by Neil Kleid
Have to try and reason with him. He’s Kraven’s pawn—I really don’t want to hurt him.
“Vermin, don’t!” Peter said in his calmest, most patient voice. “Kraven’s using you. He’s making a fool of you!”
Vermin snarled and attacked again, swinging back with his left hand and breaking ragged nails against the elephant’s tough hide. “Liar,” he screamed. “Liar!”
Peter jumped up to avoid the blow, leapfrogging over Vermin. “It wasn’t me, Vermin. It was Kraven. Kraven wearing my costume and mimicking my powers!”
But Vermin was beyond reason. Spider-Man had beaten him, Spider-Man had broken him, and all this poor, confused outcast cared about at that moment was blood and revenge. It made no difference to Vermin which face hid behind the mask, because to Vermin the mask was the only thing that mattered.
But I’m not a mask, Peter thought. I’m a man. Not a Spider—a man.
He dropped to the ground, away from the elephant, and looked across the cavern. Kraven stood and watched from amid the purple smoke, arms folded across his chest. Vermin rushed at Peter again, and Peter stepped aside at the last minute, barely avoiding Vermin’s teeth and claws. Vermin plunged headlong into the smoke.
“I’m gonna tear you up!” Vermin screamed. “I’m gonna rip out your heart!” His claws struck the giant brazier, knocking it on its side. Peter let out a burst of webbing, smothering the torch before the cavern could go up in flames.
I don’t want to do this, Peter told himself again. I just want to put Kraven down. I want to end this madness and put it behind me, get Vermin to a doctor and Kraven to a cell. And then…and then I want to go home.
But a low growl from the stairwell, partially obscured by the smoke, dispelled any hope of that. The fierce, feral game of cat-and-mouse had only served to raise Vermin’s bloodlust, and he leapt from the mist to lunge again. This time, Vermin managed to sink his claws into Peter’s chest, tearing away part of his costume and some of his skin.
Kraven continued to watch from the corner, an infuriatingly silent spectator. Peter tried to call out to Kraven, to convince the man to put an end to this. But Vermin was on Peter before he could speak, biting and clawing and determined to feed.
“No, Vermin! I’m not going to—”
Vermin’s claws dug in once more, reopening Spider-Man’s wounds. Peter screamed in pain and danced aside, trying to get some distance from his attacker. Vermin pressed his advantage, springing at Spider-Man. As Vermin came down, slashing the air, Peter grabbed the creature’s forearm with his left hand and swung his right as hard as he could. He connected, shattering one of Vermin’s teeth.
I don’t want to do this, Peter thought. I didn’t come here to fight you, Vermin. I came here to kill Kraven!
(Spider-Man and Death—a partnership for the ages.)
No, Spider-Man replied to the unseen whisper, I don’t want to do this.
(What do you get? What’s in it for Peter Parker?)
I don’t want to do this!
(WHAT DO YOU GET?)
“All right!” Peter screamed, barreling at Vermin with both fists. He wanted an excuse to hit something, someone—Vermin or Kraven or ghosts be damned. “If that’s the way you want it, that’s the way it’s gonna be!” His knuckles broke bones in Vermin’s jaw, then bloodied the rodent’s nose. And still Kraven watched.
All at once, the trauma of the last two weeks washed over Peter. As he landed fist after fist on Vermin’s face, gunfire echoed through his ears. The distant heartbeat called and cursed his name with equal rhythm. He gave in to the anger, drank deep from a reservoir of rage, and released two long weeks of pain and horror. And still Kraven watched.
“He shot me,” Spider-Man explained through a rush of tears and adrenaline, each blow stronger and heavier than the last. “He buried me! Buried me! Do you know what that’s like, you disgusting animal?” Bits of fur and blood came away on Peter’s knuckles, but he kept up the barrage. “Do you know what that’s like?”
And still Kraven watched.
Hand raised, chest heaving, Spider-Man stood above Vermin’s shaking, bleeding body and prepared to drive a final blow through Edward Whelan’s teeth. The web-slinger’s own blood seeped thickly from wounds across his chest, and his head pounded like a clutch of jackhammers. He unclenched his jaw, caught his breath, and glanced around the silent cavern. The only noises were the distant rumble of thunder, Vermin’s pitiful moans, and Peter Parker’s own labored breathing. He stood—hands raised, chest heaving— and turned his head to stare into Kraven’s eyes.
