When his vision cleared, Peter saw a face, fractured and scarred like a badly put-together jigsaw puzzle.
“Remember me?” The breath smelled raw, like bloody meat. One of the eyes, popped nearly loose of its socket, regarded Peter with sadistic pleasure.
“Did we hook up in driver’s ed?” The words came, unplanned, from some reflexive, defiant impulse. Peter knew he’d be regretting them.
“Nice comeback. This is mine.”
There was a crack, and Peter felt a pain in his wrist that sent him spiraling down into a foul darkness. It was a bit like falling from the helicopter into the East River. But this time, he didn’t come to the surface.
F I V E
CLINT knew that the Raft contained eighty-seven of the world’s most dangerous criminals. In the dim glow of the emergency lights along the floor, he could see dozens of them gathered in the corridor, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that they couldn’t all attack him at once. At the most, four guys can go for you at once. Maybe five. Whichever, four or five guys at once; Clint could handle those odds.
The beam of Jessica’s flashlight picked faces out of the gloom. At first glance, the five villains closest to Clint looked normal enough, although looks could be deceiving. Three of them, however, were clearly metahuman. Carnage, the nasty-looking red-and-black creature with the slick assortment of tendrils, was one. The baboon-faced Mandrill was another. And Zebediah Killgrave, as handsome as a movie star and as purple as a violet, was possibly the most dangerous of all.
Luckily, Purple Man still seemed to be under the influence of whatever drug the Raft had been using to keep him from controlling everyone’s minds. He was wiggling his fingers and laughing softly to himself.
Just to be safe, Clint chose his arrow and aimed it at Purple Man. The minute Killgrave looked up, Clint was going to take him out.
There was a flicker of light and a hum. The emergency generators must have come on, Clint realized.
For a moment, everyone just stood there, like a bunch of kids staring down a rival gang. Violence was in the air, as palpable as the scent of ozone and burnt-out wiring, but everyone seemed to be waiting for some invisible signal.
“Oh, they sent us girls,” said Mandrill, looking from Jessica to Natasha with a simian grimace of pleasure. “Let me have the redhead.”
“Sorry, ape man, but you’re not my type.”
“Sweetheart, that’s only because my pheromones haven’t hit you yet. I’ve got biological agents in my blood that make me every woman’s type.”
“I don’t mind if you play with the food,” said Carnage, waving one of his scarlet tendrils suggestively. “I just claim dibs when you’re done.”
Killgrave let out a little nervous giggle, and then crouched down in a corner. “Lavender’s blue, dilly, dilly,” he sang softly to his purple fingers. “Lavender’s green. When I am king, dilly, dilly, you’ll be my queen.”
“Hate to disappoint you boys,” said Luke, glancing down at Killgrave before addressing Mandrill and the others, “but this here is actually the high point of your day. You can think back on it when you’re back in your cells, betting on which cockroach reaches your toilet first.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said a handsome man with silver at his temples and a faint Italian accent.
Great, Clint thought. That has to be Count Nefaria.
“I think your little group is both outnumbered and outclassed.”
Jesus, thought Clint, he wasn’t kidding. Nefaria had been a crime boss until he had funneled his money into scientific experiments. Now, thanks to a series of ionic-energy treatments, Nefaria was one of the few individuals on the planet who could go mano a mano with Thor.
“Are we? You’re nowhere near full strength,” said Jessica, “and Gerhardt and Leighton here don’t have any weapons handy.”
“Lady, I’m Cutthroat, and that’s the Foolkiller,” said Daniel Leighton. While in prison, he had gotten some clumsy blue tattoos of knives at his throat and on his forearms. “We don’t need weapons.”
“We are weapons,” said Kurt Gerhardt. Clearly, thought Clint, the two had become close in prison.
A long-faced man with thick glasses stepped forward. “And God is on our side, you raven-haired trollop.” Clint assumed this was Arthur Blackwood, also known as the Crusader.
Jessica looked at Clint. “Why does he assume that I’m a trollop? Have I done anything particularly trollopy?”
Clint shrugged. “Maybe it’s your outfit.”
