Spider-Man the Vampire Slayer
Things around here are getting too—mundane, Peter thought as he swung toward home. The "broken window" and CompStat theories of policing—instituted under Giuliani—had forced crime off the streets and into corporate boardrooms. And that's definitely the wrong venue for Spider-Man, Peter thought. And I've had more than enough of the whole supernatural things that came with Ezekiel.
Peter thought about Ezekiel—the wealthy man (speaking of corporate boardrooms) who'd had powers like his—that he'd gotten in some supernatural ritual in Africa. And who'd been prepared to sacrifice Peter for so he could survive, but changed his mind at the last minute.
Ezekiel was dead now, food for some mystical super-spider. And Peter had been home for about two months. Mary Jane had (finally) gotten a part in an off-Broadway play. It had opened and closed in the same week—notwithstanding the glowing reviews MJ got. But even those couldn't overcome the disappointment she'd felt on the show's closing.
So he was understandably surprised when he swung home through the apartment window, and found MJ practically jumping for joy.
"Hey, tiger," she said. "How do you feel about taking a trip?"
"Just took a trip," Peter said, taking off his mask and getting ready for a much-needed post-webslinging shower.
"I mean like on an airplane," she said.
"Just did that, too," Peter said.
"Right," she replied. "Africa. But this is to someplace much spookier."
"What do you mean?"
"You remember that movie I was in last year?"
"The Pathetic Lobster-Boy, you mean?" Peter asked.
MJ made a face. Shooting that movie hadn't been the best time in their marriage. "Right. That one. Well, looks like they want me for the sequel."
Peter's heart sunk. Not that he resented MJs movie career. But he'd thought—now that she was getting real acting parts—in off-Broadway plays, no less—and now that the whole Dr.-Strange-World-of-the-Unreal stuff Ezekiel had ushered in had stopped—that they'd be able to get back to a normal life. Or, at least as normal a life as you can have when you're a Costume and your wife's a model. But he put on a smile anyway, and said, "How long do you think you'll be gone?"
"We'll be gone," MJ said. "I showed the producers some of your Bugle pictures—they're looking for someone who can shoot superhero action stills—and I got you a spot as a Production Photographer. That is, if you want to go."
"So I get to take pictures of you cavorting with the lobster-thing."
She walked over and touched his arm. "Yes. But you'll also get to come back with me to my trailer between takes..." She kissed him.
Well, I was just thinking that it might be time for a change, Peter thought. "This in LA?" he asked.
"Nearby, actually," she said. "In the suburbs. Some place called Sunnydale."
Peter was leaning against a barricade when he heard them—a man and a woman watching the shoot, talking. First the male:
"There she is—over there in the bathing suit—Mary Jane Watson."
Then the female: "Mary Jane Parker. Says here that she's married. Like we're going to be. Do you think she's pretty?"
Peter looked over at them. They were young—probably too young to be getting married, Peter thought. Though not much younger than we were, he thought. A dark haired man, with a tall blonde holding his arm.
"I..." the man paused. "Well. I used to. But that was before I met you," he said.
Peter smiled. Interesting save, he thought. He caught sight of MJ sitting in her cast chair. Looked like the cast was about to wrap for the night. He walked over and whispered in her ear, "I think you've got a couple of fans over there."
"Hey, tiger," she said. "Over where?"
"Over there—by the barricade. The young couple. Sounds like they're getting married."
"Well, let's go say 'hi,' then," MJ said. She got up, put on a wrap, and she and Peter walked over to the couple. "Hey," MJ said to them. "My husband, Peter here, tells me you two are getting married. Congratulations."
"Yes we are," the blonde said. "Very soon. Very married."
"It's an honor to meet you, Mr. And Mrs. Parker," the man said. "I'm Xander, and this is my fiancée, Anya."
"Xander and Anya," MJ said. "Interesting names. When it the blessed event?"
Xander looked uncomfortable. "We haven't exactly set a date yet," he said.
"But soon. Very soon," Anya said, pulling Xander closer to her.
