The Darkest Hours

Chapter 16

When I tapped on the glass, Felicia opened the window of Aunt May's apartment. She looked at me. Then at the Rhino, wrapped in webbing from the shoulders down and strapped onto my back like a hyperthyroid papoose, the horn on his silly hat wobbling as his head bobbed in the relaxation of the senseless.

Then she looked at me again, blinked, and said, "You're kidding."

"Just open the window the rest of the way and stand back," I told her.

"I hope Aunt May is insured," she said, but she did it.

I climbed in with the Rhino on my back. I wasn't worried about hurting him if I banged him into something. I was more worried about the something. So I brought him in as carefully as I could and laid him out on the kitchen floor.

Aunt May's apartment is somewhat spartan, for an elderly lady. When she moved out of the house I grew up in, the one she had shared with Uncle Ben, she put many of her belongings in storage, rather than attempting to stuff them into her little apartment. She still has some of her furniture—a table, chairs for it, her rocker, her couch. She replaced their double bed with a single one; there's a small guest room where she put the double, for when Mary Jane and I visit. She keeps a couple of bookshelves filled with everything from

Popular Science

(which I'm still half-sure she only subscribes to so that I'll have something to read when I visit) to romance novels to history books. She has a few small shelves, a few knickknacks, and that's about it.

Mary Jane came in and hugged me tight, then stared at the man on the floor. "Oh, God. What happened to his face?"

The Rhino looked bad. No worse than he had when I had picked him up, but no better, either.

"Mortia did it to him," I said. "She decided he wasn't useful anymore and started feeding on him."

Felicia regarded the Rhino with a cool, distant expression. "He's dead, then?"

"Not yet," I said.

"Are you insane?" Felicia asked quietly.

Mary Jane gave her a sharp glance.

"If Mortia did this to him," Felicia explained, "she touched him. If she touched him, she can follow him, find him, as long as he is alive. Which means—"

"She can find us here," Mary Jane breathed. She looked at me. "Peter?"

"No names," I said quietly. "He's out, but he'll be coming to anytime now. He doesn't need to know any names."

"This is massively stupid," Felicia snapped. "You're going to get yourself killed. And me with you."

"She was going to kill him," I said. "What else could I have done?"

"You could have let her kill him," Felicia said.

I was glad that I had my mask on, because I wasn't sure I could have kept the anger I felt off of my face. "What happened to treating him like a human being? To his not being all that bad a person?"

"He might not be Charles Manson, but he chose which side to play for." She folded her arms. "It isn't a pleasant thought, not for anyone, but he knows there are risks in this kind of life. You should have let her have him. If nothing else, then she might not have been quite so hot and bothered about coming after you."

"So I guess he's not a person after all," I said, and I didn't keep the bitterness out of my words. "Is that it?"

"It isn't about that," she said. "It's about you putting your life at risk. If I had to choose between the two of you, it would be you. Without a second thought. All I was saying is that I wanted you to show a little respect for him. I never wanted you to throw your life away trying to save him."

"He isn't worth that?"

"Worth you?"

Felicia asked, her voice tired. "No. You can't save everyone. This time around, you'll be lucky to save yourself. Don't throw your life away on some boy scout scruple you can't survive."

Mary Jane stood to one side of the kitchen, motionless, almost invisible, listening, her wide green eyes on me.

I forced myself to take a slow breath. Then I asked, "What do you think I should do?"

"Put him on a train. A plane. Throw him on a truck. Anything, but get him out of here until we can learn more about the Ancients. Once we get up close with these things, once they've touched us, we only have one chance to put them away. If you keep the Rhino here, they'll find us. Maybe in the next few minutes. Certainly soon. So you use him to lead them off and buy us more time."

"That would be the same thing as murdering him myself," I said quietly.

Felicia shook her head, frustration evident on her face. "You didn't ask him to come back to New York. You didn't force the Rhino to get involved with the Ancients. You didn't make them turn on him. He did that all on his own."

"Should that matter?" I asked. "If your places were reversed," she said, "he'd do the same to you. In a heartbeat."

I looked down at the Rhino, maimed and helpless on Aunt May's kitchen floor.

What Felicia said was probably true. But…

maybe not, too. The Rhino could have done nothing while Doc Ock and his buddies finished me. He'd opposed them. They hadn't worked up to a fight or anything, but he'd said something, at least.

If our positions were reversed, would he have stood by and done nothing? Would he have let me die to save his own life?

Probably.

But…

But in the end, that didn't matter. Regardless of what the Rhino might or might not have done, it did not change who I was. It did not change the choice I had to make. It did not change the responsibility I would bear in making that choice. It did not change what was right and what was wrong.

"Earlier," I said quietly, "you asked me the difference between people like the Rhino and people like me." I looked at the man, then slowly nodded. "Maybe it starts right here. I'm not letting them have him. I'm not letting them have anyone."

"Gosh, that's noble," Felicia said, her voice tart. "Maybe MJ can put it on your tombstone."

"Felicia," Mary Jane said, stepping up beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You know he's right. If you could stop thinking about yourself for a minute, you'd realize that."

