by Neil Kleid
Spider-Man inspected the dart. Dumb. Very dumb, he thought. It looked handmade, the tip shiny with a slick, black liquid. Peter’s eyes blurred for a moment, and then he cast the dart aside. It had only pricked his skin for a moment, but clearly long enough to accomplish its task.
Dumb, he repeated to himself. Spider-sense warned me. I should have been able to dodge the dart, but I was sloppy. I was…I was scared.
His eyes blurred once more. Visions danced in and out of the rain, faces and eyes searching for him in the night. Thanks to the dart, Peter at least knew the identity of his attacker. But the venom in his system confused and muddled his thinking, masking the name on the tip of his tongue with recent, painful memories.
It’s him. It’s…it has to be.
It’s Joe Face. No. No, wait, it can’t be Joe Face he’s dead, so it must be must be
Spider-Man stumbled to his feet, rubbing his face through his mask and trying to clear the vivid hallucinations that rose up before his eyes. The dart must have been tipped with a hallucinogenic, some kind of drug or potion. Mind reeling, lights flashing at the periphery of his vision, Peter grabbed the wall and slowly used it to find his feet, standing on legs as shaky as a newborn foal’s. Rain coursed down, obscuring what little vision he still had, but Peter managed to catch a glimpse of his adversary, boldly standing across the alley in his ludicrous, impractical Leo the Lion costume.
It’snotJoeFaceit’sKravenIt’snotJoeFaceit’sKraven
Peter wiped his eyes again, doing his best to banish the drug-induced visions, the ghostly reminders of failed responsibility and nagging guilt, the faces that had been haunting his dreams for the past few nights. He clenched his fists, rose to his feet, and turned to face his enemy.
TEN
COME to me, Spider.
Kraven beckoned to his prey, holding out both upraised palms and gesturing for the Beast to follow. The Hunter turned and leapt to an adjacent roof, laughing in the night—not the braying call of Hyena, but the triumphant, confident sound of Ape preparing to defeat a most cunning foe. Kraven turned back and grinned at the Spider over his right shoulder, beckoning once more for the enemy to give chase, and then he was off and bounding through the urban hunting grounds.
Come to me, Spider, for tonight I have widened my consciousness with herbs and roots. Tonight, I have immersed myself in your very being, having eaten of your flesh, your kin. My mind has penetrated your essence, feasting upon you as maggots feed upon a corpse.
Kraven’s powerful legs drove him across the yawning gaps between buildings, his muscles taut and alive with exertion as he landed on a nearby ledge.
Come to me. This was where Sergei Kravinoff lived: in the hunt, even when pretending to play the hunted. The tactics and strategy of two entities struggling to outwit one another, minds and bodies set against each other in the most primal of contests: man versus beast.
The Spider remained Kraven’s sole focus. Determined, trained, and prepared, the Hunter had studied this ancient prey from every angle: assessing weaknesses, compensating for strength, analyzing his target from a place of both fear and admiration. Just as William Blake had studied his cruel Tyger in the 1794 Songs of Experience. Sergei owned a volume of Blake’s work; he found comfort in its evocative language and, of course, its lyrical bite.
Tyger, Blake wrote, Tyger! Burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Ah, Kraven thought, smiling at the thrill of the chase, the anticipation of victory. If Blake could have seen my Beast—my crimson-and-cobalt, beautiful and menacing Spyder. Kraven leapt once more into the storm, looking back to see how far behind he’d left his valiant, terrible, amazing pursuer.
Spyder, Kraven called, Spyder! Burning bright.
Come to me, Spider.
And let honor be restored.
ELEVEN
SPIDER-MAN followed, unsteadily chasing Kraven across the rooftops of New York while trying to maintain his clarity and composure. The poison, or whatever Kraven had drugged him with, had begun to affect Peter’s equilibrium. He was forced to crawl, run, and jump instead of using his weblines. Landing on a low rooftop before a faded brick exterior, he took a minute to catch his breath and look around, scanning for secondary points of ambush or wild animals Kraven might use to pen him in.
