Chapter Nine
I hurtled over the bridge as Spider-Girl, swinging and leaping so fast my muscles screamed in protest. The sun had set, and the sky was darkening. I wasn't even thinking of explanations as a webline sent me flying onto Manhattan Island, far ahead of the following Nacht. I landed on a rooftop as he caught up, then webswung again, dodging a police helicopter headed in the same direction.
Central Park came into view, a huge expanse of green amidst the steel canyons of the island. Panting, I landed on a windowsill of an apartment building facing the park, fifty stories up. Nacht appeared beside me.
Central Park was empty. I didn't see a flicker of movement, even from my height. It was ringed with dozens of police cruisers and ambulances. Hundreds of normal pedestrians huddled together, talking and crying. The helicopter buzzed over the park, its searchlight sweeping the treetops.
"I was on top of building, watching show," said Nacht. "Then was there so much running...and screaming..."
"And fear," I murmured. "Horrible fear."
I pushed off and dived towards the trees, straight over the police cars into a mass of green. Thrusting out my arms, I shot web from both wrists to break my fall with a bone-jarring jolt. I released and dropped. My feet landed on grass.
What had happened here? What was going on? What was I dealing with? Questions raced through my mind as I took in my surroundings. Muffled by the acres of trees, the normal sounds of the city were faint and far away. I was standing on the edge of a rocky slope that led down to an artificially carved creek. It was hot, dark, quiet. The trees cast black, shifting shadows that oozed around the circles of light from lamp posts, and the breeze made their leave rustle like whispering ghosts.
Nacht materialized with a bamf. "Go back!" I said. "This is dangerous. I don't know what's in here!"
Nacht's yellow eyes were huge; he looked frightened, but he shook his head stubbornly. "I stay."
There was no time to argue. I started walking down the path, Nacht following, moving his head from side to side in that weird, catlike movement. It was quiet now. Central Park was enveloped in a silence that was unheard of in the heart of Manhattan. The heat shimmered in the light of the lamp posts interspersed along the path. The shadows grew deeper. My spider-sense tingled at the base of my skull.
"Vater unser im Himmel, geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein Reich komme, Dein Wille geschehe, wie im Himmel, so auf Erden. Unser tägliches..." Nacht muttered under his breath in a steady, chanting rhythm. It sounded like a prayer.
The trees parted and we came to the amphitheater. The grass was flattened and covered with litter. On the stage were overturned speakers and forgotten drums and guitars. American flags drooped listlessly in the stillness.
Silence and darkness.
Then it happened. My spider-sense ceased, shutting off as if a switch had been flipped. I clapped my hands to the sides of my head, feeling like I had suddenly been suffocated. It was gone! My spider-sense! What was happening to me?
I knew that you would come here, Spider-Girl.
I gasped. I looked at Nacht, and he looked back, his eyes huge. "Did you hear that?" I asked.
He nodded, then tapped his forehead. "In here."
"Who's there?" I called into the darkness, trying to sound cocky and unafraid.
It is no use trying to fool me, Spider-Girl. I know that you are frightened.
I swallowed hard. The sounds were in my head. A strange, resonating voice, speaking in an emotionless monotone.
"Who are you?" I demanded of the emptiness. I couldn't see anything. "What do you want?"
The latter is none of your concern. However, the former...
I saw something move, step out of the darkness of the trees. A black shadow, stepping into the light...
"Mein Gott," Nacht whispered.
I stared, stunned, at the figure standing there. It was tall, well over six feet It was a man, but covered from the neck down in what seemed to be golden, linked chain mail. Dark brown leather bands attached golden armor plates to elbows and knees, and a belt wrought with strange, glittering designs wrapped around his waist. A flat, fanlike collar of the same gold wrapped around his neck, but it was the head that made me gasp.
The man's head was completely covered by a huge, helmet-like mask that sat on his shoulders. It was dark brown, with slitted, opaque, coppery-orange eyes, and a muzzle from which carved, white fangs could be seen in a canine mouth.
It was shaped like the head of a jackal.
What was this? Who was that?
