Armageddon Outta Here - The World of Skulduggery Pleasant

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.”

Fawkes chuckled at the word, and the guests laughed along with him. Gordon didn’t know what the hell he was talking about any more.

“But all that is still to be revealed,” said Fawkes. “For now, eat, drink, talk, laugh … be merry. And give me a hip hip hooray for horror. Hip hip …”

“Hooray!”

They did that three times in all, and Gordon could only blink at the sudden shift in tone.

Fawkes gave a wave, everyone clapped, and the lights came back on. A few moments later, Fawkes made his entrance into the ballroom and the string quartet started up again.

Skulduggery looked at Gordon. “The man’s an idiot.”

Gordon nodded. “He does seem to be idiotic.”

“I never liked his books. Maybe he’s improved with age, but his early work is derivative with definite signs of pretention. And look, he’s coming this way. This will be a wonderful opportunity for me to make like the character I’ve come as, and disappear.”

Skulduggery moved backwards into the crowd, and by the time Gordon shifted his position to look around, he was gone.

The mask was ridiculous. He seized it with both hands, squeezed and pulled, and only managed to shift the eyeholes around to his ear. Now he couldn’t see anything.

“Help,” he said. He reached out and heard a crash. Another tray of drinks bites the dust. He stepped back, bumped into someone, heard the unmistakable intake of breath that accompanies a well-dressed lady spilling wine down the front of her dress. “Terribly sorry,” Gordon said, spinning quickly, hitting someone else and getting a muffled curse in response.

Suddenly there was a steadying grip on his arms, and he heard Susan DeWick say, “Hold on there, Fishface. You’re leaving a trail of destruction in your wake.”

“My head’s on sideways,” he explained.

“I can see that. Want me to take it off?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said Gordon. “Thank you.”

He felt her hands take hold of the mask. She twisted and pulled and fiddled, and just when Gordon’s claustrophobia was closing in on him, she yanked the Creature’s head off. Air rushed in, cooling the sweat on his forehead, and he gasped, laughed and ignored the glares he was getting from the people around him.

“You’re a lifesaver,” he said, and Susan laughed and handed him back the mask.

“I couldn’t watch you flail about any longer,” she said. “It was funny, sure, but also kind of sad and pathetic.”

“Sad and pathetic are two of my most charming traits.”

Susan smiled, a wicked look in her eye, but her response was curtailed by the arrival of Sebastian Fawkes.

“Susan,” Fawkes said, kissing her hand, “it is so good to see you again. I’m sure it’s been said already tonight by men more charming than I, but you look simply ravishing. Tippi Hedren, yes?”

“Got it in one,” Susan replied. “Thank you so much for the invitation, by the way. I was just telling Gordon here how much of an honour it is to be at one of your Halloween parties.”

“Ah, yes, Gordon Edgley,” said Fawkes, shifting his gaze and holding out his hand. “Very good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” said Gordon, smiling broadly as he removed one of his gloves. The handshake that followed was unsatisfying and dry. “I’ve loved your books since I was old enough to read,” he said. “I don’t wish to embarrass you, but you’ve been a huge influence on my own work.”

“Have I?” Fawkes said. “I haven’t read your books so I wouldn’t know if I’m supposed to be flattered or insulted.” He laughed. Susan laughed, too, but it was hesitant and accompanied by a frown. “And how are your sales, Gordon? Robust, I hope?”

“I can’t complain.”

“Well, you could,” said Fawkes, “but who would listen, eh? Sales can always be better, can’t they? It still astonishes me, even to this day, the kind of tripe that sells. Are you one of these exponents of splatterpunk that I’ve been hearing about lately? Writers who value vulgar gore over genuine chills?”

“I wouldn’t count myself as such, no.”

“Dreadful stuff. No finesse to their writing. Violence and bloodshed in graphic detail. Where’s the character? Where’s the theme? Where’s the nuance? Cheap shocks, cheap thrills. Blood spills, cheap thrills, eh?” He chuckled at his rhyme. “I’m sure you’re successful enough, Gordon. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Oh? There’s a sales criterion, is there?”

“Oh, absolutely,” said Fawkes. “My associates go through the numbers, pick out the writers who are currently in vogue, like you, writers who sell enough books, and their names go on the list.”

“I feel so special.”

Fawkes’s smile faded a little. “I’m sorry, Gordon? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I didn’t quite throw it.”

Now Fawkes’s smile was looking decidedly strained. He took a small spiral-bound notebook from his inside pocket, and flipped through it. “Edgley, Edgley … here we are. Gordon Edgley. Writer of, among others, Caterpillars. Oh, dear … was that the book about the killer caterpillars?”

Gordon reddened. “That’s it.”

“The killer caterpillars who eat people?”

“When they swarm, yes.”

“I’m interested – are caterpillars known to swarm?”

“I took … liberties with the science.”