Kraven the Hunter. Pete almost had to stifle a laugh. Hardly A-list caliber, old lion-face had never been worth the time it took to send him packing. Perusing the Official Spider-Man Rogues’ Gallery Handbook, the average bystander might place Kraven the Hunter somewhere near the bottom—above the Fabulous Frog-Man but far below heavy hitters like Doctor Octopus or Electro. In fact, Peter often wondered why ol’ Doc Ock had once allied himself with the King of the Jungle. When stripped of his toys and his collection of wild, exotic, dangerous animals, Kraven had rarely proved much of a threat.
But then here I am, Peter thought, fighting against the hallucinatory effects of Kraven’s dart. Woozy and weak, probably catching my death of cold as I chase a dude in a leopard-skin loincloth through the pouring rain instead of spending the night with my gorgeous girlfriend. With great power comes great stupidity. He shook the cobwebs from his head and started after Kraven once more, hopping a small distance between neighboring buildings.
Peter steadied himself against a chimney, moving around and preparing to jump, but stopped short as Joe Face appeared. Only it couldn’t be Joe Face, because Joe was dead. Peter shook away the vision. A moment later, Kraven the Hunter took Joe’s place, holding a spear—which worried Peter, because it had happened so quickly, with no warning from his trusty spider-sense.
Kraven struck Spider-Man across the face with his spear, knocking Peter from the chimney down to a rough-hewn balcony. Stunned, Peter landed on his back, his neck striking the balcony’s edge. Pain radiated up and around his skull; he frantically moved fingers and toes to discount spinal damage. That made twice now that Peter had let Kraven get the better of him—twice he’d let this musclebound third-rater catch him unaware.
What is the matter with me? Muscles are getting stiff. I can hardly lift my head. Yep—drugged, all right.
Peter got to his feet and turned away, putting Kraven at his back despite the danger. If he could hang in a while longer, Peter figured his recuperative powers would kick in and halt the effects of Kraven’s dart before it was too late. He lifted his arm, an act that took every ounce of strength he had to spare, and pointed two fingers out at the void. He pressed the other two fingers into the center of his palm—
—but before he could release the webbing and swing away from danger, Kraven struck the back of Peter’s knee with the blunt end of his spear, throwing the beleaguered hero off-balance and sending him back to the ground. Though his first instinct was to favor the pain, Peter scrambled to his feet and tried to escape. But he’d lost the moment: Kraven dropped down from above and landed on the flats of his feet, a jungle cat personified as a super villain.
Pain blossomed at the back of Spider-Man’s skull again, hammering and pounding like a drum. The headache sang in time with his throbbing leg and blocked out all other sound, including Kraven’s indulgent growl. The Hunter walked toward Spider-Man, circling him as if stalking prey. Peter let his muscles go slack; he felt tired, beaten. He realized that no matter how hard he fought or tried to run, the next move had to be Kraven’s.
Kraven—like Doc Ock, the Vulture, and the rest—subscribed to a tried-and-true super-villain routine: After a moment of gloating, or perhaps in this case a Tarzan yell, Kraven would pack Spider-Man off to some remote hideout filled with deathtraps and trophies. There, Kraven would spend several hours ranting and raving about his purpose in life, how he planned to be the man who defeated Spider-Man, lording it over all the other guys who’d tried and failed to separate Spidey’s webbed head from his body. And during that time, while Kraven preened, Peter planned to find a way to beat this goo
fy jamoke’s smirking face back into the evil safari from which he’d pounced.
The routine: It never failed, it always worked. Peter simply had to wait, and everything would be fine.
TWELVE
NOW, the dance.
Heart filled with joy, smile wide in triumph, Kraven tossed the spear over the building and leaned forward, gesturing for the Spider to take his hand. The Spider—the Beast—stared at it for a moment, hesitating, no doubt suspecting a trick. Then it regained its footing and rose to face the Hunter.
The Spider backed away, conspicuously seeking an exit. But Kraven held his arms wide and contained his prey, padding left and right in a semicircle around the Beast, forcing the Spider away from the ledge and pinning it against the building.
The Spider lunged, jabbing with its right arm, and Kraven gracefully evaded the blow. Two more punches followed, coupled with a kick. The Hunter stepped aside and around, embracing the give-and-take of battle, widening his smug grin to unsettle his foe. Kraven’s enemy had seen better days. Chest heaving, visibly exhausted, the Spider barely had the strength to stay upright, stumbling this way and that as it tried to inflict damage and land a blow. Kraven beckoned once more, curling his fingers and welcoming another attack, grinning like Hyena.