Kraven stood silent as a grave, head cocked to one side, watching and waiting.
Peter looked at his own clenched, tight fists. He dropped them to his sides and deliberately slowed his breathing again.
What am I doing? he asked himself. I don’t want to do this. This isn’t why I came here.
(what’s in it for peter parker?)
Peter shook his head and loosened his fists, shaking his fingers free. Shut up, he told his ghosts. I don’t want to do this.
He turned to face Kraven, met the man’s flinty, narrowed eyes. He wants me to do this. Another one of his tricks. The question isn’t what Peter Parker wants, what’s in it for me…
…but what’s in it for Kraven the Hunter.
Spider-Man stepped away from Vermin, wiping dirt and blood from his costume. “No,” he said firmly. He would not give Kraven the satisfaction of watching him break. He would not let the Hunter goad him into becoming an animal.
He would not let Kraven win.
“No,” he said again. He stepped toward Kraven, prepared to end this ordeal once and for all. Then, with a bloodcurdling roar, Vermin sprang onto Spider-Man’s back and began to tear him apart.
FIFTEEN
A CLAWED foot shot out and kicked Spider-Man in the eye, knocking him to the ground. Vermin continued to advance with a slashing left to the throat and a knee to the rib cage.
Surprised and weakened, Spider-Man showed no signs of recovery. He crawled along the ground, attempting to flee from Vermin’s onslaught.
Sergei continued to watch. Hurt him, Vermin, he thought. And in hurting him, in defeating Spider-Man, you’ll make him see.
Sergei had been the Spider. Sergei had beaten them both. Now it amused him to watch his victims tear each other to pieces.
He stared down into Spider-Man’s eyes, searching for something ancient and clever, cruel and admirable—Blake’s Tyger living in mortal skin. But Sergei found nothing—not the Beast that had hounded and exiled his father, nor the demon that Sergei had tried, time and again, to bring to heel in the canyons and jungles of New York. He beheld no Spider, nothing of the eight-legged, magnificent, laughing creature that had shattered his mother and driven her to suicide.
They said my mother was insane.
How old he felt. How unutterably tired. The game had been a good one, but it had been so very long.
He was so tired. And that was far from all.
Tonight it ends. Finally.
Sergei turned his attention back to the fight. Vermin straddled Spider-Man, pressing the man’s face into the dirt with one filthy, clawed hand. The other hand, poised to strike above the wall-crawler’s skull, hovered in the air for a moment as Vermin growled. He shook with hunger and fervor, then leaned down to gloat in Spider-Man’s ear. “Now…now, sssssSpider-Man…I’m gonna eat you alive!”
Spider-Man squirmed beneath Vermin’s weight, desperately trying to escape. But the rat-man’s blood was up, and he hissed loud and long, tensing himself for the kill.
“No!” Sergei grabbed a tamer’s whip—rattlesnake hide, resilient and pliable—and snapped it against Vermin’s chest. The rodent reared back, squealing at the bite of the whip.
Sergei drove the animal back and away from Spider-Man. With precision aim, he threw a lightweight, boot-fitted hunting dagger through Vermin’s palm, impaling the creature against the cavern wall. Vermin screamed, struggling to free himself. Sergei s
tepped forward, shaking the whip in Vermin’s direction.
“The point has been made,” Sergei said, fixing his gaze on the rat-man’s steely, solemn eyes. “Your work is done.” He pointed to the stairs leading to the townhouse above. “Now go.”
Vermin hesitated. He reached over and pulled the dagger from the wall, releasing his hand in a gout of rich, red blood. “Go?” Dull red eyes darted to the stairs as if he were wondering what new, cruel deception Sergei had waiting in the wings.
You’ll find none, Vermin. All my tricks are spent. It’s over. “Go,” Sergei repeated, adding force and gravitas to the word.
