The first thing Mark found out about Spider was that she did not like to be laughed at. She hit him with a blast that shot through every nerve, burning like fire. He didn't bother trying to fight; he just let himself be swept along with the pain, waited patiently for it to end. Waited for his heart to resume beating.
"How did you like that? Pretty good, huh?"
Mark smirked. "Now look what you've done, you naughty girl. You've completely turned me on. Now I'll have to fuck you twice before I kill you."
That wasn't exactly the response she'd been looking for. She hit him with the spell again, harder this time, longer, holding it as his body jerked and writhed convulsively.
"Now what do you think?" she demanded.
"Oh, baby. Do that again."
She let out a little shriek of rage, and eyes glowing, she gestured with both hands this time.
"Argh!" he cried out as her power surged through him, and spilled over, finding and igniting his own. Only his long years of service to his Lord enabled him to retain consciousness. He fought not to stop the flow but to channel it, focus it, until -
She stopped. There was the smoky sweet odor of charred flesh. Mark sagged limply in the invisible web, body wracked with pain, wings twitching spasmodically. His eyes blazed. She had stopped much too soon. He had been hoping to overload the web and break free.
"You think you're sooo sneaky, but I know what you're up too." Spider was wagging her finger in his face, her tone mocking him. She sighed. "Why do I always fall for the bad boys?" There was much dramatic hand wringing.
Mark bared his fangs at her. "Is that what the hell this is all about? Some sort of Chaos-damned courtship ritual?"
She was looking him up and down. "Sure, why not? You're a vampire... I'm a vampire. We're both very pretty. Don't you think I'm pretty?"
"You're pretty fucking insane, if you think I'm going to submit to you," Mark replied disdainfully. "I don't want a mate. Even if I did, I wouldn't choose you to be my queen."
"And why not?"
"Granted, this is only the second time we've met, not counting your little jaunt into my subconscious, so there is a distinct possibility that I may have jumped to conclusions too quickly, but I really do think it's safe to say that I despise you."
"That's nice. I don't like you much either right now. And you were a very bad Mommy."
Mark chose to ignore her little joke. "Then why are you doing this?"
"Because I want to." She sighed and rolled her eyes. "This is getting boring."
"Release me, and I'll make the rest of your life very interesting indeed. Albeit brief."
"I went though a lot of trouble for this date, and all you talk about is how much you'd like to kill me." Her pout was equal parts sensual and cute.
It was having quite an effect; Mark was having trouble concentrating. He was manipulating the web, strand by strand, trying to find the changes and re-work them, trying to bring the spell back under his control. He was finding all of the changes she made relatively quickly, as they were fairly crude. But her ingenuity impressed him. Too bad she hadn't put in a few years of study first. She might have been a match for him.
"That's true, and I'm very sorry about that. Eventually, I plan to act on my words, and then you won't have to listen to my continual chatter."
She was pulling off her gloves with her teeth. "Mur mod meeng mer miesh," she said.
"Excuse me?"
She finished pulling off the second glove. "There. I said you're not being very nice." And she struck him hard across the face with her bare palm.
Mark's eyes blazed but he retained his calm demeanor. "I wouldn't do that again, if I were you."
She smiled. "Oh really."
"That's right."
She struck him again, harder, this time on the other cheek. "Make me stop, Sartain."
The necromancer gave the entrapment spell a final little mental tug, unraveled the invisible web, and dropped lightly to the floor. Free at last.
Very well," he said quietly, "but only because you asked so nicely."
Spider stared at him astonished for a beat, before she went flying across the room, landing hard, cracking her head against the wall. Mark smirked, and looked down to straighten his rumpled clothing. Stupid bitch. Then he was flat on his stomach, with the air completely knocked out of him. Mark lay there for a moment, trying to catch his breath. Then his eyes refocused, and he blinked. He was looking at the toe of her boot. Damn, she was fast. Nice recovery, too. Her other boot was planted firmly on one of his wings. She slowly ground her pointed heel down on the joint. Wincing, he squinted upwards at her, as she scowled down at him, rubbing the back of her head.
"I didn't like that very much."
"Well then," he snarled. "You're probably not going to like this either." He jerked the wing out from under her and she fell to the floor. He was on her like a flash.
The second thing Mark found out about Spider was that underestimating her was a really bad idea. "You hurt me, and your precious company goes boom," she said coolly, smiling. Her eyes were glowing.
Mark froze. He was straddling her, his hands pinning her wrists to the ground. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, very softly. His expression was positively demonic.
"I cracked one of your company-wide spells," she giggled. "Just like I did your web."