"I know that you recognize my form," said the figure, out loud, in that same echoing monotone. "I see every thought in your mind as clearly as if it were my own. I see that you have already given me my name. Tell me."
"Anubis," I said. The word just tumbled out of my mouth. I hadn't meant to answer, yet I had.
I hadn't meant to answer...
"It's you!" I said. "It's been you all along. You made me say things I didn't want to say, controlling me...why?"
"Spare me your righteous anger, Spider-Girl," said the man, Anubis. "You and your comrade Ladyhawk were simply in my way at the occasions of your incapacitation."
"Ladyhawk isn't my comrade," I spat. "I don't keep company with murderers."
"Do you not?" The flat voice held the barest hint of some black amusement. The jackal headed mask inclined slightly, looking past me. "Spider-Girl does not keep company with murderers? What say you to that, Kurt Wagner?"
He raised one hand and brought it down against his mailed palm with a sharp crack, like the breaking of bone.
Kurt Wagner? Did he mean Nacht? I turned and saw Nacht behind me, motionless, his face blanching under his fur.
"Nein...accident...I never meant to...aaaaaargh!"
He lurched backwards, his face contorting in panic. A stream of German burst from his mouth, and his eyes stared at the ground, jumping from empty space to empty space, locked on something only he could see.
"Nein, oh nein...die Kinder...warum, Stephan?" Nacht's voice rose to a shriek. "Mein Gott, nein!"
The terror attacks. Anubis. He was doing it! He had been doing it all along, and tonight on a huge scale...I had to stop this!
"What do you want?" I yelled. I whipped my arms up, ready to fire, and froze.
Anubis's arm came up. He crooked a finger. "Come here, Spider-Girl."
My arms dropped. My legs began to move, carrying me forward, across the grass.
No!
I stopped. What was I doing?
"I told you to come here, Spider-Girl! Obey me!"
Red-hot pain lanced through my head, clouding my vision. I strangled a gasp. No! I couldn't...I wouldn't...
The pain hit again, stabbing, burning, worse than before...I started to walk forward.
"Spider-Girl!" I heard Nacht cry from far away, his voice weak. "No! Don't listen!"
I couldn't stop walking...I was only ten feet away now, eight feet, five, three...I had to stop! I couldn't...
Something rushed past overhead. The jackal head tilted towards the sky, and in that split second I found the will to ball my hand into a fist and send it smashing forward with all of my strength.
My knuckles connected solidly with chain mail. Anubis flew backwards, crashing into the lamp post with a sickening thud. My smothered spider-sense gave me no warning as the shadow crashed to the ground and unfolded a pair of giant wings. I staggered, gasping, in control once more, my head throbbing, trembling at how close I had come to...
"Spider-Girl! What is the meaning of this?" Ladyhawk snarled, the patches of light and shadow giving her birdlike mask a gaunt, skeletal cast. Then her eyes widened looking past me...
I didn't think; I sprang into the air. Something slashed the space beneath me. I backflipped, landing on my feet as Anubis slowly turned. Something silver glittered in both of his hands. Razored edges gleamed in the lamp light. He raised his hands, and I saw two curved, sharp blades in the shape of crescent moons. Egyptian sickles.
"HAF zero one, this does not involve you," Anubis intoned. He didn't look at all shaken from my blow. "You are allowed to leave unharmed."
Ladyhawk reeled back as though struck. "How do you...how could you know-"
She stopped speaking as Anubis sprang, not at her, but at me. I bounded into the air and whirled around, handspringing out of the path of the deadly sickles.
"Aaah!" I landed crouched on the grass, feeling hot blood trickling down my arm from the shallow, surgically precise gash in my shoulder. It hurt; I tried not to look at the wound. That shouldn't have happened, but without my spider-sense...
Then Ladyhawk flapped past me, shoving me aside. "Stay out of my way!"
She pulled back her arm, talons extended, until Anubis, observing her charge with unnatural impassiveness, suddenly spun on his feet and delivered a tremendous spinning kick to her head.
Ladyhawk tumbled to the ground and I sprinted forward, dodging away from Ladyhawk and straight for the figure, droplets of my own blood spattering the grass. Anubis turned, raised one weapon, and I fired a webline.
