“It actually isn’t a monster after all,” said Valkyrie. “It’s a cute little furry thing with big eyes. No fighting necessary.”

Skulduggery looked at her. “So who do I get to punch?”

Valkyrie looked at Myosotis, who shrugged. “No one,” Valkyrie said.

Skulduggery sighed. He picked up his hat and put it on, then walked over to Owain, whom he kicked. “Well,” he said, straightening his tie, “it’s better than nothing.”

The Wondergul Adventures of Geoffrey Scrutinous

This story was written for Charlie Smith, who won a competition to create a new character to appear in Mortal Coil.

The character Charlie came up with was Geoffrey Scrutinous, and this is how Charlie described him in his competition entry:

“Wears khaki shirts (Indiana Jones style), short trousers and maroon socks with leather sandals. Lots of beads and chains, lots of rings on one hand. Has a small goatee and wild frizzy hair with piercing blue eyes. A frantic, disbelieving nature and is very erratic in both appearance and personality. He sorts out disturbances in the non-magical population. He has the ability to get you to agree with anything he says, without you realising it.”

You’ll have seen Geoffrey in Mortal Coil, of course. But as an added bonus, here’s a little story all about him…

Thanks, Charlie!

he cop frowned. “But there’s a dead body in there. I have to… I can’t let anyone into the house. It’s my job to preserve the scene for the forensics people, to investigate and… and solve the crime…”

Geoffrey Scrutinous nodded. “And you will do a wonderful job of preserving and investigating, I know you will. But for the moment, you want to delay all this hustle and bustle.”

“I do?”

Scrutinous nodded. “Oh, yes, very much so. I have some friends coming, they’re special investigators, and they have to look around a bit first.”

“Who are they?” asked the cop.

“Just some friends. A tall man and a teenage girl. They’re very good at this kind of thing.”

“I’m not sure I should be allowing this.”

Scrutinous smiled, maintained eye contact and poured more magic into his words. “It’s perfectly fine. You know it is. You can feel it, that reassuring feeling that everything is going to be fine. You can feel it, can’t you?”

“I… I suppose… They’re good, then?”

“Very good.”

“You think they’ll be able to crack the case?”

“If anyone can, they can.”

The cop nodded. “Good. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I have no idea how someone could be run over by a train in their own living room.”

Scrutinous patted the cop’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “They handle this kind of thing all the time.”