Bayou Moon (The Edge #2)(35)
Author: Ilona Andrews

Spider left the hothouse, striding briskly to his study. A small rush basket perched at the bottom of the staircase. He looked at it for a second and climbed the stairs. Two more baskets sat on the landing. He passed them and reached the upstairs hallway. More items woven of rush littered the narrow corridor. Stacks of carriers, linen hampers, and bread bowls leaned against the walls; round waste bins set into each other formed rush colonnades; intricate hampers vied with flower panniers for space. Their dried plant odor mixed with the stench of algae that always permeated the house.

Spider growled under his breath, dodged a tower of round planters teetering precariously with his every step, and pushed into the small room that served as the reception area for his office. Veisan hunched in her chair, her fingers plaiting the rushes into a rug. A heap of rushes lay at her feet next to an equally large pile of baskets.

At his approach, Veisan surged to her feet, her strong hands tearing the braided rug. "M’lord!"

"Have Karmash see me," he ordered.

"Yes, m’lord."

A huge rush creation resembling a hollow duck sat between him and the door. Spider kicked it into the corner.

"And stop cluttering the place. We’re not basketry merchants."

"Yes, m’lord."

He entered his study and walked past the rectangle of a massive antique table to the window. Pitch-black. It took a fraction of a breath for his enhanced eyes to adjust, and then the darkness blossomed, unfolding before him like a flower to reveal the strand of cypresses next to the flooded plain.

Karmash had disobeyed him. Yet again.

Spider’s anger pushed his senses into overdrive, as the implanted glands squirted catalysts into his bloodstream. He unlatched the frame and swung the window open. A cascade of night scents and noises washed over him. His acute hearing caught Karmash’s particular gait, and he faced the door. The steps drew closer, and Spider smelled the musky scent of the breaker’s sweat.

"Enter," he barked. There was a momentary pause. The door swung open. Karmash stepped inside, his hulking form dwarfing the doorway, and shut the door behind him. His white hair dripped moisture. Spider’s nostrils caught a hint of swamp water.

"Were you swimming?" Spider asked.

"Yes, m’lord."

"Was the water warm?"

"No, m’lord." The big man shifted from foot to foot.

"So it was more of a brisk, invigorating kind of experience?"

"Yes, m’lord."

"I see."

He turned to the table and stared at the array of papers. He could hear the elevated tempo of Karmash’s heartbeat.

"My lord, I’m very sorry …"

Spider smashed his fist into the table. The thick top board broke with a wooden scream. The drawers burst open, releasing a flood of loose papers, small boxes, and metal ink jars. A pungent cloud of expensive incense billowed from the wreckage. Spider seized half of the ruined table, top-board, drawers and all, and hurled it across the room. It crashed against the wall and shattered in an explosion of splinters.

Spider turned on his heel, slowly, deliberately. All blood drained from Karmash’s face, and his skin matched his hair in whiteness. Spider took two steps to the remaining table piece and studied it.

"I’m disappointed in you," he said.

Karmash opened his mouth to answer and closed it. Spider perched on the edge of the table wreck and looked at him. Karmash’s skin smelled of fear. It shuddered in his eyes, broke through in the clenched fingers of his big hands, showed itself in the way he bent his knees lightly, ready to run. Spider studied that fear and drank it in. It tasted sweet like a well-aged wine.

"Let’s go over this again," Spider said, pronouncing the words with a glass-sharp clarity in that patient, slow tone one used with a disobedient child or a woman one desired to infuriate. "Which part of my instructions wasn’t clear to you?"

Karmash swallowed. "All parts were clear, m’lord."

"They mustn’t have been, since your actions didn’t match my words. A miscommunication has occurred. Let’s pin it down. Reiterate what I ordered you to do."

Spider stared at Karmash, hard, unblinking. Their gazes locked, and Spider saw terror wash away any semblance of thought from Karmash’s eyes. The big man snapped into panicked stiffness. Karmash opened his mouth. No sound came. Sweat broke at his hairline and slid across pallid skin to the shield of white bushy eyebrows.

"Go ahead," Spider said.

Karmash strained and forced a small word from his mouth. "You …"

"I can’t hear you."

Karmash glanced away, muscles knotted along his jaw. He blinked rapidly, rigid as a board. Spider studied his neck, imagined himself reaching out, grasping the throat in the steel hold of his hand, crushing the wind-pipe until the cartilage popped with a light crunch under his fingers.

Karmash tried again. "You told me …"

"Yes?"

The voice caught in the big man’s throat. He stared at the floor, his eyes wide and almost black from the dilated pupils.

Too easy. Cringe, Karmash. Cringe and submit.

Karmash swayed a little. His nostrils didn’t flutter – he had forgotten to breathe. Another dozen heartbeats and he would faint. Spider toyed with the idea of bringing him to that point and decided against it with some regret. Too much trouble to wait for Karmash to come to.

"How long will you keep me waiting?" He let his tone and his stare ease just a fraction.

A fraction was enough. Karmash’s knees trembled. His nostrils flared, drawing the air in a frenzied rhythm, and Karmash shuddered, every nerve and muscle shaking. For a moment he looked limp like a rag doll, ready to come apart.

Spider waited. The second stage of fear, the release. Petrify the body in a panicked freeze, and the mind locked as well, cycling on the same thought. Release the body, and logic came back with ready fluidity. It was an animal response, a defensive mechanism of Mother Nature, who realized that given a chance, her bastard children would think themselves into the ground, so she freed them of the handicapping burden of their minds in times of imminent danger. At the core, we’re but animals, Spider thought. Come on, Karmash. Obey and don’t make me bare my teeth and roll you on your back again. I enjoy it entirely too much for my own good.

"You told me to find the girl," Karmash’s voice came in a shaky gush.

"And what did you do?"

"I sent Lavern to fetch her."

Spider put the fingers of his hands together, making a tent, and touched his index fingers to his lips, as if thinking. "So let me see if I got this right. I told you to find the girl, and you sent the dumbest, the most contumacious hunter we have. A hunter who has been twisted by his upgrades to the point of becoming fond of human flesh. Is that right?"