Bayou Moon - Andrews, Ilona [58]
“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