“I can see that,” said Fawkes.

“They’re a mutant strain of caterpillar that feasts on human flesh.”

“Oh dear Lord.”

“I wrote it when I was nineteen,” said Gordon, a touch aggrieved. “It was my first published book.”

“You’re hugely fortunate it wasn’t your last, dear boy. Carnivorous caterpillars, eh? Have you written the sequel yet? Butterflies? Or the prequel? Larvae?”

Gordon ground his teeth. “They’re in the pipeline.”

Fawkes roared with laughter. “Oh, that is brilliant! That is wonderful!”

“Caterpillars is actually an excellent debut,” said Susan, “and it follows in a glorious tradition. You have Herbert’s The Rats, Hutson’s Slugs, Guy N. Smith’s Night of the Crabs, Halkin’s Blood Worm … Caterpillars stacks right up there with the best of them.”

“I’m sure it is esteemed company indeed. I apologise, Gordon, I didn’t wish to insult or belittle you. I’m sure you have enough critics belittling you without me judging you by my own standards.”

Gordon frowned. “That’s an apology?”

“It is nevertheless a pleasure to meet you,” said Fawkes, smiling again, “and thank you for coming. Stick around – I have a feeling it will be a memorable night for you both. If you’ll excuse me …?”

He walked away.

“You’re excused,” Gordon muttered.

Susan looked at him. “Wow.”

“Yes.”

“Wow.

“So that was Sebastian Fawkes, eh?”

Susan gave a small shrug. “If it’s any consolation, whenever I meet him, he’s lovely to me. Always calls me ravishing.”

“He didn’t call me ravishing.”

“I noticed that.”

“Maybe he has something against Irish people.”

“He probably just hates you,” said Susan.

“I think he’s racist.”

“Are Irish people a race?”

Gordon frowned. “Aren’t we?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Damn. Maybe he just hates me, then. It’s probably because I’m better looking than him.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Susan.

“What? You seriously think he’s better looking than me? He’s old!”

“He looks great.”

“He’s been around forever!”

“Doesn’t look a day over fifty.”

“Fifty is old,” said Gordon sullenly.

“You won’t be saying that when you’re fifty.”

Gordon peered at her, making sure she was telling the truth. “You really think he’s good-looking?”

“I really do.”

“So why does he hate me?”

“I don’t know. Did you sleep with his wife?”

Gordon looked around. “Which one’s his wife?”

Susan laughed. “Hey, I think you’re a great writer, and I loved the hell out of Caterpillars, and every book since just gets better and better, and I’m a ravishing young lady. So who are you going to believe – me or him?”

“Well,” Gordon said, “you do have better taste.”

“See? Now quit your bellyaching and dance with me, you subaquatic fool.”

Gordon stopped drinking halfway through the night. He had a longstanding policy – never drink too much in front of rivals and colleagues. Also never drink too much when you don’t know where the zip is on your costume. That was an important policy, too, but it was a new one, with limited applicability. Still, what these policies allowed him was the chance to stand back and watch as fellow authors got drunk, and the drunker they got, the funnier it all became. Petty jealousies reared their heads. Comments got snippier. Compliments became barbed. There were many backs behind which many things were said. It was all highly amusing.

He started to notice the crowd being thinned. Very slightly at first, with certain people – all at the low end of the pecking order – being escorted into another room. When it was done, the guests had been split into two groups, with Gordon staying in the main ballroom. Walking with his mask tucked under his arm, he searched for Skulduggery, whom he had glimpsed charming various people throughout the night. Surely Skulduggery would not have allowed himself to be escorted away.

Gordon noticed that the music had stopped and, in fact, the string quartet had left. He was about to ask somebody the time when he saw the waiters and waitresses leaving the ballroom, stepping out as if synchronised, and closing the doors behind them.

The conversation died, and all attention was turned to Sebastian Fawkes, standing where the quartet had been playing. He waited for absolute, solemn silence.

“My fellow writers,” Fawkes said, “and here I speak only to the uninitiated … welcome to the darkest of secrets.”

Gordon stifled a groan.

“As writers, it is our solemn duty to take our readers by the hand and lead them down a barely lit path, on either side of which lie perils, waiting in the shadows. This we do out of a sense of duty. Someone has to shine a light into the dark, after all.”

Gordon examined his mask, wondering if he could put it back on by himself. Then maybe he could look as bored as he felt.

“I was approached, years ago, by a being,” Fawkes continued, “an … entity. A man, but … something more than a man. And this being, this magnificent presence, showed me a way to use my talents and be rewarded … not just financially, but also spiritually. Physically. He showed me a way to draw life energy – anguish and pain and emotional suffering – from the hearts and minds of my readers, and to use that energy to keep me successful, young and virile. Behold, Argento.”