MJ smiled. "Do you have a pen?"
"A pen?" Xander asked.
"Yes. I can't very well give you an autograph without one, can I?" MJ said.
"Right. Pen. Anya?"
Anya reached into her bag.
MJ took a piece of production letterhead out of the pocket of her wrap, and leaned on the barricade. On it, she wrote, "Congratulations to the soon-to-be newlyweds, Xander and Anya,"
"That's 'Xander' with an 'X,'" Xander said.
"Right," MJ said. She continued to write, "from your friendly neighborhood movie star, Mary Jane Watson-Parker." And she handed it to them.
"Thank you. Thank you very much," Xander said. He took the autograph and handed it to Anya, along with the pen. She put both in her bag.
"Yes," Anya said. "Thank you for the kind wishes and the paper with your writing on it." They turned to go, and walked off, holding hands.
Watching them go, Peter turned to MJ. "You stole my line," he said.
"I did," she said, kissing him. "Speaking of which—are you going to go for a... um... 'walk'?"
Peter looked around. Sunnydale looked like a fairly sedate little suburb. But, then again, he'd spent the whole day doing nothing but standing around, and his muscles felt like they were tensing up, and a few hours of webslinging would really help.
"Yeah," he said, "I think I would. But not for long. I'll meet you at the hotel?"
She kissed him again. "I'll be waiting."
Sunnydale seemed dead at night, Peter thought as he swung through the trees. No crime on the streets—because no one on the streets. He finally got to the downtown—what there was of it, anyway, when he saw five people in the middle of some kind of fight. A petite blonde woman and—were those two—was that the couple from the set? What were they doing here? Peter thought. They were fighting two shady-looking people.
No time to think. It looked like the blonde woman was about to stab one of the shady guys with—was that a stake? Well, whatever they did, murder's not called for, Peter thought. A flick of the wrist—a stream of webbing—and the stake was in Peter's hand, not in some guy's chest.
"What the?" he heard Xander say. Then the blonde woman said, "Run," and they did.
The shady guys took off after them.
Peter leapt to keep ahead of both groups. Clearly, there was something odd going on here. And while he stopped a stabbing, he wasn't going to just let the other group get the upper hand here.
Anya, Xander, and their friend ran out of the alleyway into the street. The two shady guys were just enough steps behind...
A little more webbing, spun between the buildings at the end of the alley, and the two guys ran right into it. Oldest trick in the Spidey-handbook, and the crooks still fell for it nine times out of ten.
"Again—what the?" Xander said, as the three of them turned around.
"Webbing," the blonde woman said, almost deadpan.
"Spider-man?" Anya said. "What's he doing here?"
"Whatever a spider can," Xander said. They turned to look at him. "I'm just saying."
"I mean," Anya said, "doesn't he live in New York?"
"Well, sure. But he travels," Xander said. "I saw in the paper he was in LA a few months ago. Maybe he's gone bi."
"Excuse me," Peter said. He was hanging upside down, suspended by a thread of webbing from the top of a streetlight.
"Bi-coastal, I meant," Xander said.
"And you are?" Peter asked.
"I'm Xander Harris. This is my fiancée Anya, and this is Buffy."
"Right," Peter said. "So—is vigilante killing a normal hobby for you three? Or was this a novelty night?"
"They're vampires. We slay them," Buffy said.
Vampires. Right, Peter thought. Something not exactly right with the blonde girl.
"Take a look," Buffy said.
Peter peered at the two men caught in the web. Why am I even doing this? He thought. There's no such thing as vampires. Their foreheads were... odd. And their eyes were red, and they did have teeth the type of which one would imagine on vampires. OK, so maybe... he thought. After all, if you can have guys who can light up like roman candles, big orange scaly guys, gamma-ray green giants—to say nothing of the strange Doc Strange stuff he'd been through recently... And I thought I was done with this stuff. And whatever they are, killing them...
"Well, they're not hurting anybody now," Peter said. "So, no harm, no foul. Let's maybe not slay anyone tonight."
Buffy looked up at the sky. "How long does this webbing of yours last?"
