When he was twenty-four, Artemis drew first blood.

It had always been a fascination for him, really. The way blood fell when it was spilt from someone else's wound. Perhaps he had seen so much death that he was desensitised to it, or he was too far around the bend to know the difference from fantasy and reality. Or it could have just been that it was a fascination, a not-so-healthy one.

Damian Hurst had been in his year at Saint Bartleby's, the resident trouble-maker and pretty boy; the type that always seemed to be swamped amidst a crowd of Catholic schoolgirls from the school not too far down the road. For years, Artemis had been his pet project so to speak, the one subject to all of the taunts and abuse. It had never bothered the genius much, but it proved an annoyance when things needed to be done. It was ten years later and Damian would probably never recognise Artemis, but Artemis was too smart to lift a grudge.

Damian was seated in his usual stool at his usual pub with his usual drink. Sometimes he'd get up and have a game of pool, but tonight there was a bloke up the bar who had been staring at him all night. And Damian Hurst was the sort of man who didn't like to be stared at.

"Can I help you?" he asked when the stranger followed him outside.

"Damian Hurst. Long time, no see," said the stranger, in the sort of voice a person couldn't forget. There was no mistaking it, even when you weren't sober; it could only belong to Artemis Fowl the Second.

"Fowl," Damian replied, a malicious little smile in place. "Long time, mate."

"Mate," Artemis said with an amused smile, "how quaint. Damian Hurst, I presume?"

"How 'bout it then, Fowl? I seen you staring at me up at the bar."

"Oh?"

"Well, I know a place," Damian said, the smile broader now. "Whaddya say, eh?"

"I don't see why not," Artemis shrugged, smiling to himself.

"I knew it," Damian scoffed. "Knew you were that sort of kid. Well, Fowl, I'm everything you could've dreamed for."

"Really?"

Damian didn't answer this. Instead, he turned on his heel and motioned for Artemis to follow. For a good five minutes they walked, Artemis always seven or eight paces behind him. Out towards the industrial side of town, Damian ducked into an alley and opened the door to a ramshackle old warehouse.

"Voila. A right little love shack, Fowl."

"How… lovely," breathed Artemis. "Although I must say I'm amused at how readily you jumped to a proposition that was not set in stone." He raised an eyebrow, and pulled a small tape recorder from inside his shirt. In that split second, the expression on Damian's face had changed, contorted into a twisted mask of outrage.

"You little fucker," he growled, and rounded on Artemis.

The night enveloped the pair; Artemis bathed in the moonlight that pooled on the warehouse floor. Damian stood in the shadows, fists clenched, ready to fight. Artemis smiled slightly at the other young man's willingness to stand up and defend his reputation. His naïveté amused Artemis to no end.

"It must be nice to be so blind as to believe you have a reputation," Artemis said, and it was all he could do to curb the excitement in his voice. Saliva pooled in the bottom of his mouth as he lowered his centre of gravity and loosened his stance. He was made for the hunt, he longed for the hunt, he was the hunt. Anticipation flowed through his veins as if his body depended on it.