by D. S. Ryelle
His sister’s response was to place one hand on the chamber’s socket and shoot the ampoule home. Ophelia removed the dust cover from the computer before she added,
“Are you a fear, or a…” She said something foul in what Harry could only presume was Irish.
His anger spurred, Harry sprinted toward the other side of the room.
“Take off your shirt,” Ophelia instructed as she hauled open the chamber door.
Harry looked askance, but she pushed him in without another word.
Eleven
March 2007
“We need to talk.”
Ophelia glanced up from the report she was reading. “I thought you did not discuss personal matters at work?”
“I don’t have a choice,” David replied, slipping into Irish as easily as he slipped into his chair. “I never see you at home anymore; if you’re not off to some ‘fundraiser’, you’re spending time on some project in one of the laboratories, all of which have not given me clearance to enter. Some nights, you hardly say three words to the mansion staff because you’ve spent all day at work and want to go straight to bed!
“Speaking of work, why are you spending so much time going back and forth between the lab and research and development?”
Ophelia shrugged. “New ideas, new things to work on.”
“You’ve never concerned yourself with research and development unless it was for a meeting or inspection! Every time they ask for you, you send Harry—or Dr. Welker, if your brother is already assigned elsewhere.”
She didn’t respond.
“I don’t like you spending so much time in places where I’m not allowed, Ophelia. That’s not safe.”
“I minored in chemistry. I run a science-based company. Why should I not spend time in the laboratories?”
“Just two days ago, you were in a red level lab for three and a half hours,” David argued. “I had to slip a fifty to a technician to find out that she had just seen you strip out of a hazmat suit and step into a decontamination shower!”
“I have owned this company for nearly four and a half years,” she said. “You should be used to this sort of thing.”
“I’m used to guarding your office and sitting in the back of boardrooms while you attend meetings and presentations all day; not anxiously hovering outside of various labs while you perform tasks that you used to assign to Dr. Welker and everyone below him!”
Ophelia offered no response.
“What about Eduardo? You’re suddenly treating him like your concubine instead of your husband!”
“I beg your pardon if you are uncomfortable with the amount of time my husband and I spend in the bedroom; however, it has been three years since our handfasting. Eduardo and I agree that it is time to attempt conception.”
“Care to explain why I saw you carrying him up the stairs a few days ago?”
Ophelia gave her bodyguard a small smile as she went back to the report.
“What happened to our relationship?” David persisted. “You used to tell me everything!”
After a moment, she dropped her pen and met his gaze.
“I am twenty-eight. If I cannot handle my own problems now, when will I ever learn? I cannot rely on you my entire life!”
David was tempted to make a derisive comment, but held back as he headed for the door.
“If you ever care to explain yourself, I’ll be here.”
~*~
Scarcely six weeks later, Ophelia’s visions returned.
She hadn’t seen much of her father since the incident in the Goblin Chamber and naturally assumed that she and Harry were following their destinies at last. Occasionally, Ophelia thought she saw her father leering at her from various reflective surfaces, but he hadn’t spoken ‘til now.
“Your brother is in the hospital.”
“I am aware of that, thank you.”
She stretched languidly on the divan and was annoyed when Norman sought to interrupt her once again.
“He was injured fulfilling my mission.”
“Is that supposed to surprise me?” Ophelia reached for her glass of vodka.
“I need you to finish the job before Harry gets out of the hospital and gets his memory back.”
“I am already halfway through my decade-long tenure at Osborn Scientific. What more do you desire?”
“Kill Peter Parker.”
Ophelia’s laughter was warm and rich. “Now I know where my brother gets his ridiculousness from!”
“I’m serious,” Norman growled. “Parker was there when I died.”
She sat up a little straighter. “So that is why Harry maintains that Peter murdered you!”
“Not quite.” Her father was silent for a few minutes, the apparition fading, as if the secret he held was draining his energies. “I attempted to kill Parker because he wouldn’t join me. My plan backfired—I didn’t realize that his powers would allow him to sense my glider. I wasn’t able to jump out of the way in time.”
“Good!” Ophelia smiled into her glass. “Karma got you immediately.”
The lights flickered.
“‘Karma’?” Norman echoed. “Since when are you a goody two-shoes? When you persuaded your brother, you signed yourself up for the long run.”
“I ‘signed myself up’ for nothing!” she snapped. “That was naught but a stunt. I could not have paid my brother half my fortune to go into the vaporization chamber! I knew that if I drank the serum, Harry would think that I was calling his manhood into question and he would not refuse!”
The apparition solidified as her father raised his eyebrow, but Norman said nothing more on the subject.
“When can I expect you to kill Parker?”
“Not in this lifetime, nor the next! I will not murder my brother’s best friend just because he refused to join in some half-witted scheme of yours!”
Her father disappeared and the lights flashed again.
“You think you can scare me with a stupid poltergeist trick?” Ophelia demanded. “How little you know me!”
She drew breath to make a declamation just as her world grew dark.
