"Raymundo Zuleta is dead."
The young man looked as though he jumped slightly at the sound of my voice, though he did his best to hide the fact that my arrival had surprised him, and suddenly, I felt a pang of shame sting in the back of my mind. Deceiving him hurt, it tugged at emotional strings which I had convinced myself I had distanced from this persona so long ago. The boy had made no secret of his reverence for me. But no, not boy. He was not a boy, no matter what his conduct might have revealed.
Joseph Liebowitz was thirty-six years old. I was twenty-nine.
And Raven, despite his obvious and unconditional respect, and accordingly allegiance, towards me, always made my nerves stand on end. No, but that was not correct either. It was not despite his curious obsession that he so unnerved me, but rather because of it. He was a man, a grown man, and had been a player in the game of costumed violence for five years longer than I had. He should not have needed an apprenticeship, especially to one who was quite obviously his junior, such as myself.
But that was exactly what it was, a need. He needed a man to look up to, needed orders, needed someone to follow. He refused individuality. He clung, first to the Grim Knight, and then to me. Since the loss of the Knight, Liebowitz had all but refused to leave my side, and when we departed, I always thought I caught the smallest hint of a sniffling tear. I tried to ignore it, tried to distance myself from him both emotionally and physically, but Raven's presence would not relent. He was skilled in costume, that much was certain, as well he should have been after his unnaturally long period, almost ten years, of training under the Knight. But his private personality betrayed his businesslike conduct as Raven.
For a considerable time, I thought him to be a homosexual.
But that was not quite it.
Lingering doubts did indeed persist about Joseph's sexuality, or at least his possible fetishes. He always seemed to admire, almost lust after, the weapons I carried. He froze, mesmerized, whenever I brandished my guns or knives, armaments denied to him by the Grim Knight's personal code. Since Liebowitz had chosen me, by default I supposed, to continue as his 'master' in the Knight's stead, he had developed an annoying habit of requesting a firearm. I always denied him. However, despite Raven's sexually questionable mannerisms, his lecherousness did not seem to be driven by lust so much as an inexplicable internal hollowness. The need for a paternal figure, or at the very least someone spiritually stronger, to lead him. If the horrible background that the Paige whore had translated in her newspaper articles was true, he may very well have been desperately searching for a surrogate father.
"Good," Raven growled back. Underneath his stiff psuedo-cloak, a bulletproof material which resembled wings folded against his form, I could see Raven shuddering. He bit his lower lip underneath the half-mask of his helmet, a streamlined cowl which bore a resemblance to the head of a dark bird and covered his face down to his nose. I could have sworn he smiled, almost orgasmically, at the thought of Zuleta's death.
That shame persisted, and I wished I could tell him the truth, tell him that I was Raymundo Zuleta, and that the name was nothing more than a falsehood doctored as a means to an end. But I was far too embroiled in my rather complicated plan, and despite the fact that Liebowitz had forced his way, if only a little, into my favor, I still did not trust the boy. Man, rather.
He shied away as I approached, almost seeming coy.
"I miss him, Spyder," he whispered, his tone trembling.
Fuck, I thought to myself. He was so obviously emotionally unbalanced.
"Fucking shit," he spat, the crying obvious though his tears were hidden by his mask. "It was my fault. I should have been there with him. I shouldn't have let him go in that warehouse alone."
I had nothing to say. Truth be told, my hand moved to one of my guns. He was unpredictable.
He collapsed to his knees, choking on the sobs, and his head dropped forehead first directly onto the rough surface of the roof. I winced. Despite the protection his helmet offered, that had to have hurt. And then he leaned forward, resting almost his full body weight on his head and driving it all firmly downwards. God, he was sick. We all had our demons, but most could suppress them, control them. I could control mine. But Joseph Liebowitz held no power over his.
"Fuck!" he screamed, now violently banging his head upon the rooftop. I darted forward, confounded by his display, and grasped him tightly, hugging his body to mine, disregarding the sexual pleasure he may very well have been getting from the experience.
"Joseph! Joseph, Jesus, get a hold of yourself!"
"Don't call me that!" he screamed, twisting in my arms. His strength was considerable but no one without enhanced abilities could break from my grip. "You can't use my real name! He said no real names, ever! He told me that! Oh shit, I'm sorry, Grim Knight! I'm sorry! She said...I mean, I wanted her to be...Damn it, I didn't know she would do that!...I didn't know! I'm sorry!!"
That Paige slut. First the 'y' in my name in some pathetic attempt to be clever, and now this depraved madman was having a psychotic episode because of her god damned manipulative fuck-a-thon with him. One which had earned him considerable chastising from his master, and what he perceived to be an unerasable black mark upon his brow.
"Raven! Raven! It's not your fault, god damn it! He was his own man, you are your own man! It's not your fault! If you had gone with him into that building, you would have died too! It was a trap, it was rigged to explode! Damn it, there was nothing you could have done!"
He calmed, still sobbing, and suddenly seemed to become self-aware, jumping from my relaxing grasp. We regarded each other for a moment as he sucked back his tears. His nose was bleeding thanks to his head-butting contest with the building moments earlier, but he paid it no heed. I grimaced, turning my eyes from him yet allowing my every other sense to linger on his presence.
"So now what?" he asked, his attention refocused.
"Now," I started, staring out over the rooftops of Harbour City. "The Red Jesters are uncontested once more. I've killed Raymundo Zuleta, ensuring them their drug monopoly. And now...Now THEY fall."
A stiff wind blew, invigorating me and washing away my thoughts of Raven's sexuality and the loss of the Grim Knight. There was only justice, the only thing pure in a corrupted and twisted world, justice for the death of the Grim Knight, justice for the million screams which the cold sea winds of Harbour carried upon their breasts. Pure, quick, and final. My eyes narrowed.
"Now we cut out the heart of the Red Jesters."
...comeintomyparlor...
THE SPYDER: TANGLED WEB #5
"All Hallow's Eve"
By Bill Castonzo
...comeintomyparlor...
2001
"Zuleta!"
The Spyder felt incredibly strange roaring that name, a name he himself had both conceived and worn, as he burst clear through the second story glass windows above the entrance to the Hotel Continental. The crystalline shards rained down upon the fleeing, panicked crowds, the splintered glass catching stray chaotic wisps of brilliance from the powerful radiance of ground level spotlights. All eyes suddenly converged with palpable fear on the dark figure, the black suit he had worn in disguise since discarded, who so dramatically charged into the cool embracing night, framed by pieces of glass which sparkled like the residual sparks of some great wizard's spell. His eyes were alight with a furious fire matched only by the intense luminance of the atmospheric spotlights as they splashed his elongated shadow up the side of the great glass monolith. And there he stood, perched like a venomous gargoyle upon the concrete overhang which roofed the entrance to the Continental.
For a brief moment, the world stood still.
Then the Spyder caught sight of a foreign movement out of the corner of his well-trained eyes; the darting form of a man moving in decided contrast from the rest of the crowd. He moved with a sense and speed of distinct purpose.
"You!" the Spyder screamed, freezing the distant man in his tracks as he sprinted towards an idling Mercedes, door open, from the side of the ritzy hotel.
