The trim, athletic young man rapped his drumsticks on the kitchen table, then spattered some hits across the back of the chair, spinning and working his way across the dish drainer and countertop. He grinned as a staccato rattling rhythmed itself out of him and rolled across whatever was handy.
"Cut it out, Peter," called a voice from the bathroom. "It's not good for the furniture!"
"Sorry," he said, twirling the drumsticks like sixguns and sticking them in his pockets. He twirled them out again, up and down and around. "You ready to go?"
"If I'm not, you'll continue your destructive binge, am I right?" said the voice in the bathroom.
"Married for less than a month and you read me like a book," Peter grinned. "You're awesome, Mary Jane."
"Damn good thing I'm ready to go," she said, emerging from the bathroom. She was, in a word, sleek. Her dark red hair was back in a braid, she wore a single piece sleeveless dress that revealed her neck and shoulders. She shrugged a short jacket on with an arch look at Peter.
"By which I mean," he said, licking his lips, "you really are awesome."
"Not so bad yourself, handsome," she replied, looking him over. He wore a turtleneck, tweed jacket, jeans, loafers. His hair was slicked back, and his eyes were bright. "You ready to go to dinner and a movie?"
"I've looked forward to it all week," he grinned. "I've got a date with Mary Jane Parker." His grin stretched wider as he looked at the modest diamond that sparkled on her finger.
He offered her the crook of his elbow, and she took his arm. They left their apartment, headed down several flights of stairs, and strolled towards her car. The wind picked up, bitter and chilly. Peter stopped, alarmed, and sniffed as he glanced around.
"Just once," Mary Jane sighed, "could we go to a movie without the drama?"
"Not tonight," Peter murmured, his focus intense. "I smell blood." He moved to shield her, staring into the deep shadows by the hedge. Something stirred. A huge man loomed out of the shadow, took a tentative step towards them. Then the shadow dropped to his knees, wavering.
Peter darted forward in time to catch the big man as he tilted forward, falling. He turned him, lowered him to the sidewalk on his back.
"Kravinoff!" he gasped.
The man laying on the ground had sunken cheeks, eyes that had receded into hollows. His lips were pulled back from his teeth in a snarl of fear or pain, his tremendous form was wasted away. Breath left the shell of a man, and his head lolled to the side.
"Is he dead?" asked Mary Jane breathlessly.
"Not yet," Peter said, determined. "Call Strange," he said shortly. He scooped Kravinoff's huge, limp body up and darted back up the stairs.
"Come on, Kravinoff," Peter whispered. "Don't die on me now." He fumbled with the lock on the apartment, finally getting the key in and turned. Barging in, he lay Kravinoff on the living room floor.
"What did this to you?" he breathed as he saw the big man's condition.
xXx
Mary Jane answered the door quickly. "Thank God you've come," she said, stepping out of the way as the slim man in the red coat entered the apartment.
Peter was on his knees by Kravinoff, breathing into his mouth. Then he straightened, pushing on Kravinoff's chest. He glanced up at the doctor.
"He stopped breathing," Peter managed. He sat back, wearied. "Can you save him?"
Strange peered at the prone form for a long moment, then he nodded to himself. With a subtle gesture, he stabilized Kravinoff. The big man began breathing shallowly, his pulse sullen and slow.
"What's wrong with him, Strange?" Peter asked. Mary Jane brought him a glass of water, and he quickly drank it.
"He has suffered some tremendous shock," Strange said quietly, looking down at Kravinoff. He took a penlight from his coat and knelt over the sleeping man, flicking the beam of light into his pupils, examining him more tangibly.
"So what's the word?" Peter asked quietly.
"Something shocked him. Badly," Strange said. "Right now his mind burns with a single image, something he must pass on at all costs. It is keeping him alive, this need to share what he has learned. But… his mind. It is a ruin. He might recover, he might not. As it is, he cannot rest until the image has been passed on. This determination is keeping him alive, but if he does not rest he will die anyway."
"So…" Peter said, "what can we do?"
Strange sighed. "Kravinoff is very weak. Another shock might kill him. If I were to go into his mind, I could see the image that is driving him. However, if he died while I was in his mind, I would effectively die as well." Strange's eyes flicked up to meet Peter's watchfulness.
"Kravinoff chose me," Peter said slowly. "He found my apartment. Believe me," he added, "I owe at least this to him. The last time I saw him, he was hurt almost this bad. He had just fought Necra. Then he told me she was just the beginning, there was something bigger behind her. He left to find what it was."
"I wonder what he found," Strange mused, looking down at him.
"You can send me in, right?" Peter said, his voice even.
"I can," Strange murmured.
"So much for our date," Mary Jane said tightly. She sat on the couch, watching the proceedings, unaware of her white-knuckle grip on her bag.
Peter faced her. "It's okay," he said. "I'll be back."
"We should do this at my place," Strange said, subdued. "Better protection there. Just in case."
"Right," Peter said. "Just in case."
Strange swiftly stripped off his red coat and wrapped it around Kravinoff. The coat lifted him off the ground. Strange glanced around the room.
"How about I just meet you there," he said.
