by Jim Butcher
dinners, but with any luck we'd be gone from here long before they could be done. So I made do with some microwave popcorn.
As the scent filled the room, the Rhino let out a groan.
I looked up sharply at Mary Jane and nodded toward the bedroom. She swallowed and went there in silence.
Popcorn rattled in the microwave. The Rhino muttered something I didn't understand, in what sounded like Russian. His head tossed left and right.
Then he snorted and tried to lift his head.
"Take it easy there, big fella," I told him. The microwave beeped, and I took the popcorn out. "Yes, you're tied up. Yes, I'm Spider-Man. No, I'm not going to hurt you, or even turn you over to the cops. And to prove it, I'll split some popcorn with you if you give me two minutes to talk to you without you going berserkergang on me."
"Spider-Man," the Rhino spat. I could dimly see him bare his teeth in the shadowy kitchen. His basso voice rolled out the thick, half-swallowed consonants of his accent. "You think this is funny, I bet."
"No," I said. "Ow, hot popcorn. Augh, that steam, right when you open the bag? Anyway, I don't think it's funny. I think it's really scary. I think that both of us have bigger problems to worry about than one another."
The Rhino growled, a sound full of suspicion and not much in the way of intellect. "Then why am I bound?"
"What do you remember?" I asked.
"Mortia. She touched me and..." He shuddered. Eight hundred pounds of shuddering Rhino is a lot. The plates rattled in the cupboard.
"How are you feeling?" I asked.
"I... hurt." There was a note of almost childish surprise in his tone.
The Rhino did not often get hurt. Heck, he wasn't even showing any bruises from the massive walloping I'd given him not twenty-four hours before. My knuckles, on the other hand, were still swollen. "Heat, on my face. Headache."
"Mortia and her brothers are extremely bad news," I said. "They feed on life energy like yours and mine."
"They eat super-powered people?" Rhino asked.
"Close enough," I said. "They had a brother who came to eat me several months ago. He got a case of the deads."
"So they came to even the score," said the Rhino. I had to give the big guy credit. Not much in the way of brains, but he understood the meaner things in life.
"Exactly. They hired you to draw me out. Then stood around doing nothing, by the way, when I beat the stuffing out of you."
The Rhino growled, and for some reason it was a much more threatening sound in Aunt May's kitchen than in Times Square.
"The point is," I said quickly, "they didn't exactly give you any backup.
And when you inconvenienced Mortia, she decided to kill you."
The Rhino was silent for a second, and then he said, "You stopped her?"
"Yeah."
"Why?" he demanded.
"Despite what you may have read in the Bugle, I am one of the good guys.
I don't let people get eaten on my watch."
"But I am your enemy," he said.
"Sorta, sure," I agreed. "But Mortia and her brothers are bad news in a big and scary way. You and I have had our disagreements. I imagine we'll keep on having them. But if they get the chance, those three will kill us. Both of us. And they'll barely remember it a few days from now."
His mouth spread into a sneer. "And what do you want? For me to fight beside you?"
"No," I said. "I want you gone. Out of here, somewhere safe. This is going to be nasty, and no one sane is going to want any part of it. Get yourself clear until you have a chance to recover. I think they're coming after me first, but if they get past me, you'll be on your own."
"Da. Am always on my own," the Rhino said, a glower in his tone. "But what do you really want?"
"Nothing. I pulled your big gray butt out of the fire because you once did something similar for me. I just want you to get up and get away from me as fast as you can manage it. The way I see it, that'll balance the scales between us."
His voice became even more suspicious. "This is some trick."
"No trick," I said.
"Prove it," he said. "Untie me."
I haven't spent all this time as a human spider without learning to tie some outstandingly groovy knots. I leaned down, gave the webbing around him several sharp tugs, and the whole thing slithered away from him.
The Rhino sat up slowly, a little unsteadily, as if shocked that I had actually untied him. "Now, the blindfold."
"Uh?" I said. "There's no blindfold, big guy. I mean, it's a little dim in here, but..."
I saw him lift his fingers to his face. He drew his hands away after a single touch, and spat out something in Russian that probably should not be said in front of Russian children.
I turned and flicked on the kitchen lights.
The Rhino's ruined face looked awful, but not as bad as his eyes. They had gone entirely white, as if cataracts had entirely occluded them in the few seconds Mortia had touched him.
Holy Moley. This put a nice big old hole in the "get everyone away from Peter so he can fight the battle without them getting hurt or in the way"
plan. There was no way I could send him out on his own like this -
helpless, utterly unable to defend himself.
"Bozhe moi."
the Rhino said, staring sightlessly. "I am blind."
Chapter 17
The Rhino sat on the kitchen floor munching microwave popcorn while I tried to figure out what would go wrong next. He went through the bag fast, though he didn't seem to hurry, and asked, "Is there perhaps water?"
The simple question startled me. I mean, of all the people I'd ever have thought I'd be talking to in Aunt May's kitchen, the Rhino was about third to last on the list. And the question was just so... normal. He ate popcorn. It made him thirsty. The Rhino was pretty much supposed to be all about bellowing and smashing - not being beaten, blind, and conversational.