He and the Spyder locked dark eyes and, inexplicably, Raymundo Zuleta did not look particularly afraid. Though no one but the Spyder truly noticed.
And suddenly, the dark avenger, devoid of his trademark trenchcoat and hat but the very night itself flapping and twisting in his wake, was airborne. The crowd screamed, parting like a biblical sea for a dark prophet as flashbulbs flared all about them, and the Spyder touched down lightly, already running before most had even realized he had so expertly landed the impressive jump. But Zuleta was remarkably quick himself. The mayoral candidate, speckled with blood, was at the Mercedes before the rapidly moving vigilante had even covered half the ground between them. The driver was viciously flung from the opposite door, his body sprawling on the pavement, as Zuleta made good his retreat with the squeal of tires.
The Spyder did not break stride. Behind him, Ron Middleton burst through the Continental doors, gun drawn, and quickly located the Spyder amongst the otherwise cowering throng.
"Stop!" Middleton screamed, rumbling after his considerably faster quarry. "Stop, damn it!"
The Spyder did not. He dashed madly across an intersection, pulling one of his knives from its ankle scabbard and paying no attention to the screeching tires of an SUV as it narrowly avoided both hitting the vigilante and spinning out of control. He straddled a sleek red Kawasaki motorcycle, parallel parked in front of a Starbucks, and hastily took his knife to the ignition. He fumbled for a bit, manipulating the machinery, as all about him citizens screamed and dashed for safety. Distinctly, he heard Middleton getting very close.
"You're under arrest, you fucker! Stop, damn it, STOP!"
The bike roared. He could have simply sped off, in pursuit of Zuleta, completely disregarding any words which escaped Middleton's lips. But he gave pause as the detective scurried across the intersection, firearm brandished despite the fact that he would not actually use it. The Spyder stared into Middleton with narrowed, savage eyes. The thirst, the thirst for vengeance and blood and all the delightfully wicked things he had denied himself for two long years burned in his gut, igniting his veins, seizing his nerves and consuming his brain. Controlled entirely by that thirst, that burning unchecked desire, he could taste the first faint tang of finality. And he would not tolerate interference. A statement needed to be made. The Spyder hesitated a long moment, letting Ron Middleton narrow the gap between them.
"Get off that god damn b-"
The gun was pressed firmly against the small knob of flesh between his eyebrows before Middleton had even realized that the Spyder was reaching towards one of his holsters. The motion was lost in a rush of air. Two safeties clicked off simultaneously.
And two hardened men were left boring defiantly into the others' dark eyes, cocked guns held firmly at the end of locked arms, both muzzles pressed against the other's head. An impossibly complex relationship, an ageless conflict, an unspoken understanding, and a defiance forged in battle, all painted in a beautifully simple portrait on the streets of Harbour City. Neither relented, neither wavered in the slightest, each straining for that extra ounce of determination, that small surge of will, to outlast the other in their standoff.
"We are the same, you and I," the Spyder rasped.
"I am nothing like you," Middleton spat back, denying the Spyder's twisted manipulation.
"We both seek to avenge past wrongs," the Spyder continued, his eyes further narrowing. "We seek an end. You wish to untangle the spider's tangled web. And I...I simply wish to see an evil man punished."
"And so do I," Middleton replied, almost smiling at the Spyder.
"We know each other," the Spyder whispered sweetly. "You can feel me in your veins. You know what I must do."
"It won't work, Daniel," Middleton boomed, driving the Spyder's gravelly, mesmerizing voice from his thoughts as he addressed the vigilante by the name Rockwell's tearful revelation had given to him. "You're coming with me. I won't let you get away this time."
"If you take me," the Spyder replied. He shifted forward a bit, pressuring the spot between Middleton's eyes. The detective tensed, snarling through gritted teeth. "Then you will let a despicable murderer, one far more vile than myself, walk free. If you take me, the most horrible man I have ever encountered will become the mayor of this city. And even moreso, if you take me, you and Mitchell shall never have the answers you have been seeking ever since you began this case. Ever since I disappeared two years ago. And ever since you found the bodies of two murdered men in that fucking safehouse. Middleton, do you doubt my ability to keep my secrets? Do you doubt I have the discipline to never utter a single word in the presence of others?
"You have to let me go, Ron. You have no fucking choice."
Middleton was speechless, wrestling visibly with screaming emotion as he admitted to himself that everything the Spyder had been saying was true. He was sweating now, his face contorted in horrible confliction. The arm which trained the Magnum on the Spyder's head gently wavered. Finally, he lowered it altogether, exasperated.
"You have a helluvalot to answer for," Middleton growled indignantly. "After this is over, after you do what you have to do, I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you like the Wrath of mother fucking God, and so help me if I don't kill you then."
The Spyder nodded, his automatic still holding steady between Middleton's eyes. The safety clicked again. And, despite his bravado, Middleton let out an extremely relieved, or perhaps just horribly dejected, sigh as the gun found its way slowly back to its sheath.
Then, without another word between them, the Spyder unexpectedly thrusted with but one hand, weaving it around Middleton's wrist, applying just enough pressure to cause the gun to drop and Middleton to wince. The fist then snaked quickly into Middleton's gut. It connected hard in a considerably fatty portion of the torso, sending the detective reeling with the least amount of pain possible. A show for the assembled media, something to prevent an inquiry as to him letting the Spyder escape. In the back of his mind, even as his tailbone struck pavement, Ron Middleton silently thanked his eternal enemy.
"Where are you going?" he managed to spout as the Spyder kicked the bike into gear.
"To meet Zuleta," the Spyder answered, his voice ringing with the bark of savage hound. "To the place where he plans to take his revenge. Where it should have all ended to begin with. And I swear on my mother's grave, Middleton, may God have mercy on you if you interfere!"
Tires squealed, and with the scent of burning rubber, the Spyder sped down the street, racing destiny.
Middleton, even as the feet of countless newly arrived back-up officers pounded at the street behind him, could only watch the vigilante go, utterly stupefied as to where the Spyder could be headed.
* * *
1999
The splash of the tempest felt cool against my face as a strange communion of blood, grime, and sin ran down my uniform in soft, discolored rivulets. The body of another lay at my feet, still gasping breaths in irregular, though steady, rhythm, lost in a sea of rain and the macabre, his beaten body a testament to the horrible events which had ultimately led to that single, storm- washed moment.
It was over.
Or so I thought.
I had not brought Raven along on this final raid, the killing blow delivered with deadly precision to the Red Jester syndicate. He could not have handled it. Beyond any shadow of a doubt I knew the man-boy could not have been prepared for what I had faced. And barely beaten.
I sucked in a deep, pleasing lungful of the cool, damp air, expunging the fatigue which burned in my chest. Already I felt the surges of a renewed life, something far beyond the recuperation of my joints and muscles, creeping their way into my being. Somewhere beyond the darkness and the rain, the sun was always beginning to rise. And I was sure that on that day, that glorious, triumphant day, my sun would shine upon me brighter than it had ever glared before. Underneath the mask, despite the bruises aching in my lips, I smiled.
Thunder cracked, splintering my day dreams and the brief moment's peace. My eyes snapped downwards, taking in the fallen figure hog-tied at my feet. He looked up at me, pleading without speaking a word. I reached for my gun, but hesitated.
