xXx
Peter pushed back from the table as the sunset poured through the kitchen window.
"Is the paint dry?" Mary Jane asked as she watched her husband.
"Yes," he replied simply. "Thanks for dinner."
"No problem," she shrugged. "I guess you'll be going out, then."
Peter was quiet for a long moment, looking at the window. He let his eyes drift half shut, and he felt the hot lights again. He felt the roar of the crowd across his skin.
"Yes," he said. "Yes I will." He stood up. Thought for a moment, but nothing else came to mind. He headed for the study, and Mary Jane started picking up the dishes.
Peter stepped into the study. Spray paint fumes still clung to the underside of the air. He snapped on the light, and regarded the fully covered child mannequin. It had been thoroughly webbed, and then he had spray painted it. He pulled the two black cardboard ovals off the head, revealing pale eyespots. Tossing the cardboard aside, he expertly slit the waist of the mesh with a small knife. He peeled off the top and the bottom; they were limp, flat, smooth, dark.
Peter stripped down to his underwear, then he pulled the mesh up over his legs. It stretched to fit him, it snugly gripped his skin. He ducked into the shirt, and as it slid over him, his skin crawled for a moment, and something in him rebelled. He gritted his teeth, pulling the mesh over his scarred torso. He rubbed at the seam at his waist, and it blended together into a single piece. He pressed the pale eyespots against his closed eyes, and when he opened his eyes under the mesh, his senses compensated through the thinner mesh. He was able to ignore it altogether.
Standing in the shadowy suit of his own silk, Peter felt again separated, again divided into Peter Parker and the spider ghost. And he took a deep breath, off balance.
"Did you miss me?" he whispered to the spider ghost.
It had no answer for him.
Peter sidled over to the window, tilted it open, and vanished into the night.
xXx
Richard Fisk leaned his head forward, poking the tip of his cigar into the flicker of the stick match's flame. He puffed on the cigar, then shook the match out and tossed it in the trash. Turning from the window, he regarded his plush office. He stepped over to the one-way glass that overlooked the dance floor of the Rio Canteen.
A breeze rustled through his office, and he turned to see the outside window open. Frowning, he crossed to the window and closed it, pinching off the flow of cold air from the December twilight.
"Where is Ebony," asked a flat, hard voice from the shadows. Richard jumped, and turned to see a lithe shadow tucked into the corner of the ceiling and the wall. Pale eyespots glared at him balefully.
"You gave me quite a start," the young man said smoothly. "My father's correspondence mentioned a shadow that plagued him. A spider ghost. I thought he was being figurative. Perhaps it was you. And you appear to be more physical than symbolic," Richard observed. He puffed on his cigar, and seated himself behind his desk.
"I'm just a symbol, nothing more," the shadow disagreed. "Where is Jack Ebony tonight."
Richard's handsome features were slightly marred by puzzlement. "All I have to do is tap this button," he said, nodding at the desk, his hands out of sight. "Armed men fill the room. You are foolish to come in here and make demands—"
Too quick for Richard to register the motion, the spider ghost uncoiled from the corner, crossing the room in a fraction of a heartbeat, slamming into Richard and careening back away from the desk, perched on Richard's torso. The chair smacked off the wall, the spider ghost sprang clear still gripping Richard Fisk.
"Bored now," the spider ghost said, emotionless as he effortlessly slammed Richard down on the ground with breathtaking force. He touched Richard's wrist, shifted his grip, and twisted ever so slightly. Richard gasped, his eyes bugging out as tendons quickly found their limits all up and down his arm.
"Last time before I cut your typing words per minute in half," the spider ghost said conversationally. "Where is Jack Ebony?"
"Has the night off!" Richard gasped.
"More," shrugged the spider ghost, only a micro-fraction from permanent damage in the arm.
"Twilliger! He's looking for Twilliger!" Richard almost whined. The spider ghost relaxed pressure; Richard was panting with pain. "Twilliger was one of his men, back when he worked for my father. He's looking for him. Something about a murderer on the loose."
The spider ghost released Richard's hand, looming over him with startling presence for one so lean and small. "Where was he going to start."
Richard squinted up. "Some dive in Hell's Kitchen, Josie's. That's all I know."
"Right," the spider ghost nodded. "I'll let myself out." He paused. "It's probably better for you and your people if you forget we met. And if I don't have reason to renew our acquaintance, that's for the best." Then he was gone through the window, and it tilted listlessly in his wake.
Unsteady, Richard dragged himself to his feet, crossed to the window, leaned on it until it clicked shut. His haunted gaze probed the night, but all the shadows seemed restless…
xXx
The nicked and battered door swung open, banging across the old bell nailed over the doorway. Glances were drawn to the doorway as the cold night gusted in around a slim man. The door banged shut, and a cruel smile stole across the newcomer's features.
Patrons swiftly returned their attention to their drinks, and the lean man approached the bar. "You Josie?" he asked the heavyset woman who polished a mug and pinned him with an unimpressed stare.
"Yeah," she said unhelpfully.
