Once, as a small boy walking home from school, Richard had encountered a rat in a ditch by the side of the road. When the rat saw Richard it had reared up onto its hind legs and hissed and jumped, terrifying Richard. He backed away marvelling that something so small had been so willing to fight something so much larger than itself. Now Anaesthesia stepped between Richard and Varney. She was less than half his size, but she glared at the big man and bared her teeth, and she hissed like an angry rat at bay. Varney took a step backwards. He spat at Richard’s shoes. Then he turned away, and, taking the knot of people with him, he walked across the bridge and into the dark.
“Are you all right?” asked Anaesthesia, helping Richard back to his feet.
“I’m fine,” he said. “That was really brave of you.”
She looked down, shyly. “I’m not really brave,” she said. “I’m still scared of the bridge. Even they were scared. That was why they all went over together. Safety in numbers.”
“If you are crossing the bridge, I will go with you,” said a female voice, rich as cream and honey, coming from behind them. Richard was not able to place her accent. He turned, and standing there was a tall woman, with long, tawny hair, and skin the color of burnt caramel. She wore dappled leather clothes, mottled in shades of gray and brown. She had a battered leather duffel bag over her shoulder. She was carrying a staff, and she had a knife at her belt and an electric flashlight strapped to her wrist. She was also, without question, the most beautiful woman that Richard had ever seen.
“Safety in numbers. You’re welcome to come with us,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “My name’s Richard Mayhew. This is Anaesthesia. She’s the one us who knows what she’s doing.” The rat-girl preened.
The leather woman looked him up and looked him down. “You’re from London Above,” she told him.
“Yes.” As lost as he was in this strange other-world, he was at least learning to play the game. His mind was too numb to make any sense of where he was, or why he was here, but it was capable of following the rules.
“Travelling with a rat-speaker. My word.”
“I’m his guardian,” said Anaesthesia, truculently. “Who are you? Who do you owe fealty to?”
The woman smiled. “I owe no man fealty, rat-girl. Have either of you crossed Night’s Bridge before?” Anaesthesia shook her head. “Well. Isn’t this going to be fun?”
They walked toward the bridge. Anaesthesia handed Richard her candle-lamp. “Here,” she said.
“Thanks.” Richard looked at the woman in leather. “Is there anything, really, to be scared of?”
“Only the night on the bridge,” she said.
“The kind in armor?”
“The kind that comes when day is over.” Anaesthesia’s hand sought Richard’s. He held it tightly, her tiny hand in his. She smiled at him, squeezed his hand. And then they set foot on Night’s Bridge and 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 . . .
With each step they took the light of the candle became dimmer. He realized the same thing was happening to the leather woman’s flashlight. It felt not so much as if the lights were being turned down but as if the darkness were being turned up. Richard blinked, and opened his eyes on nothing—nothing but darkness, complete and utter. Sounds. A rustling, a squirming. Richard blinked, blinded by the night. The sounds were nastier, hungrier. Richard imagined he could hear voices: a horde of huge, misshapen trolls, beneath the bridge . . .
Something slithered past them in the dark. “What’s that?” squeaked Anaesthesia. Her hand was shaking in his.
“Hush,” whispered the woman. “Don’t attract its attention.”
“What’s happening?” whispered Richard.
“Darkness is happening,” said the leather woman, very quietly. “Night is happening. All the nightmares that have come out when the sun goes down, since the cave times, when we huddled together in fear for safety and for warmth, are happening. Now,” she told them, “now is the time to be afraid of the dark.” Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. The night was complete. It was then that the hallucinations started.
He saw a figure falling toward him through the night, burning, its wings and hair on fire.
He threw up his hands: there was nothing there.
Jessica looked at him, with contempt in her eyes. He wanted to shout to her, tell her he was sorry.
Place one foot after another.
He was a small child, walking home from school, at night, down the one road with no streetlights. No matter how many times he did it, it never got any easier, never got any better.
He was deep in the sewers, lost in a labyrinth. The Beast was waiting for him. He could hear a slow drip of water. He knew the Beast was waiting. He gripped his spear . . . Then a rumbling bellow, deep in its throat, from behind him. He turned. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, it charged at him, through the dark.
And it charged.
He died.
And kept walking.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, it charged at him, over and over, through the dark.
There was a sputter, and a flare so bright it hurt, making Richard squint and stagger. It was the candle flame, in its lemonade-bottle holder. He had never known how brightly a single candle could burn. He held it up, gasping and gulping and shaking with relief. His heart was pounding and shuddering in his chest.
“We would appear to have crossed successfully,” said the leather woman.
Richard’s heart was pounding in his chest so hard that, for a few moments, he was unable to talk. He forced himself to breathe slowly, to calm down. They were in a large anteroom, exactly like the one on the other side. In fact, Richard had the strange feeling that it was the same room they had just left. Yet the shadows were deeper, and there were after-images floating before Richard’s eyes, like those one saw after a camera flash. “I suppose,” Richard said, haltingly, “we weren’t in any real danger . . . It was like a haunted house. A few noises in the dark . . . and your imagination does the rest. There wasn’t really anything to be scared of, was there?”
The woman looked at him, almost pityingly; and Richard realized that there was nobody holding his hand. “Anaesthesia?”