by D. S. Ryelle
“She’ll be livid when she’s fully conscious!” David countered. “Mr. Osborn held a press conference while Ophelia was in the hospital and glossed over everything—while making it appear that he will be the one who suffers the most damage.”
Eduardo and David stood against the wall and folded their arms, lost in thought.
“What would it take to fire Whitaker?”
“I would need to vet a replacement. That could take days, even weeks. Ophelia would be in Andrew’s company the entire time and he would want her to completely avoid Harry to make up for the decrease in security. She would probably have to put him on administrative leave in order to avoid him—Mr. Osborn doesn’t have the skills needed for a temporary transfer to research and development; and he doesn’t have the clearance needed to a transfer to the lab complex, either.”
After a moment, David added, “Whitaker was only supposed to be temporary. I called him in when Ophelia wasn’t speaking to me because he’s an old Marine buddy. I thought I could count on him.”
Eduardo turned to his wife’s bodyguard, surprised. “When has Ophelia refused to talk to you?”
David regarded him quietly for a moment.
“It is not my place to tell. When it is time, you’ll know.”
Nine
Late August 2004
“My father did not leave a lot undone,” Ophelia explained. “Even in death, I find him to be very organized. Clearly, he never left anything until the last minute.”
Eduardo appeared at her side with a glass of champagne, causing her to smile. She was about to introduce him to…whomever she’d been talking to, when…
“OSBORN!”
Ophelia’s bodyguards drew closer so quickly that they jostled her into her husband. She apologized hastily, then gently scooted around Eduardo so that she could peer over Andrew’s shoulder. After a short conversation, Ophelia found herself peeking out from beneath her bodyguard’s armpit, looking straight at J. Jonah Jameson, who was striding toward them at a fantastic clip.
“Osborn!” her father’s friend said again.
“I have a forename.”
“Whatever!” snapped Jameson. “Why haven’t you had dinner with my son?”
The gentleman drew a rather bewildered young man out of the crowd, whom Ophelia recognized as the planetarium’s guest of honor.
“I believe your son already has a significant other.”
Sure enough, a woman about Harry’s age elbowed her way through the crowd a moment later. Ophelia smiled when she recognized the girl’s vibrant red hair from some of the pictures Bernard had found in Harry’s room.
“Who? Her?” Jonah demanded. “Nah!”
Finally succeeding in getting out from underneath Andrew, Ophelia rummaged around behind her and snagged Eduardo. She put her arm through his and pasted a smile back on her face.
“I have been happily married for three months now.”
Jonah gave Eduardo a once-over. “Did your father approve of this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“This!” Jonah seemed to be at a loss without his customary cigar and gestured so wildly that he nearly poked out the eye of the society matron behind him.
“Eduardo never had a chance to meet my father,” Ophelia replied coldly. “I believe Norman’s favourite excuse was that he was too busy with his precious company.”
“Figures!” the older man muttered. “Boy isn’t the right type to be carrying on the Osborn line.”
“Ms. Osborn’s personal life is not up for discussion,” said a sharp voice.
Jonah jumped a foot and whirled around.
“Whitaker! How the hell are ya? What are ya doin’ here, anyway? Last I heard, you were chasin’ brats in Queens!”
“I do not know who your source of information was, but I can assure you that I have spent the last five years organizing security for Spanish aristocrats who summer in Connecticut,” Andrew said stiffly. “My connections have gotten me presented to King Juan Carlos five times and Queen Sofía seven.”
“Are they so old that they forgot who you were thirty minutes later?”
Jonah’s snide comment fell flat. Ophelia was placing her hand on Eduardo to stop him from physically defending the monarchs of his homeland when David tapped her on the shoulder.
“Your brother needs your assistance.”
Ophelia followed David’s gesture—her brother was mid-harangue with a flustered young man she suspected was Peter Parker. Thanking her bodyguard, Ophelia picked her way across the room. She was halfway there when the planetarium’s security team forcefully removed her brother.
“Go away, Shishter!”
Harry grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server, which Ophelia quickly snatched. He reached up to slap her, but Ophelia caught his hand in midair.
“Who do you shink you are? Shuperwoman?”
Ophelia downed half the flute, eyed her brother and then quickly fortified herself with the rest. Only when another server had taken her glass did she speak.
“What was the purpose of interrupting this event? Especially when the interruption was a verbal assault on your supposed best friend?”
“Peter knowsh Shpidermansh. Shpidermansh killed our fasher.”
“But Athair would not want us to harbour a vendetta, regardless of whether it was murder or manslaughter.”
Harry laughed. “Then you don’t know Dad!”
Ophelia raised her eyebrow at her brother’s use of the present tense.
“I’ve been having vishensh. Ha! That’s a funny word. Vishensh.” He grinned. “I shee Dad and he shesh my work ishnt done. He keepsh reminding me of my duty.”
“What would that be?”
“To kill Shpiderman!” Harry made a face that was supposed to represent a developmentally disabled person. “He sesh that if you were any good ash hish…um…hair…you’d do your dutiesh too!”
