The seven small zeppelins hung ominously over the vast expanse of Harbour City.

They ogled the dark metropolis with glassy searchlight eyes that sat patiently idle alongside gatling gun fangs. Drifting slowly and lazily. Hungry airborne sharks. Vigilant to the dark things which dared stalk the city's rooftops under the ancient gargoyles' indifferent granite eyes. Waiting for their first fleeting glimpse of the black countenance of vengeance. The huge white letters emblazoned across each blimp, "HCPD", proclaimed their purpose loudly and clearly.

They were after him.

The pain pulsed through the Spyder's veins in burning, debilitating waves. He grunted and staggered weakly out of the darkness of an alley, snapping his eyes forward to ensure he hadn't attracted attention. He couldn't afford to be seen. In or out of costume, he wasn't safe. From anyone. He surveyed the unsettlingly empty street, scrutinizing every one of the five people in his field of vision, all of them violators of the curfew law. All of them technically criminals...Just like him.

He reeled with a psychological pain deeper than anything physical the Drainer might have inflicted upon him. He doubled over in his private agony, feeling the asphalt impact his knees but not caring as his pants began to stain red. It was over. It had all collapsed around him. So quickly, so violently. So easily. He heard the lost souls mocking him from the shadows of the cavernous ghost town, taunting him and cursing him. The ghosts of countless dead. Murdered men and women lost to the winds of Harbour City. So many at his hands.

"Enough," he rasped, smacking himself hard in the temple with a loosely clenched fist. The physical pain was enough to interrupt the mental, and he used the opportunity to rise, composing himself as best he could. He rocked unsteadily for a moment in complete silence, letting the voices fade from his mind, before some deep-seated instinct pushed his eyes skyward.

He found himself assaulted with the vision of one of Jeff Ross' bloated sharks, swimming slowly over the nearby ocean. Watching him. Was it watching him? He stared at the predator with wide, icy eyes as his every muscle stiffened in the grip of fear. He needed to just dart back into the alleys, back in the darkness. He was safe there. As much as they might taunt him, he was at least safe with the shadows.

It is the City of a Hundred Docks. A vast, gothic metropolis which stretches for many kilometers along the northern shores of New South Wales. A dark amalgamation of neon and gargoyles where the screams of lost souls are drowned by the shriek of the biting ocean winds. A place where even the science heroes fear to tread. Harbour City. In 1999, Harbour City saw the fall of the most ruthless and expansive narcotics syndicate in all of Australia, and the disappearance of the city's only three protectors: Raven, the Grim Knight, and the Spyder. Now, some two years later, driven by the unspeakable inner demons which haunt his waking hours, Harbour's most-feared son has returned, touching the lives of all of Harbour City's people with the brutality of his personal war. The Spyder stalks the darkness of Harbour City once more.

by Bill Castonzo

- Stigs99@aol.com

Tangled Web #1 - "Devil's Night"
Tangled Web #2 - "Wee Hours Of The Morning"
Tangled Web #3 - "Daybreak"
Tangled Web #4 - "Halloween"
Tangled Web #5 - "All Hallow's Eve"

"Ghosts In The Graveyard"

Nostromo #1 - "Drainers"
Nostromo #2 - "The Insanity of Passion"
Nostromo #3 - "Hunting The Hunter"

Manhunt #1 - "Reluctant Devils"
Manhunt #2 - "The March of War"