~*~
“…claimed that she was disagreeing with her father, but I didn’t see any evidence that Dr. Osborn’s ghost was anywhere near there.”
“Did he cause the damage?”
“It’s possible.” There was a lengthy pause. “I don’t know why you’re asking me, though…weren’t you a member of the Temple at the time we left Brisbane?”
“He was oathbound as High Priest,” Ophelia said faintly.
She opened her eyes to find her husband sitting beside her, her bodyguard reclining in a nearby chair.
“Do you recall blacking out?” asked David.
Ophelia nodded.
“Do you know why?” Eduardo interrupted.
“I was about to banish Athair’s shade,” she whispered. Ophelia paused to regain her strength. “I did not want to do an assignment for him. You said there was damage?”
“Half the library was destroyed,” said David.
“He retaliated when I refused.”
The gentlemen shot each other looks.
“We were going to call an ambulance about the time you started breathing again,” her bodyguard explained.
“I think Athair…t…tried to strangle me…to s…show he meant…” Ophelia’s eyes closed. “…business.”
She missed her husband and her bodyguard staring at each other as if they were telepathic.
“I…need…to see Harry.”
“We’ll go when you’re feeling better,” Eduardo murmured.
“No!” Ophelia’s eyes sprang open. “This cannot wait! I will go…when I have a bit more energy.”
“Visiting hours are over.”
“They will understand!” she snarled.
“We need to have a discussion before you leave,” David interrupted. “The hospital called this morning while you were preparing for the day.”
“I am u
ninterested in this conversation.”
“They said they had news about Harry, so I…claimed I was your stepfather.”
Ophelia struggled to sit up. “I told you that I did not want to hear this!”
“Harry suffered a setback, corazón,” David plunged on, recklessly using her husband’s endearment. “The doctor said that your brother recalls your father’s death, but doesn’t remember the details. He draws a blank when they ask about your mother. The doctor says that they have been tactfully avoiding the subject of your existence, but he expects that Harry won’t remember you.”
The woman gestured imperiously for her husband to help her off the divan.
“I will keep that in mind.” She turned to Eduardo. “After you get me into bed, make sure that Mr Westbrooke leaves immediately, then contact Mr Whitaker. Have Bernard do it if you pass him in the hall.”
As Ophelia and her husband left the library, he learned down to murmur in her ear.
“I thought you fired Whitaker for being too overprotective?”
“That is something I will deal with when the time comes.”
Twelve
“Hello, little deartháir.”
Harry’s eyes did not open, but the corners of his mouth turned up at the sound of such a lovely voice. “I’m an only child!”
The owner of the voice had a throaty, musical laugh. “In what alternate universe?”
And all the attitude of a native New Yorker.
Harry sighed wistfully and allowed his eyes to flutter open. A woman stood smirking at the foot of his hospital bed as he took in the fact that she was artfully poured into a black catsuit and that her décolletage nearly popped. He tried to seem like he wasn’t staring as he admired the gleam of her violet eyes and the way her auburn hair fell in waves over her shoulders. A silver hoop gleamed in each ear and her nails shined like the garnet studs inserted above the hoops.
“I feel like I’ve seen you before.”
“What gave it away?”
He waved off her sarcasm. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a stumblebum who barely remembers his father and can’t seem to recall his mother!” Harry hesitated, his smile subsiding. “Were you there? At my accident, I mean?”
“No, Harry; I was not.”
“Can you at least tell me how my father died?”
The woman’s features softened and she found a chair. “A grievous error in judgment, I am told.”
“And my mother?”
“Very much alive.” Before he could speak again, she added, “If you are meant to remember these things, Harry, you will in time. It is not my place to tell you your life story.”
“Are you one of those cousins I once found a birthday card from? I saw a piece of an envelope in the fireplace one time when I was five….all I could read was ‘Harrison’ and ‘County Wicklow’. That’s in Ireland, right?”
“I am not Rose,” the woman replied. “Though Aunt Catherine passed away when you were fourteen. Uncle James lives near Glendalough still.”
“I have other cousins, though, right?”
“Nor am I Romy, daughter of Nora and Edward.”
Harry’s eyes searched hers for answers.
“I am your elder sister, Ophelia Rhiannon Osborn. Athair sent me.”
“Ah-hir?” he echoed.
“Irish is my first language,” Ophelia explained. “‘Athair’ means ‘father’.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“I am not here to visit. Athair sent me here to inform you that you have been relieved of your duties.”
Her brother’s mind readily skipped over the fact that she said she’d spoken to their father recently.
“I don’t remember any projects I haven’t finished.” Harry grinned wildly. “But then I don’t remember much of anything right now, do I?”
“Enough mundanity!” Ophelia snapped. “Peter Parker is still walking the streets of this city because of your little ‘accident’! It is my duty to take up your fallen mantle.”
Her boots beat a harsh staccato toward the door, but a simple “wait!” was all it took to halt Ophelia’s imperious stride.
“You’re trying to tell me that Dad ordered you to murder my best friend?”
“You will have to take up the reasoning behind this decision with Athair.”