Jessica turned back to the Crusader, pointing her thumb at Clint. “His outfit’s just as tight as mine. And his has no sleeves.”
Blackwood pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Speak not to me, foul harlot! My faith empowers me, and I will not be tempted by your lascivious flesh!”
The unfortunate thing was, Blackwood’s faith really did empower him. He held out his right hand, produced a sword out of thin air, and then lunged at Jessica. As if this were the moment they had all been waiting for, everyone moved at once, some attacking, some running away.
Luke Cage plowed a path through the inmates, his powerful fists feinting and jabbing while he rocked quickly from foot to foot, never staying in the same place for more than an instant. Natasha, seeing a chance to use the man’s bulletproof body as a shield, followed him, kicking with lethal grace whenever she saw an opening.
Luke won’t let her get away, Clint reassured himself as he nocked an arrow in his bow. A grinning inmate with an odd, melted look to his skin tried to grab Clint’s arm. Clint knocked him out with his elbow and continued drawing his bow.
He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: Blackwood was driving Jessica back at swordpoint. “Have at you, wanton! You think to fill my mind with lustful cravings, but I will prevail!”
“Guess those prison therapy sessions didn’t help much,” said Jessica, aiming her gun at Blackwood’s hand.
“Psychiatrists are the tools of—ow!” The Crusader clutched his shoulder, dropping his sword, as the bullet struck his arm. “Ow!” Suddenly he looked crestfallen. “My God, how have I offended thee?”
“Maybe She didn’t like you calling me a trollop,” said Jessica, already taking aim at a new threat. “Clint, Nefaria’s getting away!”
Clint let four arrows fly in rapid succession, pinning the older man to the wall with the same Adamantium-reinforced magnetic arrows he had used on the Black Widow earlier that day.
Unlike the Widow, Nefaria broke free of them with infuriating ease.
“Scusi, my friend, but I think I broke your toothpicks.” Nefaria threw the arrowheads back with astonishing force, but Clint dodged to avoid them. He was already reloading when something slammed into him from the side.
Mandrill bared his fangs and made a series of hoarse, panting hoots. Clint didn’t need to speak baboon to know he’d just been threatened.
“Mandrill, get your monkey breath out of my face.” Clint flipped the mutant onto his back, then used his bow to block a powerful roundhouse kick. Crap. No sign of Nefaria.
“Without your bow, you are just a puny little man,” said Mandrill, yanking the recurve from Clint’s hands with inhuman strength. As if smelling weakness, three more inmates crowded in: One had a face like a patchwork corpse, and the other two were just blurs in Clint’s peripheral vision.
“At least I don’t have a big red ass face.” Clint yanked the belt out of his pants loops and whipped it, buckle side up, in a quick arc. The buckle opened up a cut on Mandrill’s cheek, close to his right eye. He dropped Clint’s bow and ran.
While Clint dealt with the other three goons, he spotted Natasha grappling with Foolkiller and Cutthroat. Foolkiller grabbed her arms, holding her captive as Cutthroat drew back his hand to strike her. Kicking up, Natasha sent her attacker flying before head-butting the man behind her.
“She’s holding her own,” said Luke, who was pummeling Carnage. “That’s some girl you got there.”
“She’s not m
y girl,” said Clint. In fact, I might have to kill her.
“How about I stripe up your ugly hide?” hissed Carnage. His tendrils had taken on the shape of whips, which he lashed across Luke’s massive shoulders and back.
“Sorry, Cletus. Unbreakable skin.”
“Then I’m going to stick my tendril in your ear and squeeze.”
“Now, that’s just plain nasty,” said Luke, smashing Carnage against the wall. “Jess? You need some help?”
“Nah, I got this one,” said Jessica, snapping handcuffs on a man with a tattoo of a mermaid on his bicep.
“Miss? I’m afraid that’s not completely accurate,” said the man.
“Aw, crap,” said Luke. “Jess, that’s Morrie Bench!”
Jessica furrowed her brow. “There’s an arch-criminal down here named Morrie?”