"About four hours," Peter said. As he said it, he felt his spider-sense go off, and then felt something whiz by under his head. And then one of the vampires vanished in a cloud of dust, and what looked like an arrow fell to the ground from where he'd been caught in the webbing.
"The sun'll be up in three," said a British voice behind him.
Peter jumped to the ground and turned around. A Billy Idol look-alike with a crossbow was walking toward them.
"So, really, leaving them there for the sun or killing them now—same difference really," he said.
"Mute point," Anya said.
"Moot point," Xander corrected her.
"Whatever. The other one got away."
Peter turned around. Sure enough, the webbing had been weakened where the first vampire had vanished, and the other one had been able to cut himself free. "Not for long," he said. He shot a string of webbing up to the top of the building, and vaulted to the top. Gone, he thought. Lost him. And the punk rocker's right. It is almost dawn. MJ will be waiting for me. And he swung back toward the hotel.
MJ was asleep when he finally got in. He tried to slip into bed as unobtrusively as he could, but she woke up anyway.
"Hey—you're in late," she said. "Any excitement?"
"A little," he said. "This is one strange town."
Surprisingly enough, Peter had gotten a few shots that night. He didn't really know why he was bothering—the money the movie was paying him to shoot stills was fine—and MJ was getting well paid for her role. Maybe I just like seeing my work in print, he thought. And then thought about that both ways—both as photographer and as subject. Sure, he'd still be Spider-Man if know one knew about it—the responsibility was there, whether on the front page or alone in the dark. But even so, it was a bonus for people to know.
He'd e-mailed the photos over to Robbie the day after, and that night one of them was on the Bugle home page. "Webbed Menace Terrorizes La-La Land!" read the headline. A JJJ classic.
MJ finally emerged from the bathroom. "Ready to go tiger?" she asked.
The director and film crew were shooting background shots, so MJ—and the rest of the cast—had the day off. (And besides—it was Saturday.) And MJ wanted to spend it knocking around scenic Sunnydale. What there was of it, anyway.
They were walking down the main drag, when they came across an odd looking store called "The Magic Box." "Let's check this one out," MJ suggested. And they went in.
And found Anya behind the counter. She recognized them immediately.
"Mr. and Mrs. Parker!" she said. "Welcome to the Magic Box. Giles—these are the people I was telling you about."
An older man with glasses—reading an open book—came in from the back of the store.
"What? Which people?" Giles asked.
"From the movie shooting on the other side of town," Anya said. "Mary Jane Parker and her husband."
"Oh, right. Nice to meet you," he said, and went back to his book.
"You'll have to excuse Giles," Anya said. "He just found out that an old friend of his just died in Africa. And he's getting ready to go back to England."
Giles looked up from his book. "I'm sorry, I'm being rude. Parker, did you say?"
"Yes," Mary Jane said. "I'm Mary Jane, and this is my husband, Peter."
"Peter Parker," Giles repeated. "The Spider-Man photographer?"
Peter felt a twinge. He wasn't quite sure if it was mild spider-sense, or just an odd feeling that MJ was being ignored, and this guy thought he—Peter—was the famous one. MJ seemed to pick up on it. She shot him a glance, and then walked over to the counter.
"So, Anya, what's the deal with the vampires?" she asked.
Anya glanced at Giles. Then she said, "Vampires are mythical creatures. They don't exist. And neither do demons."
"Uh-huh," MJ nodded. "Can I see your computer behind the counter?" And she went around the counter, and tapped at the keyboard. Peter could imagine—she was calling up The Daily Bugle's web page, showing her the picture, and then showing her the photo credit...
Anya's jaw dropped, and she looked straight at Peter. Yup. She's seen it.
Anya looked over at Giles, who was cleaning his glasses.
"We may as well tell them, at this point," Giles said, sitting down at the round table. "Mrs. Parker, I'm afraid your movie is being shot on top of what's called a hellmouth."
Now Peter wished he still had glasses he could clean. More of this, he thought. "Sounds like something Doc Strange would say," he said.