“I told you…I’m not looking for a good time!”
“I did not ask if you were.”
Peter grimaced. The woman had fallen into step beside him two blocks ago and he’d been unable to shake her. When she first joined him, Peter had the feeling he’d seen her before, but distance had done nothing for his memory. Trying not to be obvious, Peter sized up his companion.
As he looked the woman over, Peter realized there wasn’t a very good possibility that she was a prostitute—she simply wasn’t dressed for the job. She wore a form-fitting black suit trimmed in shades of hunter green. A streetlight caught the woman’s hair and Peter noticed it was a shining knob of auburn, while another gleam showed that she wore gauntlets of the same green-trimmed-black. When he finally gave into staring, Peter realized that the woman was dressed almost as Harry had been in their last fight. But Harry’s outfit had been thrown together haphazardly, while Peter had begun to suspect that his companion had the latest technology—right down to her uniform, which he was certain was made of the same super armor he’d recently read about in the newspaper.
“What do you want from me?”
The woman kept walking, but did not meet Peter’s eyes when she spoke a moment later.
“You killed my father.”
He looked at her again and discovered that Harry’s sister accompanied him.
“I’m going to tell you the same thing I’ve told your brother for the last five years—I did not kill Norman Osborn. He died in an accident.”
Ophelia didn’t answer, and when Peter turned to read her expression, she took him roughly by the arm and shoved him into an alley.
“Let me make this perfectly clear,” she said in a voice just short of seductive. Ophelia slammed him into the wall. “I do not care what excuses you make or what you claim as the truth. You have disgraced the name of House Osborn and I will not rest until you have paid the price.”
Peter felt a warmth in his stomach, but ignored it, so distracted was he by her stormy violet eyes.
“Prepare yourself, Parker,” she warned. “You will know neither the day nor the hour, but I. Will. Come.”
He watched her march up the alley and round a corner. Something gleamed in her hand, but Peter didn’t see it—the warmth in his stomach had caught his attention once again. Awed, he touched the offending spot, sifted it in his fingers and sniffed.
“She stabbed me! She actually stabbed me!”
~*~
“¿Corazón? Corazón, wake up.”
Eduardo shook his wife, but she barely stirred. He took a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Westbrooke tells me that you’ve been in and out of consciousness for three days. Was there another accident?”
“Too many hospital visits,” Ophelia murmured.
“Harry was just released,” her husband replied. “He stayed in the guest room overnight and then asked Westbrooke if he could linger while he recovered his bearings.”
Eduardo hesitated. “Why is David back on duty?”
“Whitaker did not last,” he thought he heard her say.
“Ophelia?” He shook her again. “Ophelia, what is wrong with you? Every time I leave metropolitan New York for more than a few days, I come home to find you a physical—and sometimes emotional—wreck.
“Is your father after you again?”
“I have not seen Athair in weeks,” she murmured.
Eduardo watched his wife for a few minutes, her chest slowly rising and falling, as if she had gone back to sleep. He was nearly ready to attempt rousing Ophelia once again when she suddenly sat up and latched onto him.
“Do not leave me again, amor!”
She broke t
heir embrace long enough to look at him, and Eduardo noticed her eyes were unusually bright.
“I need you here with me!”
“I have to leave sometimes,” he reminded her gently. “It’s part of my job!”
Ophelia’s answer was somewhat muffled, as she had buried her head in his shoulder. “You do not have to work! I have enough money for both of us!”
Eduardo began stroking her hair. “What would I do if I didn’t model? I can’t sit around all day doing nothing! We don’t even have kids to take care of!”
“We should try for children!” she exclaimed, her bright gaze locking onto his. “I will find you a position at Osborn Scientific—something that will keep you occupied, but that will be easy to get out of once I come back from maternity leave!”
Ophelia didn’t give him a chance to argue, swiftly capturing his lips in a kiss such as they had not had for a long time.
Thirteen
Some Weeks Later
I can’t blame the Osborns every time I have a problem! Peter thought.
He was glad that the accident had caused Harry’s memory to reset, but Peter couldn’t help feeling that it would return at any time and his best friend—his former best friend—would be very annoyed. Sighing, Peter lay back on his bed and began to consider the implications of Harry’s sister being involved in the “Osborn vendetta”.
The last few weeks had been rough. After a thorough interview at the hospital, the police had promised to catch his attacker as quickly as possible, but Peter doubted they would have any luck. As an Osborn, Ophelia would surely be able to talk her way out of any consequences—if she didn’t successfully deny the incident in the first place. Peter was sorely tempted to tell Detective Morgan that he knew the identity of his attacker, but—again—it came down to not blaming the Osborns every time he had an unusual problem.
After three days in the hospital—complete with a visit from Mary Jane Watson, two from Gwen Stacy and Aunt May dropping off his graduate homework every day—Peter had returned to his apartment. J. Jonah Jameson had wanted Peter to go back to his job as staff photographer immediately; but Robbie Robertson had called within the hour and made Peter swear to stay home and get better, saying that he would deal with Jonah.