"Nothing like other people cooking for you when it's as nasty out as it is tonight," Peter said with a grin.
"I can support that observation," the tall man seated across from him said with a nod. "Especially when you're far from home. I tell you, I get really, really tired of McDonalds."
"Who wouldn't?" Peter said. "This is my favorite pizza joint. Ahem." He turned his nose up a bit and glanced at the other man sideways with a grin. "May I take zees opportunity to recommend zee Barbecue Chicken? It's an excellont vintahze, and the speciality de la house."
"Sounds good," the other man nodded. "My treat. I insist."
"Aw, come on, Doc," Peter said. "My town, I got this."
"Next time," the other man said with a warm smile. "Next time. So how have your studies been going?"
"Pretty spotty last semester," Peter admitted ruefully. "I had a few things come up. My aunt got sick, I was in a car accident, stuff like that. Made it tough to focus."
"That's all?" the other man said.
"Mostly," Peter shrugged.
"No girlfriend, huh," he grinned.
"Oh that. And I got a girlfriend," Peter said, shaking his head. "You're sharp, Doc Connors."
"I've been around college students long enough," Connors shrugged. "Is she pretty?"
"As a sunrise," Peter said, "and about as fiery. What've you been up to?"
"The usual," Connors shrugged. "I was in Chicago for a guest lecture series, thought I'd take the long way home. My wife hates it when I do that, but it's a lot easier than making another trip."
"Let's hear it for frequent flyer miles," Peter nodded. "No more trouble with the, uh,"
"No," Connors said quickly. "No, the good Doctor cured me of that particular affliction." He shifted his collar down to show the top corner of a bold red and black tattoo on his chest. "It's trapped in this… pattern thing. I'm safe. And so are those around me."
"Good to hear," Peter nodded. "So are you staying at the Hilton?"
"Hardly," Connors said with a wry grin. "Try the Motel 8. All I need. I'm not living here after all."
"Just came by to see the Doctor for your checkup," Peter said, his eyes full of mirth.
"Now who's sharp," Connors said, leaning back and raising his eyebrows.
Peter shrugged. "I'd be worried if I were you. Makes perfect sense. I hope he gives you a clean bill of health."
"He's not there," Connors said, his forehead furrowed with worry. "His assistant said he was on an investigative trip and she'd pass on my message. But I'm flying out tomorrow at two. So I guess I'll have to make another opportunity to visit him."
"I'm just glad I bumped into you on campus, especially on a Friday," Peter said. "It's good to actually have a chance to talk to you. Things were always busy in class. And now that you're not giving me a grade I'm in no danger of sucking up." He grinned.
"Here comes our food," Connors said. "I'm starving." He picked up his fork and scooted over a bit. As he did, his empty sleeve brushed against the wall.
"Once you have some of Luckee's Pizza, you never look back," Peter said with a grin.
"Not every day your whole life gets changed like that," Connors said. "And so affordable."
Outside, the wind gusted, clacking a tree branch against the glass. Peter started for a moment, then relaxed. "It's a wild night," he said, and his eyes got a little distant.
"I for one plan to spend it quietly," said Connors.
xXx
Two figures tumbled into a clearing, tearing free of the bushes.
"Where is he?" hissed one.
"I did not see him," snarled the other. They looked around, their sunken eyes glittering with rage and lust, their distended fangs flexing in their gums.
Their only warning was a rustling in the trees above.
The creatures glanced up, hissing, as a huge man dropped from the canopy. He landed between them, already moving. He held two halves of a broomstick, sawed at an angle across the center to create two sharp clubs, one in each hand. He whipped the first around and bashed the creature's head, knocking it back against the bushes. He spun as the other leaped, and he caught it on the chest with his stake. His longer arms gave him superior reach; the creature was impaled as he ducked its blow. It tumbled down by its fellow, twitching and gurgling, eyes huge as it began to wisp and smoke, as its skin charred and curled like smoldering parchment.
The massive man squared off with the other creature, his grin gleaming in the dimness, his eyes dark. The creature howled its unnatural fury and sprang at him, a slow learner.
The man ducked and thrust, and the creature's howl was cut off as its ribs snapped and buckled, the sharp wood puncturing its heart. The creature was tossed down to disintegrate by its partner. The big man looked around, his eyes almost luminous in the dark.