Come to me, Spider. Here in the elements, in the sight of god and man. Come to me; face me, Hunter to Hunter, for I fear you no more.
“Come to me,” Kraven said out loud, and Spider-Man responded with an anguished cry of rage and a roundhouse kick. The Hunter deftly blocked it and countered with a crippling jab to his opponent’s solar plexus.
The Spider stared up at Kraven from the floor, clutching its gut, compromised by the Hunter’s herb cocktail. Breathing heavily, rain soaking its skin, the Beast accused Kraven of cheating, of drugging it so the Hunter might gain the upper hand. Sergei smiled at that. Cheating? No. This night, he fought with honor. And so he would honor the Spider’s last request.
Retrieving another dart, Kraven held it out before the Spider, displaying it to his foe as if it were a magic trick, ensuring the Beast knew it for what it was. Then Kraven turned the dart on himself and jabbed it into his chest with an animalistic howl. The tranquilizer entered his bloodstream, mingling with the herbs and potions already heightening his senses, bringing Kraven to the edge of ecstasy. Thus he evened the odds in this initial phase of the hunt, preparing to conclude his lifelong mission.
Casting the dart to the ground, Kraven stepped away from the Spider and swept his arm aside, silently allowing his enemy to run, should it so desire. Then Kraven melted back into the shadows. Confused for a moment, Spider-Man moved to the edge of the roof and stepped into the void, firing a lifeline and swinging for safety.
Eventually, inevitably, the Hunter followed.
THIRTEEN
SPIDER-MAN headed west, toward the water, away from the city—and, most important, away from Mary Jane.
Confused and bone-tired, Peter had no clue as to Kraven’s ultimate motive. But whatever this was about, one fact remained clear: The once-ridiculous Hunter had decided to remove the leopard-skin kid gloves and come at Spider-Man with everything he had. The drugs played havoc with Peter’s spider-sense, setting off alarms at passing taxis far below, at barely visible flagpoles and skyscrapers ahead and above him through the deep, dark night. He had to move, and move fast— to get away before Kraven caught up with him.
As always, Peter wanted to make sure no innocents would be harmed in the battle to come. But if Kraven’s ambush hinted at something larger, something grander than what it seemed, Peter needed to take stronger measures. He had to lure Kraven far away from the ones he loved.
Head pounding. Jungle drums in the night.
Peter’s hand slipped, and he fell one story, righting himself only by reaching out and sticking to a nearby wall. He wanted to stop, to catch his breath, but the atomic bomb exploding throughout his skull had him picturing Kraven at his heels—and all he could see before him were Joe Face and Ned Leeds, hands folded, dead and buried. So he ran until he could run no more, and then he ran some more, abandoning the webs and leaping across town toward the Hudson River.
Terrific—headache’s getting worse.
Vertigo drove him down to the closest rooftop. Scrambling for the safety of darkness, he crawled down to hide beneath a heavy, metal vent. But movement at the edge of his peripheral vision made Spider-Man realize that he’d been fooling himself. The predator had been nipping at his heels every step of the way.
Kraven tossed a thick, fibrous net from above, dropping it around Spider-Man’s body. The net felt like a web, weighed down with heavy, black anchors. Struggle as he might, Peter could not break through. He didn’t know what the net was made of, but the pseudo-webbing was very strong. Even at full strength, Peter would have had trouble with it; the way he felt, freeing himself would take all night.
So he gave up trying to break free of the net. Waiting for what might come, he crouched on the ground as Kraven approached from the opposite end of the roof. As torrential rain soaked the net and his costume, Peter regulated his breathing, anxiously watching the Hunter stride forward and reach for a heavily wrapped weapon strapped to his back. A sword, Peter thought? Or another spear?
Gauging the danger, Peter tried to spin the wheels in his head, kickstarting ideas and strategies through the drugs and haze. He needed one last burst of strength to fight back, to fight hard and polish off this third-rate Lion King so he could get home and let Mary Jane nurse his wounds.
