Spiderman 3 (8 page)

For the first time since this had begun… possibly for the first time since he had acquired his spider powers… Peter Parker was seized with the belief that he was going to die.

His life flashed before his eyes.

And then everything went dark.

THE LONGEST NIGHT (PART One)

The rushing of air past Peter's face roused him to the outer fringes of consciousness. He hadn't recovered enough to completely register what was happening, but he reacted with desperate reflex.

He twisted around and blindly fired a webline. He had absolutely no idea which way he was shooting it, and no clue how close to the ground he was—if the webbing went straight up, he was a dead man.

For the first time since the assault began, Peter's luck held up. His webbing snagged something. He didn't know what it was, but as long as it wasn't moving, that was good enough for him.

From high above, he heard a roar of disapproval. The Goblin had apparently been watching his descent, satisfied to observe Peter's final splat from a distance. So Peter was actually far enough away that the Goblin didn't have an opportunity to cut the webline.

Peter snapped back upward like a bungee jumper, and as his vision cleared, he saw that the webline had snagged on a stone gargoyle perched atop the corner of a building.

He landed on the ledge and held on to the gargoyle for a moment, steadying himself.

Then he remembered the ring.

Desperately looking around, stretching his already heightened senses to their limits, he spotted it. Ten stories below, the glittering ring ricocheted off a parked car with a hollow
tink
, bounced into the street…

… and tumbled straight toward a sewer grating.

No. God, please, no, not that.

Shoving his back against the wall for balance, he fired webbing from both arms at the grating. The webbing sprayed out across it, completely covering the openings. Seconds later the diamond ring rolled onto the grating but came to a halt, ensnared in the webbing.

Peter let out a sigh of relief, but he had no time to dwell on his brief triumph. The Goblin was diving down toward him, a pumpkin bomb in his hand. He threw it, and Peter leaped clear of the building side. The bomb slammed into the gargoyle and blew it off the ledge, sending the entire statue hurtling toward the ground.

Seizing the opportunity, Peter landed a short distance away even as he fired a webline, snagging the gargoyle. He swung his arm, whipping the statue around. Perfect timing—Harry had wrongly assumed that Peter was going to prevent the gargoyle from falling to the street. Instead Peter snapped the statue around as if it were a mace and sent it slamming into the Goblin with such force that it caused him to lose control of the Sky Stick. Harry pinwheeled across the Manhattan skyline, howling with fury.

Still holding the webline, Peter swung the statue up in a smooth arc that sent it tumbling onto the roof overhead. He then released it and skittered to the ground, moving with reckless speed. Peter hit the street still running, stumbled for a second, then righted himself and sprinted to the sewer grating. He plucked the precious ring from the webbing, shoved it in his pants pocket—and then for good measure webbed the pocket shut.

Peter looked around to figure out where the hell he was and realized that the battle had carried them many blocks south into Chinatown.

For some reason a Woody Allen comment crossed his mind:
I'm astounded by people who want to "know" the universe when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown
.

Chinatown was an endless maze of narrow streets and alleyways. Peter had gotten lost there on two separate occasions and had always considered it one of the perks of his powers to be capable of swinging
above
Chinatown and not have to worry about it anymore.

That wasn't possible now, as the cackling of the Goblin informed him. Harry had obviously pulled out of his tailspin, descending toward Peter at high speed.

It was a blessing to be here. In the open space, bounding between buildings, Peter had had no chance. The Goblin
(Harry, dammit, it's Harry, stop thinking of him as the Goblin)
had all the room to maneuver and could hammer him relentlessly while Peter had nowhere to hide and no means of avoiding the attacks except through healthy dollops of luck. Down here, though, in the confines of Chinatown, his agility and quick thinking might give him the edge he needed.

At least, that was the theory.

Knowing that his life depended on his being right, Peter vaulted into the nearest alleyway and started running down it. For a moment he wondered if Harry would figure out what his strategy was and refuse to be drawn into it. He needn't have worried. Without hesitation, Harry descended into the alleyway on his Sky Stick and went in pursuit of his best friend.

"You can run, Pete, but you can't hide!" Harry crowed, and laughed once more.

The alley couldn't have been more than four feet wide. Peter ran as fast as he could, his heart pounding against his chest. Harry stayed right on him, never more than a few yards back. Peter's spider-sense managed to keep him ahead, but just barely. He moved right, left, never slowing, vaulting over garbage dumps, trash heaps, and the occasional unconscious drunk.

Peter cut a corner tight, entered a street that was as narrow as the alley he'd just left, and kept going. He ducked as a blast of concussive force seared the air over his head. Then the ground under his feet exploded, sending him flying and crashing through a storefront display window.

Harry dove down toward Peter, his right fist crackling as it prepped another concussive blast.