"She is near," he whispered to himself. He drew a machete from beneath his coat. Kneeling, he lopped the heads off the two creatures he had staked. He put the machete away and retrieved his stakes. Then he blended once more into the darkness, leaving behind the smoking and decapitated bodies.
xXx
Peter strolled through the front door, tossed his keys on the table, and shrugged off his flimsy jacket. He opened the fridge and pulled out the milk carton, slugging down a few swallows. The phone rang. He quickly folded the milk carton shut and tossed it back in the fridge, shutting the door. He snagged the phone.
"Parker Place," he said. "This is He."
"You make yourself sound like God," came an amused female voice.
"No no no," Peter said, "that would be This is HE. What can I do for you, MJ?"
"You don't waste any time, just cut to the important part," she said archly. "I figure I'm off work in two hours. Thought I might swing by. See if you are as delicious as you were the last time I was there."
"I've been rubbing myself in herbs and spices. My bathtub marinade is just about perfect," Peter deadpanned. "Did I mention I'm vintage?"
"You're something," Mary Jane said. "I may even bring something tasty myself."
"If you don't stop lining your clothes with aphrodisiac, somebody's going to get hurt," Peter said.
"It's all natural," Mary Jane said. "I'd have to take a shower to remove it all."
"Guh," Peter said. "We're about to break laws about legal use of the phone here. This is a toll free call. Remember, we're a kid's show here."
"Not what I auditioned for," Mary Jane said. "I'll see you at ten."
"I'll be here. Unless, you know." Peter glanced out the window.
"You're a lucky man," Mary Jane said. "If you stand me up, I just assume you're risking your life in some wild battle or something."
"It's gonna take me a minute to sort out exactly whether that makes me lucky or not," Peter said. "I'd better get to it. See you at ten."
She hung up the phone, and Peter walked over to the window and shook his head. Then he looked out the window again.
Fought the urge.
Lost.
Peter jogged down the block, baring his teeth to the chill wind. Once around the corner he lightly ran up the building to the roof, and stripped down to his mesh. He pulled the hood on, webbed his clothes in a bundle out of sight, and vaulted off the rooftop.
"This is stupid," he muttered. "I get a new apartment, and I go swinging around in my underoos. What has to be wrong with me?"
The wind is bright in the sky, the whole city is alive with scents, and the moon rides high in the clouds tonight.
"Yeah, aside from all that," Peter said as he whirled upside down, catching a tree limb with his feet and swinging around to higher altitude. "This is risky," he said, firing out a webline with a peculiar tearing zip and slinging over a street.
Anybody sees you and wants to make something of it, just poke out his eye.
"You are SO unhelpful," Peter said through gritted teeth. He changed course and headed for the park.
xXx
The woman struggled as the pale men gripped her arms and dragged her effortlessly down the path. She tried to scream or shout, but her broken jaw prevented it. She squirmed, but their hands were like cold iron vises. She could not escape, and fear had taken hold of her mind and numbed it.
"There there," soothed one of the pale men. "Soon it will all be over."
He pretended not to see the man that followed in the shadows. The pale men exchanged a secret glance and smiled.
They stepped off the path through a gap in the bushes and dragged their victim further back into the inky darkness of the trees. Their shadow followed them.
Finally they pushed through the trees to a clearing where a pale woman sat amid the litter of half a dozen dead and drained husks that had once been people. Half her face was badly burned, and her neck had exposed ropes and coils of tendon and muscle beneath where flesh had burned away. She also sported a gaping burn in her torso.
"More," she managed, and the two creatures tossed the injured woman to her. She snatched her victim greedily and plunged in her distended fangs, slurping and tearing at the hapless woman's neck.
One of the creatures made a peculiar gurgling hiss, clutching its chest. Then it fell over, and the others saw a feathered bolt protruding from its back on the left side.
The burned creature paused in her feast. "Find him. Bring him… to me." She buried her face in the dying woman's neck once more.
The bushes rustled as a number of her brood moved to comply.
A dozen yards away the big man broke cover, running hard. He spun once in the open, bringing up the crossbow and dropping his first pursuer with an expert shot to the heart. Seven more came on as he tossed the crossbow aside and tore his machete from its sheath. His other hand snagged a stake from his belt. He twirled his weapons once and settled in a combat stance as they surrounded him.
Predictably enough, one leaped at him from behind. He spun, knocking its talons aside with his machete and ramming a stake through the exposed ribs at the creature's flank. Its leap carried it forward to crash on the grass, faintly whining as its body began to burn from the inside out.
