Chapter 4! Zeno's "thing" and Hitler. And more gory-ness and disturbing mindsets. The rating had to go up…We've been learning a lot about WWII and Hitler and stuff, and I've been thinking so much about it I had to write something that was relative. And though Hitler was never mentioned in the Bartimaeus Trilogy…

And can I say that I'm rather proud of myself? This is the most regularly I've ever updated anything.


"You're disgusting."

"It's not disgusting. It's taste."

"Then your taste is disgusting."

"Oh, come on, Bartimaeus! We all have our favorites. Queezle has her thing for queens and serving girls, and you have your thing for child prodigies. I mean, look in the mirror. You're still wearing him."

I was glad there were no mirrors around.

"So," Zeno continued patiently, as if he was lecturing me---me! Some younger, sicker, grotesquely-minded young upstart lecturing me! "So, if you can have your thing about genius-children, and Queezle can have her lesbian thing, why can't I have a thing of my own?"

"That's completely different," I protested, even though I knew it completely wasn't. "I don't have a thing for---"

"I know, I know already!" He waved a hand impatiently at me. "You've explained this so many times: Ptolemy was unique, and the two of you had some kind of bond-thing that defeats all space and time. Which, by the way, is the kinkiest statement I've heard from you in this, and any, millennia. Look," He amended kindly when he saw the look on my face. "It was just one boy. One little boy walking down the street!"

"There was contact. He didn't even know you're not human. And you left a mess. And you're still wearing him!"

I was referring, of course, to the boy in the alley from just a few minutes before. The long-limbed, blue-eyed, blonde thing had waltzed past us as we had innocently been standing watch near a construction sight. (1) I had been wearing Ptolemy's form (2), and Zeno is his mystery-Italy boy form, and as soon as Zeno saw the boy he promptly abandoned his post (3) and followed him all the way down the street, around the corner, and into the alleyway.

And by the time I got there…well. It wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I'll leave it at that, shall I?

Zeno looked vaguely mystified. "Well, of course I'm still wearing him. After all that effort, I would think that I deserve to."

Ah, yes. All the effort of following a boy fifteen meters down the street, getting a good look at him, and ripping his throat out. And then proceeding to…well. Again, I don't think I'll continue. "You didn't have to put so much effort into it. All you had to do was memorize his looks for later."

"I would have forgotten. You know what a bad memory I have for details. When it comes to these things, I just have to take what I can get."

"That's still no reason to rip him to pieces," I gestured at the mess behind us. "Look at this! Are you planning on cleaning this up? Because I'm sure not."

"So leave it. It looks nice."

"It looks like the beginnings of a mass genocide. Do you have any idea what ours is going to do when she hears about it? She'll know it was you."

"Not necessarily…I mean, do you really think? For serious?" Zeno had become rather fascinated with his new hands while I was talking.

"For deadly serious, buster. Get to work."

"Why? I'm not worried. You can clean it up if you're so scared…coward," He stuck a tongue out at me.

"I'll tell her it was you."

"Tattle-tale. Fine, have your way." He made a big show of rolling up his sleeves and surveying his work.

"I like blondes," Zeno explained slowly as he worked. "Hitler rubbed off on me with his talk about the Aryan race being superior. Gold hair and blue eyes and long legs and all. I can't look at one without getting chills. Good chills, I mean."

"Which is why you just tore an Aryan candidate apart."

"Well, the Aryans weren't real. Hitler's weren't, anyway. And this one wasn't even German. So there." It was a bad excuse, and we both knew it. He looked down at the chunks floating in the blood. "What am I supposed to do with these, anyway? Chuck 'em over the wall?"

"I don't know. Didn't you think about that before you killed him?"

"Of course I didn't. I was thinking about blondes. And Hitler." He puffed out his cheeks. "We could just eat this. That would get rid of it easy." He saw the look on my face and raised his palms defensively. "Okay, fine, I'll eat it. Is that better?"

"No!"

"Don't try to act all high and finicky, Bartimaeus. Blood has a lovely texture to it, you know. Or don't you? It's a good day to find out."

I glared at him. "No thank you."

He gave me an odd look, but shrugged. "Suit yourself. I guess we'll just have to leave this here and get into a bother with the mistress after all."

"I refuse to get in trouble for your mess! Bury it or something!"

"But it's all asphalt and bricks. People will notice if they get dug up and put back in."

"Better than them noticing this! Someone could walk around this corner any second!"

"Someone might. Who cares? There's no guarantee anyone will ever find out it was us." He began to look thoughtful. "If we found another person---"

"No. I'm not letting you have a field day."

"You assume so much. I only meant, if we could find someone else to take the blame, we'd be in the clear. That's all."

"That's the---" I stopped to think. I hated to admit it, but he had a point.

He looked expectantly at me. "The...?"

"The first intelligent thing you've said today." He seemed surprised. "What? The idea has merit."

"You mean it has genius," He said smugly. He began looking up and down the street. "My geni-osity."

"If you were a genius, none of this would have happened. Just go look for a scape-goat, all right? And don't kill him!" I called after him as he barreled down the sidewalk, nearly tripping over every crack.

I sighed. Zeno really had no grace. And no tact. And no subtlety. And no brains…

I looked back at the alley, and the pools of blood hidden in the shadows. Something floated towards me, and I squinted to see what it was.

An eyeball. An electric blue eyeball stared at me from the ground. One side of it was beginning to deflate, the fluid in it leaking into the blood-bath, and the pupil was diluted is fear.

No taste. Zeno had no taste whatsoever.

1-Standing watch for a construction site is one of the dullest jobs you can possible give a higher being such as myself. For Zeno, not being so high or nearly as intelligent, it probably wasn't so bad.

2-Something I should assume that you assume now, perhaps?

3-Not that I blame him or anything. Again, standing watch for a construction site is spectacularly boring. I was probably about to find a good excuse to leave myself. But the point is, I didn't. He did.