No. It would end. I told myself then, that there, in that back alleyway rife with the refuse of society, it would end. I let my hand fall, and he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. But I only scowled in return, disgusted and burning with an unbridled hatred, barely managing a precarious control.
I had told myself that it would end.
I had made it end.
"You..." I began, surprised I could even find the words through the dense fog of spite clouding my veins. They exited my mouth in a guttural, restrained fury, almost sizzling in the cool night as they drifted through the rain. "You...sadistic...vile...monster."
He replied with apathetic eyes. I kicked my steel-toed foot hard into the flesh above his clavicle, eliciting a series of sickening, wheezing coughs from behind the gag that I had placed between his rattled teeth. There would be no emotionless indifference. I would not stand for it. This man was more than a poisoner of children, more than a killer, more than the controlling force of a murderous gang. So much more, and it made him so very much less.
"I have never...Never!...wanted to kill anything as much as I do right now," I managed through grinding teeth, in a most unpoetic fashion. "No one on the face...of this planet...deserves a slow, agonizing death more than you, right here...in this alley...in the shadow of humanity, amongst the rest of the filth of the city."
The coughing had finished. And again he looked up with steely, unfeeling eyes. Those eyes. I would never forget those eyes. I dropped to my knees, dealing several paralyzing blows to his face, wanting nothing more than to gouge those eyes from their sockets and laugh as he tried to scream through the gag, choking on his own pain and free-flowing fountain of blood. I dug my fingers into his cheeks, wrenching his head to me, bringing me face to face with his broken and red-smeared features. And yet still the eyes stared at me uncaringly.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I screamed, roared, exploded, at him, gurgling through the water which had soaked freely through my mask. "I've broken you, you son of a bitch! I've broken your people, broken the fucking Red Jesters! Don't you even care?! What the fuck is wrong with you?! Do you want to die, you son of a bitch?! Is that it?! Do you WANT me to punish you for what you've done?!? You son of a bitch! You fucking son of a bitch!!"
Without thinking, I pulled a knife from my ankle and drove it deep into his shoulder, missing anything vital but feeling it tear smoothly through varying consistencies of organic material. I had succumbed to the rage. Hearing his scream, I jumped, almost unaware of what I had just done, surprised by how quickly my focused control had been lost.
But he was so very deserving.
I jerked the knife from his shoulder, drawing another scream and a geyser- like spurt of dark, dark blood. I looked at the cold steel, feeling like a man frozen in time, as the rain carried his blood in large droplets towards the handle of the blade. And on the wet ground, a thick, red puddle was forming around his chest.
"It has to end," I told myself aloud, my voice shaking. I closed my eyes uncertainly as I bent down and placed the knife back into its sheath. I sighed desperately, refusing to look at his writhing form. I turned. The sound of the rain was a maddening drone in my psyche. Deep inside me, my heart screamed for blood. And painfully, I pushed its voice away, focusing on the rain.
Cleansing rain.
"Justice is done."
I walked forward, feeling the welcoming caress of the shadows as I entered the narrow side alley, my sleek form melding with the darkness. I never looked back. I could hear him wheezing, struggling, but I never looked back. I didn't need to. Even as he fought against the pull of unconsciousness, choking on his own blood, he stared. I knew he was staring, staring right through me. I could feel his eyes boring into my back, fire tearing in two straight lines from my shoulder blades to my pectorals, burning through the night in front of me.
The Red Jesters had fallen. Their drugs would never again run through the streets of Harbour, and in the distance, the sirens already heralded the approaching arrest of their beaten and broken leader. I had left him for them, left him alive. With my part done, I had walked away. And, despite the warm, heavy lead swelling in my stomach, I felt an immense satisfaction, even pride, at that notion. But still blissful peace would not come. In my mind, the vision of those eyes, those terrible eyes, continued to haunt me. I felt incredibly weak.
Yet I just kept walking.
* * *
2001
"No, god damn it, get me Thorpe! I don't want to talk to Jim and if Ian was in the middle of a fucking root canal right now, then I'd be telling you to transfer me to his dentist! Maggie, shit, I need to talk to him...Yeah, I know I know...No, I'm AT the fucking Continental, too...No, I didn't see Wanda, I...Fuck, listen to me, Maggie! The Spyder just attacked Raymundo Zuleta in the middle of the press conference! Yeah, I'm sure she did already call you, but she's NOT the one working with the god damn investigators on this case...YES, that's ME! Well, no shit, Maggie. Thank you, Jesus Christ..."
Amie Paige rolled her eyes as she stood impatiently idle, nervously tapping her toe on the wet pavement outside the Hotel Continental front doors, the receiver of her cell phone falling momentarily mute as her call was transferred from the Tribune's secretary to its editor-in-chief. All around her, the various news organization had already staked their claim to the crime scene, divvying up the most photogenic portions of the grand entranceway to the television stations while the newspaper and radio people conducted interviews en masse in a multitude of different locations. But Amie Paige was not interested in anything an eyewitness or a police officer might say. She was better informed than any of them. She had her exclusive, and was ready to move.
"No, I need helicopters covering every square inch of this city goddamn it!"
"Sir, I don't know if Mayor Briggs would..."
"Fuck Mayor Briggs and fuck how scared the damned populace gets! This ends tonight, one way or the other!"
Ron Middleton was on the war path. Not soon after the crimson Katana cycle had disappeared into the evening traffic had he realized the complete idiocy of his decision. The Spyder had gotten to him, played with his head. He had even expected it, told himself he would not let the psycho toy with his thoughts, but it had happened anyways. He had fallen to his own weakness, let his quarry, his enemy, his literal goal in life, slip so easily through his fingers. And he was pissed.
"Just get me a radio to Ross..."
"Captain Ross is on his way here now, sir."
"What?! On his way...Fine, fine, just get me a goddamn radio anyways, shit! I want every cop in Harbour on this!"
The officer scurried from his superior's side, weaving his way carefully through the shoulder-to-shoulder mass of people camped at the entrance to the glamorous hotel. From Middleton's opposite side, Foster approached eagerly.
"You can't come with us, Paul," Middleton stated firmly before Foster could even say a word, never breaking stride nor turning to face the man he had so begrudgingly accepted as his partner. He spoke with a complete blockage of emotion. "I'm sorry, but from this point on, it's smash and grab, search and seizure, and without any training, you're a liability. We're gonna find him, and we're gonna bring him in, one way or the other."
"I...I want to go," Foster replied, mustering as much force to the statement as possible but doing a poor job of concealing his sudden stunned disappointment. "I've been along through all of this, you can't..."
Middleton had fallen past the point of empathy.
"I'm sorry," he said again, and just kept walking even as Foster's footfalls slowed and finally stopped in abject dejection behind him.
