XXII. Malefaction

Cletus Kasady was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. They'd been hiding out in this miserable, scummy little apartment for days and days now. More than anything, Kasady wanted to get out of here: to have some fun, to see some real action. There was nothing to do here! The apartment's original occupants hadn't offered much in the way of entertainment, at least not for very long. For one thing, they'd been an elderly couple, well into their eighties, all slow and sleepy and easily breakable. Mere minutes with their faces underneath a pillow had been enough for Kasady to dispatch of both of them, and they hadn't even been able to put up any kind of a fight. That was no fun at all.

The other problem was, Kasady would have liked to keep the bodies around for a while—you know, for laughs. And to keep him company, when Eddie was off swinging around, doing his thing. But Eddie wouldn't have it. And it wasn't because the bodies were going to start to stink after a while, or anything stupid like that. Eddie wasn't some squeamish little weakling, not like the rest of the brainless sheeple crawling around out there. No, it was actually kind of the opposite problem. It was because of the source of Eddie's great power—Eddie's other. The black suit. The symbiote. It wouldn't let all that fresh meat sit around and rot, just going to waste. And so, the bodies had gone to satiating its hunger.

Worse yet, the old couple had somehow gotten by without cable or a satellite dish. They only had network stations on their TV. Even the asylum had had cable! And Cletus Kasady, although he was completely, entirely, and in all other ways one-hundred percent bat-shit insane—a fact that he was fully aware of, at least on an intellectual level—even he couldn't stand to watch daytime network TV.

So he spent his time waiting, stewing, pondering, dreaming, fantasizing, and, yes, plotting. He was so terribly jealous of Eddie's power. He wanted that power, so very badly. He had to have it for himself. If the suit would only realize that he would be the better host, maybe he could take it from Eddie! There was just one little problem with that. Eddie said that the suit fed on powerful, negative emotions. And these days, Eddie was just a seething little ball of envy, rage, aggression, and vengeance—all of it directed at his hated nemesis, Spider-Man.

Kasady didn't care about Spider-Man. For that matter, he didn't care about much of anything. He wasn't filled with anger, or anything else really, emotionally speaking. That was why they called him a psychopath. The truth was, he just wanted the next thrill, the next kill—it was the only time he really felt anything at all. And that was why he wanted the suit for himself. If he had it, they would be glorious together. They would wreak such magnificent carn—

Thump. Something heavy landed on the wall outside the apartment building. That would be Eddie and his other now. Or, as they preferred to call themselves now that they were back together again, Venom.

Venom crawled in through the window, carrying a huge web-bag slung across his back, like some grotesque mockery of Santa Claus. He set down the bag and allowed his toothy mask to recede, revealing the face of Eddie Brock, Jr. There was still a certain distant, contented look in Eddie's face that Cletus knew all too well: thanks to his recent reunion with the symbiote, Eddie was high. Probably some kind of constant dopamine rush—at least, that was Cletus's guess. He felt pretty much the same thing, at least for a short while, whenever he killed.

"Did'ja get what you needed, ol' buddy, ol' pal?" asked Cletus. He spoke quickly when he was excited.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on," said Eddie. Patting the bag of black webbing, he said, "Everything I need oughtta be in here. But first, you gotta promise me. If I give you what's in here, you gotta help me kill my 'bro', Peter."

"Yeah, sure, whatever, man!" said Cletus. His eyes were positively shining with eagerness. "I'll do anything you ask. Just… just give it to me already!"

"Okay," said Eddie. He pointed at the couch and said, "Sit over there; watch Jerry Springer or something. This is still gonna take a while."

Kasady pouted and sat down on the sofa, arms folded. "How long?"

Eddie shrugged. "I'm making a new life-form here. How long do you think it took Dr. Frankenstein?"

With a black-clawed hand, Eddie tore open the web-bag and started fishing through the contents. He took out a large, empty beaker and several pieces of chemistry apparatus and set them on the table. There were a number of canisters of frozen tissue, still frosty on the outside from their tenure in the refrigerated vault. Eddie picked up one of the canisters and gave it a closer look—it was labeled, "Biohazard, Unknown Species, NASA". He shrugged his shoulders and added it to the others.