OK, now Gordon was deciding he should be paying attention. Had Fawkes just talked about how virile he was? How was that appropriate ballroom conversation? He became aware of someone moving through the crowd. An excited thrill rippled by, utterly failing to thrill Gordon himself. He stood on his tiptoes, but all he saw were the guests parting before a man in a white toga. He was pale and heavily muscled, and brightness seemed to spill out of him, although that may just have been the spotlight that followed his every step.

Fawkes continued talking as the big man in the toga moved gracefully through the room like a body-building angel. “He showed me the symbols to hide in the words on the page, in the arrangement of the letters, the order of the sentences, of the paragraphs. These mystical symbols not only act upon the readers’ subconscious, convincing them to buy multiple copies of my books, but they also draw forth energy, which then flows into me and keeps me young …”

Fawkes smiled beatifically at the people around him. “Fifteen per cent of which goes to Argento, naturally, with twenty per cent for foreign territories.”

Gordon had gone cold inside his Creature from the Black Lagoon costume. Fawkes was talking here about magic. Real, actual, supposed-to-be-kept-secret-from-mortals magic.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Fawkes said. “I thought it, too. I asked the same questions you’re asking. We all did. Is this right? Is this fair? But don’t we deserve this, after all we sacrifice for them? As writers? We hold a mirror to the face of society, a scalpel to its dark underbelly … Don’t we deserve a little extra for the depths to which we must plunge?”

Gordon spotted Susan in the crowd, looking mystified.

“You have been invited here tonight so that you may become one of us. So that you may become family. We will share with you the secrets, the symbols you need to put in your books. You will learn the different types of pain, the particular strain of anguish that is most effective. You will be shown how to get your readers to care about your characters so much that when those characters die the readers are traumatised far past the point of tears. You will be instructed on the best way to bombard your readers with emotions, with feelings.”

Susan stepped forward. “So you make your readers suffer, and you draw strength from that?”

“Their pain makes me strong,” said Fawkes, smiling. “And your readers’ pain can make you strong.”

“And you actually believe everything you’re saying?”

“You will believe, too, my dear.”

“Uh-huh,” said Susan. “You said something about draining their life energy. Isn’t that, like, bad?”

“No, not necessarily. Is it exploitative? Yes. But fatalities are few.”

“Fatalities? Are you saying you’ve killed your readers?”

“It is regrettable, obviously. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We’re refining the process even now. Argento is supplying me with new, safer symbols. We want our readers living a long life … so they can keep buying our books!” He chuckled.

Susan looked around. “I don’t get what’s going on here. Are you all this stupid?”

“There’s always one,” Fawkes said, his smile growing sad. “Always one who needs convincing.”

The crowd parted and a gap opened between Susan and Argento.

“I can feel your doubt,” Argento said, his voice soft yet piercing.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Susan replied.

“Doubt, uncertainty … these are feelings laced with a bitter aftertaste. Powerful, in their own way, and made all the more so by the fear that always follows.”

“Uh-huh,” said Susan.

Argento held out his hand. “I will drink from you now.”

Susan gasped, her body sagging, and Gordon tried to push through the tightly packed guests.

Argento’s hand glowed and he closed his eyes. “Delicious,” he said. “Doubt turns to realisation … to the truth … and the truth is a scary thing. Let me taste your fear.”

Susan had gone ashen-white, and still Gordon fought to get to her, and then suddenly there was a cry from above and everyone turned, looked up at the balcony from which Skulduggery had just thrown the spotlight operator. He stood there, looking down at them all.

“Terribly sorry,” he said, “but I’m going to have to bring an end to tonight’s festivities. It’s just … I’m disappointed. I wanted tonight to be special. I’m here with my friend, I’m surrounded by writers and I wanted to talk about books and stories and creativity and I wanted to overhear conversations about social responsibilities and the writer as outcast, but … but instead I get this.

“I get an empathy vampire and a group of idiots who are working with him. And he looks ridiculous. I mean we’re all here dressed up in costumes, I understand that, but he wants you to think that this is how he dresses normally. It’s not. No one dresses like that normally. Why would they? I met a vampire once, an ordinary vampire, who dressed like Lestat. I told him what I’m telling this one – stop reading books about vampires.”

Fawkes cleared his throat and looked at Argento, who stepped forward with a dramatic swish of his toga.

“You talk like you know my kind,” Argento said. “You, who are nothing to me but an insect, would dare stand upon that balcony and attempt to wound me with insults. I am made of sturdier stuff, my friend. I cannot be hurt by words, nor by blade, nor by bullet. I am eternal. I am the night. I am the day. I am forever. And who are you?”

Skulduggery let his sunglasses fall, then clicked his fingers and set fire to the bandages around his head. They went up in a blaze that died as suddenly as it began, revealing the skull beneath. “I’m Skulduggery Pleasant.”

“Oh, hell,” said Argento.

“And you’re under arrest.”