"Thorpe! I need a god damned photographer! Yeah, I know Steve is already here with Wanda, but they won't let me bring anybody with me...No, Ian, I need a photographer on the move, ready to meet me wherever I call from...No, I haven't heard anything...No, they won't - God damn it, Ian, listen to me! The Spyder's escaped...He went after Zuleta, and I think Middleton might have some idea where they were headed. No no, god damn it, don't send anyone to his house...Fucking Christ, just tell Parsen to start driving and I'll call him - What do you mean you can't get a hold of him?! That little prick, then-"
The cellphone was jerked backwards, almost taking Paige's right arm with it in the process. She reeled, spinning as she caught herself, ready to bite into whoever had taken the phone from her. She quickly found restraint."We said no calls," Rockwell growled at her, his weathered and weary face betraying the intense, almost psychotic vigor in his eyes. Paige swallowed hard, earnestly scared. As the voice on the other end blared, Rockwell clapped the phone closed, never once taking his narrow eyes off of Paige's swiftly whitening face. He tossed the phone at her.
"Follow me," he said gravely, whipping his head around. She obliged.
"Rock," Middleton said softly as he turned to look his friend in the face. He almost winced at the sight, and then shrunk a bit as he caught a glance of Rockwell's eyes. His volume lowered. "Rock, what the hell?"
"Daniel Stockholm," Rockwell replied. "Nineteen months and three days before she died, Beth married Daniel Stockholm."
"I remember," Middleton answered slowly as Rockwell turned, marching through the throng with the presence of an army carrying his form. Middleton and Paige followed. "Didn't know you kept count..."
"They divorced two months and thirteen days before her death. Daniel moved to New Zealand. She told me Daniel moved to New Zealand. Did she lie to me? No, she couldn't have known..."
"Did you know, Rock?" Middleton asked hesitantly. Rockwell was silent for a while, tightening his lips.
"I had...I had considered it. But I couldn't...I couldn't believe she'd marry a killer. Daniel...He couldn't have been the Spyder. I didn't really know him that well...But he seemed like a good...A good guy. I thought. Fuck. That sonuvabitch. That sonuvabitch, he killed her. He fucking killed his own wife. He killed Beth!"
Rockwell halted abruptly and slammed his fist into the resonant metal siding of a parked ambulance, denting the white surface. He seemed to choke on something for a moment, throaty bursts which fell somewhere between wheezes and hacks moistening his lips. He breathed deeply, struggling for composure.
"Where did he go, Ron?" he whispered, hoarse and haggard. "Where the fuck did he go?"
"After Zuleta," Middleton answered softly. "He said he was going to the place it should have ended..."
"And?"
"I have no idea what he means. I have no idea what to make of any of this, Rock...Who's King Z? Is it really the Spyder, or is it Zuleta? I mean, shit, he might not even really be named Zuleta...The Spyder claimed HE was Zuleta, but then all this business about OUR Zuleta's supporters doing coke? Shit, Rock, what the fuck is going on here?!"
"Get the choppers in the air," Rockwell demanded, commanded really, paying Middleton's desperate conjecture absolutely no attention. He was consumed entirely by his own emotion, his own thoughts...Or rather, his own single thought. A single screaming thought. "We're gonna find this sonuvabitch..."
Rockwell whirled as the end of his sentence lingered, walking quickly away from Middleton and Paige, who both glanced at each other hesitantly as Rockwell's hulking stormed through the crowd.
"...We're gonna find him and we're gonna kill him."
Middleton's eyes went wide as the sound of Rockwell's last comment barely grazed his ear. He fell mute in his frightened uncertainty.
* * *
1999
I risked my life every day. I put on the costume which was now folded neatly into the duffel bag hanging from my hand, and I put my life on the line for a faceless city, driven by personal demons which I dared not describe. Every day. Every day I stared the devil in his face, every day I peered defiantly at the horrible forms of society's most rotten, and every day I could have easily died at the hands of an inhuman butcher.
And yet, I had only once before, far before my life as the Spyder began, felt my heart beat so very heavily as when I stared at those steps. Those seven cracked, uneven concrete steps which I had ascended so many times before, slick with the still-falling rain, so familiar yet so very very cold. I could not bring myself to look up. My scars and bruises were still fresh, my every joint aching, but I did not keep my eyes trained on that first step because of any physical pain.
I was afraid.
For the first time in so very long, my heart fluttered with true, honest fear.
And it felt good. I smiled, feeling the cold rain chill me from skin to bone, even through my street clothes. I must have looked a mess. But I didn't care.
I could feel the modest brownstone cast its eyes down upon me. I imagined the building had to have been feeling the exact same things I was. Confusion, uncertainty, happiness, relief. So many conflicting thoughts all embodied in the most human of fears. With a deep breath and with my other persona locked tightly in my duffel bag, I climbed the stairs. I ran things over and over in my head as I proceeded with the slow trudge. It wasn't yet one in the morning. Hopefully, the doorbell wouldn't scare her too much, and even more hopefully still, I myself would not scare her even worse. I closed my eyes and took one last deep breath before resigning myself to what I had come here to do. I stepped forward and reached for the door chimes.
That's when I felt the glass crunch beneath my shoes. I let my eyelids lift cautiously.
Bloody glass.
I stared at the pieces for several long moments as something dark and hard collected in my throat. I tried so hard to choke it down, but it tasted acidic and vulgar, and I finally just let it sit, let it grow, not wanting to taste its foulness. I winced as my eyes glazed over. Cautiously, I reared back my head. The rain beat hard against my face, cold and violent, an unforgiving bite. It looked so strange. It was at that moment that I realized, of all things, that I had never stared up into a pouring rain. It was like looking through a long dark tunnel lined with maddeningly pulsating flickers of light. I almost forgot to notice the broken second story window. I almost didn't need to notice. In my gut, in my heart, in that acrid pulsing ball in my throat, I already knew what happened.
I let my gaze drift to the door as the fear suddenly transformed within me, from an innocent hesitancy to downright nauseous terror. I stared at the door's blank wooden features.
No.
I reached for the handle. My wrist turned.
Unlocked.
No.
The door swung open on creaky hinges.
I stepped slowly inside, feeling like a stranger in a foreign land, an alien first setting foot upon the soils of another world.
The house had been raided. Furniture was shredded and strewn about in small fragments of cloth, wood, and cotton. The television lay in a crumpled heap of circuit boards on the floor. The lights were dead. And a trail of blood and muddy footprints drew a deliberate path through the destruction. I followed the path backwards with my eyes...
Up the stairs.
Once more, I ascended a staircase with acute trepidation. I could feel my lower eyelids stinging and my stomach growing hot. The mirror in the bathroom was shattered. The dirty trail continued.
The bedroom.
My old bedroom.
I didn't want to look, yet there was nothing in this world that could have stopped me. There wasn't a choice, really. But I didn't need to look. I didn't need to look, for I knew what I would find. I succumbed to the heavy sobs before my eyes had even focused through the rising tears.
The bed was upturned, the mattress lying in a heap against a far wall. The dressers had been shattered. Clothes from the closet were strewn about the room. I struggled for air, choking on the darkness in my throat. I could hear my loud ragged breaths cutting through my racing baritone heartbeat. My shaking hands reached out into the chaos, my shattered mind not even realizing what I was doing.
No.
But, yes...Mother fucker, there she was. Just as I knew she'd be.
I fell to my knees beside her, shaking uncontrollably. I was whispering gibberish; scared, rattling words which I could not have repeated if I tried. Nonsense from a nonsensical brain.