"Hey, Mrs. Cleaver. When I want your opinion, I'll read it in your entrails," Felicia snapped.

MJ's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"Enough."

I growled, loud and harsh enough that even MJ looked a little surprised. I turned to Felicia and said, "This is what I'm doing."

The Black Cat stared at me for a long moment, and then demanded, something almost like a plea in her voice, "For him? Why?"

"It doesn't matter who he is. I won't leave him to Mortia."

She got in my face, quietly furious, spitting each word. "This. Is. Suicide."

"Look, I get it that you're afraid—"

"Don't you patronize me," she hissed. "I'm not afraid of anything and you know it."

"I'm not saying you're a coward. There's no reason to feel ashamed of being afraid."

She jabbed a finger into my chest. "I am not afraid. I am also not going to commit suicide for some lowbrow thug too stupid to be careful who he works for."

I pulled the mask of£ and met her eyes. "I'm not asking you to do it with me," I said quietly.

Her eyes narrowed, searching mine. Then they became hooded and unreadable, her voice calm. "Good," she said. "Then I don't need to tell you no." She spun on a heel and walked quietly to the door. "I'll call you if I find out anything else. Good-bye."

She slammed the door on the way out.

I flinched a little at the sound of it.

My head pounded in a dull, steady rhythm. My brush with the Ancients had left my spider sense screaming, and the headache was, I began to understand, some kind of natural aftereffect of having the gain on my extra sense turned up to eleven, some sort of psychic hangover. My mouth felt fuzzy. More than anything, I wanted to crawl into a dark hole for a while and rest.

I've noticed that you rarely get a chance to do any dark-hole-crawling when you seem to need it most.

Mary Jane's fingers touched my chin and gently turned my face toward hers.

"Why did you provoke her?" she asked, her manner very serious.

"Provoke her?" I said. "I don't know what—"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Don't try to deny it. I know you too well."

I felt my mouth turn up into a tired smile. "Well. Maybe a little."

She gave me a small, strained smile and slid her arms around me. "You're pushing her away. Trying to protect her."

I held MJ for a moment, closing my eyes. "Maybe."

"You're a good man," she whispered, her arms tightening. "Which makes me think that she must be right about how dangerous it will be to protect him."

"Maybe," I said.

"What's the real plan, then?"

"The Jolly Gray Giant here should wake up sometime soon. I hope. When he does, I'll tell him about the danger and send him on his way."

Mary Jane was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "How is that different from putting him on a train?"

"Because I'm not going to use him as a lure. I don't think Mortia will chase him down until she's concluded her business with me. He deserves to know what he's up against, and needs time to recover and prepare for it, in case I don't…"

I didn't finish the sentence. Mary Jane's arms tightened around me. We stood that way for a minute.

Then I said, "All right. The webs will hold him, but not for long. So I need to be here with him when he wakes up, so I can start talking right away. If he panics, he'll rip out of the webs in a few seconds, and God only knows what will get wrecked. So if he freaks, I'll pitch him out the window."

She nodded, biting her lip thoughtfully. Then she turned the kitchen lights out.

I frowned at her quizzically.

"I don't have a mask," she explained. "I'd rather not be someone he recognizes, generally speaking."

I gave her a small smile and put my mask back on, leaving my nose and mouth uncovered. It hit me that I was starving, so I opened Aunt May's fridge to rustle up something.

"How long will it take them to find us?" Mary Jane asked.

"Technically, they could have been right behind me. But you don't live for thousands of years by taking unnecessary risks. They'll come in carefully, quietly, checking out the area. With any luck, Sleeping Beauty here will wake up in the next few minutes. We'll let him go on his way, which ought to confuse them, at least. Then you and I will slip out and make them start looking for me all over again."

Mary Jane nodded slowly. "But you still don't know how to beat them."

"No."

"Do you know how to find out?"

"No."

"Then what good is running going to do?" she asked. "Ultimately, it's just a delaying tactic."

"So's exercise and controlling your cholesterol," I said, and it came out more frustrated than I meant it to. "I don't know how to deal with freaking magical, Spider-Man-eating monster people." I lost control of my voice completely and found myself shouting. "I'm scared, all right? I can't think! I

don't know!"

"But you'd risk drawing them here, to both of us, for this man?"

I was quiet for a moment, staring at the inside of the fridge. Then I said, "I couldn't just leave him."

Mary Jane's voice turned warmer. "No. You couldn't."

"If it comes to a fight, I'm not going to stay around here. I don't want them to grab you."

She was silent. I assumed she nodded.

"I'll try to lead them off somewhere where it will minimize the damage. And…"

And what, Pete? Bounce around until you get tired, while they don't? Then miss a step. Then die.

"Here's a thought," Mary Jane said.

"Hmmm?"

"Maybe the doctor didn't mean those stones for the Ancients."

I frowned and blinked at her. "Huh?"

"Maybe he meant them for us." She shrugged. "I'm just saying. If it's some sort of timeless prison—maybe he meant us to use them to go there for shelter. Maybe he'd come and get us out."