In a single movement, faster than a striking snake, Anubis's left hand snapped out and snatched the end of the webline out of the air.
"Only fools resist me, Spider-Girl," he said. He wrenched. I couldn't release in time; I went flying over his head, into the wall of trees. My heart in my throat, I webslung wildly, feeling the line connect and jerk me to a stop just before my spine crashed against the trunk of a huge oak tree.
A paralyzing screech rent the night, reverberating throughout the amphitheater. Ladyhawk was in the air again, diving at Anubis, her face set in a rabid snarl. I watched groggily as Anubis adjusted his grip on the sickle to point one finger at Ladyhawk.
Ladyhawk pulled up short and fell to the ground like a stone, screaming. "No, please! Tell him not to, Doctor! I'll be good, I promise! Please!"
Appalled, I struggled to my feet. He was a madman, this creature...why was he doing this? How could I stop him, when he could do this, trap people in their own minds?
I raced at him as he stepped to the crumpled form of Ladyhawk. Lamp light gleamed along the edges of the sickles as he raised them over his head...
I hurled myself at him in a desperate tackle. Too far. I was too far!
Then, from the other end of the clearing, a shadow swooped forward. Nacht threw himself over Ladyhawk, and-
Bamf!
The sickles thudded into the ground, slicing furrows into the turf where Nacht and Ladyhawk had been an instant before. There was a second bamf, and then they reappeared in a bluish, smoky cloud, on the other side of the amphitheater.
That was all the time I needed. I jumped, spinning into the air, and kicked.
"Aaaaargh!"
Anubis grabbed my ankle and flung me away. I couldn't react; my spider-sense was lifeless. The wall of the amphitheater slammed into my back, and my head cracked against it. Flashes of light exploded in my eyes, and I heard footsteps advancing towards me.
"Now," said Anubis softly, "It is your turn, Spider-Girl."
My turn? I struggled to my feet, about to websling, when-
I wasn't in Central Park anymore. It was cold, freezing. I was in a huge corridor, standing on a grilled floor. The ocean roared just beyond those metal walls, and machinery throbbed in the distance. It was dim, echoing.
"This isn't real," I whispered. I pressed my hands against my face and felt pain shoot up my right arm from a broken hand.
CLIKCLIKCLIKCLIKCLIKKK!
They were everywhere! All around me, pointed javelin legs, serrated mandibles snapping...spiderbots, hundreds of them...
"This isn't real," I whispered. "This can't be real. This place is gone...this isn't real."
"Oh, it's real enough, Mayday," said a high, hissing voice. Suddenly there was a shape before me, where the space had been empty before. A tall, spindly, black shape, hollow fangs bared, six claw-tipped arms unfolding...
Terror swept through my veins like ice. "You're dead!" I shouted. "You're not real! None of this is real!"
Black Widow stalked forward, alive, solid, hissing viciously around huge fangs, a malevolent gleam shining in two dead, black eyes. I backed away, feeling cold steel against my back. The swarm of spiderbots scuttled around us, encircling us.
"Never thought you'd have to deal with me again, did you? Never thought you'd come back here? The death of your father wasn't enough to keep you away, was it?"
"My father's not dead," I stammered. My words caught in my throat and cracked.
Black Widow nodded. "Oh, yes he is, Mayday Parker. He's been dead for five years. Don't you remember?"
"My father's not dead!" I screamed. "He's alive, he's here somewhere! He's not dead! My father isn't dead!"
I turned. I had to run, get away...I had to find Dad...he wasn't dead...she was lying...lying, lying, lying...
I turned to a blank wall. There was nowhere to run. Whirling again, I found myself facing an empty corridor. Black Widow and the spiderbots were gone.
I ran. I ran so fast that the walls blurred around me. Noise screamed in my ears: shouts, manic laughter, mocking jeers...
And then Harry was there in front of me. He stood with his back to me, his armor on but his helmet no where to be seen. I didn't know how he had gotten there, but I had to tell him...