Giles looked at him. "You know him?" he asked.
"I've met him once or twice. Spider-Man does. He and Spider-Man have had... dealings recently," Peter said.
"And how is Stephen these days?" Giles asked.
"Hellmouth?" MJ asked, walking over to the table.
"Right. The hellmouth." Giles cleaned his glasses again. "There are places where dimensions and planes pass close to each other—where transit from one to the other takes very little effort. Sunnydale was one of those places. Until someone made the barrier between the dimensions even thinner. Now dark creatures can come and go almost as they please." He sat upright. "Mrs. Parker—what did you show Anya before?"
"The front page of The Daily Bugle," MJ said. "I showed her Peter's photograph—I mean the picture he took—of Spider-Man—the other night."
"Then they may know he's here," Giles said. He turned to Peter. "Do you know how Spider-Man got his powers?" he asked.
Peter paused. Tell him? Or not? "No, not really," he said. "Why?"
"There is a line of spider-men stretching back to the beginning of human history," Giles said. "They draw on some of the same iconic power as the Slayer. Power that could be transferred to vampires with just a few drops of blood."
"Slayer?" Peter asked.
"Buffy," Anya said.
Silence.
"The blonde girl with the stake in the picture," Anya said.
Was that why she was so... laconic? Peter wondered.
"Do you know when you'll see Spider-Man again," Giles asked.
"Not exactly," Peter said. "I usually run into him at night—when he starts his patrols."
"Well, when you see him," Giles said, "be sure to tell him he may be in great danger."
"Are you going out tonight?" MJ asked when they got back to the hotel. They'd wandered more around Sunnydale, even after the strange conversation at the Magic Box. Night was falling—the sun just having slipped below the horizon, and the last streamers of sunlight were bouncing red off the clouds.
"Not exactly," Peter said.
"Then you're going to stay here tonight?" she asked.
"No—but not patrolling exactly. I'm going to find these vampires—before they can find us." He leapt out the open window, shot a webline at the nearest lamppost, and swung away.
Peter went swinging through the downtown—staying in the treetops. Nothing there—little activity, no leads. Vampires, he thought. It's a cliché, but maybe I should try the cemetery. He swung down toward a phone booth, and pulled out the copy of the yellow pages, got the address, and looked it up on the yellow pages map.
He swung over to the cemetery, and sure enough, there she was. The blonde girl—Buffy—was wandering around among the headstones, with a stake in her hand. But behind her, several paces back, was the Billy Idol impersonator.
He leapt several trees ahead, and lowered himself upside down in front of her. "Buffy, right?" he said.
"Spider-Man, right?" she replied. "Subtle much?"
"Used to be," Peter replied. "Before that whole radioactive spider thing."
Buffy kept walking, so Peter leapt head, and perched on another branch. "Look—I was told that you'd be the person to talk to about finding vampires."
"Mostly, they find you," she said.
"I'm looking for a specific vampire," Peter said. "You know—the one that got out of my webbing the other night."
"You're not going to find him," came a British accent. The Billy Idol clone stepped out of the shadows behind Buffy. "Until they're ready for you to find them," he said.
"Spike, Spider-Man. Spider-Man, Spike," Buffy said.
"While you were out here looking for them, they were out looking for your photographer buddy Parker, his wife, and all her co-stars," Spike said.
Buffy turned around. "You knew about this?"
"Not hard to put two and two together, luv," Spike replied. "Best way to get their teeth on spider-blood."
"And you did nothing?"
"I came out here to find you, figuring our red-and-blue friend here would do the same," Spike said.
If I hurry, maybe I can still catch them at the hotel, Peter thought. If anything's happened to MJ... "Thanks for the tip," he said. He shot out a webline, and took off at full speed for the hotel.
They found him in the room. The entire hotel had been trashed—bell boys killed, and all the guests missing. And a note left on MJ's pillow
Spider-Man: We've got Parker's wife, her co-stars, the film crew... If you want them back, all we want of you is a pound of flesh. Or rather, a pint of blood. You'll know where to find us.