"Maybe," I said quietly. "But… maybe he wouldn't. Or couldn't."

"Did he say that?"

I frowned. "He said that he believed I had what I needed to defeat this foe."

"Oh." She thought about it for a moment, and then said, "He's a difficult man to pin down."

I grunted. Aunt May's fridge was largely bare. Of course. She had been planning to leave for a week on Anna's prize cruise. She wouldn't have left anything in the fridge that would go bad. The freezer had TV dinners, but with any luck we'd be gone from here long before they could be done. So I made do with some microwave popcorn.

As the scent filled the room, the Rhino let out a groan.

I looked up sharply at Mary Jane and nodded toward the bedroom. She swallowed and went there in silence.

Popcorn rattled in the microwave. The Rhino muttered something I didn't understand, in what sounded like Russian. His head tossed left and right. Then he snorted and tried to lift his head.

"Take it easy there, big fella," I told him. The microwave beeped, and I took the popcorn out. "Yes, you're tied up. Yes, I'm Spider-Man. No, I'm not going to hurt you, or even turn you over to the cops. And to prove it, I'll split some popcorn with you if you give me two minutes to talk to you without you going berserkergang on me."

"Spider-Man," the Rhino spat. I could dimly see him bare his teeth in the shadowy kitchen. His basso voice rolled out the thick, half-swallowed consonants of his accent. "You think this is funny, I bet."

"No," I said. "Ow, hot popcorn. Augh, that steam, right when you open the bag? Anyway, I don't think it's funny. I think it's really scary. I think that both of us have bigger problems to worry about than one another."

The Rhino growled, a sound full of suspicion and not much in the way of intellect. "Then why am I bound?"

"What do you remember?" I asked.

"Mortia. She touched me and…" He shuddered. Eight hundred pounds of shuddering Rhino is a lot. The plates rattled in the cupboard.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"I… hurt." There was a note of almost childish surprise in his tone. The Rhino did not often get hurt. Heck, he wasn't even showing any bruises from the massive walloping I'd given him not twenty-four hours before. My knuckles, on the other hand, were still swollen. "Heat, on my face. Headache."

"Mortia and her brothers are extremely bad news," I said. "They feed on life energy like yours and mine."

"They eat super-powered people?" Rhino asked.

"Close enough," I said. "They had a brother who came to eat me several months ago. He got a case of the deads."

"So they came to even the score," said the Rhino. I had to give the big guy credit. Not much in the way of brains, but he understood the meaner things in life.

"Exactly. They hired you to draw me out. Then stood around doing nothing, by the way, when I beat the stuffing out of you."

The Rhino growled, and for some reason it was a much more threatening sound in Aunt May's kitchen than in Times Square.

"The point is," I said quickly, "they didn't exactly give you any backup. And when you inconvenienced Mortia, she decided to kill you."

The Rhino was silent for a second, and then he said, 'You stopped her?"

'Yeah."

"Why?" he demanded.

"Despite what you may have read in the

Bugle,

I am one of the good guys. I don't let people get eaten on my watch."

"But I am your enemy," he said.

"Sorta, sure," I agreed. "But Mortia and her brothers are bad news in a big and scary way. You and I have had our disagreements. I imagine we'll keep on having them. But if they get the chance, those three will kill us. Both of us. And they'll barely remember it a few days from now."

His mouth spread into a sneer. "And what do you want? For me to fight beside you?"

"No," I said. "I want you gone. Out of here, somewhere safe. This is going to be nasty, and no one sane is going to want any part of it. Get yourself clear until you have a chance to recover. I think they're coming after me first, but if they get past me, you'll be on your own."

"Da. Am always on my own," the Rhino said, a glower in his tone. "But what do you really want?"

"Nothing. I pulled your big gray butt out of the fire because you once did something similar for me. I just want you to get up and get away from me as fast as you can manage it. The way I see it, that'll balance the scales between us."

His voice became even more suspicious. "This is some trick."

"No trick," I said.

"Prove it," he said. "Untie me."

I haven't spent all this time as a human spider without learning to tie some outstandingly groovy knots. I leaned down, gave the webbing around him several sharp tugs, and the whole thing slithered away from him.

The Rhino sat up slowly, a little unsteadily, as if shocked that I had actually untied him. "Now, the blindfold."

"Uh?" I said. "There's no blindfold, big guy. I mean, it's a little dim in here, but…"

I saw him lift his fingers to his face. He drew his hands away after a single touch, and spat out something in Russian that probably should not be said in front of Russian children.

I turned and flicked on the kitchen lights.

The Rhino's ruined face looked awful, but not as bad as his eyes. They had gone entirely white, as if cataracts had entirely occluded them in the few seconds Mortia had touched him.

Holy Moley. This put a nice big old hole in the "get everyone away from Peter so he can fight the battle without them getting hurt or in the way" plan. There was no way I could send him out on his own like this—helpless, utterly unable to defend himself.

"Bozhe moi."

the Rhino said, staring sightlessly. "I am blind."