Spider-Man - The Darkest Hours Read online

  The woman had evidently stood in a different line when they were handing out superpowers. She hit the spot where I'd been standing with one foot and leapt - with grace and elan - up to the top of the sign I was scaling. She crouched there, her head still tilted at that odd angle.

  "You must know this is pointless," she said dispassionately. "You cannot stop us. You cannot save yourself."

  My spider sense was still gibbering at me, but enough of my voice had come back for me to say, "Now let me think. Where have I heard someone like you say something like that before? Hmm."

  A cold little smile touched her mouth. "Little Morlun was one. We are three."

  Little

  Morlun? That wasn't encouraging. "I don't suppose it matters to you that I didn't kill him," I told her.

  Her lips twitched a little. "He hunted you?"

  "Yes."

  "He died."

  "Yes."

  "You saw it. You allowed it."

  "I..." I swallowed. When it came down to the wire, I'd had him at my mercy. I knew full well that if I'd let him live, he'd only come back another day. I hesitated. And before I could go through with it, Dex, Morlun's demented little attache, had emptied a Glock into him from ten feet away and blew him to dust.

  I'd like to think that if I'd been aware of Dex and his gun I would have stopped him. Part of me is sure I would have. But more honest parts of me aren't so sure.

  "I did," I told her quietly. "Then for his sake, you die."

  "What if I'd tried to stop it?" She smiled a cold little smile, showing me very white teeth. "Then you would die for mine. I am hungry, spider. I will devour you."

  "Gosh, that's kinda intimate," I said. "We haven't even been introduced."

  She lifted her chin a bit, and then inclined her head to me. "Mortia."

  She moved a hand in a simple gesture to indicate the other two. "Thanis in the suit. Malos in the silk."

  "Spider-Man," I said. "I'm the one standing in the shoes which are going to kick all three of you back to wherever it is weirdos like you come from." Mortia threw back her head and actually laughed a cold little laugh. "Such defiance." Her eyes widened, showing the whites all the way around. "And it makes you smell sweet."

  "Well," I said, "they tell me my deodorant is strong enough for a man - "

  She flung herself at me in mid-quip. She was fast, as fast as anyone I've ever seen. As fast as me - and my spider sense, already howling at maximum intensity about how much danger I already knew I was in, gave me no warning at all.

  I moved, barely ahead of her - and if I hadn't been watching her, ready for it, I would have been too slow. I never thought I'd actually have a reason to be glad that that symbiotic maniac Venom had obsessed over me and done his best to make my life a living hell between bursts of attempted arachnocide. My spider sense never registered him, either, and it had forced me to learn how to bob and weave the old-fashioned way, using only five senses.

  Her hand flashed out toward me as she passed by, and missed me by less than an inch. I hit the ground moving. Tweedle-Loom threw a television set at me, while Tweedle-Doom went with a classic and flung a rock with such power that the projectile actually went supersonic in a sudden clap of thunder, like a gunshot. I did not oblige either of them by behaving like a good target.

  Besides, they were just distractions, and they knew it. For the time being, the woman was the real threat, and she was hot on my trail. She got better air than me, but she didn't have handy-dandy weblines to play with, and I was able to stay ahead of her - barely. I went bouncing around Times Square like a racquetball, playing a lunatic version of tag with the mystery lady while I struggled to come up with a plan. It was harder than usual. Normally, between my reflexes and my spider sense, things just sort of flow by, and it feels like I have all the time in the world to think. That's how I'm able to be all funny and insulting while duking it out with the bad guys. It feels like I've had hours to come up with the material.

  This time, my spider sense had ceased to be an asset, and my speed was only just sufficient to stay ahead of the three of them. It took all of my attention to avoid her, plus dodging the occasional portion of landscape her homeys pitched after me - complicated by the fact that if I led them out of Times Square, which the Rhino's efforts had already cleared of most civilians, bystanders would get hurt. Morlun hadn't blinked an eye at the notion of murder, and I didn't think these three would be any more safety-conscious than he was.

