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Demonology, for all the knowledge contained in libraries worth of ancient tomes, can be reduced to two simple lessons.

First, a demon needs a source of power.

Second, he who controls the source of power controls the demon.

All the rest is commentary.

These lessons, especially the first, explain much of the behavior we see from demons. Each demon is associated with a caste in the infernal realms, from which they draw power via a particular emotion or act. Those of the crimson caste, for instance, are strengthened by bloodshed and violence, no matter how large or small the corresponding act.

In the infernal realms themselves, these arcane energies suffuse the very lands themselves and sustain the demons directly, but this is not the case in our world. Those few demons who manage to pass the barriers between realms on their own are ravenous, desperate to sustain themselves despite the comparatively weaker power here. A crimson caste demon, for instance, would need to constantly kill in order to keep their energy up. The moment they rested, they would begin to grow weak and die.

There are other ways for demons to enter our world. The summoning circle is a classic, if often misunderstood, method. It is not true that demons summoned via a circle are tethered to it. However, the circle is a conduit, a direct line to the infernal realms, focused and shaped like light from a polished piece of glass. So long as they remain in the circle, the demons are at full power, but when they step beyond the power is gone in an instant. The sudden shock is devastating, and even the sturdiest of demons will wither as their spirit return to their homeland.

Only someone extremely foolhardy or extremely knowledgeable would summon a demon and then provide them with a new source of power that would allow them to leave it. Only someone like me.

But do not forget that there are two lessons. The second will be the most important in the end.

Jetrol's blood lined the circle. I sent the man home once he was done drawing it: he needed to rest and it was best for him in particular to stay far away once the summoning commenced. I inscribed the five runes of power on the floor, paying special attention to the variants that would summon the particular demon I wanted.

She came through a rent in the air, tumbling to the floor. Her mane was wild black, with streaks of blood red and umber orange. Her form was humanoid, muscular and compact like the finest of warriors. Saliva dripped from her slavering jowls and her claws bit into the floor as if she could tear the stone apart as easily as I would break a twig. She was a hellhound, a soldier of the crimson caste of the infernal realms.

We regarded each other in silence a long while. She could, I knew, kill me without difficulty. But I was far enough away that she would have to leave the circle to do so, and leaving would be painful.

We made our introductions, briefly and succinctly. I as the Magus Palo Ecarriga. She as Karrakus.

And then I stated why I had brought her here. I wanted to make her an offer. If she accepted, she would be able to remain in the mortal realms for some time, possibly until my death. If she refused, I would send her home with a freshly slain goat for her troubles.

She laughed at this. If we were in the middle of a war, perhaps she could stay a few weeks. If a great war, the kind that reshaped continents, perhaps a year. But no more. She had seen some of her kind summoned and reduced to mere shells, kept tenuously alive by feasting on the remains of prisoners it was no longer convenient to keep around. She was too proud. She would not be reduced to this.

I assured her this would not be the case. I wanted a standard contract, except with a demon serving a mortal instead of the reverse. A term of service over the course of my life, restrictions on harming humans for the duration, and a return to the infernal realms when completed.

That intrigued her. Demons were near immortal, and the desire for new experiences was a surprisingly strong driving force within them. I could tell she was tempted by the idea: a human lifetime's worth of experiences in the mortal realms? None but the most powerful demon lords had that before.

But Karrakus was canny, as most demons are, to the possibility of traps. She wanted to know everything about what would be expected for her. I told her most, although by no means all, of what the process would entail, and what I would expect from her afterwards. Her ears were perked and her fire-lit eyes narrowed attentively, even as I went through the careful academic reasoning for the process.

The idea was that demons were attuned to a single power source. My plan entailed weaning her slowly off of the bloodlust that normally fueled her and replacing part of it with other foci. She would ultimately end up attuned, in smaller amounts, to multiple different sources of power and could therefore survive in the mortal realms on far less than most demons needed. Demons normally could not be weaned in this way in the infernal realms because they were too close to the source of their power.

