“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