Vermin stepped away from Spider-Man, padding slowly to the stairs while keeping an eye on Sergei. Vermin tossed the dagger aside, letting it clatter noisily to the floor, then rushed up the first flight of stairs. He ran past the initial braziers, the soft light casting shadow against the bruised and matted fur on his face. He stopped halfway and looked back, down into the cavern. Spider-Man lay on the floor groaning. Sergei waited with the whip in his hand.
Vermin sniffed, cast one last look at the open cage, then raced up the stairs to the floors above. “Freeeeee!” he screamed, his voice echoing back down the stairs and caroming about the cavern.
“Kraven…” Spider-Man began weakly. “Kraven, you can’t just…can’t let him go…!”
Spider-Man raised himself on one arm and reached a hand out to Sergei. “He’s…he’s killed before…” A hacking cough, and Spider-Man fell back on the ground, overwhelmed by the dirt and smoke, as well as his many injuries. He began to crawl, moving an inch at a time toward the nearby stairwell. “He’ll kill again…”
Sergei’s ears—ears of Bat, ears of Owl—picked up a distant noise, far above: the distinct sound of shattering glass. Vermin had made his escape, found the road to freedom. No matter, Sergei thought.
Sergei laid the whip on the ground and dropped to one knee. He placed both hands beneath Spider-Man’s arms and lifted. “Let me help you,” he said sincerely.
Spider-Man relinquished control, resting his weight against the Hunter’s arms. Sergei took a moment to gaze into the other man’s eyes, to see into his very essence.
The Spider is still alive in him. It allows him to drink of its strength, to draw on its force of will. The Spider will go on, and there will undoubtedly be others to rise up in opposition. But like Lion and Elephant, it is a totemic Spider—not an ancient, malicious Beast, as I once imagined.
Sergei nodded at Spider-Man, grunted and shifted his weight. Slowly they began moving upstairs, one step at a time. It is no longer my concern. My Spider is gone.
Now…
…now there is only a man. A good man, I think. How strange that I have not been able to see that until now.
Sergei shouldered the injured vigilante up to the main level, listening to Spider-Man’s weak, labored breathing. Vermin had inflicted a great deal of damage—and Spider-Man was still suffering from Sergei’s cocktail of drugs, which had allowed him to survive for two weeks in a period of stasis without food or water. Spider-Man’s head lolled, bouncing as Sergei helped him above ground, and the hero’s body thrummed with latent, nervous energy. No doubt he was concerned about the good people of New York, vulnerable to the newly freed cannibal in their midst. All of his concern for the sheep, none for himself.
A good man, indeed, Sergei thought. Despite our many battles, and the years between us, I could not see that until today. But no matter. I do see—and in seeing, Spider-Man, I thank you. And bless you.
If one such as Kraven can give blessings.
Spider-Man looked up with considerable effort. He clutched at Sergei’s naked shoulder with broken, costumed fingers. “Kraven…” he said weakly. “…I don’t understand…”
Sergei nodded, unwilling to smile and demean this new paradigm, the level of equal standing that they had finally achieved. Of course Spider-Man did not understand. How could he? How could this man— this good man—comprehend the lifelong turmoil, the journey that Sergei had been on since leaving Russia all those years before? How could a man such as this understand the mind of Sergei Kravinoff—he who had been the Spider, and the Hunter before that?
I see now. I see that our perpetual battle, our give-and-take as predator and prey, has been a one-sided struggle. To you, Spider-Man—a man simply trying to do what is right; beset by demons, beasts, goblins, and hunters—I see that our dance has been performed in the name of the common good.
Sergei walked Spider-Man to the rear of the townhouse, back to the room from which they’d come. They walked toward the shattered window, the wind beckoning them closer. Sergei lowered his head and helped Spider-Man over the shards along the floor, bringing him to the window and lifting him through the jagged glass.
Spider-Man climbed up and onto the windowsill. As Sergei supported his oldest, greatest enemy, he could feel Spider-Man’s body tense, the bracing night air and pelting rain calling to him from outside. Sergei could now ignore its call, but Spider-Man’s duty beckoned like a righteous beacon. He would ignore his pain and injuries to stop Vermin at all cost. For Spider-Man, the name or the sins made no difference: Good existed to vanquish evil. Deep inside, in a place where he felt a tiny amount of shame and regret, Sergei Kravinoff realized which of the two he had been. He saw that now.