Before he could really do anything, he still needed the most important thing of all, the main reason that he'd broken into the ESU labs in the first place. Finally, he found it, at the very bottom of the bag: a worn old brown folder that contained some his father and Richard Parker's early notes on Project Venom. This would let him get started.

Tearing off a minuscule piece of the suit—it knew what he was trying to do, and it agreed with Eddie that this was an intriguing project, so it was willing to give of itself—Eddie dropped the wriggling little blob of black ooze into the beaker. The Venom suit was composed of nanocytes—part living cells, part nano-machines in structure—and these nanocytes were capable of reproducing themselves, given sufficient energy and nutrients; but that wouldn't be enough. Eddie had to make a permanent change to the suit's genetic structure, or else it would always be a part of Venom—it would always seek to re-bond with him.

"Kasady," he said. "Come here."

In an instant, Cletus was on his feet and standing next to Eddie. "What do you need?"

"DNA," said Eddie. "Specifically, yours. To treat the nanocytes, so they'll accept you as a host."

"You need my blood?" suggested Cletus. "No problem. I'll bet there are knives in the kitchen—"

Eddie picked up an empty flask. "Or you could just spit in here."

Cletus took the flask, swished, and hocked a champion of a loogie into it.

That was sufficient; Eddie dismissed Cletus again. Now he added a generous dose of splicing-enzymes to the sample torn from his suit, plus a number of other catalytic chemicals. He put Kasady's sample into a small centrifuge—he would have to extract DNA from the saliva, but he didn't need much. And after all this delicate separating and pipetting was done, the DNA having been added to the mixture, it was at long last time to start feeding his new creation. The tissue samples started going into the beaker, one after another. The baby symbiote at the bottom of the beaker consumed them all, little by little; and as it did, it grew, bit by bit.

When Eddie came to the canister containing the spores from Colonel Jameson's shuttle, he didn't even think twice about it; hell, he didn't even know what they were. He just poured them into the beaker. Once he did, the newborn little symbiote changed color, from matte black to a deep, blood-red…

• • •

"…I'll be home by midnight at the latest," said Peter. He was sitting on the side of an office-building, clinging to the sheer vertical surface through the backside of his costume, with half his mask peeled up so that he could talk to Aunt May on his cell phone more easily. "Yes, I'm still out looking for Eddie. Just promise me, if he shows up at the house, you won't try to talk to him; you'll get Gwen out of there and go find MJ. And call me as soon as you can."

Aunt May gave her word and wished Pete luck; then they said their goodbyes, and he hung up the phone and pulled his mask all the way on again. He'd been swinging around the neighborhoods which surrounded ESU for some hours now, with no luck at all. There was no sign of Venom whatsoever. Pretty soon, Pete would have to give up the search, at least for tonight.

As he swung by one high-rise apartment building, he felt a familiar little twitch in his spider-sense, more annoyance than danger. Moments later, he spotted a svelte form clad in black leather trimmed with white fur, leaping between two rooftops. Black Cat, thought Peter. I haven't seen her in a while; I wonder what she's up to tonight. He swung a little faster, so that he could overtake her and landed on the rooftop that she was just about to spring to.

Folding his arms and leaning against a wall, he casually said, "Here, kitty, kitty."

Black Cat landed on the rooftop and skidded to a halt, mildly surprised to see him. "Not tonight, Spider. I'm afraid I just don't have time to play."

"Uh-oh," said Pete. "If you don't want me around, that probably means you're up to some shenanigans that a hero-type-person like me would try to prevent."

"What can I say?" said Cat with a wicked grin. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Spider-Man shook his head in disappointment. "Why, Cat? Is it the thrill, or are you just an incurable kleptomaniac?"

She started counting off on her clawed fingers. "That covers Little Cat A and Little Cat B, but you're forgetting Little Cat C."

"Which would be?"

"I really, really need the money." Here, Black Cat lunged at Peter and swept a long, shapely leg at his ankles. Peter's spider-sense kept him from being swept off his feet, but Black Cat was also pretty strong and fast, and she was already sprinting for the edge of the roof and throwing her grappling hook.

