Armageddon Outta Here - The World of Skulduggery Pleasant

Gordon leaned in closer, careful not to topple over in his costume, and said, quite loudly and clearly, “Invitations to these parties are rarer than an honest coin in a politician’s pocket.”

His companion, dressed as he was in a 1930s suit and tie, his head covered in bandages exactly like Claude Rains from The Invisible Man, turned slightly, so that Gordon could see his own costume’s reflection in those sunglasses.

“Are you having a stroke?” Skulduggery Pleasant asked. “You keep repeating the same phrase. Is it hot in there? It looks hot.”

“It is,” Gordon admitted. “But I’m not having a stroke. I’m too young. I’m only thirty-five, for God’s sake. Though I may start hallucinating, and thirst will likely become an issue before too long.”

“How do you take the mask off?”

“I’m not entirely sure. It took two people to get me into this thing. They probably told me how to take it off, but the mask makes it hard to hear properly.”

Skulduggery said something.

Gordon leaned in again. “What?”

“I said what about toilet breaks?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. Can you see a zip anywhere?”

“It looks rather seamless.”

“Damn it. And now I want to pee. I didn’t before you brought it up, but now I can feel how full my bladder is. Oh dear God. If I wet myself in front of all these writers, they’ll never let me live it down.”

Skulduggery nodded. “Writers are small-minded like that.”

A waiter came over. Gordon went to wave him away, but his huge flipper hand caught the edge of the serving tray and sent glasses of champagne flying. Even before they’d crashed to the ground, Gordon was spinning on his heels and lurching awkwardly away.

Skulduggery fell easily into pace beside him. “It’s hard to look innocent when you’re the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

“I suppose that’s the one advantage of this mask,” Gordon responded. “Nobody knows who I am.”

“Gordon Edgley!”

Gordon had to turn his whole body to look round at whoever had called his name. She came out of the crowd like a bespoiled vision in mint green – 1960s skirt and sweater, her blonde hair tied up, scratches all over her face, and attached to her jacket half a dozen plastic birds.

“Tippi Hedren,” Gordon said at once, smiling even though she couldn’t see it.

“What gave it away?” Susan said, standing on tiptoes to kiss both cheeks of his mask. “It was either this or Grace Jones from Vamp, which would have raised a lot more eyebrows, believe me. Who’s your friend?”

Susan was a typical upstate New Yorker – talking a mile a minute.

“This is my associate, Mr Pleasant,” Gordon said. “Mr Pleasant, may I introduce Susan DeWick, author of the Chronicles of the Dead series.”

“Mr Pleasant,” Susan said, shaking Skulduggery’s gloved hand. “How delightfully formal we suddenly are.”

“Miss DeWick, it is a genuine pleasure to meet you,” Skulduggery responded, his voice beginning to work on her already. “I’ve been a fan ever since Gordon recommended you. Your latest book is one of your best.”

“Oh, you’re just saying that because it’s true,” Susan said, and laughed. She looked back to Gordon. “So, Fishface, is this your first time here? I’ve been waiting years for an invitation. When it finally came, I have to admit, I squealed a little. Just a little, mind you, for I am a horror writer, and so I comport myself with absolute solemnity at all times.”

“Oh, naturally,” Gordon said, really wishing he wasn’t wearing a stupid mask. “When did you get to London?”

“Wednesday,” she said. “I thought travelling all this way for a silly costume party would have appalled my dear late mother, but my dad insists that even she had heard of Sebastian Fawkes and the extravagant bashes he throws. The who’s who of the horror elite, all in one place. Kind of gives you an illicit little thrill, doesn’t it? Mr Pleasant, are you a writer also? I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the name …”

“I am a mere reader,” Skulduggery said. “Gordon allows me to help him with his research and in return I live out my writer fantasies vicariously through him.”

“Oh, I like a man with writer fantasies,” Susan said, flashing him a smile.

Gordon felt the sudden need to step between them, but doubted he could manage it dressed like a big fish-monster.

