Okay, upgrade, I decided, and threw a golden spider instead.
My arsenal used to be limited to what I could beg, borrow or steal, unless I’d actually lucked out and gotten paid. And even then, magical weapons—particularly the unlicensed, not exactly legal variety—are expensive. I’d had to be judicious about what I used.
But while senators don’t get a salary, I’d discovered that they do get one very big perk of the job: access to the senate’s extensive arsenal. Which was not only well equipped, but also contained all the fun little toys they’d confiscated from the bad guys. And the bad guys knew how to party.
Which was why the tiny spider had babies immediately upon contact, who went scurrying all over those snowy white robes. Hassani watched them with distaste. “It doesn’t matter what you throw at me, dhampir. It isn’t going to—”
He stopped talking abruptly, probably because the big spider had just webbed up his mouth. The babies quickly did the same to his body, wrapping him in layers of fine, white silk, like the mummy he wasn’t. And then contracting the web, causing him to topple over onto his back.
He hit the floor with a thud, one of the servants screamed, and another jumped for me—and got slapped with one of my little tabs for his trouble. He didn’t seem to find it as easy to break out of as his master, who was thrashing about on the floor, having managed to halfway free himself already. But that was the beauty of Spider’s Bite, as the golden spell was called: the more you fought, the stronger it got, pulling power from its victim.
And Hassani had it to burn.
In another moment, he actually did look like a mummy. The thick, white strands, maybe a foot deep at this point, had covered his eyes and muffled the rich tones of his voice. And then cut them off altogether.
That appeared to be the last straw for the servants.
They ran, stampeding over themselves to get out of the door, except for the one now frozen in what looked like plastic wrap. He stared out at me, perfectly fine since vamps don’t need to breathe, like a vintage Ken doll still inside his box. But he wouldn’t stay that way for long.
Others were coming.
I closed and locked the door, which activated the ramped-up shields. But that wouldn’t stop Hassani’s children, who would rip it apart with their bare hands if necessary, to reach their master. Teacher, I corrected myself, pulling a knife and cutting away the webbing from over his face.
Pretentious twat.
But the pretentious twat wasn’t stupid, and had finally stopped struggling.
I didn’t have much time, and he knew it. He also knew something else. “You won’t kill a consul,” he told me, the rich voice untroubled. “It would destroy the alliance.”
“But you would kill a senator?”
Hassani looked aggrieved. “Right sleeve.”
“What?”
“Check my right sleeve, you annoying woman!”
I checked his right sleeve. That required cutting away more of the webbing, which I doubted my tiny allies had the strength to replace. Not that it mattered; the door to the suite was already starting to shake.
I pulled out a folded letter, and knew immediately who it was from. My name was on the front, and that perfect, copperplate handwriting belonged to only one person. I unfolded it and—
Don’t kill Hassani.
Motherfucker.
“Y
ou could have just given this to me,” I pointed out, to the smarmy bastard on the floor.
“I always heard dhampirs were mad,” he countered, staring prayerfully at the ceiling. “I did not think it actually true.”
I ignored that and went back to reading.
Dearest, I expect that this will not please you. What would not please me is your death. We do not know the effect that halving a soul might have, but it would be inadvisable for you to enter combat at the moment.
“Ironic,” Hassani offered, because he was reading over my shoulder.
I jerked the letter away.