Peter aimed his web-shooters, and… click-click. Nothing. "You've gotta be kidding me!" said Peter. My web-shooters jammed? That's never even happened before!

From the next rooftop over, Black Cat blew a kiss Peter's way and shouted, "Wish me luck, Spider!"

Peter muttered something terribly impolite under his breath and ran after her. Webs or no webs, he wasn't going to let Cat get away with another heist, not while he was around to prevent it. Being forced to leap from rooftop to rooftop slowed him down considerably, but he was still faster than Black Cat; he caught up with her again, and this time, he wasn't about to be taken by surprise—not even by her fabled bad luck powers.

"Cat, listen to me! You don't have to do this! Whatever it is, maybe I can help!"

"Oh? Can you cough up a hundred G's overnight?"

"A hund—" sputtered Peter. "Holy simoleons, what do you need that kind of money for? You got a sick grandma who needs an operation or something?"

"None of your business," said Cat, taking a few lazy swipes with her claws at Spidey. "I don't want to hurt you, Spider, but I will if you get in my way!"

Spider-Man put his hands up. "Just... calm down and tell me what's going on. I want to help, I really do, but I can't do anything if I'm in the dark about whatever it is you're going through!"

Black Cat lowered her claws, closed her eyes, and sighed. "I wish I could tell you; I really do. But in order to do that, I'd have to tell you who I am." She opened her eyes again and stared intensely at Spidey, as if she were looking right through his mask. "If our positions were reversed, would you be willing to do that?"

"Honestly… no," said Spidey. "But, in fairness, you're a thief; I'm a crime-fighter. Doesn't that kind of automatically make me the trustworthy one here?"

Cat shot Spidey a death-glare.

"Okay, maybe not automatically, but still. Don't you trust me by now, Cat? After all the times we've worked together? Maybe you could just tell me some of what's going on, and leave out the personal details."

"Ugh, all right!" she sighed. "But only because you're so cute when you're trying to be all gentlemanly and heroic like this."

"I get that a lot."

Cat walked over to the side of the building and sat down. "It's my, uh… someone very close to me," she began, "is being blackmailed. Somehow, somebody, we don't know who, found out an embarrassing family secret. My whole career as the Black Cat, the reason I do this… is to pay off the blackmailer. And not long ago, the bastard doubled his demands, from fifty thousand dollars a month, to a hundred thousand."

Peter let out a low whistle. "Are you telling me that you've been able to make fifty grand a month, as a cat burglar?"

"Yeah," said Cat, "but just barely. I mostly go after rare artifacts or works of art from the private collections of some very disgustingly rich people. Then I sell them on the black market, so that they'll eventually wind up back in those same collections. That way, I'll never run out of easy targets and a steady stream of revenue."

"And doesn't the ethics of this bother you, at least a little?" asked Peter, plopping himself down next to Cat on the side of the building.

"Of course it does!" said Cat. "But I don't really have a choice. This is all I know."

"Ah. And that would be a part of the whole 'family business' thing again. Like your father giving you cat-burglar advice."

"Actually, that would be the embarrassing family secret in question," admitted Black Cat. "At least, that was the case at first. Now it's only gotten worse."

"Don't you see, Cat?" said Spidey, taking both her hands. "As long as you keep giving in to the blackmailers' demands, it's never gonna end. Let me help!"

Cat looked away from Spidey, thinking, trying to decide whether to trust. "All right," she said at last, "but I can't be connected to this. My… beneficiary doesn't know where the money comes from, or that I'm the one donating the funds. And if the blackmailers ever found out, it would make things a whole lot worse."

"Okay, I get that. What do you want me to do?"

Black Cat recited the address of a Manhattan apartment building and said, "Go there tomorrow at eight PM. You'll find a woman on the balcony outside the penthouse there, having a drink. She does that every night at the same time. Offer to help her catch the blackmailers. She'll say no; I know her, she'll be too afraid of making things worse. But it's getting desperate. If you're persistent, she'll give in."

"I think I can do that," said Spider-Man. They both stood up and prepared to go their separate ways.

"And please, don't mention me," said Black Cat. "She doesn't know that I'm connected to this at all, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Spidey nodded. "All right," he said gently. "It'll get better once we catch these guys; you'll see."