The huge man continued his spin, lashing out at another of the creatures. One darted forward and shoved at his arm, stopping its momentum, as another snagged the machete from his grip. The big man ducked and twirled out of the way, right into the rest of the mob.
They bore him to the ground, hideous strength in their whipcord bodies. He plunged his thumb into the eye socket of one, crushed the throat of another, but to these things such damage was cosmetic. In moments they had pinned him, so they retreated to grip his ankles and wrists and head, leaving his torso exposed.
She glided from the shadows. The burn on her torso was smaller, and she had all her teeth back and some of the flesh on the side of her head. She gazed at the man on the ground with unabashed unnatural lust, and she slowly licked her teeth.
"You mind tellin me what you're doin to my big homicidal pal there?" came a voice from across the clearing.
The hissing mob of creatures turned to look at a man who stood twenty feet away, dressed in a single piece black leotard with huge oval eyespots, pale against the dark suit.
"Kill him," hissed the burned woman. Four remained with the prisoner, one for each limb, and the other three sprinted towards the newcomer.
The spider ghost sighed, glanced up at the moon, and at the last moment darted out of the way. The creatures skidded to a halt, but before they could turn he had leaped and kicked two of them, planting a foot between their shoulderblades. They were carried off their feet by the force of the blow and sent tumbling down the hill, flailing for purchase to stop themselves. The third snapped at the spider ghost, who easily evaded then pounded a backhand across its head that sent the creature soaring into its comrades. The spider ghost whirled to face the group around the man pinned to the ground.
"Bad dog no bite!" yelled the spider ghost, bringing up his forearms. With a sound like tearing silk he fired off two streams of globby fluid that slapped into the mouths of two of the creatures crouched over their prisoner.
"Enough, buffoon," hissed the pale woman. "We shall see what you are made of." She drew a ceremonial curved dagger from her belt.
"Sugar, spice, everything nice," the spider ghost said, ticking ingredients off on his fingers. "Wait, that's little girls…"
She lunged, but he slid out of the way. In a single bound he landed on the big man's chest, lashing out with his feet to knock two of the creatures away. He snatched the other two by the shoulders and smacked their heads together, distracting them long enough for him to spin and fire another webline out, pinning one of the charging woman's feet to the ground. She flopped to the earth very ungracefully as the spider ghost leaped into the trees with the big man in tow.
"And I thought Amway was pushy," his voice echoed back. "Isn't this how cults recruit?"
"Find him," the woman snarled to her brood. "Find him and we will crush him. Or worse," she said, an evil smile twisting her face.
xXx
"I must admit I did not expect to see you, but I am glad you arrived," the huge man said.
"What the hell is going on, Kravinoff?" Peter said. "And what were those things?"
"Vampires," Kravinoff said decisively. "I am hunting them."
"For sport?" Peter said.
"No," Kravinoff said, and he half winced. "I have my reasons. It is not murder, my friend. In a way they are already dead. No pulse, no breath. Only malignant energies of the damned."
"For future reference, you know, it's a bad idea to attack eight supernatural baddies with a crossbow, a stick, and a flimsy sword. Just fyi."
"The idea is to attack a few at a time," Kravinoff said. "I was discovered." He shook his head. "I attacked when I should have waited, but they were tearing a girl's throat out and I felt compelled to interrupt."
"Yeah, I guess I can see that," Peter said, subdued. "So what now?"
"I resume the hunt. I believe she has about a dozen lackeys in her brood, and they are collecting living blood so she may heal grievous wounds sustained last night. I am trying to stop them before she is fully healed. She is at the heart of the brood, and slaying her means that no more could be created."
"Wow," Peter said reflectively. "I just fell headlong into a bad eighties movie."
"Scoff if you like," Kravinoff said. "Regardless, I thank you for your help. Now I must return to it."
Kravinoff gasped as a wooden shaft punched into his arm. He clutched at it and looked wildly along its flight path.
"It has returned to you, mortal feedbag," hissed a voice, and several pale men and women stalked out of the shadows. One held his crossbow and was reloading. "Prepare yourself. The Queen is coming."
"Kravinoff," Peter said between gritted teeth as he gripped the huge man's arm. "We're surrounded." Peter's senses probed the shadows, and he was disturbed at what they found.
"Let them come," snarled Kravinoff.
