diff --git a/cassandra/deserializers.pyx b/cassandra/deserializers.pyx
index 35667694..ad1e5d1a 100644
--- a/cassandra/deserializers.pyx
+++ b/cassandra/deserializers.pyx
@@ -36,8 +36,13 @@ cdef class DesLongType(Deserializer):
 # TODO: Use libmpdec: http://www.bytereef.org/mpdecimal/index.html
 cdef class DesDecimalType(Deserializer):
     cdef deserialize(self, Buffer *buf, int protocol_version):
+        cdef Buffer varint_buf
+        varint_buf.ptr = buf.ptr + 4
+        varint_buf.size = buf.size - 4
+
         scale = int32_unpack(buf.ptr)
-        unscaled = varint_unpack(buf.ptr + 4)
+        unscaled = varint_unpack(to_bytes(&varint_buf))
+
         return Decimal('%de%d' % (unscaled, -scale))
 
 
diff --git a/cassandra/marshal.pyx b/cassandra/marshal.pyx
index 336ee1c7..0ab65c46 100644
--- a/cassandra/marshal.pyx
+++ b/cassandra/marshal.pyx
@@ -177,6 +177,7 @@ cpdef varint_unpack(term):
 # TODO: Optimize these two functions
 def varint_unpack_py3(term):
     cdef int64_t one = 1L
+
     val = int(''.join("%02x" % i for i in term), 16)
     if (term[0] & 128) != 0:
         # There is a bug in Cython (0.20 - 0.22), where if we do