“I am already running his company!” Ophelia said indignantly. “Osborn Scientific has been under my governance for two years and we have nearly doubled our profits!”
Her brother cocked his head, as if someone were calling from just inside the party.
“He shesh you know whatsh you duty ish. He sesh itsh not up to me to repeat it.”
Ophelia shivered at this message, her mind flitting over Project Rose. A chill came over her when she asked, “Harry, has Athair been talking to you?”
“I shee him in the mirror shomtimesh.” He appeared to sober a little. “I dream of him sometimes, too, but he mostly whispers in my ear.”
She wondered then if she should tell him of her own dreams…tell him why she thought their father might be badgering them about duty.
“Go home, Harry,” Ophelia said at last. “Do not hail a taxi—I will call Wahim and he can take you in my limousine. I will not be ready to leave for a little while—I still have to find Eduardo.”
~*~
“I could carry you upstairs.”
Ophelia laughed. “You have never carried me upstairs! Not even when I was a little girl!”
“When you were a little girl, I would bring you the first aid kit or make you a bed on the couch so you wouldn’t have to go upstairs!” Her bodyguard was grinning.
“I am not plastered…I am more knackered than anything.” Ophelia held out her arm. “Walk with me and make sure that I do not fall on my arse!”
Completely disobeying her, David swept Ophelia into his arms and laughingly took her upstairs. He had made it a third of the way toward the master bedroom when they heard voices coming from the opposite end of the hall.
“Where’s your husband?”
“I do not know. He said something about escorting my brother back to his flat, but I have not seen him since.”
David put her down and they listened together.
“Sounds like Harry, but the other voice doesn’t sound like Eduardo.”
Before her bodyguard could grasp what was going on, Ophelia shed her heels and raced towar
d the voices. David was taller than Ophelia, however, and easily overtook her.
“Ophelia!”
The young woman picked up her pace and arrived a moment later…to discover Spider-Man on the divan, her brother hovering over him with dagger in hand.
“Harold Ambrose Osborn!” she thundered. “What in the name of all that is sweet and holy are you doing?”
“I wanted to see the coward’s face before I killed him.”
Ophelia said something venomous in what sounded like a hybrid of Irish and Spanish.
“She wants to know how Spider-Man got into her library and why he’s tied with barbed wire,” David translated. He glanced at her. “In so many words.”
“Octavius brought him to me in exchange for more tritium.”
“More tritium?” Ophelia shrieked. “He was not satisfied with nearly killing himself the first time?”
“I got what I wanted,” Harry replied with a shrug. “I didn’t ask.”
“Please,” interrupted a weak voice from across the room. “I can help.”
Ophelia shot her brother a harsh glance.
“If you let him go in peace, I will let you see his face and I may reconsider reporting you to the gardaí.”
While her brother considered this, she beckoned to her bodyguard.
“Where is Andrew?” she murmured.
“I sent him home right before Wahim arrived.”
“I hope Harry does not get violent.”
“I’ll let him go,” Harry announced after a moment.
Ophelia made a “have at it” gesture and Harry sprang forward to pull of his nemesis’s hood.
“Peter?”
“I’m sorry Harry, Ms. Osborn.” The young man sat up and flexed his muscles, easily freeing himself. “I did not kill your father!”
“Now is not the time for heartfelt discussions, Mr Parker,” Ophelia interjected. “Go save Dr Octavius before he kills himself—or worse.”
Peter bowed to David and Ophelia, nodded to Harry and took a flying leap off the balcony, firing a web line into the night.
“I guess I’ll turn in…”
“You will do no such thing!” Ophelia barked.
Her bodyguard moved between her brother and the door.
“You may think that you are doing your filial duty, but you still have to justify your actions to me,” she continued. “Not to mention that you cannot sleep in your old room—it is now a guest room, where my husband sleeps on nights we come home separately.”
“Then I’ll take a cab back to my place,” Harry replied. “Unless you’re offering the limo…?”
“Wahim was dismissed hours ago. But not to worry…David and I will be happy to ensure that you remain in the room until all my questions are answered.”
Harry stared sullenly at his sister.
“What did Dr Octavius want the tritium for?” Ophelia pressed.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Why did you give it to him, then?”
“He threatened to kill me.”
“Why did you ask for Peter Parker in exchange?”
“I didn’t know it was Peter!” Harry protested. “Ock said he’d get Spider-Man!”
“What is the likelihood that Dr Octavius would have snatched an innocent young man off the streets and put him in a Spider-Man costume?”
“I don’t know.”
Ophelia sighed. “I would ask you why you wanted to kill Spider-Man, but that comes back to visions of Athair reminding you of your filial duty.”
“Right.”
She thought for a minute.
“What did the autopsy report say?”
“Dad didn’t want an autopsy.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” Harry protested. “You knew him better! I thought it was some weird science thing!”
A clock on the opposite side of the room chimed three just as Eduardo appeared in the doorway.
“What’s he doing here?” Eduardo asked in Spanish.