"I got this," said the spider ghost. He bounded toward the one with the crossbow, firing a glob of web that splattered across the bolt track. Then he spun, low, leg out, and knocked one of the vampires down.
Another vampire dropped from a tree on the other side of the clearing and opened fire with a submachine gun. The spider ghost whirled and bounded, senses delineating each and every bullet as it hummed through the air, anticipating their paths, keeping him out of the way; his mind was submerged in raw flashing instinct that slung him around faster than the bullets that hunted him.
Kravinoff dove for cover as the bullets scattered across the clearing, smacking into several vampires with little effect. He ended crouched behind a tree stump, where two descended on him. He curled into a roll and evaded their strike, smashing a stake into one's heart through its back. Then he dove for deeper cover as bullets sang and zipped around him, ricocheting off of trees and snipping through bushes.
"Now you've done it," the spider ghost said from up in a tree where his dodge had taken him. "Cops will swarm the park looking for gunfire."
"They will be too late," the pale woman said. "Get him."
Vampires swarmed into the tree, clambering up and chasing him. The spider ghost effortlessly spun and whirled further up, quite familiar with moving through trees in Central Park. He bounded out of the top of the tree, landing effortlessly on the ground far below, alone with their leader.
"I'd say something about them barking up the wrong tree but that's too easy," the spider ghost said. "Let's dance."
She hissed and struck at him, but he moved aside with the ease of instinct. She whirled, clawing and tearing, but he managed to slip and slide around her attacks as though he was insubstantial shadow. "I can keep this up all night you know," he said.
"Can you?" she hissed, narrowing her eyes to glittering slits.
"Yep," he said, and he shot a punch through her attack and crushed bone in the burned side of her face. She was flung back to crash against a tree trunk and collapse in a heap. "That's a fact. Now, I don't know about this whole 'vampire' thing, so how about I just web you to the ground and we wait for Mister Sun. If you're a vampire, you're an undead freak and you burn and die end of story. If you're a deeply misguided person in serious need of therapy, then you got nothing to worry about except the triggering of your psychosis sending you spiraling into a comatose state." He paused. "Maybe that's not quite what I was looking for. But anyway, you people seem to fall apart when defeated, so I would tend to subscribe to the whole 'undead' theory, unlikely as it sounds to my trained scientific mind." He glanced over at the tree he had been chased around in, and noticed there were no vampires in it now. "Of course," he added as his senses probed his surroundings, "I suppose I have little to say on behalf of science's ascendancy considering I shoot webs out of my arms and I run across ceilings in my silk tights."
"Surrender or he dies," the pale woman said, rising unsteadily.
Her mob of vampires dragged an unconscious Kravinoff out of the treeline. One vampire cranked his head back and gripped this throat in its teeth.
"Oh," the spider ghost said. "Um. Well. So if I surrender what happens then?"
"Whatever I want to happen," snapped the woman. "Surrender!"
"I surrender. Release him," Peter said.
"You heard the man," the pale woman said as her eyes narrowed. "Release the hunter."
The vampire pulled his jaws away from Kravinoff's neck, and grinned. He gripped the hunter's head, ready to snap his neck.
"No!" the spider ghost shouted, stepping forward.
Kravinoff whipped his head back, smacking into the vampire's face. He roared as he poured every ounce of his strength and cunning into winning free of their grips.
The vampire queen darted towards the struggle from one side, the spider ghost from the other. The spider ghost veered off and slide tackled her, deflecting her snap with his forearm as she bit at him. Springing off of her and into the air, he squirted as much web down at her as he could manage on his upward arc. She slithered away from some of it, but found herself gummed to the ground for the moment.
The spider ghost landed striking, smashing one vampire off Kravinoff and tearing another one's teeth out of the big man's shoulder. Kravinoff shifted his weight and hurled one from him to crash into a tree, and then leaned forward as the spider ghost lashed out, knocking the last one into the brush.
"You okay?" the spider ghost said.
"Yes," Kravinoff managed. "They sought to subdue me, not to kill me. Let's go."
"Incoming," the spider ghost said. They turned to run when two policemen pounded into view on the path that intersected the clearing.
"Freeze!" one shouted, leveling his automatic pistol at Kravinoff. The big man half grinned as he ran, and he gathered himself for a spring into the treeline. Suddenly, a vampire rose before him in the trees.
Armed with a submachine gun.
The spider ghost saw it too; he fired out webbing that slopped across the gun barrel as Kravinoff pounced on the hapless undead.