Black Cat then walked up to Spidey, swaying her hips suggestively as she sidled up to him. "I guess this leaves us with some free-time tonight. Care to spend it with me?"

"Uh… not tonight, Cat. I'm actually looking for someone right now, and it's… well, it's complicated."

"Oh," she said, her demeanor suddenly icing over. "Yeah, sure, I get it. You can help out the damsel in distress, but when the tables are turned and you've got problems, I'm chopped kitty-liver."

Peter growled in frustration and said, "Okay, it's like this. I'm hunting for Venom, do you know who that is?"

"Scary monster-guy in black, has powers pretty much just like yours?"

"Yeah, well, like I said, it's really way more complicated than that. The guy's dangerous—psycho—and he knows my secret identity. I'm not sure I want to get you involved in all of this."

Cat smiled and put her arms around Spidey's neck. "Don't you trust me, Spider? After all the good times we've had together?"

"We've already covered this: no, not really, not yet." Spider-Man was starting to get a little hot under the collar again, like he always did when Cat was in seduction mode. "I'm not sure that I want to take our… our friendship that far yet."

"Only… friendship?" She leaned her head in close to his and reached up to the hem of his mask.

"Okay, gotta go!" said Peter, ducking out of her arms and rushing over to the edge of the building. "I'll see you around, Cat. And I will help with the blackmail thing, so don't steal anything tonight!" He jumped over the side of the building, sprang off of a flagpole as if it were a diving-board, and vanished from sight into an alley between two sky-scrapers.

Frustrated, Black Cat kicked at the concrete ledge she'd just been sitting on, hard enough to turn a chunk of it into powder and pebbles. He always runs away, just when things are getting interesting. Do I have bad breath or something? She breathed into her gloved hand and sniffed at it. No, that wasn't it. What's your deal, Spider?

• • •

That evening, Wilson Fisk sat in his office at Fisk Tower, examining the blueprints that Spencer Smythe had sent over. So far, what he'd seen of Spencer's prototype "Spider-Slayer" robot was promising indeed. The Kingpin was gratified to know that he'd made the right decision in hiring Smythe for this task. The man was a certified genius; and fortunately for the Kingpin, he also lacked the ambition required to leverage that genius into something worthwhile on his own. That made Smythe the ideal tool for someone like Fisk, whose greatest talent was, quite simply, getting others to do what he wanted, no matter what.

And then, something crashed through his office window—something which had just flown in from outside. No, thought Fisk, not yet! He hadn't had sufficient time to prepare for this attack, to ready his defenses and position the pieces needed to finish his opponent off for good. If he takes me out now, the Green Goblin will have won! As the armored figure on the glider circled over Fisk's head and laughed menacingly, Fisk reached for his walking stick, which at least had some sophisticated weaponry built into it; and he punched the button under his desk to trigger a silent alarm. Hammerhead would be here in seconds, and less than two minutes after that, the whole office would be swarming with heavily armed guards… but would that be fast enough?

The two guards already in the office aimed their SMGs, but the goblin on the glider was too fast; he tossed down a pumpkin-bomb, which exploded in a poof of sleeping-gas. The guards were knocked out quickly and quietly.

Then the concealed side-door opened and Hammerhead came running in, revolver in hand. He saw the goblin and said, "Hey, what the hell is this?"

"That's what I'd like to know!" growled Fisk. Because now, the grinning goblin had come to a halt; he was hovering in the middle of the room, facing the Kingpin. And it was apparent from the orange mask and blue armor that this was not the Green Goblin. Fisk stared at this new menace and demanded, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"You may call me… Hobgoblin," he replied. Then he laughed: a long, deep, spine-chillingly insane laugh. "And you… you're the Kingpin. No!—don't try to deny it, I've been watching you—all of you—for some time now. Bravo, Mr. Fisk—you've got the world fooled and eating out of your hand! Mehehe-hoohoo-hahahah!"

"I'll only ask this again once," said Fisk darkly. "What do you want, you… bizarre creature?"