"Where are they?" Peter asked, without turning around.
"You can't give them what they want," Buffy said.
"I don't have any intention of giving them anything," he said. "But I'm not going to just sit here and wait."
"They're probably waiting for you to go swinging on in," Spike said. "They'll take you down, then eat the rest of them."
"At least, let us get help," Buffy said.
"What help?" Peter asked. They had MJ, and here he was, wasting time. They wanted him to find them, so they wouldn't be hiding. Probably in the cemetery. Or the woods surrounding town. And since they hadn't been in the cemetery...
"You should listen to her, mate," Spike said. "She's the Slayer. Killing vampires is what she does."
"So why are you alive?" Peter asked. He shot out a webline, and swung out the window.
He was swinging through the woods outside of town when he heard Spike's voice calling after him: "Parker!"
Peter stifled the urge to turn. Even after all these years—still hard to suppress the natural instinct to respond when someone calls your name.
"Fine, then," Spike said. Then, deliberately and theatrically: "Spider-Man."
Peter landed on a thick branch and turned around.
"You know, you're not really fooling anyone, with that 'secret identity," Spike said. "Well—maybe it works in New York. But Sunnydale's not exactly New York, now is it?"
"Did you want something?" Peter asked. "Because I'm kind of in a hurry—now's not really a good time for a white wedding."
"They said you had a wit. Pity you don't use your brain for thinking." Spike paused. "If I could figure out who you are, it probably won't take the other vamps to figure it out. Particularly when they realize that they came looking for Parker and only found his wife. And they wanted Parker to get to Spider-Man. So when they realize they've got your wife..."
"And that in your book would be a good reason for me to sit here chatting with you?" Peter asked.
"What I'm saying is that you should wait for back-up. Wait for Buffy and the Scoobies to catch up."
"The Scoobies?" Peter said, arching his eyebrows under his mask. "You're ridding, right? They have a big psychedelic van?"
"No van. No great dane. They do have a mascot, though. Think you've met him. They call him 'Xander'."
Mary Jane sat with her back against a wall, her hands tied behind her back. The others were likewise scattered around the dark room, also with their hands tied.
At a table in the middle of the room—five of them sat, joking, making bets over kittens, and waiting.
Waiting for Peter, she thought. And knowing Peter, he'd probably swing right in—probably through the window—and right into the trap. He is a bright guy, my husband, she thought. Academically brilliant. Witty.
But not so great with the common sense. Especially not when it came to innocents being harmed, or MJ or Aunt May being threatened by Spider-Man's enemies.
In the meantime, MJ had nearly worked her way out of the ropes around her wrists. Almost, but not quite. She'd do the last part when Peter arrived. Then she'd do the best she could do distract some of the vamps—and then she'd help shuffle the others out the door, and go for help.
Peter had, over the years, shared with her some of the secrets of the trade.
This was her plan. And she was just waiting for the cue.
So she was understandably shocked when the front door came crashing in. She looked up to see a petite blonde woman standing framed in the doorway.
The vamps stood up, some of them knocking their chairs over. "Slayer!" one of them said.
"Let them go before this turns ugly," the blonde said. "Although, in your case, it's already too late."
"There are five of us, Slayer—and only one of you. Even if you kill us all, we'll still be able to take some of them with us."
Peter was sticking to the outside wall of the shack, peering through the window. He saw the five vamps make a circle around Buffy, and then he saw one of them move toward the hostages.
I don't use my brain, he said? He thought. We'll see.
"Right, then," Spike said, and then he shattered the window with his crossbow, and jumped through.
"Now there are three of us to five of you," he said. "Sounds more fair."
"Three of you?" the lead vamp laughed. "I see two."
Spike scanned the room. "Bloody hell."
Four of the vamps advanced on the slayer and the vampire. The fifth moved toward MJ.