Kraven finished unwrapping the object that had been strapped to his back. Peter struggled to keep his eyes open, to get a better look.
What’s he got there?
Muscles weak and strength fading, Peter tried to focus.
It looks like a rifle.
Cradling the weapon in both hands, Kraven moved closer and flashed bright, white teeth. The Hunter’s vicious smile shined in the darkness, momentarily distracting Peter from the sight of the rifle. Kraven held the gun at his right hip, training it in Spider-Man’s direction, and Peter’s spider-sense went haywire. He struggled as best he could, his heart suddenly pounding against his chest, beating wildly in time with the unseen drums. The darkness closed in, and panic gripped Spider-Man with thick, strangling tendrils.
Kraven cocked the weapon and gripped it in white-knuckled fists, grinning like a baboon as he loomed over Spider-Man. Peter began to pull at the net again, trying to slip through the fabric. The rain, panic, and drugs made it impossible to find a grip, and why did Kraven have a rifle of all things and look at his eyes—
Kraven raised the rifle, aiming a shot at Spider-Man’s head. “Honor will be restored,” the Hunter said in a low, predatory growl.
Spider-Man found a hidden reserve of strength. He stretched the net as far away from his body as possible, pushing with all his might. “Come on, Kraven,” he taunted, his voice sounding like it was echoing through mothballs and sandpaper. “Rifles aren’t your style. You’ve…you’ve always wanted to pound me into hamburger with your hands…and frankly, I could use a hot burger on such a cold night. Hopefully with fries and a shake. Whaddya say? Call this off and find a diner?”
The taunts didn’t land. Kraven kept grinning, and cold terror seized Peter in his midsection. Stupid jokes wouldn’t help him out of this situation, and he realized all at once how vulnerable and weak he must appear. This time, Kraven wasn’t a third-rate buffoon with a lion on his chest. This time, Kraven was a man with a gun, aiming it at Peter Parker with no mercy in his eyes.
His eyes there’s something in his eyes look at his eyes
Peter tried to break free one last time, but the net wouldn’t give. He fell to his knees. Staring into Kraven’s face, trying not to get lost inside the barrel of the gun, Spider-Man focused on the fanatical gleam in the Hunter’s eyes.
This isn’t the Kraven I know. He’s out of his mind.
Faces flashed before Spider-Man’s eyes, fleeting and shimmering through the curtain
of falling rain. Joe Face. Ned Leeds. Aunt May. Betty Brant. Jonah. Uncle Ben.
Spider-Man reached out to the Hunter, pleading for mercy through the gaps in the net.
“Wait, Kraven. Don’t—”
Mary Jane.
Kraven smiled and pulled the trigger, and the world went dark and cold.
FOURTEEN
A MAN dug a grave. Slick with exertion, naked from the waist up, he drove a shovel into the earth with methodical, nearly mechanical effort. Rain fell all day and night, sometimes filling the hole, and the man had to use a bucket to bail it out.
Eventually a coffin arrived, carried by three men in black suits, solemn and sorrowful as they rested it next to the grave. A townhouse stood nearby, large and palatial and silent as a tomb. The four men circled the casket, staring at it with hands clasped before them. The quartet would be the deceased’s only mourners.
One of the men leaned down and opened the coffin, swinging back the top to reveal a body resting in its plush, velvet interior. The body wore a mask and a suit of crimson and blue with a rich, black spider stitched dead-center. Quiet and serene, hands folded across his chest, the deceased stared up at the falling rain with blank, white eyes, droplets pattering against the fabric and splashing against the burnished copper coffin. The mourners hung their heads, eyes closed in prayer and reflection. After a moment, the man who’d opened it reached out to latch the coffin closed.
The other two pallbearers lifted the coffin and, hefting it onto a pair of red straps, lowered it into the grave. The pallbearer who’d opened the casket stepped forward and took up a shovel, using it to drop piles of dirt on the casket below. He did this once, twice, and then Sergei Kravinoff stepped back and wiped away a tear. He stood there a moment, gazing down at his greatest enemy, and his somber expression brightened into an exultant grin. He smiled, triumphant, as thunder rolled in with the dawn, far off and crimson-tinged on the distant horizon.