There she was.
Naked.
Painted in red.
The red of her own blood, drawn from the jagged, gaping gashes in her stomach and throat. Her face was still twisted in a horrible, jaundiced portrait of unspeakable agony. Her lips were curled into a silent, timeless cry, but her voice was lost, forever silent. She stared at the ceiling with cold, frightened eyes.
Those eyes. Even as her dead eyes stared, looking as though they were pleadingly locked upon the features some invisible ghoul, I could not focus on her. I could not look upon her cold, dead, mutilated, ravaged visage. My vision blurred darker through the tears. And I could only see those eyes.
But they weren't her eyes.
The crash of the lightning made me look up, made me look out the shattered window, the scream which I did not even realize I was screaming abruptly silenced.
The drone of the rain was maddening.
And there he was. Perched on the opposite rooftop, I could almost hear him laughing.
At that moment I was sure I had lost my mind. I almost began to laugh.
Just then, I noticed I still held the duffel bag firmly in my sweaty palm. I looked down at it, then back up at that horrible figure silhouetted in the rain. Finally, my eyes fell on Beth, her beautiful body unrecognizable through the nauseating gore. And from in that ratty, faded duffel bag, a demon was screaming for release.
I screamed back.
* * *
2001
With hardened and toned arms, the Spyder hoisted himself effortlessly from the fire escape to the rooftop. That all too familiar rooftop. Already he could feel the dark thing collecting in his throat. He had felt that first volatile taste of it the moment he had sped away from Middleton down Poole Street, the Hotel Continental watching him suspiciously as he went. Through his entire, fervent race through Harbour City, he had tried to suppress both the dark thing and his anguished tears. He managed neither.
A block or two away, Harbour City's Studio District peered forth over the nearby rooftops with accusing eyes that settled squarely on the dark form of the vigilante. A thousand memories violently assaulted his senses as he stared longingly at the several rows of brownstones which rimmed the western edge of Harbour City; a quaint area of town home mostly to young people embracing the city and the life it promised. A normally quiet neighborhood. Normally.
He remembered every step. Every single step, and leap, and bound, and scream across the city from those nondescript brownstones to the exact spot upon which he stood. A route which had not been taken on that dark, Halloween night, but one which glared even more crisply in his mind than the path he had carved from the Continental. Yes, he had indeed taken the route before, from the Studio District brownstones to that fateful roof of the small office building. Some time ago...Two years in the past. He had been choking on a suffocating amalgamation of freely flowing rain and tears as the murderer, the devil, fled before him, daring him to follow, daring him to embrace the madness. And now, two years later, the madness had returned. Thunder rumbled, dangerously close.
The storm had arrived.
They stared into each other with a hatred deeper than any perceivable connection between their current forms could have told. The hunter and the hunted, though neither truly knew his given role. In truth, they were each both, both the deadliest of predators and the most satisfying of prey. Words could never do their hellish revulsion for each other any justice. On that rooftop, that horribly malefic place, an eternity passed in the blink of an eye.
A single breathless word was uttered, echoing into the night.
"How?"
Raymundo Zuleta smiled, a devious, wicked, spiteful smile, mocking the Spyder's desperate inquiry. Again, the lightning crashed, bringing with it the first few drops of rain.
Rain. The rain made it perfect.
And then the thunder boomed, giving voice to the feelings each man felt deep within his soul. Harbour City swirled about them, lost amidst the chaos.
It was just them.
"Here we are again," Zuleta said, his white, crooked teeth prominently displayed. "I have the strangest feeling we've been here before. Come into my parlor...Eh, Spyder?"
The soft rain flicked at the rooftop.
"How?" the Spyder repeated, louder now...More psychotic.
"Ours is not to reason why, Spyder..." Zuleta replied sinisterly. "Oh, I'm sure someone of your considerable intellect could figure it out."
"It doesn't really matter," the Spyder replied, defying Zuleta's gleeful mockery. "The outcome will be the same."
"That's it, Spyder," Zuleta barked. "Show me that life! Show me your insanity! Show me that thirst for death and blood! Can you feel it scorching your insides? Can you feel it blackening your mind?!"
Behind Raymundo Zuleta, a thick tendril of deadly electric brilliance flashed over the dark skyline of Harbour, throwing an eery radiance over the scene and thundering with the apt sound of a breaking dam. The floodgates of Heaven were open. The rain was baptismal. It patted at the roof, displacing the tense silence between the two deadly enemies. Growing to a constant drone.
A maddening drone.
"I can feel it," the Spyder replied darkly. "Yes, I can feel it, you sonuvabitch. I can feel it driving me. And I'll kill you a second time. I'll kill you as many times as it takes to avenge what you've taken from me."
"No, Spyder," Zuleta replied, still smiling. "No, you've killed me once. Now I've come to even the score."
"The name," the Spyder rasped. "I'm almost surprised you knew."
"Of course I knew, you daft whelp. I had suspected from the very beginning that you were King Z, that the Spyder and Raymundo Zuleta were one and the same. You psychotic. I couldn't believe you did that, starting a war like you did. Ah, your ruse may have fooled the rest of them, but you could never outsmart me, Daniel. I knew who you really were..."
He paused to let his dark eyebrows lower upon his darker eyes. He snickered.
"...Just as you found out who I really was."
* * *
1999
The tempest was drowning Harbour City. The streets were flooding horribly, preventing the cop that had seen me from following my crazed path. He had seen me burst forth from the second story window and disappear into the driving rain, over the rooftops. He would no doubt investigate the house. My house. I knew what he would find. I knew what he would think. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Nothing but the man I chased over the rooftops of a drowning city.
Finally, he stopped as he heard me scream. He stopped himself in stride, undoubtedly satisfied, and turned as I landed on all fours, panting through both my tears and exhaustion. Then, atop that small office building with the Studio District staring at us from a mere few blocks back, we saw each other. For the first time, we saw each other as we truly were, bared and stripped. As men. As monsters. We saw into each others' souls, and I will be damned if he did not see a companionship in me. Because I saw it, I saw the haunting similarity in him. And I hated myself for it, I hated myself just as much as I hated him.
I tore the mask violently from my face. I had put it on again. So help me, I had put on the costume again. I could not help it. The mask fell freely from my hand, heavy with its wetness, as my anguished face, my true face, was suddenly exposed to an uncaring world. I was crying. And he cried back.
"Why?!" I screamed, louder than I had thought possible for a human to scream. But still the drone of the rain threatened to drown my words. "Why, damn you?! How could you fucking do that to me?! Why would you?! WHY?!"
"Why?!" he screamed back, enraged and disgusted at the question. His long black hair was matted with blood and water, his chiseled, hawk-like features almost indecipherable beneath the bruises and the gashes. His face looked truly grotesque. Truly inhuman. It suited him so very well. His clothes hung in tatters around his perfectly toned, massive body. His shoulder still trickled red, but it was strangely less damaged than when I had left him. His arms and legs and chest were covered in dark blood, not yet washed away by the driving rain. And not just his blood. The blood of many, from the looks of it. Cops, no doubt. Cops whose murders they would blame on me as well. Because, as far as they knew, the man I regarded upon that rooftop did not exist. At least not in the form of his which I had discovered...And destroyed. So I had thought.