"I said freeze!" shouted one of the cops, and both of them lined up with their pistols as Kravinoff smashed down, tearing the gun from the vampire and crushing a blow across its head, mashing it into the tree. The creature hissed and slashed at him, but he dodged.
Then the bullets slammed into him, knocking him into the trees as they pounded into his back and side. The spider ghost jerked his head around to see the cops fire off another volley into the brush as the vampire slid around the tree.
"Sir, you okay? Did he hurt you?" one of the cops said as they ran towards the vampire.
"Kravinoff," whispered the spider ghost. Then he dropped from the trees behind the vampire. The creature spun to face him as he backhanded it into the tree trunk with a thud that shook the whole tree. The police hesitated.
A moment later, the vampire was thrust out of the brush, it's head dented. It hissed and squalled, fangs distended, and scrabbled to get the police.
Faced with the fanged, gory creature the police blanched; then they saw its shadow, dark with huge pale eyes.
"Run," the shadow said in a flat voice. They turned and ran as a blow smashed home on the vampire's neck with the crack of shattered bone.
"They didn't even see me," purred a lethal voice. The spider ghost just bounced into the trees, scooped up Kravinoff, and escaped at high speed.
Vampires that were none the worse for wear after taking the time to regenerate drifted out of the shadows. Their queen stood before them.
"Find him," she said. "We haven't finished our conversation yet. After all, he did surrender…"
xXx
The spider ghost lowered himself and his passenger through the skylight on a web line. Kravinoff was laid out on a table, and the spider ghost bounded up and shut the skylight. He leaned over Kravinoff, inspecting the webbing he had sprayed on the bullet holes.
"Still in me," Kravinoff muttered. He was ghastly pale, his mouth rimed with blood. "The bullets. Did not exit."
"Quiet," the spider ghost said. "Save your strength."
"Take that ridiculous mask off," Kravinoff gasped out. "You're going to have to operate on me."
The spider ghost stood stock still for a moment. He pulled the mask back. "I can't operate on you," he said. "I may have great senses and finesse, but I don't know a lot about anatomy."
"You'll have to learn," Kravinoff managed, "or I will die. I will need blood as well. B positive. A lot of it."
"You need a doctor, Kravinoff," Peter said. "I can't have your blood on my hands."
"No hospitals. No…" Kravinoff struggled for breath.
"I know a doctor that does house calls," Peter said. "Wait here. Rest. I'll be back with help."
Then he was gone, and Kravinoff was alone, slowly oozing precious blood.
xXx
"Just a minute," Connors said. He walked over to the door and opened it, then took a step back. "Peter! Are you alright?"
"Yes," Peter said, stepping into his room. His face was pale, his eyes glittering and bright. "I have a friend who has been shot. We can't go to the hospital. We need some blood, and surgery. He has two bullets in him."
"Hey, don't involve me in this," Connors said. "Get the police. Better your friend live and face the music than die because he didn't survive an operation in a non-sterile environment."
"Not an option," Peter said, his voice quiet and his face set. "He was shot while hunting a pack of vampires that has been killing off a number of people tonight. Their leader will track him down before long. We have no time. Maybe less. For all I know he's being killed right now."
"Again, the police," Connors said, "even if I did believe your tale of vampires, he'd be safer in a police station than in some motel room."
"He's at his safehouse right now," Peter said. "Bullets are a lot more effective against us than they are against them. I don't want any policemen to get killed. Last chance. I'm begging. Please come with me. If you don't my friend has no chance of survival. Please."
Connors looked at him for a long, long moment.
"Please," Peter said with a note of finality.
Connors sighed, rubbing his eyes with his only hand. "Alright, alright. I'll help you. I'll need a field triage kit, a first aid kit, and if you can get it a surgical kit. And some blood, equipment for a transfusion."
"Everything but the blood would be at the college, right?" Peter said.
"I suppose," Connors said.
"Did you ever turn your key in from when you were a guest lecturer?" Peter asked.
"No, I guess I didn't," Connors said slowly.
Peter nodded. "I'll get the blood. You get in and assemble your kit, I'll meet you between the science building and the lake as soon as possible. Okay?"
"I can't believe I'm doing this," Connors said with a shake of his head.
"Okay?" Peter repeated.
"Fine, I'll meet you there."
Peter nodded, and left.
Connors followed him out.
Then they went their separate ways.