Mary Jane kicked the door shut, and unloaded her purse, keys, and bag of groceries onto the table. Then she glanced up, and saw Peter reflectively pulling the mesh up his arms, over his head, down his sinuous torso. His eyes were dark as he stood in the shadows of the hallway.
"I still get shivers when I see you suit up," she said with half a smile. "Somehow, I figured you'd be headed out as soon as the sun went down."
He said nothing as he rubbed at the seam where the shirt and the pants met around his narrow waist. The silk blended, so the mesh seemed to be made of a single piece. He looked at her, then pulled the mask down over his face and blinked against the eyespots, adjusting. Mary Jane let her eyes wander the taut muscle and sinew of the creature that faced her. For a long moment, she looked for her husband in the stray shadow. Then she pushed her hair back away from her face.
"Good hunting, tiger," she said quietly.
"I love you," he replied sincerely, his voice oddly different through the mask. Then he turned and vanished into the dim hallway. She heard the window in the bedroom slide up, then down. And he was gone.
She stepped over to the cupboard and opened it, fishing out a first aid kit with plenty of thread and several crescent needles and bandages. "See you later," she murmured to the shadows that had recently wrapped around her husband.
xXx
Kravinoff slowly wound the heavy cloth tape around his forearm, finishing the pad. He put the tape aside, then flexed to tighten the tape. He picked up a hatchet, slid it in a belt loop. Another hatchet. Two knives. A war club. Then he straightened. He wore heavy canvas pants, no shirt. He shrugged into a long coat, in spite of the heat. His hair was slicked back, his whole body freely perspiring. He didn't look uncomfortable in the slightest as he adjusted the coat to hide his weapons.
Turning, he left the incense curling in an empty room as he trod the hallway with determined, heavy steps.
He reached the street. Though the sun was rapidly sinking, the pavement still shimmered and danced with roiling walls of heat. Mirages flickered, reflecting steel back to itself from the quicksilver shine of the fevered city. As Kravinoff blended and became eerily unobtrusive in the crowd, he passed a boom box on a concrete porch.
"Third straight day of this record-breaking heat wave," the voice burbled from a far-away and air-conditioned room. "The heat is on, and tempers are short."
Kravinoff's smile revealed even, broad, sharp teeth. He vanished into the gathering dim, moving with single-minded purpose.
Less than an hour later, sundown was fait accompli. The sky was still awash in a gunmetal glow that refused to give up the searing heat of the day, a merciless shell that pressed the city's heat back into its concrete canyons and corridors.
The shadows stirred in an alleyway as Kravinoff settled, peering intently across the street. He saw the glass front of a martial arts dojo, he read the lettering on the glass. A group of students in their pale gi outfits were assembling, and their teacher was chatting with several of them.
Kravinoff let a slow, cruel smile spread across his features. Then he glanced around.
Must have higher ground.
xXx
The spider ghost dropped into the shadows by a vending machine, slotted in some change, reached down to the dispenser tray and pulled out a bottle of cold water. He retreated deeper in the shadows, pouring some water over his head and drinking the rest. It did little to cool him.
His senses strayed across the street, to a pawn shop that had a bank of televisions tuned to various stations. Almost unwillingly, he was drawn to watch the moving pictures.
He saw a banner for the 'New York All District Martial Arts Tournament.' Men in gi outfits fighting. A score, a very happy man in a wash of lights from camera flashes, flickering around him. He read the name; Ken Hyabusa.
"That's enough lollygagging around," he muttered to himself. He sprang at a wall, bounded from it, and whirled into action over the deepening darkness settling over the city.
xXx
The slender, graceful man stepped away from the back door of the dojo. He locked the door, then dropped his keys in his pocket. He whistled to himself as he strolled down the alley, headed for the sidewalk.
A rustle of air, then something thudded down behind him. He whirled, startled into a combat stance. Then he blinked as a mirage rippled, like a pillar of distortion, seeming to fill the alley.