"Harry!" I gasped. "Black Widow! She's back! I don't know how, but she's back! We-"
Harry started to laugh. A high, mad, diabolical cackle. He spun, and then one gloved hand clenched around my throat and slammed me into the wall, and Harry's face was inches from mine. A face deathly white, twisted into a skeletal grin, an insane light dancing in his eyes. I saw his other hand drawing back, and hand that held a short, three-pronged razored trident.
"Too trusting, Mayday," Hobgoblin whispered. "Always too trusting. You never know when someone you trust will try to kill you." He laughed softly. "After all...I'm one of them."
The trident stabbed forward.
"Nooooooo!"
There was an enormous roar, a flash of light, and I was falling, facefirst into grass and pebbles. My face hit the ground. My shoulder throbbed. I didn't move.
"Mayday, get up! Mayday!" Someone seized my shoulders, pulled me up, and I was staring into the masked face of Hobgoblin.
"Get away from me!" I shrieked. I shoved him away. The world spun around me in a dizzying circle. Trees, lamps, flags...Central Park. Nacht was on his feet, his yellow eyes glowing with fear, and Ladyhawk was crouched there, wings spread, hissing. And Harry. Harry, not Hobgoblin
Another country heard from. Anubis's voice rang through my head once more. What an odd collection there is before me.
As the terror faded, winging back to wherever it had come from, I saw that were were all in a line, facing him. Nacht, his tail thrashing, eyes slitted, me, swaying on my feet, Harry, armored, his hands balled into fists and his glider hovering beside him, and Ladyhawk, flexing her claws as if she would like nothing better than to sink them into Anubis's flesh.
He stood there, the sickles now not in his hands but dangling from his belt. The burnished jackal eyes reflected the lamp light, filling them with fire.
"Who are you?" Harry shouted. "What do you think you're doing?"
Only fools resist me, Anubis said, not to Harry, but to me. And that is why, young fools, you must be punished.
"As if you haven't done enough of that already," Ladyhawk snarled.
I have done nothing yet, the silent voice said smoothly. For now one of you will die.
Anubis raised his hand. And that one, he said, will die screaming.
The mailed hand moved along our pitiful little barrier, pointing to each of us in turn, one by one. A shudder ran through me as the hand pointed at me for a moment, then moved on, moved on to rest squarely on Nachtkriecher.
You, said Anubis.
I was the only one who saw it, because of the speed of his movement. I was the only one who saw the mailed hand twitch, and the dart shoot from Anubis's wrist.
Nacht collapsed. His knees buckled under him and he fell to the ground. At the same moment, another shape plummeted down, a shape that gripped Anubis's arm and lifted him right off the ground, flinging him across the field.
Standing in his place was Spider-Man.
Nacht took in a huge, gasping breath. I knelt beside him. He was crumpled on his back, like a broken marionette. Air was wheezing raggedly into his lungs. "Spider-Girl...can't feel...my legs...aaaargh!" Nacht screamed, his eyes squeezing shut, teeth bared, hands clenched in agony.
"Mayday! Get him out of here!" Dad yelled. I saw Anubis climbing to his feet, reaching for the twin sickles in his belt.
"Dad!" I yelled. "You don't know what he can do! You can't-"
Dad pointed at me. "Don't argue with me, Mayday! Get him out of here!"
"He's right!" Harry yelled.
Anubis was coming, charging...Dad was turning to meet him...
"Go, now!" Dad roared.
I couldn't leave him! I couldn't just-
Nacht gasped on the ground, strangled cries piercing the night. His eyes opened again, and I saw that his pupils were dilating.
He was dying.
I snatched him up, one arm under his shoulders, the other under his knees. I couldn't webswing while carrying him! Where could I take him, where could I...?
Harry jetted to a stop before me on his glider. "Get on! Hurry!" I ran forward, Nacht limp in my arms. Harry pulled me up, and the glider blasted straight up into the air and over the park.
"Dad!" I yelled. "Dad!" It would come true if we left him, what Black Widow said, all of it...
"There's only one person who we can take him to!" Harry shouted over the rushing wind. "Doc!"
Nacht stiffened in my grip, his muscles spasming, choked-off breaths shaking his body. Dying.
The dart. The poisoned dart.
The glider sped into the lights of the city.