Yes, the blood which stained his skin had assuredly been spilt from policemen...And at least one other.
The image of Beth flashed across my mind.
"How can you ask me why?!" he screamed. "After what you did to me, how can you ask me that?!"
"I didn't want to do anything to you, you fuck! Do you think I wanted to have to do that?! To fight you, and mutilate you like I did?! It killed me, damn it! It killed me, but Jesus Christ, you left me no fucking choice!" I shouted back at him so loud I thought my vocal chords would burst. "You killed my wife! You son of a fucking bitch, how could you do that?! As payback, you sick fuck?! Was that it?! Payback for something I HAD to do?!"
"Bullshit!" he screamed, anger seething from his every pore, steaming in the cold rain. "You left me there to die! You couldn't even have finished me quickly, you left me to die! You left me to fucking die!"
"That was it for me, that's why!" I screamed back at him, my tears lost amidst the rain as I thought of my private vow. "I had given it up...I had given it up for HER! It should have been the last fucking time, damn it! The last fucking time! I took down the Red Jesters! I told myself that was it, that was fucking it, it was over! It should have been over, damn you! But you killed her! It should have been over! God DAMN you!"
"But it's not over! It's not over, Spyder, it's not anywhere near over yet! And to think I trusted you, you fuck!"
"Because I could!" he yelled back, almost laughing now. "Because I could! Because I had the power to, I had the drive! I did it because I could!"
"You betrayed me!" I screamed at him, balling even harder at the realization. "You betrayed us all, you bastard! You betrayed this entire city! You killed my wife...I loved her, so you killed her! You killed my fucking wife!"
"Do you have any idea what you've done to ME?!" he screamed back. I could not believe his words. I could not believe he could say anything in return to me. "Damn you, Spyder! Damn your fucking soul!"
"You sonuvabitch," I snarled, completely lost. "You murdering, heartless, insane sonuvabitch...!" The rage had overtaken me. There was no turning back. The darkness had burst forth, and now the bloodlust had consumed me. His psychotic ravings had pushed me too far, and despite my protesting body, I charged, screaming with all the fires of Hell sounding in my voice. My mind was lost. A betrayed trust, a broken vow, a murdered lover, a hopeless despair. And from the very pit of my being I dredged every last, hopeless ounce of strength.
Lightning crashed. Demons roared. A thousand souls screamed as one, their earsplitting shriek riding the frantic winds from the sea to the mountains and covering every square inch between.
And he charged too.
For the second time that night we clashed. But this time would be different. This time I would not yield to a weak mercy. This time our battle would be final.
It would be to the death.
Or so I thought.
* * *
"Grim Knight."
His coat tails thrashed in the driving rain, snapping and twisting, reminiscent of the great expanse of black cloak which had once flowed about his person. The lightning threw frantic, uncanny shadows across his massive form, and for a moment, the Spyder could almost see the sharp-edged emblem of a skull emblazoned across his enemy's chest. There, then gone again, flickering from a distant past.
"That's right, Spyder," the dark figure rasped, his gruesome smile almost twisting into the familiar shape of a complex mouthpiece that in itself bore a resemblance to the lower half of a stylized skull-face. In the back of the Spyder's mind, he saw the costume hanging in tatters around the man's form, heavy with rainwater and blood. He could still hear his psychotic screams echoing through time.
It was the most horrible sense of deja vu that the Spyder had ever experienced. And the dark thing in his throat threatened to spill upon the rooftop in a cascade of green and yellow. He choked it down.
"I'm not an android, Spyder. I'm not a clone. And, quite obviously, I am not Raymundo Zuleta. I am the Grim Knight, in the flesh. And I have waited for this moment for far too long."
"A long time to wait for your own funeral," the Spyder remarked, his cold glare never wavering. Slowly, his hand found its way to the top of his head. "You sonuvabitch."
The mask slid gently off the Syder's face, slick with rain. It fell easily from his hand, heavy with its wetness.
Somewhere in time, Beth's dead eyes stared at the ceiling, locked forever in the pall of horror.
The Spyder's own dark eyes narrowed.
"Ah, Daniel," the Grim Knight sneered. "There you are."
In the Spyder's mind, a savagely beaten former hero cursed the vigilante for his betrayal.
And Beth's eyes still remained locked on that cold, pale ceiling. Never looking at him. Never looking at him ever again.
The Spyder ripped the harness from his shoulders. His armaments fell heavily to the rooftop. He bent down, picking them up, and after a moment, tossed them over the ledge.
And so they stood. Bared, naked, exposed...Once again. Seeing each other as they truly were. Monsters. Two nightmare creatures sharing a bond they dared not speak, beaten with rain and time alike, thundercrashes spreading their hatred over the unprotected visage of an entire city.
They were alone on that rooftop, so utterly alone.
The Spyder's thoughts were hopelessly locked on the horrible thing which stood before him. He had never even gotten to say his last fond farewell to the woman he would have given it all up for. He never got to say good-bye to the woman he loved. And now, after what seemed like a final, if hollow, peace, he was relentlessly jerked back into the game. Back into the game by the thing he had killed. And that horrible THING that had killed his wife.
"Only one of us is going to leave this rooftop alive," the Spyder stated simply, struggling against his private agony.
"I'd have it no other way," the Grim Knight smiled back.
The Spyder tensed.
The Knight tore the suit coat and shirt from his imposing body, leaving only tatters of his cultured disguise hanging from his body, wet with rain. His skin was mangled with scar tissue and knotted muscle. It really was him, the vision of an otherworldly evil.
The Spyder cracked his knuckles, slowly, deliberately.
The Grim Knight rolled his head and stretched his neck, laughing into the wind. The cackle of a madman.
Lightning crashed. Demons roared. A thousand souls screamed as one, their earsplitting shriek riding the frantic winds from the sea to the mountains and covering every square inch between.
And for a moment all was still.
And then it began. Without words, without any sound at all, it began.
They leapt. The Spyder's foot hit the Knight's forearm. A thud. Entwined, they began to fall, racing the rain. The Spyder moved to revolve in mid-air, tensing with his flimsy purchase. The Knight ducked the second, spinning kick. A fist shot into the Spyder's solar plexus with an equal's strength. Air left lungs. In mid-air, the Knight rolled his form atop his quarry's own a split second before the fall was done. The Spyder tensed his back. They landed, the Spyder driving into roof, the Knight driving into Spyder.
A fist shot forward. The Grim Knight's adam's apple was hard and pointed under the Spyder's knuckles. The Knight gasped. The Spyder sprung to a sitting position, carried by battle-honed abdominals. Several quick jabs to the body, lower abs, the flesh over the unprotected intestines. The muscles were hard. A knee to the jaw. With a cough of blood, the Knight reeled backwards. The Spyder flipped to his feet, but the Knight himself was already standing before the Spyder could press the advantage.Several short blurs from the Grim Knight's arms. Methodical dodges, the Spyder's body twisting and moving with unnatural quickness, his eyes streaking even swifter. A high kick. The Spyder bent backwards, watching the foot fly over his head, feeling the rain splash playfully upon his cheeks. He transferred his weight, spinning in a full revolution, his own foot driving hard into fragile ribs. The faintest hint of a wet snap.