I got him a glass of water and said, "Hold out your hand."
He did. I put the glass in it. He gave me a grave nod, making the silly rhino horn bob, and said, "Thank you."
The Rhino. Saying thank you. Excuse me while I boggle.
At this rate, I was going to have to reboot my brain before it locked up entirely and went into meltdown. A thought struck me. The Rhino was blind. There was no reason I had to keep wearing the mask.
I took it off and stared at it for a minute. It was just a piece of cloth, but it had done more to protect me - and the people I cared about
- than any number of locks or security systems over the years. I'd thrown it away several times. I'd always picked it up again. Looking at it now, it just seemed a little worn and in need of a manage a trois with a washer and a sewing machine.
I looked at the Rhino. I could count the number of times I'd seen him without looking through the mask on the fingers of one hand - and never from this close, this clearly. He finished the water and set the glass carefully to one side. I had half-assumed he would smash it in his fist when finished. Perhaps follow that by chewing up the pieces and swallowing. It was the sort of recreational activity I had expected from him:
I am the Rhino. My favorite movie is Rocky IV and my turn-ons include exotic haberdashery and rubble.
"I assume," he said instead, "that we are in your secret headquarters."
"Secret headquarters," I said.
"Da," he said. "The armory and lab where you design your weaponry. The bulletproof, stealth-technology super costumes. All the equipment you have used over the years. The cloaking technology that hides all of it."
I nearly burst out into a laugh, but kept it from happening. "Ah. That headquarters."
"Mysterio once said it was the only way you could counter his illusion technology so completely. With access to advanced equipment for the design of countermeasures, like that of Mister Fantastic."
"Mysterio thinks a whole lot of himself," I said.
The Rhino snorted. "Da."
Wait.
I had just agreed with the Rhino on something.
I wondered if my brain would explode out of my ears or just sort of flow out of my nostrils in steaming gobs.
"I presume," the Rhino said, "your security measures are monitoring me."
Why not?
"Every single one," I said. "I'd prefer it if you didn't give me a reason to use them."
At that, he tensed a little, and his jaw clenched. "You think you can frighten me?"
"No," I replied. Normally I would have added something like: You're obviously too stupid to be afraid of anything.
It would have been funny, but maybe not entirely accurate. Whatever else his faults, the Rhino was tough-minded, and no coward.
Besides. I didn't need to be a telepath to realize that he was scared.
Who wouldn't be, in his position, blinded and captured by a bitter foe?
But all I said was: "You've never had a problem with fear. There wouldn't be any point to trying to scare you now."
He grunted. We were both guys, so to me, the grunt sounded like, Good, because I'm willing to fight you, blind and helpless and doomed, rather than let you think you frighten me.
It was the kind of grunt I might have used myself, were things reversed.
"I am ready to go," he said. "What?" I asked.
"Go," he said, tensing again. "You said you intended to set me free. Do you mean to go back on your word?"
"No," I said, tiredly. "But that was before I knew about your eyes."
The Rhino shifted his weight warily. More dishes rattled. "You did this to me?"
"No, bonehead," I replied, mildly annoyed. "But I'm not going to send you out there blind. God only knows what you might blunder into and smash." I shook my head, my voice trailing off. "Besides. When the Ancients came for you, you wouldn't have a prayer."
"Then I am your prisoner?" he asked. "No. You're free to go." I paused for a second. If I just put my teeth together and kept them that way, the Rhino would be out of my hair. It would be simple, practical, and easy.
Who am I kidding? I've never really been all that good at simple, practical, easy things. Things like baking frozen pizzas and abandoning enemies to their gruesome fate.
"You don't have to leave," I said. "If you need some more time to get back on your feet, you can stay." I paused. "So long as you give me your word that you and I have a cease-fire until Mortia and company are dealt with."
The Rhino tilted his head, sharply, blank eyes staring at nothing. "My word? You would trust this?"
"Yeah," I said, and realized, as I did, that I meant it.
The Rhino was quiet for a long moment. Then he nodded and said, "Until they are dealt with and for twenty-four hours after."
Because he didn't want me pitching him into the pokey if we managed to survive. Understandable. "No rampaging while you're here, and you leave town peacefully after. Deal?"
He nodded. "Done."
I picked up his glass and got him some more water, and a glass of my own.
Then I gave him his glass, clinked mine against it, and we drank in silence.
Suddenly, rap music with a lot of bass and someone chanting "Unh, unh, unh-unh yeeeeaaaaah" blared through the room.
"What is that?" I asked.
The Rhino tossed off the rest of the water, set the glass aside, and said, "Is me." He fumbled a bit at the rhinoceros hat, then patted his legs and chest before saying, "Ah," and ripping open a panel in the gray-armored suit I had never seen before. The sound of Velcro tearing scratched through the room, and the music got louder as the Rhino produced a little cell phone from the hidden pocket. It looked grotesquely tiny for his enormous, blunt hands. He put it to his ear and said, "Da."
His jaw clenched.
He held the phone out in my general direction. "For you."
Well. That couldn't be good.