"Works for me," Peter agreed.
The two men left, and Mary Jane sighed as she picked up the television remote. The television flared to life, but she ignored it.
Her thoughts were elsewhere.
xXx
Peter was surprised when a blonde woman opened the door.
"Tandy," he said, surprised. "What are you doing here at Strange's place?"
"He asked for my help," she said simply, letting him into the house. She closed the door behind him. "I have some experience with dreams, and with helping people through them."
"I can use all the help I can get," Peter muttered. They went up the shadowed staircase, down the dim hallway to the impressive double doors at the end. Together, they entered Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum.
"Are you ready?" Strange asked seriously, his fingers steepled. Kravinoff lay in a chalk circle on the floor. Peter swallowed hard and nodded.
"Okay," he said. "Let's do this."
"I will connect you with Kravinoff's dream," Strange murmured. "Tandy will supply you with Light as you need it and as you can find it. When you are ready to awaken, she will lead you out."
Peter mutely nodded, then sleep stole over him and he knew no more of the waking world.
Glancing around, he found himself in a swelling confusion of jungle, desert, Strange's house. Mixed in were images of urban streets. A kaleidoscope of insanity twirled around him, fragmenting his senses with conflicting images.
"No!" he shouted, focusing. "Kravinoff! Where are you!"
As he looked around again, he saw a peculiar blood trail hanging in the air, droplets quivering as they drifted slightly. Bereft of gravity, they slowly spun in the air instead of leaving wet splats on the pavement.
"He's a hunter," Peter murmured to himself. "This is something he can understand. A blood trail." He set his jaw and followed the trail deeper into the nightmare.
He caught a glimpse of Kravinoff ducking behind a building, a skyscraper that sprouted vines and moss, growing out of the sand dunes. Firing a webline, Peter darted towards the figure, then swung. He glanced at his hands; saw the peculiar bulging muscles, the claws at his fingertips. He felt the darkstone all over him, and realized that in Kravinoff's dream he would be a monster.
One monster. Of many.
He skidded to a halt when he landed, and the shadows stirred.
Dozens. Dozens of monsters.
"Hoo boy," Peter said as the shadows began to leak monstrosity. "Time for plan b." He let his eyes close for a moment. "In my dreams, combat never works," he whispered. He felt a tingle, and looked down at his right hand. Drifting in the air around it was the faintest nimbus of Light.
"Rock on," he said with a grin. He relaxed, letting the Light into his dream image, then out through his outlined form. He was lost in the deep shine for time that could have been days, could have been seconds. When he was himself again, he was Peter Parker and not a monster. He stood on the frozen furrows of a field, a matted scattering of harvested corn stalks at his feet, the field stretching away interminably.
"No monsters," he murmured, looking around with a pleased smile. "So far so good." Set as the only interruption to a gently curving horizon, an old clapboard house hunched on the hill. Peter felt another presence, and turned to see a boy.
No more than ten years old, the boy stood watching him. He wore tough pants, no shirt; his black hair was a tousled mess, his eyes bright. In one hand he held a wood splitting hatchet. The hatchet and the boy's face and chest were bedewed with blood spatter. The boy watched him with intense interest.
"Hello," Peter said, squatting down. "Who are you?"
"I am Sergei," the boy said. "Can you feel it?"
Peter took a moment, let his senses play the landscape. There were no physical tells here, but his spider ghost was equally adept in the realm of dream and shadow. He felt the ribbon of dark energy woven through, under, around everything in this place. "I feel it," he replied. "Do you know where Kravinoff is?"
The boy nodded. "I must show you the way," he said seriously. He extended his hand to Peter. Peter took the boy's hand. Together, they walked back and forth in a peculiar pattern across the field, until Peter looked down to see he was standing on a road. The road led to the weathered house that brooded on the skyline.
"That place drew Kravinoff, and now he cannot escape," Sergei said. He shook his head. "I am afraid. I cannot go there. Better luck this time."
"I understand," Peter said, feeling the strange dislocation of a dream. "I will go after him."
The boy smiled shyly, then turned and vanished into the fabric of the dream. Peter turned his back on the endless field, and followed the road the boy had found for him.
As he passed a weathered and ancient sign, he stopped to look at it. The elements had long since scoured any useful information off the sign. It hung on short lengths of chain from a crooked post with a crosspiece. Peter reached out to stop its slight swinging, and he saw his hand was broad and strong. Glancing down, he realized he was Kravinoff… with a strange twisting sensation he realized he was both in the past and the present simultaneously. He took a deep breath, feeling the deadness of the earth and the emptiness of the sky. He knew that the trail from Necra to the dark power at the bottom of it all had led him here. Something was ahead; something he half knew but was compelled to verify.
As he approached the ancient house, he felt the Light fading from him as he sank too deep in the hallucination for it to follow. He was close. He was very close. To something.
Looking down, he saw his own bootprints on the porch.
He followed his own tracks. Better luck this time…
Peter pushed the front door open; weather had warped the door so that it creaked and sagged on its hinges. It unevenly groaned as it swung open.