The Grim Knight reflexively shot his fist to the side, viciously depressing the Spyder's nose. Blurred vision, scent of blood. The Spyder leapt back, his eyes refocusing. A rapidly approaching uppercut. Too long. The Spyder's right hand shot forward with meticulous exactness, clamping hard around the fist and halting it, his left hand hitting the nasal bone thrice before the Grim Knight's heel found the side of the Spyder's knee. The Spyder almost fell, releasing his grip on his opponent's hand. Then, toes to the throat of the Spyder's doubled-over body. No air. Falling backwards.
But the momentum of the Grim Knight's kick was transferred, the Spyder rolling into a backwards somersault. He found his purchase and moved to rise. An anvil falling on his back. No, just an elbow. Get up. Feet flipped quickly over his head, his body weight suspended on extremely strong arms. He was in a handstand before the Knight knew it, both his feet driving into the Knight's temple. The Spyder's feet touched back down lightly as his enemy fell hard. The Spyder sprung forward. A black panther pouncing upon its prey. Fangs of tightened fingers locked around the Knight's neck, slamming his head into the ground with the force of two hundred and seventeen pounds of toned muscle.
A knee to the Spyder's protected crotch. No pain, but deft enough to force him forwards. Hands clamped around his neck. His own hands stabbed into the Knight's eyes. A noticeable gasp of pain. The first from either man. Then, a knee to the Grim Knight's groin. The Knight was, of course, still in street clothes. Hard patella connecting with soft flesh. A scream. Yet another first. The Spyder almost smiled.
The Spyder's fists cut furied swaths through the tempest as he straddled the Grim Knight's writhing body, striking into his face again and again with harsh, wet cracks. The smack of flesh against flesh. The jerk of connection in the Spyder's arm. The joy. The blood. The pain.
Unexpectedly, the Grim Knight's fist appeared under the Spyder's chin. Too much emotion, too much revelry. He hadn't remained aware of the rest of the Grim Knight's figure, aside from the joyous red which his fists coaxed from the former hero's face. Lack of discipline. Not against this opponent. Not against this sickeningly even opponent. Enjoy it when he was dead. Make him pay.
Another well placed strike to the Spyder's chin. He toppled. Quickly, a vice clamped around his windpipe.
No.
Another swift strike to the Grim Knight's eyes.
Those eyes.
Those damned eyes.
The two combatants rolled across the roof away from each other, expert retreats, both acutely aware. They rose as one.
Both bled, and panted, and swayed, and hated. Both refused to relent.
Still no words.
No witty banter, no cryptic threats, no melodramatic ramblings.
Violence. Quick and surgical, two dancers in a fatal, beautiful ballet. Showered by Heaven.
The Spyder threw the next punch, connecting again with the nose. The Knight's vision had to be blurry. Two hammers to the Spyder's upper abdominals, just under the ribs. His breath came less freely every time. Knuckles to the top of the Grim Knight's thigh. He tripped a bit at the pain, losing half a step at the most. A vicious hook across the Spyder's face. Neither fighter had the time to think, neither had the time to calculate the next move. It was all instinct. All instinct and ability and rage.
Two perfect machines.
There would be no dodges, no feints, no blocks. No strategy. Inflict damage, cause pain, entice death. Death. Just bring the other closer to Death. Every blow seemed to connect. Blood mingled freely with the rain.
A kick to the Spyder's forehead; neck muscles on fire. A return to the Grim Knight's knee. Every blow was dealt with maximum precision, to the most vulnerable parts of the body. Four alternating jabs to the Spyder's obliques. A vicious head-butt, delivered by the breathless Spyder. An explosion of crimson, two bloods mingling into one loud red burst. Followed by an uppercut to the Grim Knight's jaw.
He staggered. The Spyder crossed now, his fist savagely redirecting his opponent's momentum. The Grim Knight managed to stay his ground. He spun, thrusting his leg back in a powerful donkey kick. The soft area just above the Spyder's groin. The Spyder winced at the pain. The Grim Knight turned deftly, that same forceful foot now flying directly into the Spyder's chin. Rattled, he fell.
The Grim Knight bounded forward, a leg raised. The Spyder rolled to the side, coughing up blood. The Knight's stomp connected harmlessly with the roof, but he used the firm plant to propel himself, dropping an elbow into the Spyder's spine before the vigilante's roll was completed. Again, the Spyder's breath fled his lungs.
Fingers in his hair. Face to the floor. Again. Wet smacks, numb cheeks. Turn your head, don't let your nose and teeth connect. No, grip too strong. Hair pulled as he strained his neck to the side, and the Spyder felt several follicles go bare. His head was hoisted again, dripping blood from his shredded chin, and the Spyder's arms suddenly clamped around the Grim Knight's wrist. Thumbs dug hard into the soft flesh on the underside of the forearm. The grip loosened. With a great heave, the Spyder sent the Grim Knight sprawling on the rooftop in front of him. Both scampered to their feet.
The thunder cackled.
Each man studied the other's battered form. They were both mutilated and frozen, breathing greedily of the cold, damp air. So much blood. So little ground given. Timeless.
"You fool," the Grim Knight smiled, a long strand of scarlet mucous hanging from his lower lip. "You stupid, egotistical fool. You cannot honestly think this is all about you...That I would have gone through all this trouble for simple revenge! There are a thousand ways I could have killed you, Spyder...A thousand different ways."
"Strange then that you've picked the one that won't work," the Spyder countered.
"No, Spyder," the Knight scoffed wickedly. "No matter the outcome of our battle, I win. Whether I live or I die, I still come out of this the victor."
Suddenly, the Grim Knight lunged into a punch.
The Spyder side-stepped, whirling, hooking his arm around the Grim Knight's and coming around behind the Knight's off-balance body. Before the Knight could react, the Spyder's arm tensed, securing the hold, and then quickly extended. A wet snap. The Grim Knight's arm went limp from the elbow down.
The Spyder almost cried out in his joy at the sickening sound.
But Beth's eyes still stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. She would not look at him. She could not look at him. Even if she wanted to.
"No!" the Spyder roared. With his arm still locked around the one he had just broken, his free fist pounded against the back of the Grim Knight's head, knotting flesh, hammering bone. His foot snaked around the Knight's ankle. Another savage punch to the back of the head, a pull on the broken arm. A quick, sudden shift in the Spyder's weight.
And the Grim Knight fell.
His face drove hard downwards, squarely connecting with the soaked surface of the rooftop in a splatter of blood, flesh, and teeth. The Grim Knight's forehead took almost the entirety of both his and the Spyder's combined weight in the fall. The Spyder felt the body beneath him shudder for a moment. He pressed hard on the bare back, still gripping the broken arm at an extremely awkward angle. Then nothing. The Knight lay motionless, face down in his own gore. The Spyder rose slowly.
His soul screamed. He felt alive. But his wife was dead in her grave. The woman he loved was dead in her grave, and the man he once considered to be the closest of any allies, her killer, lay at his feet. For the third time in two years.
Her killer.