“You can, of course, call me Hydro-Man,” said Morrie, his hands dissolving into water.
“Cleanup in aisle three,” said Clint, reclaiming his bow. He had a chemical neutralizer in one of his tips that could reverse Morrie’s change, but there was no time left to get the arrow nocked and ready. Morrie Bench had become a man-shaped liquid, and then he began to gush forward, suddenly gaining in volume.
“Hold your breath!” Clint grabbed for Natasha’s belt just as the powerful rush of water knocked everyone off their feet. Within moments, the corridor was submerged. Clint tried to swim with the fierce current, alert for a way out of this situation. He locked eyes with Natasha for a moment; to his relief, she looked completely focused and calm. Of course she does, idiot. She’s the Black Widow.
Just as Clint was about to run out of options as well as air, he saw Luke Cage smashing through a door. Clint swam for it, Natasha by his side. A ramp led upward, and the water subsided.
Clint spent a moment on all fours, choking a little, before he could look up and take in his surroundings properly. They were in another hallway, one with a great big hole in the ceiling. A group of inmates was huddled together, apparently taking turns punching and kicking some unfortunate soul.
“Oh, God, hope that’s not a guard,” said Jessica, coughing up water.
“Hey,” yelled the unfortunate soul. “A little help here?”
Clint, Jessica, Luke and Natasha waded in, peeling off bad guys and disabling them in a surprisingly efficient team effort. One of the men held up his hands as Clint was about to strike him.
“Stop! I’m a medical doctor. I was not part of this mob, believe me. If you want, I will look at your friend’s injuries.” The man had an unusual accent—Greek? Romanian? Something in his face made Clint hesitate.
“Just give me your hands.” Clint handcuffed the guy with a bolo and turned his attention back to the fight. The tide had turned, and now Clint could see the young man who had been at the bottom of the pile. This wasn’t another inmate, Clint realized. Even though his left eye was swollen shut and his nose was streaming blood, the red-and-blue web-patterned costume was unmistakable.
Luke helped him up. “You lost your mask, kid.”
“Don’t worry,” said Spider-Man, pausing to spit out a mouthful of blood. “Nobody’s going to recognize me for at least a week. Oh, hell, my head’s tingling again—hey, you, look out!”
Clint turned to see a monster bearing down on him. From the waist up, it was a squat, burly man with a head of writhing snakes; from the waist down, it was a gigantic, scuttling spider. Clint selected an arrow and reached for his bow. It wasn’t there. Damn it, the current.
Just as the man-snake-spider thing reared up on its back two arachnid legs, a metal disc came spinning through the air, knocking the monster down. As Clint watched, the shield—with its distinctive red-white-and-blue stars-and-stripes pattern—sailed back up through the hole in the ceiling. Captain America emerged in the next second, his shield strapped over his arm.
Wish I could get my bow to do that, thought Clint.
Captain America managed to radiate confidence, even with his costume burnt and shredded. “Sorry it took me so long to get down here,” he told Spider-Man.
“What, didn’t I look like I had it all under control?” Despite his attempt to sound casual, Spider-Man’s face was badly bruised. He sucked in a sharp breath as he wrapped a length of webbing around his left wrist, bandaging it.
The lights overhead flickered and dimmed, then brightened. Barely legible in the unsteady light, a sign over the door reminded guards to secure each section before opening the next.
“Clint, look.” Jessica pointed to two dead guards, lying facedown in the shallow water.
“I was wondering where all the guards were,” said Luke, shaking his head. “Guess a lot of them wound up like those guys.”
“All right,” said Captain America, at the same time as Jessica. They looked at each other, and then Captain America continued. “First thing we need to do is figure out who we’ve got running around here. I took out maybe a dozen on my way down here, so that leaves about seventy-five, minus however many you folks managed to capture.” He paused. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Okay, so let’s assume seventy-five bad guys are still on the lam.”
“You really do need to get with the times, Captain,” said a woman’s voice from the doorway. The speaker, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans like the male inmates, looked like a vampire: chalk-white skin, widow’s peak, fanged smile, long, dangerous-looking fingernails. “Not all of us are guys, you know.” Behind her, some other female inmates snickered. “Now, let me see, which manpig shall I disembowel first?”