“I could ask you the same!” Ophelia snapped, whirling around. “Did you not see him up to his flat?”
“I can’t remember!”
Ophelia was tempted to argue, but she bit it back.
“He has been wandering back and forth between my office and the library all night, waiting for Spider-Man to arrive. No doubt he has been drinking all the alcohol in the house while he waited!”
“What are you going to do with him?”
“I will call the gardaí tomorrow. We have more to discuss.”
Ten
Wednesday,
September 27, 2006
(Dawn)
Ophelia woke to the sound of shattering glass. Her first thought was to wake Eduardo, but he was in Spain visiting family. Her mind lingered briefly on David. His room was on the ground floor, at the opposite end of the mansion. If there was an intruder, it was likely that he would be between the two of them. With that in mind, Ophelia grabbed a dagger from her nightstand and headed toward the source of the noise.
“Go away, Ophelia.”
“Not until you tell me how you got in here.”
“The balcony doors were unlocked.”
She glanced across the room and saw that one of the doors was ajar.
“Why are you in here?”
“I thought you said you’d go away after I told you how I got in here?” Harry stopped watching the hole where a full-length mirror previously hung and glanced at his sister.
“I never agreed to anything of the sort!” Ophelia replied. “Furthermore, you are the one trespassing—you are in no position to be making deals.”
“Dad wouldn’t shut up. I came here to do something about it.”
“Our father is dead!” Ophelia exclaimed. She didn’t mention that she had finally seen a doctor for medication to put an end to her nightmares. “Even if his shade was present, what can be done here that cannot be done at your flat?”
Harry didn’t answer, opting to take a stroll down the corridor that had appeared in the absence of the mirror.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“Dad always appeared to me in this mirror before you kicked me out,” he replied. “He was crazy for it when he was alive.”
Ophelia stopped in the entrance, played with the mirror frame.
“You know Harry, I think this opened. Like a door.”
“Doesn’t matter. Dad wouldn’t shut up. If I hadn’t broken the mirror, he would’ve been after you when he was done with me.”
Ophelia watched her brother continue down the corridor. “Where are you going? This cannot lead anywhere.”
“I know there’s something here…”
She came to her senses and jogged after him, arriving just in time to see Harry turn on a light in a room at the very end.
What they found amazed them.
Several displays filled the room, including a mannequin dressed in armor that looked like a bad Halloween concept. To their immediate left was a large stand that crested near Ophelia’s waist and seemed to have a giant bat perched upon it. A few shelves down from the bat was a rack that held several ampoules of a glowing green liquid; as they drew closer, brother and sister discovered that the ampoules had incomprehensible labels. A glass-paneled chamber on the opposite end of the room caught Ophelia’s eye. A darkened computer waited nearby, confirming her suspicions.
“Did Athair ever tell you about this place?”
Harry shook his head. “I don’t think so. It looks kind of familiar, though.”
“A chamber like that one stands in the laboratory in the second sub-basement of the Tower.”
“Never been there,” he replied. “But that looks like the Green Goblin’s armor.”
Ophelia motioned to the giant bat. “Did the Green Goblin use that, too?”
Harry stared. “It looks like the glider he was riding at the World Unity Festival!”
“So…the kiddies found the Goblin Chamber!”
The siblings scr
eamed.
“The portrait?” asked Ophelia, motioning to the picture above the computer.
“Yeah,” Harry agreed.
“Very good, Ophelia,” Norman’s voice said again. “I created you well!”
“It must be some kind of recording!” she said.
“‘Created’?” Harry echoed.
“I am not a recording!” their father growled. “I know that Westbrooke is asleep and Miraz is in Valencia.”
Ophelia and Harry looked at each other, bewildered.
“It’s about time you found your true inheritance.” The portrait went still.
Ophelia frowned. “What is it that we are supposed to do?”
Harry didn’t quite hear her…he was too busy backing toward the door.
“No. No, I’m not ready! Don’t make me!”
Ophelia’s eyes drifted toward the rack of ampoules. “That?”
He was staring soundlessly at his father’s picture, as if waiting for some pronouncement of mercy.
“I see,” said Ophelia slowly, as if answering her own question.
She strolled over to the rack.
“You are no deartháir of mine.”
“What?” Harry had heard her properly for the first time.
“I have no cowards in my family,” his sister replied. “By not honouring our father’s wishes, you are disgracing House Osborn.”
Harry looked at Ophelia as if she had suddenly sprouted antlers. Unperturbed by his reaction, she selected an ampoule and smashed the top on the nearest shelf.
“Slainté, deartháir!”
Ophelia drank the glowing fluid in one draft. Her brother, on the other hand, had begun to look very nervous.
“That…that was supposed to be inhaled!”
Ophelia glanced between the chamber and the remaining ampoules a few times before she finally made the connection.
“That can be arranged.”
Ophelia selected another ampoule and made her way toward the chamber.
“NO! I…I…” Harry couldn’t find the words. “I heard some of the scientists say after Dad passed away that the human performance enhancers have been known to cause…insanity.”