A fleshy pulse rolled through the sky and earth and house, and Peter reeled with a stab of sharp pain. He heard a whisper on the wind; "Hurry," it murmured in a voice very like Tandy's. Peter realized Kravinoff was dying in spite of Strange's efforts. He wondered how much strain his very presence here caused Kravinoff's ruptured psyche. Setting his jaw, he stepped into the dim house.
His boot prints led down the hall. Small drifts of dead leaves and mouse bones lined the hallway. He followed his prints, around to a small closet set under the stairs. He opened the closet, peered inside. There was no light and no dark, just a shadowless dull gleam to everything that rendered it surreal. Peter saw a small trap door at the back of the floor in the small closet. Kneeling, he wedged himself into the closet and managed to open the door. It creaked as he hefted it open. There was just enough room for his massy frame to squeeze through. He lowered his head first, glancing around in the dimness below.
Below was a staircase. He heard and eerie murmur hanging in the air below, almost as though it had been uttered once and now it drifted around like smoke, unable to find a way to disperse. He squeezed through the opening and dropped, taking a few uncertain steps down the stairs.
A man stood before him. Slowly, Peter edged around the man to look at his face. He gasped.
It was Kravinoff. Or, perhaps, as Kravinoff would look in another thirty years. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow, his sanity shattered and in pieces in the haunted depths of his eyes. He was muttering in Russian, and Peter understood only the gist of the mindless repetition, and then only because he was in Kravinoff's dream.
The lair of the beast, Kravinoff mouthed. This is the lair of the beast.
"It's going to be alright," Peter said, disconcerted as he heard Kravinoff's voice. He took Kravinoff's blasted form by the shoulders, still awed by his huge arms and hands. "It's time for us to leave."
With that, there was a peculiar sense of suction, and Peter staggered slightly as Kravinoff merged two of his forms. Senseless, the big man slumped to the ground. Peter realized he had disabled the core of the hallucination.
Time to go.
He scooped Kravinoff up, and slipped up through the trapdoor lugging Kravinoff's body. He sprang out of the house as it began to twist slightly, and groan. Peter realized something dark was waking up in that house. Something disturbed. Something that he wanted to avoid at all costs. The building creaked, almost as though it was sniffing for him.
Peter felt a Light growing in the air before him, and he ran into it.
Kravinoff's eyes rolled half open and then closed, like an unconscious blink. He fell into a deep and natural sleep. Strange leaned back, the taut lines on his face attesting to the struggle he had undergone keeping Kravinoff alive through Peter's psychic surgery.
Tandy smiled down at Peter as his eyelids fluttered, then he opened his eyes in a daze. "I'm back," he whispered, relief flooding him. "Hot damn that man's head is a creepy place to tiptoe around."
"What did you discover?" Strange asked tersely. "What image was so critical to him?"
"Truth?" Peter said. "I have no idea. There was an old creepy house with a trapdoor leading down to some stairs. A beast was lairing there, it woke up as I was leaving with Kravinoff. There was some… some wacky stuff. I don't rightly understand it all myself," Peter said, trying to work out how to explain the haze of images that crowded in his memory like ghosts around prayer.
"Anything you can recall," Strange said, leaning back and steepling his fingers.
"I was met by a young Kravinoff," Peter said slowly. "I sort of became Kravinoff. There was this weird… we had to find our way in somehow. I don't know how to explain it. And then this creepy farmhouse, there was no road until we found the road, but nothing blocked line of sight as far as you could see." He shivered. "There was nothing to be afraid of. But… my hands are shaking." He looked down at them, watched them tremble slightly. He looked at Strange. "Whatever he found there, it blasted his mind. His instinct took over and carried him to safety. I've seen it myself," he added ruefully. "When he comes around we may be able to get better answers."
"I dare not wake him before he is ready to be awake," Strange said, eyeing Kravinoff. "We may not have the luxury of time on this. I will meditate on what you have told me."
"Glad to be of service," Peter nodded. "So… he'll be okay now, right?"
"He will," Strange nodded. "I will see to it."
Peter, Tandy, and Strange rose to their feet. Peter gave Tandy a big hug.
"You are so awesome," he said. "Thanks for the Light. You saved my life in there."
"Anytime," she replied with a winning smile. "By the way, Mary Jane is downstairs. She couldn't wait at home."
"Cool," Peter said. "You need anything else?" he asked quickly.
"You are free," Strange nodded. "Thank you for your help."
Peter grinned at him, then trotted out of the Sanctum, down the hall, the stairs, to the kitchen.
Mary Jane turned in her pacing and saw him. She ran to him and hugged him fiercely.
"Glad you're all in one piece," she said, her voice muffled in his shirt.
"No sweat," Peter lied. "Hey, the night is young. You still up for that movie?"
She pulled away from him, still gripping his shoulders, and she sniffled back her unshed tears. "You got it, bucko," she said. "After dinner. I'm hungry again."
"Great," Peter nodded. "Uh, nothing horror or action, okay?" he said uncomfortably. "Maybe a romantic comedy or something."
"What a perfect husband," Mary Jane said, her eyes bright and her voice unsteady. Peter smiled as she pulled him into another hug.