Skulduggery Pleasant got out first. He was tall and thin, and wore a dark blue suit and black gloves. His hair was brown and wavy, and his cheekbones were high and his jaw was square. His skin was slightly waxy and his eyes didn’t seem capable of focusing, but it was a pretty good face, all things considered. One of his better ones.
Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling.
“Stop doing that,” she sighed.
“Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his.
“Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.
“I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said.
They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched downwards. “Am I smiling now?”
“No.”
“Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up.
Valkyrie handed him his hat. “Why don’t you get rid of the face? You’re not going to need it in here.”
“You’re the one telling me how much I should practise,” he said, but slid his gloved fingers beneath his shirt collar anyway, tapping the symbols etched into his collarbones. The face and hair retracted off his head, leaving him with a gleaming skull.
[…]
With nothing left for them to do, they walked back to the Bentley. Valkyrie buckled her seatbelt as they pulled out on to the road. Skulduggery was using the façade again. Ghastly Bespoke’s façade gave him his own face every time, minus the scars, but Skulduggery hadn’t been able to decide on one look, so China made it so that his façade changed every time. Same cheekbones, same jaw, but all the rest was brand-new.