The hooting baboon sound of Mandrill’s battle cry preceded him as he swung into the room. He paused, a look of almost comic astonishment on his face.
“Nekra?”
The vampire woman took a step forward. “Jerome?”
In the blink of an eye, the two were entwined in an intimate, mouth-devouring embrace.
“You know, I really hope they don’t plan on having children,” said Clint, ducking as a massive, troll-like female inmate took a swing at his head.
“Attraction isn’t all about looks,” said Jessica, as she faced off against a skinny blonde with red-rimmed eyes.
“Watch out for that one,” said Captain America, blocking a blow from a strapping inmate who had to be over six-foot-five. “That’s Toxic Doxie. Don’t let her bleed on you.”
“You ask me, the women here are worse than the men,” said Luke. He swept his leg under Poundcake, who had been stamping on the floor and causing the stones to shake.
“Do you really think so, Cage?” Killgrave, the Purple Man, was flanked by six other male inmates as he walked toward Luke; but the real danger was Killgrave himself, no longer looking drugged and helpless. “I think you’re wrong. In fact, I think you’re so wrong that I suggest you kill all your friends—and then yourself.”
“Kill…all…my…friends?” Luke’s eyes had a strange, faraway look.
“Oh, this is just too delicious for words. I think this is even sweeter than when I convinced your wife to kneel down and worship me.” Killgrave made a little kissy face.
Luke was still facing Clint. As Clint ran through the best strategy for fighting an opponent with superior strength and unbreakable skin, he felt Natasha press something into his hands: his bow. She must have found it on the floor. And she’d given it back to him.
Clint knew better than to read too much into this—hell, they were surrounded, and the bow might not have been her weapon of choice—but still, he felt a twinge of unease. It was hard enough to kill someone at close range, let alone someone who had stood shoulder to shoulder with you in battle.
He couldn’t think about that now. He had to stay focused, watch Luke’s eyes, figure out Luke’s first move before he made it.
“Killgrave.” Cage’s voice sounded thick, almost drugged. “Your…powers.”
“What about them?”
“They didn’t come back yet.” As he spoke, Luke turned and slammed the heel of his right hand into Killgrave’s face. Aft
er that, he punctuated each blow with a different curse. Clint caught a word here and there: “wife” and “child” and “hard to say ‘uncle’ without any teeth,” followed by a few more choice expletives.
“I thought Luke only ever said ‘Sweet Christmas,’” said Spider-Man, tying up the last of the female inmates with his webbing.
“His wife’s trying to get him to stop cursing. Guess he’s going to owe some quarters to the swear jar,” said Jessica.
After a few moments, Purple Man went limp. Clint and Captain America pulled Luke off. “Easy, Luke,” Cap said.
“On the bright side,” said Natasha, “now we only have seventy-four to worry about.” Abruptly, she moved, shoving Jessica hard against the wall.
“What the—”
“On the ceiling!” Natasha pointed to Carnage’s red, alien form, slithering back toward them.
Jesssica tried to fire her gun, but nothing happened. She must be out of bullets, thought Clint. He shot three arrows at Carnage’s head. One arrow stuck in Carnage’s eye, and the other two went straight through his throat and chest, but did not appear to faze him; his muscles bunched like a cat’s.
As Clint fired an exploding arrow at the creature, Jessica tossed her gun aside and threw up her hands, as if she still could fire bio-electric blasts. “Nothing’s working!” She sounded furious, which meant she was frightened. “Who knows how to deal with this thing?”
“That would be me.” Spider-Man extended his wrists, and jets of webbing shot out, encasing Carnage in a makeshift cocoon. Carnage struggled, but the webbing held him fast. “That’ll stop him, but not for long.”
Natasha blew a strand of hair out of her face. “What is that thing?”
Spider-Man looked at her. “Spongy alien symbiote outside, creamy sociopath filling. Who are you?”
“She’s not one of us,” said Jessica.
New Avengers: Breakout Prose Novel Page 5
