"The thing with disguises," Skulduggery retorted just as he and Fletcher entered the shop, "is that if someone has to come up and ask questions at all, it's a bad disguise. Until further notice, Gabe."
"So we've gotta be quick, yeah?" Fletcher glanced around the piles of clothes on one of the tables, and his face fell. "Okay. What should I be looking for?"
"A wig." Skulduggery began flipping through a basket of old scarves, grateful once again that Gabe had managed to rescue his hat from the church. It was the small things in life that kept Skulduggery stable and amused in equal turns. "Not a powdered judicial one, please."
"You mean like the frizzy hair you had before?" Fletcher picked up a shoe sitting on the table with two fingers, stared at it, and then dropped it with a look of disgust. "Why frizzy hair?"
Skulduggery didn't answer, stopping instead next to a suit rack while he wrapped a thick black scarf around the lower half of his jaw. With a forlorn glance at the suits, none of which would fit his skeletal frame, Skulduggery forced himself to turn away and search for a good pair of gloves. He hadn't noticed until they were all back at Kenspeckle's lab, but when the Necromantic shadows melted away Gabe's illusion, they also melted away the suit. While a priest's robes would certainly catch peoples' attention, the outfit at least hid that Skulduggery had all the substance of a coat rack. He would just have to rely on Gabe's sunny smile and Fletcher's teenage youth to dissuade people from asking awkward questions.
"Oh my god."
Skulduggery turned to see Fletcher, full of disbelief, holding up a powdered, judicial wig. A powdered, judicial wig very much like what Skulduggery had hoped he wouldn't find.
... Really? Skulduggery wanted to ask. Or pray, apparently.
He tried a quick mental calculation of the odds, frowned at the result, and turned to Gabe. "Would you mind relaying a message for me? I appreciate the humour as much as the next man, but if He would kindly stay out of my mind, I'd be very grateful."
~~
Ghastly frowned as he was led out into the sunlight, tried to rephrase the earlier question in his own mind, and gave up. Dad's smooth dodge of an answer was probably deliberate anyway. A man was entitled to his secrets, especially since the pair were still technically strangers.
An idea occurred to Ghastly as they stood there. Wasn't this how Skulduggery and Gordon met? With Gordon stone drunk, Skulduggery carrying him back to his New York hotel, and the writer accidentally pulling Skul's disguise off as they went?
A part of Ghastly's mind struggled to make the connection it was pretty sure existed in the story. It came up with nothing.
"Fun?" Ghastly stared down at the bright asphalt of the sidewalk, willing the world to stop spinning for just one moment so he could think. "'S there a sports thing at the stadium?" Shouting and excitement might sober him up in a good, slow way. And Ghastly never said no to watching a sports game...
He noticed a line of ants scurrying from one crack in the sidewalk down into the gutter, and suddenly they seemed like the most fascinating thing in the world. Ghastly watched them curiously, almost intently, wondering what could possibly be important enough in their miniature world to make them hurry like that.
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"So we've gotta be quick, yeah?" Fletcher glanced around the piles of clothes on one of the tables, and his face fell. "Okay. What should I be looking for?"
"A wig." Skulduggery began flipping through a basket of old scarves, grateful once again that Gabe had managed to rescue his hat from the church. It was the small things in life that kept Skulduggery stable and amused in equal turns. "Not a powdered judicial one, please."
"You mean like the frizzy hair you had before?" Fletcher picked up a shoe sitting on the table with two fingers, stared at it, and then dropped it with a look of disgust. "Why frizzy hair?"
Skulduggery didn't answer, stopping instead next to a suit rack while he wrapped a thick black scarf around the lower half of his jaw. With a forlorn glance at the suits, none of which would fit his skeletal frame, Skulduggery forced himself to turn away and search for a good pair of gloves. He hadn't noticed until they were all back at Kenspeckle's lab, but when the Necromantic shadows melted away Gabe's illusion, they also melted away the suit. While a priest's robes would certainly catch peoples' attention, the outfit at least hid that Skulduggery had all the substance of a coat rack. He would just have to rely on Gabe's sunny smile and Fletcher's teenage youth to dissuade people from asking awkward questions.
"Oh my god."
Skulduggery turned to see Fletcher, full of disbelief, holding up a powdered, judicial wig. A powdered, judicial wig very much like what Skulduggery had hoped he wouldn't find.
... Really? Skulduggery wanted to ask. Or pray, apparently.
He tried a quick mental calculation of the odds, frowned at the result, and turned to Gabe. "Would you mind relaying a message for me? I appreciate the humour as much as the next man, but if He would kindly stay out of my mind, I'd be very grateful."
~~
Ghastly frowned as he was led out into the sunlight, tried to rephrase the earlier question in his own mind, and gave up. Dad's smooth dodge of an answer was probably deliberate anyway. A man was entitled to his secrets, especially since the pair were still technically strangers.
An idea occurred to Ghastly as they stood there. Wasn't this how Skulduggery and Gordon met? With Gordon stone drunk, Skulduggery carrying him back to his New York hotel, and the writer accidentally pulling Skul's disguise off as they went?
A part of Ghastly's mind struggled to make the connection it was pretty sure existed in the story. It came up with nothing.
"Fun?" Ghastly stared down at the bright asphalt of the sidewalk, willing the world to stop spinning for just one moment so he could think. "'S there a sports thing at the stadium?" Shouting and excitement might sober him up in a good, slow way. And Ghastly never said no to watching a sports game...
He noticed a line of ants scurrying from one crack in the sidewalk down into the gutter, and suddenly they seemed like the most fascinating thing in the world. Ghastly watched them curiously, almost intently, wondering what could possibly be important enough in their miniature world to make them hurry like that.