"You know me?" he asked softly.
"I don't know you," she replied. "Ain't safe. But I heard of you. What do you want?"
"Twilliger. I'm looking for him."
"He thought you might be," she shrugged. "He's scared out of his mind. I don't know nothin. But I hear he's holed up in the Gretano street safehouse. Just what I hear, that's all."
"You're a peach," Ebony grinned, a sadistic flicker in his eye. He slapped a fifty dollar bill on the bar, then he spun on his heel and left. No one moved to follow him.
Ebony straddled his motorcycle, kicked it to life. He roared away from the bar, easily navigating the familiar dark streets until he crossed the bridge, rolling through Hell's Kitchen.
He was three blocks from the safehouse when he heard gunfire, even over the bike's throaty growl. He gunned it, and screamed through the streets to skid to a halt in front of an old warehouse. He parked the bike, swung off with a flare of his trench coat.
The door had already been kicked off its hinges, and gunsmoke hung and twisted in the unsteady air like incense. Ebony tugged a Glock pistol out of his shoulder holster and squatted by the doorway, peeking through it at hip level.
Two dead men sprawled by the door, and the walls were painted with blood, punctuated with bullet holes. Ebony sidled through the antechamber and peered into the main room of the warehouse.
At first glance, he saw five dead bodies. A bare bulb provided a wavering disk of light on the floor. Centered under the light, in a growing pool of blood, a thin man twitched and shuddered as his amputated arm and leg stumps squirted into the dark stain of his escaping life.
Eyes darting all through the room, Ebony crept to the dying man's side. "Twilliger," he said harshly. "What the hell!"
"F-Fawkes!" Twilliger gasped. "You! You're n-next…" Then shock finished him, and his head sagged back on the concrete floor as his eyes glazed over. Blood kept sluicing out of his corpse.
Ebony looked him over, noting that only one arm and leg had been lopped off. They lay not far from the corpse. Memory stirred. He shook his head. Then instinct took over; he tumbled to the side and popped up to a kneeling position, gun trained on the shadows. Two pale eyespots regarded him.
"Parker," Ebony snarled. "Did you do this?"
"No," the spider ghost replied softly. "Fawkes did. I followed you here from Josie's."
"Cute," Ebony growled. "Why don't you come down here so we can talk this over?" His other hand dipped into his coat and pulled out another Glock. Both pistols lined up on the eyespots.
"How did you get better?" the spider ghost murmured, barely audible. "How did they fix what I did to you?"
"None of your business," Ebony said slowly, rising to his feet. He swore as spittle slapped across the top of his head, and he opened fire. But the eyespots seemed to wink out, and his bullets slapped through the wall. The spider ghost was gone.
Ebony holstered one of his pistols, and he rubbed at the spittle in his hair, then wiped his hand on his coat. "Charming," he muttered. He holstered his other gun, and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He punched in a number, his hands steady and his nerves calm.
"Yeah," he said when the other party picked up. "Send Vinnie, Archer, and Kale. Go pick up Mary Parker, Peter Parker's wife. Bring her to the club." He disconnected, and dropped the phone in his pocket. "Okay, Parker," he growled. "Let's see how much fun we can have with body fluids."
xXx
The spider ghost rolled up to the roof as bullets slammed through the wall below. Not holding still, the spider ghost silently crossed over the roof, and Peter glanced back. Sniffing, he easily caught the pheremonal trace his spittle had slathered across Ebony. No escape for him now.
Motion caught at Peter's peripheral vision, and he slowly turned to see a large black crow perched on the ridge of the warehouse roof.
"I'm ready to follow you now," Peter murmured. And the crow took flight.
As the crow swooped and dove between the buildings, over the concrete canyons of the city, Peter followed. He leaped and fired out filaments, swinging, the air soothing around him in a roar of kinetic speed. As the crow picked up the pace, he sprang and flipped and slung himself after the shadow in a pale illuminated darkness.
It would not lose him. He was determined to keep up.
The crow flapped to a halt on a television antenna, ducking its head and cawing over the apartment rooftop. Peter flipped up to the roof, and skidded to a halt.
Chalk stuttered across uneven brick. Peter uncertainly watched a pale, gaunt man who stood with his back to the spider ghost, drawing an indecipherable mural on the brick wall that jutted up from the roof.
The man didn't appear to be a ghost. He wore a tattered, shot-up kevlar vest and a security guard hat with frayed bullet holes in it. His left forearm and hand were wrapped in duct tape, and his right hand had the remains of a tee shirt tied around it. The odd figure seemed to register his presence; pausing, the tall and hollow man slowly turned to face the spider ghost.
He wore bullet-riddled kevlar, and his thin chest was visible under the busted zipper of the askew vest. He wore tattered battle dress uniform pants that were lacerated and punctured, and boots had been duct taped to his feet. His eyes took in Peter with a stillness impossible in the living.
As the spider ghost's senses played across the peculiar figure, there could be no question. Just as there was no pulse. No breathing. No blinking. The thing Peter now faced was dead.