And there is one final thing I see. Something I do not think I was capable of seeing until now.
Every man has his Spider.
Sergei raised his neck, lifting his lionlike head, and stared into Spider-Man’s eyes. A moment of silence passed between the Hunter and hunted, between victor and victim—villain and hero. Sergei’s eyes brimmed with tears for a moment. He felt, again, so very old.
Every man has his Spider. And perhaps I have been yours.
Sergei waved his hand toward the sky. “You are free. Go.”
Spider-Man warily eyed Sergei. “Just like that? Go?” He balled his fists, ready to continue their pointless struggle. “After all you’ve done, Kraven, do you think I’m really gonna—”
“A man like you will not let Vermin run loose. Go, Spider-Man. Follow your conscience.”
Spider-Man edged toward the darkness, letting the rain coat his mask. He winced in pain as the droplets tore into recent wounds.
“Go? While you run merrily along, hunting and ruining lives…using people to—”
Sergei moved toward the door, leaving Spider-Man to his choice. The Hunter’s eyes felt heavy and his shoulders weary, as if a great weight had finally been lifted from his back. He paused for a moment, turning to address Spider-Man over his shoulder.
“After all these years, Spider-Man, you surely know that I am a man of my word. And I give you my word now.”
Sergei raised a hand to his heart, clutching his fingers into a fist. His eyes bored into the twin, blank voids in Spider-Man’s mask. “From this night forward, Kraven the Hunter will never hunt again.”
Here at the end of the road, Sergei did not feel anything akin to nostalgia or sorrow. All he felt was a surge of pride and a sense of ending. And in that ending, something more.
Spider-Man did not reciprocate Sergei’s empathy. He crouched low in the window, grasping the wall for purchase with shaking fingers, and lowered his head. “I’ll be back,” he said. Then he leapt over the glass into the pouring rain, firing a webline and swinging away through the storm. Lightning arced above Manhattan.
Sergei stepped to the window, staring through the shattered pane. He silently watched his greatest enemy, his only friend, dwindle into the night.
“I’ll be back,” Spider-Man had said.
I do not doubt it, Sergei thought. Every man, every woman and nation—in fact, every age has had its Spider. You, sir, have been mine.
What a burden, Sergei reflected, wistfully gazing into the distance as the familiar costume danced amid the downpour. Spider-Man soon disappeared in the heavy gray clouds, looming buildings, and portentous, deepening deluge.
What a burden, S
ergei mused again.
And what an honor.
Goodbye.
SIXTEEN
SERGEI Kravinoff walked on the flats of his feet to the library, shouldering aside the solid doors to enter his study. He ignored the books and maps, heading to the desk where his robe rested across a gathering of albums and framed photos. He shrugged into the robe, cinching it over his muscled, aged frame. He’d already removed his ceremonial hunting garb, the skin he’d worn for so long in this jumbled, confused, derelict jungle—this place that he’d called home since leaving the plains and jungles of his beloved Africa. The skin that Sergei had adopted to honor his father, the man who’d uprooted his family from the nobility and peace of beloved Russia so many years before.
Sergei swept aside the albums and paper strewn across the desktop. Wind and rain rattled the windows. Lightning flashed once, illuminating the library and the photos on the desk. He ran his calloused fingers along their dusty frames and lifted a portrait to his face, one in which a younger Sergei—no older than a cub—grinned before his stiff, unsmiling parents.
How calm I feel, Sergei thought. How peaceful. As if something inside me—some knot, perhaps, or tangle of fear and anger—has finally unraveled.
He stared into the eyes of his younger self, searching for an answer or truth but finding none. All these years: fleeing Russia, suffocating here in America, finding release—no, finding honor—in the jungle. All these years, and I have never known happiness.
Sergei’s mind raced. He fingered the photo frame and wiped dust from its edges. Where could one find happiness today? he wondered.
Sergei reached across the desk and jabbed a button. Behind him, the chapel entrance slid open. He turned and walked around the desk—placing weight back on his toes, returning to an animal’s pace without realizing it. He carried the photograph into the chapel, doors sliding closed behind.
I am Kravinoff, Sergei told himself. Were my father alive, and my mother, they would look upon this frightened animal called civilization with great fear.