Karrakus was intrigued, I could tell, and began to haggle. Such was not the innate skill of crimson caste, so she ultimately agreed to the procedure, to a five-year stint as a contracted servant if it was successful, and at the end of that she could end the contract at the time of her choosing, but would have to return to the infernal realms if she ended it before my passing.

So we signed in blood, a cut on our palms touched to the other's chest.

The first step was a binding, not a binding of a contract, but a simple physical binding. Leather and steel, straps and harnesses, ropes and winches suspending Karrakus from the ceiling. Normally, such bindings would chafe to a demon, but she understood their purpose as part of the process and did not balk. Demons are strangely patient creatures, if it would be at all appropriate to associate them with that virtue, but even they could become bored. The suspension would keep her right at the focal point of the circle's energy, allowing her to pass away days and nights in a hibernation-like state, suffused with the crimson caste's energy.

I lifted her into position, hanging at torso height above the circle. Her ankles were bound to her thighs, her arms behind her. Her breasts swayed underneath her with every slow breath. I found myself drawn to the look of her body. The crimson caste were built for battle: sinew, muscle, claw, bone, tooth, and horn. It was not what I would consider attractive, despite the clear female form, but then I am a man of eccentric tastes. Karrakus was built for war, not sex.

I let her sleep that night. Then, on the morning of the first day I went down and fed her a broth, a mixture of meat broth and vegetable. She said it tasted foul, and I'm sure to her it did. She growled and complained, letting a lot of it fall from her mouth as she hung suspended in the air. I let it smudge the blood circle around her, just enough to throw the focus off. She barely seemed to notice.

The next day she was hungrier, and the day after that, especially as I lowered the quantity of meat broth and increased the amount of vegetable. Meat had its associations to the crimson caste. She could sustain herself partially off of that. A few more marrings of the circle, and by the end of a week I could see the impact it had on her. Her muscle tone had noticeably diminished. She was growling almost constantly when awake (thankfully she was in the basement and so could not bother me when I was elsewhere in the house). I did offer a kindness, though: I asked if she was willing to continue. She spat at me and demanded more food.

Another week of further blurring the blood circle and feeding her less and less meat, and she had nearly slumped completely in her bindings. She was not sick, merely weaker than she no doubt felt she ought to be. I doubted she was still capable of breaking the ropes that held her. Still, she remained far stronger than a human and I was cautious around her.

It was time to begin the second phase. I approached her suspended body from behind and adjusted ropes and straps to leave her bent legs spread apart. She did not resist other than to shiver at the... perhaps unusual... touch of a human against her fur.

I took a moment to enjoy the sensation. I had barely touched her since she arrived and the fur was intriguing. So much coarser than I expected. It seemed to be an extension of the strength of the crimson caste within her, hard and harsh, equally ready to clump and defend against blows as it was to stand out and prick at invaders.

I pushed further investigation to the side and moved my hands forward, to where her naked sex awaited me.

Demons of the crimson caste are not sexless, but it would be fair to say they are not interested in what the jade caste finds so life-giving. I ran my fingers over the labia and was rewarded with little more than the standard physical reaction. No moans. No gasps. It was like attempting foreplay on a golem.

Still, I did the best that I could. I had spent time speaking with many women, to learn what brought them pleasure and, more importantly, what brought them arousal. I used everything I had learned on Karrakus: some soft thrusts of my fingers, some rubbing of the thumb, mixes of textures and speeds, feelings of fullness and aching emptiness. She came, perfunctorily, but I could not help but think, as I left to clean my hands, that she looked slightly haler and heartier than she had before.

So it went for days, with Karrakus displaying her demonically ineffable patience, being made to climax twice a day, with meals, as the crimson caste's power faded slowly within her and the jade caste's power grew.