  It's hard to gauge passing time in circumstances like that, but I gradually got the impression that maybe the reason I couldn't think of a plan of action was that there wasn't one. I'd taken Morlun out with the aid of material from the core of a nuclear reactor, and I didn't see one of those around Times Square. The only Plan B I could come up with was for me to keep doing what I was doing until some of the other New York hero types turned on the TV, found out what was going on, and showed up to lend a hand.

  Although "hope someone rescues me" was a pa-thetically flawed Plan B. I mean, I'm supposed to be a superhero. I'm the one doing the rescuing.

  Thanis took the decision out of my hands. He threw something heavy that hit the car I'd landed on and knocked it cleanly out from under me. I dropped to the ground unsteadily and looked up to find that Mortia had anticipated her brother's action. She was already two-thirds of the way through the pounce that would pin me to the ground and kill me. Thanis's distraction hadn't cost me much, maybe half a second.

  It was enough.

  As fast as I was, I still wasn't going to be fast enough to get out of her way.

  Chapter 7

  Once in a while,

  Plan B actually works out.

  As Mortia came down at me, there was a phoont sound of expanding compressed air, and a small, metallic grappling hook flew over my head and hit her right on the end of her upturned nose, trailing a line of fine, black cable. The instant it touched her, there was a flickering of blue-white light, and Mortia's body convulsed, hit by what I assumed was a hefty amount of electricity. She went into an uncontrolled tumble, and I got out of the way in a hurry. "That's new," I said, hopping to my feet

  - which I happened to plant ten feet up a handy streetlight, so that I could be sure to keep an eye on Clan Goth. "I went legitimate," Felicia replied tartly. She landed in a crouch on the streetlight's arm, above me, pushed a button on a small baton, and the cord and grapple reeled swiftly back in. "I never said anything about not finding new toys to play with."

  Mortia came to her feet slowly, looking down at the concrete dust clinging to her suit with undisguised annoyance. She traded a look with Thanis and Malos, and then all three of them turned to stare at me.

  Absolutely no one moved. The only motion in all of Times Square came from rising smoke and the whirling bulbs on the police cars. The only sound came from a few stubborn car alarms that had survived the fracas (evidently Thanis and Malos found them as annoying as I did), and the harsh clicks and buzzes of transmissions on distant police radios.

  Nothing happened for a long minute.

  What the heck. Every tableau's got to be broken by something.

  "What we need," I drawled to the Black Cat, "is a couple of tumbleweeds.

  Maybe a rattlesnake Foley effect."

  "Grow up," she sneered, watching Mortia and her brothers as carefully as I did. "What we need is the Avengers."

  "Only because we didn't bring them," I said. "If we had, we wouldn't need them."

  "Well, better to have them and not need them than - "

  "Do I criticize your equipment list?" I asked. "And, oh. Don't let one of them touch you."

  "We aren't dating anymore," she said archly.

  I grinned, underneath my mask. "Very funny. Just don't do it."

  "Why not?"

  "Because once they do, they can track you down. Follow you anywhere. Find you anywhere."

  She pursed her lips, the expression made tough to read by the visor, and said, "Got it. We should leave now, then.
" I hesitated.

  It wasn't a macho thing. I had no idea what Mortia and company might try if I left the fight. In a bid to keep me close enough to kill, Morlun had promptly started brutalizing whoever was handy when I tried to break contact with him for more than a minute or two. That was why I was hesitant to leave.

  It wasn't because I didn't want to tuck my webs between my legs and run in front of half of New York and my ex-girlfriend. It wasn't that. At all. Not even a little.

  Of course, dying in front of half of New York and my ex-girlfriend didn't sound like much fun, either.

  A news chopper came whipping down the street, lower than the level of the buildings; someone was going to get a royal chewing-out from the FAA and whoever else screams and rants about such things. It kicked up a lot of dust and debris in the Square.

  Mortia saw it and made a disgusted little noise. "Mortals. So gauche."

  She glanced at her brothers, then turned to me and said, "We are introduced, Spider. And after all, a multicourse dinner calls for a more..." - she gave me an acknowledging nod of the head and another wintry smile - "... intimate setting. Fear not. We shall be reunited."

  "Won't that be ducky," I said.

  She flicked her wrist, dismissive. "You and the aperitif may flee, Spider."

  "What?" Felicia said, indignant.

