from the tip of the blade to the end of the haft. Hunter touched it, almost fearfully, as if it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“You sold Door out for a spear,” said Richard. Hunter said nothing. She wetted a fingertip with her pink tongue, then gently ran it across the side of the head of the spear, testing the edge on the blade; and then she smiled, as if she were satisfied with what she felt. “Are you going to kill me?” Richard asked. He was surprised to find himself no longer scared of death—or at least, he realized, he was not scared of that death.
She turned her head, then, and looked at him. She looked more alive than he had ever seen her; more beautiful, and more dangerous. “And what kind of challenge would I have hunting you, Richard Mayhew?” she asked, with a vivid smile. “I have bigger game to kill.”
“This is your Great-Beast-of-London-hunting spear, isn’t it?” he said.
She looked at the spear in a way that no woman had ever looked at Richard. “They say that nothing can stand against it.”
“But Door trusted you. I trusted you.”
She was no longer smiling. “Enough.”
Slowly, the pain was beginning to abate, dwindling to a dull ache in his shoulder and his side and his knee. “So who are you working for? Where are they taking her? Who’s behind all this?”
“Tell him, Hunter,” rasped the marquis de Carabas. He was holding a crossbow pointed at Hunter. His bare feet were planted on the ground; his face was implacable.
“I wondered whether you were as dead as Croup and Vandemar claimed you were,” said Hunter, barely turning her head. “You struck me as a hard man to kill.”
He inclined his head, in an ironic bow, but his eyes did not move, and his hands remained steady. “And you strike me that way too, dear lady. But a crossbow bolt to the throat, and a fall of several thousand feet may prove me wrong, eh? Put the spear down and step back.” She placed the spear on the floor, gently, lovingly; then she stood up and stepped back from it. “You may as well tell him, Hunter,” said the marquis. “I know; I found out the hard way. Tell him who’s behind all this.”
“Islington,” she said.
Richard shook his head, as if he were trying to brush away a fly. “It can’t be,” he said. “I mean, I’ve met Islington. He’s an angel.” And then, almost desperately, he asked, “Why?”
The marquis’s eyes had not left Hunter, nor had the point of the crossbow wavered. “I wish I knew. But Islington is at the bottom of Down Street, and at the bottom of this mess. And between us and Islington is the labyrinth and the Beast. Richard, take the spear. Hunter, walk in front of me, please.”
Richard picked up the spear, and then, awkwardly, using the spear to lean on, he pulled himself up to a standing position. “You want her to come with us?” he asked, puzzled.
“Would you prefer her behind us?” asked the marquis, drily.
“You could kill her,” said Richard.
“I will, if there are no other alternatives,” said the marquis, “but I would hate to remove an option, before it was entirely necessary. Anyway, death is so final, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” asked Richard.
“Sometimes,” said the marquis de Carabas. And they went down.