Ireland. It had been a long time since my weary essence had been pulled here; the last time had involved a lot of siege warfare, hungry humans, and for some reason, potatoes.

But this time, it wasn't as cold as last time, and I'd been summoned by a mustachioed little man who called me a "Faceless One". I explained, Hey, I'm Bartimaeus, G'Norso the Mighty, Sakhr-al-Jinni, and I have plenty of faces. By the time my head had morphed through the faces of various fauna, I realized my mustachioed munchkin of a master was heaping praise on me.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE praise, but my mustachioed master seemed to think I was some sort of... god. I cleared that up with my usual grace and skill.

"Shut your sniveling, idiot. I'm a djinni."

He didn't quite hear that. "BE FREE, GREAT FACELESS ONE, AND BRING DARKNESS TO THIS WORLD!"

I paused. "You're... freeing me?"

He nodded earnestly. "Yes, freeing you unto this world, so you may wreck havoc and-"

And as if that wasn't weird enough, the door of his cramped little hotel room banged open, to reveal a...

Skeleton?*

[ *Okay, hold on. I ratcheted through the seven planes. The skeleton was a skeleton on all except... what? On the seventh, a faint, twinkly nimbus of pretty red light played around his hat-bearing self. Definitely not a djinn; looked more like a human's Aura. In a way, he reminded me of my ol' pal Honorius the Afrit, enclosed in Gladstone's grumpy bones; except he wasn't anything from the Other Place. Maybe he was from Another Place?]

"Freeze, or I will do something terrible that you will regret more than me." He declared. I could sense the magic about him, but not the sort I've ever seen before. Oddly terrifying.

My snotball of a master fell, shrieking, "The Skeleton Detective! Master, help me!"

I looked around, before realizing that I was the Master. Wait. What?

The skeleton tilted his head at me. Since I felt a bit outclassed, being a flying serpent at the moment, I switched to an infinitely more well dressed version of Gladstone's bones.

"Oh." Said the skeleton, tilting his head. "Interesting."

I nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. About you, of course."

My master sniveled. "Let the world be reborn in darkness and-"

"Shut up." Said the skeleton and I in unison. He shut up.

"Not that I want to offend, but what are you?" said the skeleton, looking at me with empty eye-sockets.

I drew myself up. "I am Bartimaeus, greatest of the djinn!" *

[* Okay, greatest of the Fourth Level Djinn.]

"Djinn. As in, Arabian Nights?"

"Yep."

"Live in lamps Djinn?"

"Actually, imprisoned in lamps, but yep."

He nodded, then looked at my summoner, who was sweating like a virgin in a temple of Bacchus.* "Mr. Feel Nevermore, you are under arrest for attempting to destroy the world, and more importantly, wasting my time."

[* Roman god of wine and lust. I'll let you imagine what the temple tower looked like. Let's just say it was every man's jealousy.]

I raised a hand. "Firstly, that is a really stupid name. And secondly, what was with the destroying the world part?"

Feel Nevermore drew the courage to move his flabby lips. "My Master, you must take over my form to combat this fiend, and then we may bring about the end of mankind!"

I looked at him. I looked at the skeleton. The skeleton looked at me.

"Mr. Feel seems to think you are a chaotic god wanting to destroy mankind. Do you want to destroy mankind?" he said.

"Not much, no." I looked back at my deflating master. "Why did he summon me again?"

"Haven't the foggiest." admitted the skeleton.

"But, but... you aren't a Faceless One?" Feel whimpered.

I sighed. "No, and you can stick your Faceless Ones up your-"

"I think he gets it." intervened the skeleton. "Now, Mr. Feel, if you'll come here and put on these premium hand cuffs-"

"NEVER!"

With that rousing battle cry, Nevermore charged at the direction away from the skeleton. Which, as any apprentice magician would tell you, is a bad thing to do in a pentacle.

Half a millisecond later, I burped, feeling Mr. Feel adding to my essence. Not that I'd wanted to eat him, I mean, I have standards. But it was a reflex reaction, instinctive almost. Though the idea of him inside me was vaguely nauseating.

I turned, waiting to dissipate back to the Other World*, and paused when I saw the sharply dressed skeleton holding a revolver to my face.

[* Don't ask me why, but when you devour a human, you can't dissipate back to the Other Place till he's utterly devoured by your essence. That's why I usually kill people instead of eating them. Faster, if a little wasteful.]

"What?" I said, "He was annoying."

"True," he conceded, "But he was also my responsibility."

"You must be very irresponsible."

"So some people tell me."

We stared at each other. A solid minute passed. No one can be as still as a djinni and a skeleton looking at each other.

I broke the ice. "You know, you didn't introduce yourself."

He duffed his hat with his free hand. "Skulduggery Pleasant, detective extraordinaire."

"Good name. Really matches the whole skeleton vibe."

"Thank you." he said. "What now?"

I thought about it. "Now we wait till I return to the Other Place."

"I'll assume that's your dimension of existence." Skulduggery said.

"Yep again." I felt the tug, and rejoiced. "And there it is now."

With an obligatory wave I dissipated, pulled back into the Other Place, where-

Wait. This wasn't the Other Place.

I looked around. Red rocks everywhere. It seemed almost... alien. I flicked onto the planes, and by the time I got to the seventh, I could feel something...

I looked at the horizon and saw a metaphysical giant snaking towards me, a jumble of impossibilities and strange physics. A few hundred followed behind it.

"Oh," I croaked, "So that's a Faceless One."

Then, a giant bat rose into the alien sky and flew for it's measly life.

"You're late," observed Skulduggery.

Valkyrie Cain nodded. "You're a bad influence on me."

"I refuse to believe that. I am an excellent role-model."

She looked at with narrowed eyes. "You're no such thing."

He shrugged. "I met a djinni today."

She laughed. "No you didn't. You can't fool me this time. I'm not twelve any more. I know there aren't any genies."

"But I met one."

"No you didn't. You'll make me believe you, then I'll ask, 'Gee, did you really?' and you'll reply, 'Of course not, Valkyrie, what a silly notion!'. I know you too well."

She climbed into the Bentley, leaving him standing there, somewhat stupefied. After a moment, he shrugged again and joined her.

So, Skulduggery drove into the sunset, while in another, redder dimension a really bedraggled Djinni cursed his name multiple times, with considerable proficiency.