  "What did she call me?"

  "Come on, bonbon," I told her. "Let's git while the gittin' is good."

  Mortia turned to walk away, then paused to consider the fallen Rhino.

  "Bring the brute," she told her brothers. "He may yet be of use to us."

  The two men each took one of the unconscious Rhino's arms, lifted all of him without so much as a grunt of effort, and dragged him along like a giant, armored rag doll in a goofy hat toward the nearest subway entrance.

  There was a stir at one of the police control points, and I spat out a breath as I saw the SWAT van roll up. "Come on. Something we have to do."

  "What?" Felicia called after me as I swung over to the control point.

  I landed on the street next to the police lines. A couple of beat cops stared at me. One of them laid his hand on the baton at his belt. That was actually a pretty good reaction, for me. Usually, the hands go right to the guns.

  "Hey, guys," I said. "Who is in charge of this scene?"

  "None of your business," one of the cops said. "You ain't the sheriff of this town. You ain't the one that makes the calls."

  A spotter had his field glasses focused on the re-treating shapes of Mortia and company and was speaking cool instructions into his headset's mike as the SWAT team locked and loaded.

  "Guys, you've got to trust me on this one," I told them. "Leave those three alone."

  "Look, buddy," the cop said, his face turning red. "You're lucky they aren't getting ready to come after you, you freakin' nutball."

  "Gosh, officer. Don't be afraid to tell me what you really think."

  "Jesus, Frank," the second cop said with a sigh, rolling his eyes.

  "There's no harm hearing him out." Frank folded his arms. "He's probably in this with those four, somehow."

  The older cop stared at him for a second, blinked his eyes, and, through what looked like a nearly miraculous effort of self-control, did not whack him upside the head. Then he looked at me and said,

  "Why?"

  "Because these people are bad news," I told him. "Big, bad news. They're willing to walk away without a fight, and they don't have any reason to hurt anyone but me, unless you force them to defend themselves. Your men can't stop them. If they try it, they'll die. For nothing."

  "But you think you can handle them," he said. "Not sure. But when I hit them again, I can at least do it someplace without all the civilian bystanders."

  He squinted at me for a moment, then looked at the DMZ that had, until recently, been Times Square. He grunted. "You got anyone on the force will speak for you?"

  "Lamont," I said promptly. "Fourteenth Precinct."

  His thumb tapped thoughtfully on the handle of his baton. "Sourpuss?

  Cheap suit? Drinks a lot of coffee?"

  "That's him."

  The cop grunted. "Sit tight." He stepped a few feet away and spoke into his radio. Maybe five minutes went by, and the SWAT team broke into a measured jog, setting off to pursue the retreating weirdos.

  "Ahem," I said. "Time is getting to be a factor, officer."

  He glanced back at me, then at SWAT, then went on talking. A moment later, he said, "Check." Then he walked over to the spotter, who was evidently some kind of authority figure with a rear-echelon command style, and passed him the radio.

  I couldn't hear the conversation, but it didn't take much more than a minute for the SWAT guy's face to go carefully, professionally blank. He tossed the radio back at the officer, spoke into his headset, and a minute later the SWAT team reappeared. I let out a slow breath in pure relief.

  The officer ambled back over to his post, and I said, "Thanks."

  He shrugged a shoulder. "I got an auntie I like. She told me you saved her from a mugger. Don't mean I like you."

  "Good enough for me," I said. "Thanks anyway."

  There might have been the ghost of a smile on his lips. "Stick around.

  Lamont wants to talk to you. He'll be here in five."

  "Anything to help the fine men and women of law enforcement," I said.

  It didn't take the whole five minutes for Lamont to get there. He looked like Lamont usually looked: rumpled, tired, grumpy, and tough as old boot leather. His hair was the color of iron. He was a career New York cop who had been unlucky enough to retain his conscience and his concern for the citizens he protected. His hair had gone gray early. His eyes had perpetual bags beneath them, despite the large, steaming Styrofoam coffee cup in his hand. He wore a long black overcoat, his cheap suit and his hair were rumpled, he needed a shave, and his beady eyes glinted with intelligence.