Peter seized a string of Chinese firecrackers from the ruined storefront display window and frantically threw them just as Harry unleashed another blast. It struck the firecrackers in midair and the entire array exploded directly in front of him. Noise and great gouts of color erupted all around Harry, confusing him, causing him to roar in fury, and then Peter was off again.

"You don't get away that easy, Pete!" Harry shouted, and kept on coming. Peter sprinted down another alleyway, which connected to another and yet another. Harry didn't slow; in fact, he was gaining, and Peter was starting to get out of breath. His endurance was superhuman, but it wasn't infinite.

A Dumpster sat dead ahead. Peter grabbed hold of it as he passed by, turned fast, and with an impressive display of strength sent the whole thing hurtling upward toward the Goblin. Garbage and assorted decaying food filled the air, momentarily blinding Harry (and, likely, grossing him out a bit). Peter headed down yet another alleyway in this labyrinthine neighborhood, his mind racing, trying to come up with
any
more ideas as his energy flagged.

He looked up—clotheslines were strung above him. The upper section of the alleyway was going to be too difficult for Harry to maneuver, so he was going to fly low. Quickly Peter fired his webbing at a spot about five feet overhead and affixed it to the wall opposite. He drew it taut, and in the darkness of the alley, the gossamer web strand practically disappeared.

He heard Harry coming in fast, gunning the engine of the Sky Stick. Peter started running again—Harry had to see him to make the trap work. Peter was halfway down the alley when Harry came roaring around the corner, practically a blur to Peter's eye.

Without slowing, Harry sped down the alleyway toward Peter, holding a pumpkin bomb in one hand and announcing that this was it, Peter wasn't going to get away this time.

Harry never came close to spotting the webline.

He hit it at full speed, the webbing cutting across his chest. Harry was knocked clean off the Sky Stick. The device kept going, bereft of its operator. Seconds later it crashed to the ground, tumbling several times before sputtering to a halt.

Harry fared far worse.

He bounded back with as much force as he'd expended when he hit the webline. Because it had taken him in his midsection, he flipped over and landed on the pavement headfirst. Peter gasped in horror. Yes, the armor would absorb some of the damage, but that was still Harry's body in there suffering the high-speed concussive impact. The human body could only take so much jolting around. A neck or back could easily snap, armored or not.

Peter saw his friend lying in a heap on the ground and, to his own frustration, found himself hesitating. It could be a trick. Harry could be playing possum, lying there to draw him in close, biding his time for Peter to lean over him in concern—and then Harry could gut him. Send his intestines spilling out into the alleyway and laugh in glee at the stupid expression on Peter Parker's dying face.

Peter's hesitation seemed to him to last an age.
If that's how I die, then that's the way it goes, but I've got to see if he's all right
.

Disdaining caution, Peter vaulted to the fallen Harry and checked him over. No warning of imminent danger from his spider-sense—Harry wasn't faking anything. Peter pulled the mask away and saw that Harry's eyes were closed, his face pale, a thin line of spittle trailing down the side of his face.

"Harry?" he said, but didn't wait for a response. Yanking the gauntlet off, he checked Harry's pulse.

Nothing.

"Oh my God," he whispered, unable to believe it. There was no way Peter could endure the knowledge that he had killed his best friend and single-handedly put an end to the Osborn family line. He put his head to Harry's chest.

Still nothing. The silence of the grave.

"
Oh my God! Harry
!" There was no whispering it now, and even as Peter howled his dismay, he started pumping Harry's chest. He had never been more grateful for that course in CPR that he had taken at the Y some years ago. He had been driven by terrible concerns that he might find his aunt or uncle collapsed on the floor one day, and he wanted to be certain that he would know what to do. Of course, he could never have envisioned back then, back before his life became the insane spectacle that it was today, the use to which he would be putting the training.

Even as he applied the pressure to Harry's heart, Peter's mind was racing. First rule of an accident: don't move the victim. You could cause all manner of greater damage in doing so.

But he didn't have a cell phone to call an ambulance, and even if he did, Peter didn't know where the hell he was. He couldn't begin to describe their location beyond "somewhere in Chinatown."

He thought he felt a stirring in Harry's chest, but he couldn't be certain. CPR was simply a stopgap to keep someone alive until the paramedics showed up. None were going to be coming in this case… or at least not in time.

Seeing that he had no choice, Peter slung Harry over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Taking two quick steps, he fired a webline upward and bounded to the top of a building. He needed height, he needed to be able to see what was in the vicinity. The instant he hit the roof, he fired another webline and started swinging.
Uptown, head uptown
, he frantically told himself. He knew uptown better than he did downtown, and besides, downtown tended to be more deserted at this hour.