I marveled at the impact this had upon her. Her fur grew softer, her skin underneath more supple and less muscular. She started to moan and writhe as I pleasured her, to pant in true canine fashion as she approached the edge.

Once I was convinced the crimson and jade energies were balanced within her (the blood circle was quite distorted by this point), I began working on the third.

I fed her in the morning, as I usually did, then I began to pleasure her. I could feel the slickness of her inner walls, and the moans that bounced off the walls sounded sweet for a demon. I drove her to higher and higher heights of ecstasy.

And then I stilled my touch.

I could feel her squirm. Her muscles contracted around my fingers, trying to pull me in deeper. Such was her strength and her newfound jade-borne desire that she almost succeeded. I had to lever my foot against the ground to stay still, and yet she managed to force her suspended body towards me using nothing more than those pelvic muscles.

I held firm and did not provide her anything more than the fullness of my fingers. Her moans grew, tinged with frustration. I had fed her less that morning than usually did too.

She asked for more, surprising me twice. First because I had barely heard her use words these weeks and her voice had grown softer, and second because she asked and did not demand. But that swiftly changed. When I did not give her what she wanted, she asked again, louder and more forceful, until it became a demand, shouted at me behind sharp teeth. That was when I withdrew my hand and left, leaving her cursing in tongues I did not know.

At dinner, it was the same and again the following morning, but she was faster and quicker to demand now, until the third day when she was demanding of me from the moment I set foot in the basement. This time I gave her what she wanted, probably more than she wanted. I fed her until she could not eat another bite, and then I brought her to orgasm after orgasm, using a specially crafted piece of polished wood that would feel far larger inside her than my mere fingers could. She thrashed in delight at the touches.

And so went the slowest part of the conversion. Famine followed by feast, building a deep-burning sense of need that would slowly turn itself to greed: so I attuned her to the amber caste, driven by envy and want.

I marveled at the further changes these produced as the weeks went by. Her horns were half their length and shrinking still. Her fur had developed a lustrous sheen like that of a pedigreed hound. Her hips and torso, which before had a gauntness driven by pure utility now developed fine curves and a touch of fat, forming more pleasing shapes to my mortal sense of beauty.

But it was not enough. I knew that. I had always known that. Karrakus had grown slightly uneasy, as if sensing her own failure to progress.

The truth was that no amount of rebalancing powers of this kind would ever be enough. Demons, like humans, needed to rest, and in that rest she would slowly enervate herself. She could not be constantly killing, constantly fucking, or constantly craving. The last was perhaps possible during the waking hours, but would fade during sleep.

She was still confined to the blood circle, at least any time she was not gaining her pieces of energy from other places.

I could have borrowed from still other castes. The aquamarine caste of sloth was an option, but a lazy demon was of no use to me. The maroon caste of vanity was another. But there was another, deeper power I wanted.

No, there was one and only one caste I had ever been guiding her toward: the ashen caste, the demons who gained power from subjugation, domination, and control. There are few demons who belong to this caste, and they are feared by demon and mortal alike. Karrakus did not know, could not have guessed that this was the direction my plans had taken me. Everything I had done so far, binding her, feeding her, guiding her to orgasm, all at my whim -- it was all to start her by unseen nudges on the ashen path. Because if she was controlled, if she was owned, that was a state of being that could pass unchanged between waking and sleep, activity and rest.

I explained this to Karrakus, although not my foreknowledge of this path's necessity. I spoke in curt sentences, explaining what was needed and what she ought to do, only afterwards giving the implication that she had a choice in the matter. I was pleased to see that my nudges had been successful. She did not balk at the idea of being a possession. And when I asked her if she wished to continue, she gave a simple nod.

I cut in sharply and told her she should speak when asked a question. I could see the brief sting of my words on her pride, but my work had been successful. The new ashen part of her took charge and she spoke her assent, even adding a respectful title to the end.

That was good. Enough to start. I told her to wait, and that I would return later.

