Damnation! Damn and damn and damn.
Colonel Fitzwilliam clutched at his chest as the pain ripped through the lining between his lungs and his heart. It burned in his chest, making him feel as though he'd inhaled burning smoke and ash again, like at Salamanca.
Damnation.
The demon inside lashed at him. Wrathful and emaciated. Needing to feed, and the only potentia came from his host. The last time he had fed the demon well was that Spanish girl after the sack of Madrid.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had thought he could feed the infernal creature once more now that he held the stewardship of Pemberley. So much power flowed through the house, he could easily divert a few sips so that the demon would not gnaw him in its desperation.
His damned cousin was too observant. Too careful. Too damned full of himself, like every Darcy.
He obsessively watched over his house and the resources of his clan. And he flooded every resource he could into providing little pleasures and supports for the peasants. An old Darcy practice neglected by Wickham.
If only Darcy would contemplate higher magical theory or attend endless parties and hunts, like most great gentlemen. Then Colonel Fitzwilliam would be free to leave him alone.
Not that he would have in the end. Ambition prick'd him forward.
The demon made him feel as though his fingernails were being burnt off and there was a distinct sensation of flesh melting. It took all Colonel Fitzwilliam's considerable willpower to keep from looking to confirm his fingers remained. Excited by what he read in Fitzwilliam's thoughts, the demon added the smell of burnt flesh to the illusion.
Usually the unholy thing lacked creativity, but the creature had become hungry and desperate. So close to so much power, but unable to jointly feed. With the ley lines his demon could become great amongst his kind, and rise many levels in the infernal hierarchy once he was released by Colonel Fitzwilliam's death from the joint bondage.
Damnation.
His chest hurt. Colonel Fitzwilliam smiled sardonically as he rested for a moment against one of the marble pilasters in the great hallway of the house. That word. Damnation.
He had accepted damnation for temporal power, and now he paid with pain.
At least Darcy trusted him.
He'd hoped to wait longer and see if Darcy would relax his vigilance. It would not be good for the reputation of the clan to mysteriously lose its leader again in such a short period of time.
He had no choice. He would kill Darcy within the next days. Alas, sad cousin.
The smell of burnt human flesh had gone away, leaving just a faint stink. The demon was satisfied because Colonel Fitzwilliam had decided to kill Darcy now. His demon was a fool who loved blood too much.
Colonel Fitzwilliam reached the grand stairs and climbed them a little slowly, feeling jerky spasms of pain from his chest.
His suite of rooms had a balcony overlooking the courtyard, filled with green trees and grasses. The courtyard had been charmed to stay warm no matter what the environment around it was like. It was always filled with the small people, instead of being kept private for the Lord and his guests the way Fitzwilliam's father kept his mansion.
He could not strike Darcy successfully while he defended himself. Yet he had no path into Darcy's inner chambers where the man would be vulnerable.
There was something frightening about how powerful Darcy had become.
There had been scientific experimentation by dark wizards who would share their findings with selected apprentices in exchange for grand favors. When a man was drained to feed a demon, he would usually dwindle into a husk within a year's time. Darcy, of powerful blood, and connected to Pemberley, would not dwindle so fast. But he should have dwindled.
Darcy's flow of potentia had grown year by year. Colonel Fitzwilliam had strengthened greatly the wards about him, out of fear of such power, even though he could not imagine how the wasted man could use it to escape.
How did he escape?
The uncanny unnerved Colonel Fitzwilliam.
But he was not unmanned. Richard Fitzwilliam was no coward, he was no callow man to be overawed by wide flows of potentia. He was a man of war who had killed many hundreds and defeated aristocrats of grand blood and smeared their noble entrails over the field of combat.
He would kill Darcy, somehow.