“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?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose he did somehow manage to disarm Cerise Mar, although how he would accomplish this escapes me. Suppose he did apprehend her. What made you think that he would deliver her safe and healthy instead of dropping her withered husk on my doorstep?”
“I thought ...” Karmash hesitated.
“No, please continue. I’m extremely interested in your thought process.”
“I thought Lavern would be sufficient, m’lord, since she was only a civilian. I told him it was his chance to rehabilitate himself. I was wrong.”
Spider closed his eyes and let out a deep cleansing sigh. Only a civilian. Of course.
“M’lord ...”
Spider raised his hand. “Shhh. Don’t talk now.”
Karmash’s size had gotten away from him again. Occasionally the man’s obsession with his own strength cut off the flow of air to his brain. His only saving grace was that at the moment Spider had nobody to replace him.