Chapter 3! Zeno's artistic talents. It's all in the technique. I figure every djinn's got one.

I stared. Only Zeno could think of something like this.

And only Zeno had. The whole thing was literally saturated with his signature. On the walls, collecting in puddles on the floor, dripping from the ceiling, soaking the furniture, seeping into cracks and crannies to search for some means of escape. The whole room, bathed in thick, wet red.

And you can bet I'm not talking about port wine.

I nudged one of the corpses with my toe, trying to get a better look at the victim. To hope that it was someone my master had been acquainted with was asking a little much, but still…

As it turned out, my hopes were worthwhile after all. My current master's cousin's contorted features stared at me in blank horror from the ground.

Ptolemy's lip curled.

"You couldn't even bother to clean up after yourself, could you?" I asked no one in particular.

"Do you think I should?"

I didn't need to turn around to see his smirk, or watch him lick the red off his fingers-turned-claws.

"I thought it gave it a nice effect," He continued lazily. "Very ominous."

"Very cliché. Why don't you clean this up and write some nice, innocent graffiti on the wall instead?"

I could feel him frown. "Why?"

"I don't know. Irony?"

"Huh." He got bored with leaning on the door (or maybe finished licking the mess off his hand) and came to stand next to me.

"I like it," He said brightly. "Red's my favorite color. And these guys were real arses about the whole thing, screaming the whole time. Makes the effort worth it, you know."

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Effort?"

He gave me a vaguely wounded look. "Getting it to stay up there on the ceiling like that isn't easy, you know. See that even coat up there? You don't get it like that by flinging handfuls of the stuff over your head. That's imp work." He smirked then, his expression becoming ingratiating. "Want to know my technique?"

"Not particularly. It's not my style."

"You're squeamish?" He pressed his face close to mine, beach-glass eyes reflecting my jet ones hollowly. "Coward."

My head jerked back almost on instinct; he still reeked of blood. Or maybe it was just the room as a whole. "I'm not squeamish. I simply have better ways to invest my time. Goodnight," I added in afterthought as I made for the door.

He leapt in front of me. "You came here for a reason. What did you want?"

I considered brushing him off, but changed my mind, opting for a more coquettish approach instead. The Egyptian boy batted his eyelashes and said sweetly, "I wanted to see you, darling. I've missed you and your humor so."

Zeno brushed a few stray wisps of blonde away from his eyes. He looked vaguely pleased.

The smile curled off my face like a peel off a banana. "Don't flatter yourself, you dunce. I came here for them. And since they're no longer available…" I made as if to shoulder past him, but he stepped in front of me again. He looked like he was ruminating something carefully. I waited patiently for him to speak.

Finally, he said, "By the way, mine says that yours is next." (1)

I blinked. "And?"

"And what? Yours is next."

"And you are telling me this because…?"

He glared at me exasperatedly. "You're killing the mood." (2)

"I humbly apologize."

He sighed. "Fine. Don't play along. You don't even have to thank me for my generous hint. You need all the preparation time you can get before an attack."

I shrugged disarmingly. "Prepare for what? I'm sure you'll do fine." I feinted to the left and then ducked right, evading his blockade. As I shifted into a small owl, I called back: "Mine badly needs some exercise, so I personally would suggest making him run a little first. Get his heart pumping. Who knows?" I glanced dubiously at the blood-soaked room. "Maybe you can make yourself another little masterpiece. That would please you, wouldn't it?"

He yelled something after me, but I couldn't hear him over the wind.(3) I'm sure it was just crass nonsense anyway.

1-Just to be sure I'm not losing you with a rather bad piece of grammar; the use of "mine" and "yours" is simply an abbreviation of a phrase no entity is particularly fond of: "my master", or, "my mistress". It's slangy and not commonly used by higher beings, but did Zeno care? Of course not, because he's a crass, crude, sadistic, super-bravado, overly macho…ooh, I really need to stop. Long rants are unhealthy, no matter how richly they are deserved.

2-He's even overly dramatic! It drives me insane sometimes, I could just---no. No. Need to stop ranting. Okay. I'm alright.

3-Not completely true. I heard the word "devious" in there, a long with a few naughtier phrases not worth quoting.