A heavily bearded Wolfman swooped upon Susan, nuzzling her neck, and she laughed and allowed herself to be dragged away. She looked back before vanishing into the crowd, but Gordon didn’t know if she was looking at him, or Skulduggery.

“She’s nice,” Skulduggery said.

Gordon made a noise that sounded like agreement.

“She looks a little like Grace Kelly.”

“Now listen here,” Gordon said, “I didn’t invite you to this thing so that you could sweep Susan DeWick off her feet. If anyone is going to be sweeping her off her feet, it’ll be me, in a fitting homage to the Gill-man and Julie Adams. Admittedly, it won’t be easy. Co-ordination is not what this suit was designed for, and I do have a bad back, and all this heat is making me feel quite weak so I may pass out and drop her, but just the same—”

“No sweeping her off her feet,” Skulduggery said, clearly amused. “You have my word. Besides, why would I antagonise a friend who has taken me to the first party I’ve been to in years?”

“You have the Requiem Ball, don’t you?”

“Full of sorcerers talking about Sanctuary business,” Skulduggery said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “It’s an evening of carefully chosen words and awkward silences, where nobody wants to mention the name Nefarian Serpine in case I suddenly get it into my head to kick down his door and kill him. As if that thought isn’t constantly swirling through my head as it is. No, Gordon, you have brought me to a proper party, of mortals. Of mortal writers, no less. This is beyond wonderful. This is just what I’ve been looking for.”

“Well, I’m glad,” said Gordon. “We weren’t supposed to bring guests, but I did suspect that you might appreciate it. And if Fawkes finds out and banishes me to the horror wilderness for the rest of my career, it will have been worth it to pay you back, in some small way, for everything you’ve done for me.”

“Why, Gordon, I never noticed this before, but you are such a sentimental fool.”

Gordon laughed. “Indeed I am, my friend, and proud of it.”

The lights suddenly dimmed and the string quartet stopped playing as a spotlight fell upon a balcony high above, on which stood their host for the evening. Sebastian Fawkes was tall and thin with high, narrow cheekbones. His black hair was shot through with startling streaks of silver, as was his goatee beard. Even his eyebrows, arched to perfection, each had a slash of silver. Apart from the Dracula costume he wore, he looked, Gordon realised, exactly like his author photo from twenty years ago. The crowd fell into a deep and respectful hush.

“Horror,” Fawkes said, casting his gaze down upon the room. He had a deep, musical quality to his voice that made him sound like an English Vincent Price. “Fear. Dread. These are the commodities in which we trade. In return for the devotion of our readers, we conjure for them the stuff of nightmares.”

He paused, allowing his words to permeate the air. A tad melodramatic, but Gordon didn’t mind melodrama every now and then – just as long as it didn’t get too pretentious.

“We are the dark guardians of the soul,” Fawkes continued. “The new millennium is a mere twelve years away, and we stand between Scylla and Charybdis to hold back the tide of apathy and indifference that threatens, even now, to engulf us all. We offer glimpses into madness, we bring their hands close to the black fires of terror … and then we guide them, safely, back to the light. Ours is a noble calling.

“Where once we would have sat round the campfire telling our stories, now we sit at our typewriters or our word processors. The world is our campfire now – but while you may think we have banished our demons with our modern technologies, with our VCRs and our CD players and our MTV, they still lurk, out there, in the dark. And we are their hunters.”

He bowed his head and the ballroom erupted in applause. Gordon clapped his webbed hands along with everyone else, glad that he was wearing a fish-mask so no one could see him cringe.

Fawkes motioned for silence. “And here we are, gathered together on this most special of nights. A lot of you have been here before. A lot of you already stand within the inner circle. You know the secrets. You have reaped the rewards.”

A low murmur rippled through Fawkes’s audience. People were nodding and smiling softly.

“But others are here tonight for the very first time,” Fawkes continued. “They stand on the cusp of enlightenment. They stand on the edge of wonder. We have seven uninitiated writers among us, writers who have proven their worth, who are ready to be welcomed into our … family.”