"What's this?" was all he managed, wary and shaken. A peculiar, resonant string of clicks rattled from the distortion, then with a disturbing ring that sounded like steel on steel, it loomed towards him.
The slim man spun rapidly, firing a kick at the distortion and smacking into something that was very solid and didn't care about his puny attack. Transfixed, he saw the distortion bend light between him and the alley's lamp, as he got the sense it was poised for a killing blow. He blinked, staggered, unable to grasp the situation.
With a blood-curdling howl, something dropped from the roof. A flash of light on an arc of steel, and a hatchet whipped down and thudded into the distortion as a huge man landed with catlike grace. The rattling clicks slithered out as the distortion seemed to turn; eyes flashed from the shadowy mirage for a moment as it re-oriented.
Hyabusa sprinted for the mouth of the alley as the heavily built man grinned dangerously at the distortion, whipping out a knife and squaring off.
xXx
The spider ghost clung lightly to the side of a sky scraper, his back to it, his head tilted back. His senses unreeled into the thick smoggy air of the city, wafting and drifting on the breeze. He was waiting, sensing for a disturbance. For the minute clues that would direct his search.
His mind was alive with activity, sifting mounds of information, categorizing and filing and prioritizing before the vast sensory input reached his awareness.
His incredibly super-human hearing heard the howl of bloodlust, the ring of steel on steel.
As though launched by a catapult, the spider ghost sprang from the hot steel of the building. Firing out web lines, Peter realized that right now, a breeze did no good. He tore through the overheated air, blasted by gusts of heat rolling across him like he was swinging over a bonfire.
Wildly overactive, his senses drank in the world around him, hearing the ringing clatter and shouts of fighting. He slapped to a halt on a building's façade, and glanced around; there, a storefront with a big glass window, he recognized Hyabusa's dojo from the television program. The fight was on the roof next door. He tumbled off the building, web line tearing out, and slung over to see more.
As he popped up over the lip of the building, he saw Kravinoff held off the ground, feebly kicking, slashed and gory. Whatever held him seemed a roiling column of shimmering distortion. Brilliant green splotches of luminescent liquid were spattered on the roof, on Kravinoff, on his axe that lay in pieces at his feet.
Then Kravinoff's body flexed, his eyes bulged, his feet spasmed. He was thrown to the side, discarded. He clattered down and slowly curled into a fetal position as the thing that tossed him seemed to whirl to face the spider ghost. Eyes flared, hanging in the shimmer, then whatever it was spun and raced to the edge of the roof, leaping away.
Peter had a moment to choose; pursuit, or tending Kravinoff. The choice was simple.
He dropped to his knees at Kravinoff's side; the huge man's chest had been slashed more or less open, and what appeared to be huge knife wounds gaped in the corded muscle of his belly. Blades had been whacked across his head, and one eye drooped useless and torn. He reached a trembling hand up to Peter, smeared in gore.
"It was…" he gasped, "a good… hunt…"
A ghost of a smile traced across his features, like a strand of spiderweb in the dark. Then his head lolled back, and the last breath he would ever take slid free of his dead body.
Peter held the huge man in his arms, and he realized he was trembling. Kravinoff… he touched at the eyes of the corpse, closing them. A shudder crawled across him, and he shrugged Kravinoff down to the roof. He stood, he stepped back.
Glanced at the glowing green flecks and spatters.
"Okay," he muttered to himself, unsteady. "First things first." He looked down at Kravinoff. Thought about the cops finding him here. The morgue. A pauper's grave, if there even was such a thing anymore.
"You deserve better," Peter said, and he knelt by the body of his friend and lifted it though it was light as a feather. Then he turned, and vanished into the night with his load as sirens wailed ever closer.
xXx
Peter stood under a spotlight, carrying a body wrapped in a tarp. Blood had soaked through the tarp, and it slowly oozed down into strings that dripped onto the pavement. He waited, not far from the fence, and before three minutes had passed, a security contingent faced off with him, guns leveled at his head.
"I'm here to see Stark," he said. "Tell him the spider ghost needs to talk to him."