Once, before her death, the Spyder was content to leave him. He was content to leave him, content to walk away, content to leave the Grim Knight, the violence, and even the Spyder himself all behind him...Because of her.
But he killed her. The Grim Knight murdered his wife.
And then, two years ago in almost the exact spot on the roof where the Spyder stood, four bullets pierced the killer's skin in heavy spurts of blood. He had waited for the Grim Knight to die, then checked his pulse to confirm the death. He then proceeded to beat the body beyond all recognition with his bare hands. When he felt as though his raw knuckles would fall from his hand, when he felt as though he could no longer move under his own hopeless exhaustion, he found the strength to drag the body to the edge of the building and throw it down into the alley, to the filth, to the Hell where it belonged.
And yet her killer still lay at his feet, two years later. Breathing. Alive.
"You killed her," the Spyder said, his voice shaking under the power of the tears he could not stop from coming. "God damn it, you killed her. You never should have been able to...God damn it, how?"
A gurgle sounded through the blood and rain, bubbles rippling softly across the surface as a tooth floated up from somewhere within the dark puddle surrounding the Grim Knight's head. The Spyder bent down, turning the body. The sight which met his eyes was easily the most gruesome, and yet the most satisfying, atrocity the Spyder had ever seen.
"How?!" he screamed into the mangled mess of wheezing flesh and bone, collapsing atop his opponent's broken body. "HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE, YOU FUCKING BASTARD?!"
The eyes were no longer haunting. They were broken. Broken. The Spyder had finally shattered them, dispelled the apathy, and he stared into those eyes with a satisfaction far too long in coming. His soul screamed louder as his own voice died down, its echo lost in the storm. Long seconds passed, long seconds as the Spyder struggled for breaths of the damp Harbour City air, breaths which his beaten opponent simply could not find. The Grim Knight's nasal passageways had collapsed like fragile matchsticks. His throat was swollen, muscles and flesh twisted awkwardly, and his esophagus rapidly filled with blood. And as the thing which might have once been called a man fought for one last desperate gasp of refreshing air, the Spyder smiled. A twisted, sinister, evil smile, grinning at the fast approaching vengeance.
"Vengeance, you fuck," the Spyder spat. "Do you hear me somewhere in that broken head of yours? Vengeance."
But then the Spyder's eyes went suddenly wide.
The vigilante shot his arm out. Cold steel was manipulated in bloody hands, its direction suddenly reversed. The Grim Knight tensed in a motion which surely would have been a gasp had he still had the ability to breathe. His broken eyes widened in horrific surprise.
His left pupil was then split exactly in its center by the Spyder's own gleaming knife. The blade found brain tissue, jamming deep, so wonderfully deep. The Spyder twisted. A spurt of blood from the Grim Knight's liquified eye covered the Spyder's face. He did not care. Through the rain, through the rage, he pulled the knife back, and stabbed again. And again. And again and again and again and again. The bastard had tried to slip one of the Spyder's own knives from its ankle sheath. A last desperate attempt at some twisted retribution. The fucker. The psychotic fucker. His flesh gave way easily to the sharpened steel. Again and again and again.
Finally, the Spyder stopped, wheezing, crying, shaking. The Grim Knight's face no longer existed. Broken white bone leaked dark red blood and various viscous fluids. Those eyes, those terrible eyes, were gone forever, shredded under the repeated thrusts of a deadly blade. Skin and brain were scattered haphazardly over the roof, the Knight's chest, and the Spyder himself. The vigilante shuddered, staring into the gaping abyss where a face should have been. It smelled terrible.
The Spyder rubbed his eyes, further smearing the disgusting flecks of another's life across his cheeks.
The Grim Knight was dead. This time, the bastard was most assuredly dead.
And somewhere in time, Beth Rockwell...No, Beth Stockholm, the Spyder's wife...closed her own dead, frightened eyes.
And the Spyder's soul fell silent.
But there was another voice upon the rain.
"Drop the knife."
The Spyder's head slowly turned. It was just then that he noticed the helicopter circling the roof, fighting against the wild rain, bobbing like a fluttering insect in the whipping wind. Its spotlight was trained falteringly on the Spyder, struggling to shine through both the deluge and its own frantic movements. And there, at the opposite end of the roof, silhouetted against the open doorway to the descending staircase, two familiar men confronted their adversary.
A final shared moment. Perfectly timed.
"Put down the fucking knife, Daniel! I swear to Christ, drop it!"
The Spyder looked at the blade, covered, along with his hand, in a thick coating of deep scarlet slime. He stared thoughtfully at the weapon for a long moment, trying to decide if it was indescribably beautiful or unspeakably ghastly. He finally settled on the conclusion that it was both. The Spyder sighed. He slowly stooped, slipping the knife securely back into its sheath. Absently, the Spyder reached for his mask, which he just then noticed was coincidentally sitting in a heap right there on the rooftop in front of him. He regarded the dark visage admiringly.
"God damn it, don't move!"
The Spyder slipped the mask back over his purpled face just as a blinding flash of lightning passed over the rooftop. The cowl was still warm. Very wet, but free of blood, and somehow still invitingly warm. He sighed deeply, tasting a new flavor mingled with Harbour's scintillating metropolitan palate. Closure. A cool, refreshing taste of closure. Almost minty, he mused.
"Daniel, you're coming with us!"
Mitchell. Poor Mitchell. He deserved words. He deserved so very much more, but the Spyder could sadly only give him words.
"Mitchell," the vigilante said firmly, his voice ringing clearly through the din of the rain. He spoke with a newfound conviction forged in the darkness of the storm. "This is the man who murdered your sister. The man who murdered my wife. Let him rot in Hell where he belongs."
"No, damn it!" Rockwell cried, almost convulsing as he tried to move forward, but somehow his feet just would not let him. Middleton, in hopeless shock, slowly let his gun fall to his side. "No god damn you, I won't let you do this to me! I won't!"
He was hysterical. His voice faded with every syllable that escaped his lips, finally falling into delirious sobs, his gun slipping from his grasp and falling to the rooftop in time with Rockwell himself.
"...I won't..." he managed before succumbing to his own cries.
"This is the man who killed Beth Stockholm. And many more besides," the Spyder said, his voice drowning out the thunder, the police spotlight still illuminating him like a haloed god in the tempest. "I've returned, Middleton. Send all the men after me that you would like, you will never find me, never catch me, never stop me. I'm back. I'm back like the Wrath of God. And like I told you earlier, may God have mercy on all who stand in my way."
With that, the Spyder whirled, moving in a frightening blur, and leapt, carried into the screaming night on the wings of some dark, invisible demon. Lightning shone again, illuminating the entire city. He hung for a moment in the air as the spotlight stuggled to trace him through the frantic illumination. He was an entity frozen in time, painted in death. The predator. The reaper. The Phantom of Harbour City.
And he fell soundlessly off the rooftop, absorbed by the embracing darkness of the alleyways below. Vanishing, despite his lingering words.
"I've returned. May God have mercy on all who stand in my way."
Left on that rooftop, that fateful rooftop, still blissfully ignorant as to the true identity of the victim who lay beside them, two men shuddered with the uncertain fear of an entire city.
A dark, unforgiving city.
The Grim Knight was dead.
Long live the Spyder.