Roo stifled the urge to shake her head in disbelief. Though she'd been witness to his violence time and time again, it never failed to unnerve her. She was just glad she was on the safe side of this well of seemingly endless and unwavering brutality.
As Giovanni swung the demon around, smashing its head against the wall opposite to the bannister, Roo scurried up the now-clear stairs and made her way down the hall, accompanied by the sounds of otherworldly shrieking and indiscriminate walloping below. The princess's room was denoted by an entire series of protection sigils that had been carved along the grain of the wood, too subtle for most to notice. She rapped her hand against it and called, "Feofil, Princess Tyrneamitore?"

Pari had wadded up one of her silk scarves and was helping Feo hold it to his bleeding nose when a voice echoed from beyond the door. She turned to look at it, then back to Feofil, raising her eyebrows.

Pari discarded the silk offal on the ground. She'd wiped most of the blood on her hands into her voluminous skirts - it melded with the velvet - but her palms still felt sticky and cold. She wondered if the feeling would ever go away or if every time she looked down, she'd see dark streaks splashed across her pale skin.

Roo was standing on the other side, gazing towards the stairs, where a screech cut through the air before being silenced by an unholy crash. She turned to look at Feofil, then Pari, who straggled behind him. "We need to go," she said again. "Giovanni will take care of it."
"Giovanni?" Pari asked numbly. "The baker guy?"
"Um... yes."

"Outside," she said. "Better than in here, for now. Once Gio clears it out, I can ward the place again. More wards, stronger ones. I should have done that before..." now she seemed to be muttering to herself.
"Let me get a scarf," Pari exhaled, heading back into the room. Roo looked up, scrutinizing. "You said there were more guests in the house?"

"We'll talk about it more on our way out," she indicated, heading for the stairs again. As they made their way down they were treated to the unmistakeable sound of a bone being crunched, though it was the creature - not Giovanni - that uttered a cry of rage.
"There's no way your boyfriend is just a baker." Pari uttered. Roo's lips pursed into a tense line. "He's, um... he has lots of talents."

“Wow.” Pari spoke first, her voice carefully bland. “Full dismemberment.”
“Oh,” Roo breathed, then gingerly approached. Well. The demon wouldn’t be getting up again. “Looks like a routine possession. She probably disappeared years ago… I don’t recognize her. But we should identify her, then check the records so that her so her family can get closure… if they’re still around, that is.”

"Maybe," she said. "I'm not sure. Possession is less common nowadays, but it used to be a big problem a few decades ago, when I was still a child. Things were very bad then. But I'll do some research... talk to some people... and this blood," she gestured to the floor, "This will be good for wards. I'll use it while it's still wet. Do you have a bowl, or..?"
"What, are you going to bleed her corpse?" Pari asked, nose wrinkling. Roo shrugged again, but it was looking like a yes.

"Not in any place that concerns me... yet." she tacked on.

She set the lantern on his chest of drawers as she passed it by on the way to the bed, then spun on her heel and collapsed beside him. “I guess it was pretty exciting.”

"How did you kill it?" Pari asked as Roo wandered off to retrieve her blood bowl. She'd been feeling a little bad about stabbing Melat, but what Giovanni had done wiped her own guilt away. The man hadn't spared a single piece of her, and though she was pointedly keeping her gaze off the ground, she was curious.

"She's still getting the bowl. We have a second." Pari refuted. "Do you do this a lot? Kill demons for the Altirians?"