When I came down stairs at dinner time it was not with my usual bowl of broth. Instead it was with a steak, lightly seared, still oozing with juices. I could see the spark of red that lit in her eyes as she looked at it, the trembling motion of her tongue of her lips. I could hear a whine of ancient hunger within her. I held the meat mere inches from her muzzle, but brought it no closer. After a minute of uncertainty, she finally asked for the meat. I told her that she should not speak unless spoken to and that she would get what I chose to give her at the time I chose to give it to her. This chastened her slightly. She tried again asking a few minutes later, and then again not long after that. Then she fell silent.

I could see the need in her eyes, crimson bloodlust mixed with amber craving. Her gaze never left the steak. When I was sure there would be no more outbursts, I slowly moved the meat closer and told her she could take one, only one, bite. She did, sucking ravenously at the blood and juices that dribbled into her mouth. But as her sharp teeth sheared off a piece, she pulled her head back so she wouldn't take any more.

I told her that was good and petted her between the horns like she was a true hound. Her pride tried to reassert itself, but I told her to be still and she was.

The next day I fed her normally, but when it came time for stoking her lusts, I did something I had not done up to that point and disrobed. I came up behind her and let her feel my shaft pressing against her folds. The moan she gave out at that slightest touch admittedly fanned my own ego, but I knew it was more due to her jade affinity than anything on my part. Still, I told her that while she may gain pleasure from this, her duty over the next few minutes was to bring pleasure to me.

That she did.

I used my fingers to stroke her folds to excitation and as I entered her, those powerful muscles gripped around me and pulled me in. She was silken and smooth but could grip and release with precision. I thrust, and she cried out in delight as she accentuated my pleasure with controlled motions. Her eagerness only drove me on, thrusting and grinding harder until I spent myself within her. She quivered and shook as I withdrew. I could tell belatedly that she had not climaxed. I told her that she must learn to climax from pleasuring me or else she would not at all.

That took her several days to accomplish, and only then because the amber desire within her was stoked with each mating that left her unfulfilled. When she did manage it, at last, the sound of her wailing was such that even the stone walls of the basement could not contain it.

Then it was a cycle, reinforcing her place as being reliant on me for food, for sex, for anything. The more she walked down the ashen path, the more changes overtook her again. Her horns had shrunk to barely stick out of her fur. Her muzzle too had pulled in slightly. Her features had grown less sharp and pronounced, more quiet and demure. Where once, even suspended in bondage, she had held her head high and her shoulders out, now she seemed smaller, curling in on herself.

When I was sure she was ready, I brought the collar to her. It was made of two pieces of metal hinged together. It could be closed and locked in place with a fire spell, unable to be removed except with magic applied to it. It would remain on her so long as she remained in my servitude. It would mark her, that whole time, as mine.

She did not speak; she had learned not to. She only closed her eyes, flattened her ears against her horns, and held her head up. I clicked the collar in place and sealed it shut with a quick spell. Then she let out a deep, pleased sigh.

I did something then that I had not done in months. I let her down. I undid the ropes but left the straps on to reinforce the fact that I could rebind her when I wanted. Unlike mortals, whose muscles would have been withered after so long without use, she was able to stand immediately, although as she did she kept her head low.

I swung my foot across the floor and dashed the old remains of the blood circle. The power in it flickered and died in an instant, but Karrakus barely seemed to notice. She could now live in the mortal realms. The powers of four different castes, crimson, jade, amber, and ashen, all flowed within her and sustained her.

She could have left me then. She could have fed herself from livestock, seduced drunken men behind bars, stole her way to sate her greediness, but it would not be enough. I knew it, and she knew it. For the second key lesson was whoever controlled the source of her power controlled her. I could not control wars or sex or want, but I could control her. And because she was mine, she had to remain mine to stay in these realms.

Although I had tricked her into servitude, I do not think she minded, for as we walked up the stairs and I invited her to spend the night beside me in my bed, I saw her tail wagging with joy.