Not so fast, Peter thought. He'd quietly crawled through the window, up the sides of the wall, and onto the ceiling. Sure, the Buffy girl was strong, and a well-trained fighter—and the vamps seemed prepared for that. But it's easy for the bad guys to forget that I stick to walls, Peter thought. He shot out a webline at the vamp going for MJ, getting him around the neck. He yanked, meaning to just pull him off his feet. But the webline snapped the vamp's neck, and he collapsed in a cloud of dust.
Buffy saw it. "One down," she said.
"Right. Nice of you to join us," Spike said into the air.
The four remaining vampires were ganging up on Buffy. I suppose they figure they can deal with Spike later, he thought. Spike was trying to pull them off of Buffy. Trying a bit hard, Peter thought, given that Spike himself was a vampire. He was acting almost like—he was acting like Peter would act if it were MJ. Falling in love with your sworn enemy, Peter thought. Talk about a death wish.
He was now almost directly overhead, in the middle of the ceiling. "Hey guys," he called down the vamps. "Forget about me?" He shot out two weblines, grabbing two of them. He yanked, tossing them toward the wall, where he sprayed a large web, where they landed, stuck. Spike nailed them with his crossbow.
Buffy took advantage of the other two's disorientation, and made short work of them.
In the meantime, MJ had gathered the hostages in a corner of the room, to better protect them. Peter dropped from the ceiling and walked over. "Is everyone here OK?" he asked. "Ma'am?" he asked MJ.
"I'm fine, Spider-Man," she said. "I think we're all OK."
"No, I am not OK," said a male voice. MJ and Peter turned toward it. It was the actor—Peter forgot his name—who played Lobster-Man. "I am definitely not OK. What was this? Some kind of SF Channel prank? Some kind of super-hero boot camp? Well, this is over the edge. My agent never said anything about working in conditions like this. I'm outta here."
One of the others, and older man with thinning hair and a thickening middle that Peter thought he recognized as the director, put his head in his hands. "Well, that's that, then," he said.
Peter shook his head. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said to MJ. "I have something to take care of."
"I'll be here," she replied.
He walked over to where Spike and Buffy were arguing.
"I can come back, if you're busy," Peter said, interrupting them.
"Spider-Man," Buffy said. "Nice to finally meet you in person. I'm a real admirer of your work. Do you think you could teach me that sticking to walls trick?"
"Not without a radioactive spider bite, I'm afraid," Peter said.
"So the rumors are true—that's how you got your powers."
"Yeah. It was the high point of my life," Peter said, sarcastically.
"Hey," she asked. "Do you have a Watcher?"
"A 'Watcher'?"
"Yeah—I've always wondered about that—a Watcher—a teacher, who, well, watches."
Peter glanced over his shoulder. MJ. Aunt May. Ezekiel. Uncle Ben. Lately, Doc Strange. The Fantastic Four. "I've got several," he said.
"You're lucky," she said, reaching out to touch his arm.
MJ cleared her throat. "So is it safe to go, Spider-Man?" she asked.
"Excuse me," Peter said to Buffy. "I'll take care of the, um, civilians." He turned around. "Mrs. Parker—just to be safe, why don't I escort you all back to the hotel?"
"I think that would be best, "MJ said.
When they got back to the hotel, there was a message waiting for MJ. Peter decided to take a shower, while MJ listened to the voice mail. When he got out of the shower, MJ was packing.
"What was it?" he asked.
"That was the producer," she said. "Our leading man—"
"Such as he was," Peter interjected
"Has walked off. And—obviously—the studio wants to find a new location. So filming's been suspended indefinitely. But they're still paying me."
"That's good," Peter said. "Money good." Oh no, he thought. Now I'm starting to talk like a Californian.
"Right. So what do we want to do now?" she asked. "Do you want to stay here for awhile? Or go back to New York?"
"Well—our aunts are both waiting for us in New York," he replied.
"But nothing else," she said. "Everything else I'd want in New York is right here," she said, kissing him.
"There's theater in New York," he said. "Cattle calls, auditions, long rehearsals..."
She sighed. "I suppose you're right," she said. "I'll see about a flight. But do we have to leave today?"
He kissed her. "No. No we don't," he said.
END