"What did you do, you little witch!?"
She pouted. "I won't say a word if you keep calling me names."
"I will take great pleasure in prying it out of you, trust me."
"There won't be time. Your company might be gone already."
He shook his head. "I'd know if anything happened. You're bluffing."
"Is that because you're linked to the Source? That's a really stupid thing to do, you know. If something happens to it, then the backlash takes you out too."
Mark smirked. "I can drop the link whenever I like, so what difference does it make?"
"I don't think so...." She smiled softly and started singing. "The itsy bitsy spider, climbed up the waterspout... down came the rain."
Mark closed his eyes, reached out with his mind, and found - another entanglement spell, this one entirely of her own devising. He nearly panicked, his physical body jerked and broke out in a cold sweat. He couldn't break away from the link. Not only that, but she'd attached a very basic magical barrier to it. Even as he returned to his body, he knew that there was no way for him to access his magic. She had used the entrapment spell to separate him from that aspect of his psyche. Mark opened his eyes.
"When you learn a spell, you learn it very well, don't you?"
"I like this one, it's like a spider's web. Did you make it up yourself?"
Mark felt a chill. With that one clever move, she'd won the game. He could kick himself for underestimating her. He hadn't intended to be away from the office for long, so he had left a portion of his mind linked to the Source so his mages would be able to find him the minute they had tracked her down. He didn't do it often, but when circumstances warranted he ran the spell without giving it a second thought. After all, what were the chances that anyone that was both insane enough to attack a company full of highly trained practicing mages, and powerful enough to consider it worth trying, would do so at the exact time when he was the most vulnerable? Well, apparently the favor of the Chaos Lord is not with me today. And He had granted it to this brilliant, completely unpredictable, completely untrained sorceress, who now had the key to wiping his immortal ass right off the face of the planet on a whim. Mark was suddenly very worried. Terrified, if he cared to admit it to himself. He hid it well.
"I know a lot of people that would love to trade places with you right now."
She smiled up at him very prettily. "You're afraid to die, aren't you?"
"I have a couple of centuries worth of very good reasons why."
"So I guess I'd better pick out a china pattern, huh?"
Mark glared at her. His thoughts were full of potent images of everything he'd love to do to Spider. Slowly. Until even the Chaos Lord himself cringed and looked away.
She smirked at him. "I don't think so. I like pain every bit as much as you do. We have so much in common, don't you think we'll make the cutest couple?"
Mark swore. "Stop reading my mind, will you? That's just plain rude." He clamped down his mental barriers a little more tightly, and releasing her wrists, he got off of her and sat leaning up against the foot of his bed, massaging his forehead with his fingertips, eyes closed, and the rest of his face lost in the shadows thrown by his hair.
"Do you submit?" Spider asked sweetly. She remained in a seductive sprawl on the floor, propping herself up on an elbow, her head resting on her hand.
He brought his hands down and sneered at her. "Hell no."
"You're still awfully cheeky aren't you?" She wagged her finger at him again. "Then quick, scurry back to the office. You might have just enough time to kiss your sweet baby brother goodbye." She puckered up and gave a smacking kiss to no one in particular.
Mark jumped to his feet and pulled out his cell phone. Of course. Davy. If he could get through to Davy, he'd have him pay the Source a visit; his brother could then negate all company-wide spells - and Mark's own link to the cursed thing. "Pick up, Damn you," he hissed, as he listened for the ring.
Spider flung back her head and laughed. "Boom," she said. Her eyes twinkled mischievously.
Mark swung around, eyes blazing. "When I'm finished with you," he hissed. "You're going to beg for death."
"And when I'm done with you, you're gonna beg to kiss my feet." She blew him a kiss.
"You're mad, woman - Dammit, Davy, Answer the Fucking Phone!!"
"He's mad at you. You hurt his feelings. You hurt everyone's feelings. You're a bad, bad, boy."
"FOR THE LOVE OF CHAOS, WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP YOU CRAZY BITCH!?"
Spider sighed. "Now you've hurt my feelings. And I was trying to play nice. Oh well. You have until the count of ten to submit. One."
"No Way!" roared Mark. "I'm not playing your game. You can take your ten-count and shove it up your ass!!"
"Two."
Mark dialed frantically. Spider kept right on counting.
"Candice? Where's Davy? You don't know. My God, bitch, you're the most useless bag of flesh I've ever seen! Don't you keep his schedule for him - " His eyes widened. "She hung up on me," he said incredulously. "That stupid cunt just hung up on me." He stared at the phone in his hand.
"Five."
