Skulduggery Pleasant

Just Getting The Party Started

A flame flickered on lighting up the sorcerer's gloved hands and dark sleeves of a suit, "Skulduggery?" I click my fingers and a flame burns a little brighter and whiter than the orange flame before me, I inch closer and all I could see is a white skull. He raises his boney fingers to his teeth and flicks his flame off, I turn slowly, still holding my flame in hand trying to adapt to the darkness. Ghastly comes forward from the darkness into the light then Tanith's face comes forward with a smile spread across it. "What's going on? How is it so dark?" I look towards Skulduggery for answers but he just steps back and he disappears into the darkness. As I turn back to Ghastly he disappears as well. Tanith just stands there in confusion, her smile fading.

A minute later Tanith and I sit against each others back, then we hear footsteps.

I click a flame on in my other hand and make the surroundings light up. Ghastly and Skulduggery stand there in defensive stances then realize it's just us, "We just circled the place. No way out but those doors we came in." Ghastly whispers,

"Wait, could you start at the beginning? Pulling us into the dark and leaving us isn't really anything to be thankful for," Tanith says as she steps closer to them,

"Didn't you think something was off in the party?"

"Well not really, it's a party," I say then lower the intensity of my flames.

"The people aren't familiar, we would know at least more than half the Elementals who come to these events and I think the host would allow people to leave early if we wanted to." Skulduggery says sternly in a low voice it makes me nervous.
"Okay then explain how and why we're in the dark." Tanith folds her arms and glares at them,

"We're under a cloaking sphere at the back of the party, no one pays attention to the darkest areas of a party. You can't see anything because we're behind something or in something to be precise. We have to go around this 'room' to get to the doors, okay?" Here comes the problem...

"But you don't know where the around part is do you," Ghastly's mouth opens then closes. We all know the answer to this. No exit. Great.

"There must be a wall at least, what about the place you just pulled us from?"

"We tried, can't get back to it." Ghastly stares at Tanith like he's about to lose her. Then something clicks in my head.

"I have an idea," I say.

"Oh no. " Is all Skulduggery says.

"Ready?" Tanith kneels down then starts putting her up in haste with Ghastly kneeling behind her, tense as always. I turn to Skulduggery who's kneeling just next to Ghastly and nods to me. Then I turn my flame off completely the immediately put both hands on the cloaking sphere and turn it to shrink the invisible circle around us to start revealing our positions. When I close it up, the darkness eventually disappears completely and the party comes into view with low lights, we're at the back of the party as we always were. The crowd now talking quietly between each other. Why was it so dark?

"Ah! There you are!" a voice calls out. A man in black and white walks towards us now standing huddled together and without noticing my hands glowed a low white colour. I hid my hands away and tried to calm down as the man came closer.

"So good of you to come to our anniversary party. Drew talked of you and friends very often." I stared at the man, Tanith inched forward in front of me and Ghastly and Skulduggery stared as well. "Who are you?" I asked slowly.
"He clearly didn't speak of his own family did he, I'm his father. By now I figure you know about his activities outside of his personal life and so I'd like to personally welcome you to our 10th anniversary. " He smiles gleefully and his arms rises ever so slightly behind his back and suddenly every pair of eyes in the area are on us.

"For what exactly?" I say as I eye everyone in the yard carefully, their faces are blank like they're being controlled. Drew's father brings his hands in front of them and clasps them together and says, "Well Drew makes up many names for what we do. Formally people call us the people of 'Manipulation and Interpretation of Flexible Subjects'. " then grins. Psychopathic Cult.

"Right. Very Appropriate isn't it?" Skulduggery says as he takes his revolver out of his coat.

"Yes I might say so myself. Don't bother with the weapon detective, you are quite outnumbered here." he spreads his arms outwards, displaying his guests as if they're trophies.

"I'd like to argue against that," Skulduggery says quietly. I look at him with a questioning look. What is he on about? "although before I do, may we know more about this... group of yours," he nods towards the statue crowd.

"Well there are no surprises, you know most of it. We experiment with objects with or with no magic to improve its efficiency however we need magic to do so, the cost of our lives of course. So you could probably tell some of us look quite old when in reality, they are quite young. Very recently though I had discovered something... extraordinary," He looks towards the sky as if he's gotten the idea from somewhere. Oh no.

"One of my staff had experimented on the old subjects that Nye had in stock of his warehouse. Wasn't easy getting transporting them of course, it was quite a pain really," he gives a genuine smile and it hits me.

They experimented on their bloody dead brains.

I let my hands glow brighter and brighter with shadows wrapping between the white light, most of my anger channeling my magic and Tanith grabs a dagger hidden from her boots and holds them by the blade ready to throw, Ghastly just stands there and folds his arms, daring anyone who comes forth towards him.

Drew's father's smile disappears suddenly and turns to walk around but I stop him with just a flick of a few fingers. He face-plants and I smile. The crowd moves in sync together towards us. Skulduggery shoots a couple shots in the head. "Are we really going to kill them?" I yell out.

"Well, they're already dead if they're from Nye so to speak." He fires a couple more shots and Ghastly barely breaks a sweat while punching the people to their second death. As I pull shadows and lighting from my fingertips, Tanith adapts without her sword which she does ever so perfectly.

She works better with her sword.

More and more bodies become limp around us, unconscious or experiencing their second death. Drew's father tries to get up but I send my shadows on him, forcing him to stay on the ground. As I walk towards him I look down on him, returning the same smile he gave us.

"Out numbered are we?" Skulduggery comes up beside me, nodding at my efforts of holding him down and I smile in inside.

I look so badass with this dress.

*Final Chapter coming soon*