  He really didn't like me very much. "Hey," Lamont said. "Let's walk." We turned down the street and walked away from the police lines, passing in front of a long row of shops and stores, until we were far enough away to avoid being overheard.

  He stopped and squinted at me. "You're doing that just to annoy me."

  I shrugged. I was standing with the soles of my feet on a rail of the awning above us, looking at him upside down. "Come on, Lamont. Would I do something like that?"

  He grunted and chose to ignore me. "So what happened here?"

  I gave him the Cliff's Notes version of the evening's events and their players.

  Lamont scratched at his head. "So these weirdos are here for you?"

  "Yeah," I said.

  "So that sort of makes it your fault, I guess." He sipped his coffee, eyes narrowed. It was as close as I'd ever seen him get to smiling. He nodded at the destruction surrounding us and said, "Where do we send the bill?"

  "Call my accountant," I said. "You can reach him at 1-800-In your freaking dreams."

  He gave me a bland look, sipped some more coffee, and said, "Judging from the outfit, you wouldn't be good for it anyway."

  "Look who's talking."

  Lamont stared down at his cup, then up at the bright lights of Times Square. "You say these people are strong. Like the Frankenstein gangster?"

  "I took him in a straight fight," I said. "He was from the farm team.

  These three are major league. Like Rhino, or the Hulk."

  "The Hulk, huh."

  "Pretty close," I said. "But they don't go in for mass destruction with the same kind of glee."

  "So this isn't mass destruction," he said. He coughed as a stray breeze blew some black smoke our way. "That's good."

  "Rhino did most of this," I growled. "Probably to get my attention."

  "Draw you out in the open, huh."

  "Yeah."

  Lamont looked around some more, sipped some more coffee, and gave me a shrewd look. "You're in trouble."

  I was quiet for a minute, then said, "Maybe. It could
get really messy.

  These things don't care, Lamont. They could kill every man, woman, and child in New York and sip cappuccinos over the corpses."

  "Christ." Lamont grunted. His face twisted up abruptly, as if he'd suddenly started sucking on a lemon spiked with jalapeno. "How can I help?"

  "You having a stroke, Lamont? Your face is twitching."

  "I might be," he said darkly. "Helping out one of the maniacs in tights.

  I might puke. Maybe on you."

  I looked down at him from my upside-down position. "That would be difficult, considering."

  "I'd manage. I'm crafty."

  "Don't know if there's much you can do," I said. "Except for making sure you aren't putting pressure on the Addams Family. If you start a fight, they'll take you up on it."

  "Good plan," Lamont said. "I solve most of my problems by standing around hoping they'll go away."

  "If I could give you a better one, I would," I said. "Let me handle this one my way; give me some room to breathe. I'll take the fight to somewhere safe." I glanced at the square. "Well. Safer than this, anyway."

  Lamont grunted again. "I'll see what I can do. No promises. And if something like this happens again, all bets are off."

  "You try to take these guys down, cops are going to die."

  He was stone-still for a moment. Then he murmured, "I know. So you damn well better take them out before it comes to that."

  Trust is something precious and fragile. Once it begins to fracture, it isn't ever going to be strong again. Lamont didn't like me, I knew. But I hadn't realized that he trusted me. It was an enormous gesture, especially for him.

  "I'll handle it," I told him, voice serious.

  He finished the coffee, crushed the cup in a frustrated fist, and then pitched it down into the rest of the wreckage. "Right. Move along, then, citizen. Nothing to see here."

  He was right, thank God. There wasn't.

  Yet.

  Chapter 8

  I found Felicia waiting on the same rooftop where I'd tackled her a little while before. Full night had come on, but in New York, that means little. Even up high where we were, there was enough ambient light to see by, easily. In spots, you could read by it. But when night's curtain is drawn over the azure face of the sky, the light takes on a sourceless, nebulous quality. It stretches shadows, gleams on metal and glass, and emphasizes the brooding shapes of gargoyles and statues and carvings on many of New York's architectural wonders. The sounds of the city come up, but lightly, as though they were little more than remembrances of their makers, no louder than the voice of the wind. It's a kind of fairyland, and it always makes me feel as if I am the only real, tangible object in the world. It's beautiful, in its own way, and peaceful.