Dark Horse

Nineteen

Blood had stirred the demon from its slumber, blood had given it fuel. But blood alone wasn't enough.

From Circe it had inherited the knowledge of centuries, and for a long time it believed the answer to its destiny lay in interpreting the messages jumbled inside its head. How wrong it had been! How much time wasted! Instead of trying to decipher the signals in terms of spells and incantations, the demon should have listened to its heart. To the real message pulsing through it.

In taking Bulis, it had believed it had followed its instinct, but when it came to the kill, the demon had discovered, to its great surprise, that it was still very much a novice in these matters. Wisely, it stopped, pulled back, and listened to the whisperings of the past.

Circe had been an enchantress. But Medea's blood also ran in the demon's veins. Don't forget that! Individually, the women were powerful — but together they were omnipotent, and this was the wisdom which had been passed down as it travelled the world and which now thrived in its place of origin. Circe had shown her niece how to create disguises, illusions, how to use the bulb of Colchis to deadly effect, and in return Medea had taught her aunt the black art of calculation. The demon saw them huddled over a cauldron in which perfidy, cunning and betrayal bubbled, waiting to be distilled into ruthlessness.

At which point it realized that blood was not its life source at all.

Power was the driving energy.

Destruction the foundation stone of its strength.

Once it grasped that basic principle, the demon's potency swelled. To have a human being at your mercy was the greatest power of all. To kill or to spare. To terminate life swiftly — or absorb the victim's vitality slowly.

Control.

To have total authority over the situation. To dominate the human spirit as well as the flesh.

That was the demon's inheritance. That was its destiny. Now it had to set about fulfilling it further.