The dead man's features twitched up towards a smile, his dark eyes unfocused. "Light. The other side… it's all about light."
Peter hesitated, still unsure of what to do. The dead man turned his back on Peter, resuming his indecipherable mural. Chalk clicked and dragged over the brick and mortar. "There is a boiling glory of wickedness," the hoarse, unused voice managed. "An ocean of light; nuanced, delicate, more spectacular than a supernova. And it is hope." He tossed the chalk aside, turning again to face the spider ghost. "There are no words for what I have seen. I am an echo of spirit in flesh. An echo of flesh in spirit." He paused. "Just one more," his voice rasped, as pale and thin as the scrape of a dead leaf on concrete. "Then the darkness… falls away from me."
"You are dead," Peter observed, oddly disarmed by the dead man's calm demeanor.
"You have many questions," the revenant observed. "But I have just one." That woke something within him; his dark eyes blazed with unholy life, and Peter glimpsed something swarming with malice behind the mask of his dead face. "Where is Hobb Smith?" He leaned back slightly, as though the mention of his question had wearied him. "I must answer the question, before I can have peace."
"Who knows the answer?" Peter asked.
"I do now," whispered the dead man. "Hobb Smith is dead. And he's come back… with me. All of them have." His eyes penetrated Peter, transfixed him. Peter felt the crow watching him too, and something within him prepared to deflect attack if necessary.
The revenant turned back to the mural, regarded it. "It is one thing to know the answer to a question, another thing to answer the question." Slowly, he stooped and picked up a piece of chalk from the scattered sticks at his feet. He began scraping it back and forth, filling in a bent line. "Twelve oh five. Jack Ebony breaks down the door to Heath Fawkes' apartment, with Twilliger and Wilson. They split up; Ebony finds Adam, Heath's son. The other two find Heath. He puts up a struggle, so Twilliger shoots him through the arm and leg. They tape him to a chair in the kitchen."
The dead man dropped the chalk, turning to face Peter. "Ebony asks Heath where Hobb Smith is. Hobb and Heath are good friends where they work as security guards at Omnicorp. Funny thing is, Hobb disappeared without a trace, and Heath doesn't know where he is. Turns out Hobb saw Ebony murder someone. And he had enough evidence to send the sadist to the electric chair. So he ran. And Ebony chased him. But he disappeared. So Ebony started working on Hobb's friends and family."
Peter just watched, and he sensed the gaze of the crow growing deep. The revenant took a step towards him, and leveled an endless gaze at him. "Ebony thought Heath was holding out on him. So he ordered Williams to stick an ice pick through the boy's wrist. Adam is pinned to the wall. He screams, he screams and screams. But no one comes to help. Everyone is afraid. Heath begs. He pleads. Because he doesn't know anything."
Snow started drifting down around them, between them. Peter had the disorienting sense that the building was swirling up towards the endless pale night, lit by the city as it floated upwards, and the snow was motionless.
"Three hours," the revenant managed in a steady voice. "They torture the boy. Put ice picks through his wrists. Ankles. Then Ebony decides Heath really doesn't know anything. He shoots the boy in the face. And he chops Heath's head off." The dead man tilted his head back, his eyes not leaving the spider ghost. Peter saw the distinct ropy scar at his neck. All the way across his neck.
"How did you come back?" he breathed.
"I didn't come back," the dead man whispered. "I never escaped. Not really. Not far enough… I saw the other side. But my rage. There were others… others who couldn't escape. Others who had been killed by my murderer. And they were drawn to me. I became a lightning rod for all that revenge…" His eyes flared with an empty burning, with another world that was interlaced with this one, and Peter shivered. "The weight of our rage stopped me from blending with the Web of Light. So much piled on me that I fell to earth, trapped in my grave… And I was lost. For a year. Until the crow came… To help carry the weight of the rage so I could move. So I could push my way out. Fighting clear of the grave earned me a chance. And that's all."
"That's all?" Peter echoed.
Fawkes almost smiled. "I came back to give Ebony the answer that was worth my life. Worth the life… of my son."
"I can't help you kill him," Peter breathed.
"I'm not asking for help." His voice was hoarse, a rustle, a shadow.
"Ebony is going to be protected by a small army," Peter mused, more to himself than the dead man before him. "And he's dangerous all by himself."
"Yes," Fawkes agreed. "He is gifted. And what he has done with his gift… has resulted in me." He regarded Peter. "I may lose," he said softly. "I only have until midnight tomorrow. Then my time is up." He paused. "I must prepare myself. Focus is all I have. And when it is gone… for better or for worse, so am I." The revenant smeared his hand down across the chalk picture. Then he glanced at the crow, and Peter did too.
The crow's flat yellow eye drew in the spider ghost's senses, a pit deep enough for all of them to be lost in it. Then it blinked, and cawed, and leaped from its perch. As it dropped out of sight, Peter realized he was alone on the roof. He took a long, long look at the mural. But he could make no sense of it. The cold began to settle through the thin mesh.
Peter turned, and vanished into the city.