I took the phone and put it to my ear. "Da," I said in my best growling Russian accent. "Ivan's Pizza Shack. Ivan take your order."
There was a moment of puzzled silence, and then Mortia's cool, quiet voice asked, "Is this the spider?"
"If it isn't," I said, "he's going to be upset when he finds me running around in his tighty-whities."
"Your kind," she said, "are irritating in the extreme."
"Oh gosh," I said. "Now I'm going to blush, you sweet talker. We can go on like this, but I should warn you that your credit card will be billed at two ninety-nine per minute."
Mortia's voice got colder. "Spider. I grow weary of you. Listen well, for I will not repeat myself, nor make this offer again."
I let my tone get harder. "Speak."
"The Metro Used Auto Center in Flushing. Twenty minutes before dawn."
"Why?"
"Because it is more convenient to meet you there than to expend resources upon my optional initiative."
My stomach fluttered and felt cold. "Which is?"
"Look out the window to your left."
I froze for a second. Then I turned my head, just enough to see out the window.
Mortia crouched on a four-inch-wide windowpane across the street, on a level with Aunt May's place, balanced easily on her heels. She had a phone to her ear, and the wind blew her hair and coat around her in a fashion every bit as chilling and unsettling as Venom on a good day. She stared at me, at my partial profile, with the emotionless patience of a shark waiting for a bleeding seal to weaken.
It was scary.
I turned sharply away before she could see any more of my face.
"Meet me there," she said. "If you do not, I will kill you where you stand."
"You think you'd get away with - "
"Whether you escape or die," she continued, "my staff will detonate the explosive charges currently planted on the building in order to cover our tracks. There are, at present, nearly fourteen hundred people in your building. Including one hundred and twenty-six children."
At which point, the fear vanished, replaced by raw anger.
"And if I meet you?" I asked.
"Then I will withdraw my staff and the threat to the innocent."
"How do I know you won't blow up the building anyway?" I said.
"I have no interest in the residents. Only in you. "Vbu have five seconds to decide."
"I don't need one."
I snarled. "I was planning on pounding you to scrap in any case. See you there." Then I hung up on her, turning enough to watch her indirectly.
Her eyes glittered, a weird and somehow insectoid sight, and then she leapt from the ledge in a flicker of black cloth and white teeth, and was gone.
I leaned down and put the phone back into the Rhino's hand. "What does she want?" he asked.
"A beating," I said.
Tough words.
But the bottom line was that in all probability, I'd be dead by the time the sun rose once more.
Chapter 18
I WENT INTO THE BEDROOM and shut the door behind me. Mary Jane took one look at my face and went pale.
"Peter?" she whispered.
I sat down slowly on the bed while she hovered over me.
"The thing is," I heard myself say, "you've got to feel the traffic around you. You've got to have your eyes watching other people, making sure some idiot isn't about to turn in front of you. The laws, the lights, changing lanes, all of that really isn't hard at all. Most people can drive while they're half asleep and stand a reasonable chance of arriving safely anyway. You just have to keep an eye out for the idiots.
It's the idiots that mess up an otherwise decent system of transportation. As long as you know you've got your eye on any potential morons, it's a lot easier to feel confident about the rest of it."
She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together.
"It's like listening to music, You know it when something starts going wrong. You know how it's supposed to sound, and when you hear that first difference, that's when you know you've got to look sharp. Or like science. You know what's supposed to be in a given enviro
nment, and when something changes, you can see it, see what caused it. It's the same on the road. You listen for the change in music. You watch for the active variable. That's really all there is to driving, MJ."
She sat down with me. "Peter. You're scaring me."
"I just... I just don't want you thinking that this driving test is something big or complicated. It's simple. Sometimes the simple things aren't easy. But it isn't anything that's going to stop you for long.
You'll beat it."
She took my face in both hands and made me look at her. "What happened?"
I told her about the Rhino's blindness and Mortia's phone call.
"So. I guess we'll have this finished by dawn," I said.
We sat together in silence for a minute.
"I have to go," I said. "If I don't..."
Mary Jane gave me a quiet smile. Then murmured, "Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way."
"What's that mean in English?" I asked her.
She kissed me. "That I love you."
We held hands for a while. Then she said, "Can you win?"
"Not that it matters," I said. "But I think so. If I could figure out how."
"You always do," she said.
"Yeah," I said, without really meaning it. "Maybe something will come to me."
"Well," she said quietly, "you'll need some dinner. And to get some sleep, if you can."
Sleep. Right.
"Come on," she said. "You'd better introduce me to our guest."
"MJ..." I said.
"He's our guest, Peter. Didn't you invite him to stay? Offer your protection to him? Didn't he agree to a truce?"
"Yes," I said. "But..."
"Then he's probably hungry, too. I'll see what I can put together." She stood up to leave.
I touched her wrist and said, "Just, uh. Be careful of him. All right?
Don't go within reach of him. I'll move him to the couch."
"Where is he now?" she asked.
"Um. The kitchen floor."
"Oh,
Peter, for goodness' sake."
"I'll move him," I said. "As long as you promise to be careful."
"All right," she said.
"Oh," I said. "One more thing..."
* * *