One man talked into his handset, then he nodded. "Come with me," he said.
As they approached the back of the industrial complex, a dapper man in a pale suit stepped out and strolled towards them. "Been a while, spider ghost," he said. "How have you been?"
"I wish I came with better news," Peter replied, kneeling. He folded the tarp back from Kravinoff's face. The mangled visage seemed to be at peace. It was no less shocking for that.
"What?" Stark gasped. "What happened? Did you kill him?"
"No," the spider ghost replied sharply. "But whatever did left this behind." He unwrapped the tarp further, revealing the bright green goo that glowed in the dimness. "Do you have some people who could analyze this?"
"I do," Stark nodded, a bit breathless. "Okay, Security, put the body in the hangar until we can arrange for a coffin. Keep an eye on it. Ghost, maybe you should come with me." Shaken, the trim man turned and headed back into the complex, the spider ghost at his heels.
They entered the back door, crossed a catwalk, and entered an elevator. The spider ghost glanced around, clearly uneasy at being confined.
"What happened?" Stark asked flatly as the elevator carried them up.
"Slasher murders," the spider ghost replied. "All over the news. Three decorated SWAT officers. I was trying to find Kravinoff. If he took to hunting men he would have to be stopped." The spider ghost hesitated. "I was wrong. He was hunting whatever was hunting those men. Only this time he bit off more than he could chew." The spider ghost twitched. "It's how he would want to go. In a hunt."
Stark pulled a cell phone from his pocket, punched in a four digit code. "Security, get me Natasha and Logan to the lounge on Deck Two in the Greydan building." He snapped the phone shut without waiting for a reply, and he examined the spider ghost. "Want to slip into something more comfortable?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah," Peter replied. "That's a good idea."
xXx
Peter Parker sat on the couch in the sparsely appointed lounge, sipping a tall glass of water and letting the cold air breathe on him from the vents.
"Heaven has air conditioning," he muttered. "So. Stark. Did you say Logan was back?"
"Just got in yesterday," Stark nodded. "He should be here shortly."
The door opened, and an attractive redhead entered. "What's going on?" she asked.
"Natasha. Good." Stark stood, facing her. "I don't know how to do this gently. Kravinoff is dead. Peter found his body, brought it here."
Natasha frowned slightly. "He knew he was going to die. He called yesterday, wanted to meet. Said his goodbyes to me. I had a feeling something like this would happen." Her lips thinned, her eyes narrowed. "Who did it."
The door opened, and a short hairy man with wild upswept hair strolled in. "What's the emergency?" he asked gruffly. His eyes settled on Peter, and he grinned. "As I live n breathe. Peter Parker."
"Good to see you too, Logan," Peter said with half a smile. "And I wish I had better news. Kravinoff was killed tonight."
Logan blinked. Natasha lit a cigarette.
"I was looking for a killer," Peter said. "Somebody murdered three cops with a knife at close range, skinned them and took their heads. How could I not suspect Kravinoff went off the deep end? I mean, somebody made trophies out of those cops. So I was looking for him. I ran across a fight, and I went to break it up, and… and I found Kravinoff fighting with something. Like a mirage. I tried to keep him alive, but… he was already pretty much dead by the time I got there. So I brought his body here."
Logan shook his head. "Damn shame. Stark… Kravinoff should be buried on his island."
"Yes," Stark agreed. "That can be done."
"There's more," Peter said. "The thing that killed him. I think its blood is glowing green. Some of it was on Kravinoff, on his weapons. Maybe the killer is some kind of bio weapon or suit or something." He hesitated. "Maybe it's magic. Or from another world. I just don't know."
"We have got to track this thing down. Kravinoff was a friend a mine," Logan said.
"Mine too," Natasha agreed. "Where did this fight take place?"
"In an alley, then up to a rooftop," Peter said.
"What was around?" Natasha pressed.
Peter hesitated. "In the time it would take me to tell you, you could see it for yourself."
Stark nodded curtly. "Natasha. Bring a car around."