"That… is a very good question," said Hobgoblin. He rested a finger against his cheek and suddenly seemed to grow thoughtful. "Where did I come from? Who am I? And why do I wear this?" As he spoke, he gripped the cheeks of his orange mask and pulled, stretching his gobliny face into a comically wide grin before allowing the rubber to snap back into place. "All in good time. For now, let's just say that I want to get back at the man who used me, who made me what I am today."

"And who would that be?" asked Fisk, now mildly intrigued.

"Why, the Green Goblin, of course!" said Hobgoblin. Then he sang, in a taunting voice, "I know who he really is…."

It was then that Fisk's guards finally came pouring into the room, all of them wearing helmets and flak-jackets, and carrying heavy assault-rifles. All of these small arms were trained on Hobgoblin at once, and Hammerhead said with a satisfied grin, "Just give the order, boss, and this mook gets plugged."

"Ah, but now we come to it, at last," said Fisk. He leaned back in his enormous chair and said, "Another lesson for you, Hammerhead. Most men are ultimately businessmen at heart, and everyone has their price. Hobgoblin: name yours. I want a name; what do you want in exchange?"

Hobgoblin laughed again and rose up on his glider, spinning around slowly so that he could take in the whole office. "Why… this! I want to be a part of all this! Allow me to join your organization, and I'll gladly give you the Green Goblin's secret identity."

The Kingpin scoffed. "That's it? With all your power, you would stoop to mere… servitude?"

"Oh, I think we both serve the same master," replied Hobgoblin. "Riches, wealth, lucre, dinero—disgusting, exorbitant profit! Mwhahahahahahahah…"

"Ah," said Fisk as the goblin chuckled. "In that case… I believe I do understand you. And a deal can be struck."

"Excellent!" said Hobgoblin, descending so that his glider was now only inches above the floor. He looked Fisk in the eye and said, "The Green Goblin… is, and has always been, Norman Osborn."

Fisk frowned. "Impossible!" he said, slamming an angry fist down onto his desk. "I saw them together, with my own eyes!"

"Mm-mm," said Hobgoblin, shaking his head and wagging one finger at Fisk. "The night of the party, that Green Goblin was a clever impostor—namely, me! Osborn used me to fool the world… and so I'm going to bring his world down around his head!"

"I trust you have some proof?" asked Fisk.

Hobgoblin pointed at his glider, his armor, and his weapons. "Isn't the fact that I'm using all this Oscorp technology proof enough?"

"Tech that Osborn claimed had been stolen," said Fisk. "This could still be an elaborate ruse. Fisk Enterprises does a lot of business with Oscorp Industries. I can't just move against Osborn without being certain."

"Well then," said Hobgoblin with another insane laugh, "maybe I'll just have to take matters into my own hands." Here, he pulled one of his pumpkin-grenades out of his satchel and switched it on.

Fisk's eyes widened. "KILL HIM!" he shouted to his guards, diving away from his desk.

The guards opened fire, while the Hobgoblin dodged bullets in the air and cackled madly. He threw the pumpkin bomb, which exploded and screamed—aah!—blowing the Kingpin's desk to smithereens. Then Hobgoblin flew for the window and made his exit, all the while avoiding the spray of hot lead from the guards.

Hammerhead rushed over to Fisk and helped him to rise. "Are you okay, boss?"

The Kingpin's fine suit was smudged up and a little torn, but the man himself was otherwise unharmed. "This is getting out hand, Hammerhead. We're going to have to move up our timetable. I want Chameleon here, as soon as possible, do you understand me? The minute he's back in the country!"

"Yeah, sure thing, boss," said Hammerhead. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped some of the soot and ash off of the Kingpin. "It shouldn't be more than a couple of days now."

"I'm sick of these madmen interfering in my business," Fisk growled. He straightened his necktie and then snapped his fingers. "Which reminds me: take a memo. I want Miss Natchios put on the Daredevil matter."

Hammerhead took out a little notepad and pen and wrote that down. "I'll take care of it, boss." He chuckled and added, "No more Daredevil anymore, I guess."

"As it should be," said Fisk. Everything was falling into place now. Very soon, all of Fisk's enemies would be toppled off the board, and then there would be nobody left to stand in his way. "Oh, and Hammerhead," here his voice shrank to an embarrassed whisper, "go online and… order me a new desk."