"MJ," I said in the same quiet voice. "That's my friend. And yours. You know that."
Mary Jane's face flickered with anger, but then she closed her eyes and shook her head once, and nodded to me. "I just…"
"We're all tense. This isn't the right way to handle it," I said quietly. "You're both better people than that. I need you to call a cease-fire. Please."
Felicia rolled her eyes at my reflection in the window. She was back in the Black Cat outfit again, though she'd slung a gauzy peasant skirt and a leather jacket, both dark blue, over it, and it would pass for a clubbing outfit to the casual eye. "Fine," she said. "MJ?"
"Yes," Mary Jane said in a measured tone. "There's no reason we can't be civil."
"Thank you," I said with exaggerated patience. Which was probably asking for trouble, but ye gods and little fishes, they were supposed to be adults.
"Are my leftovers in the fridge?" I asked my wife.
"Yes. Go ahead and eat," Mary Jane said.
I grunted and did, getting what remained of Wong's Shangri-la-level sandwiches out of the fridge. I took them to the table with a glass of milk and asked Felicia, "Did you get the prints?"
"Yes," Felicia said calmly.
"Do I want to know how?" I asked.
"Does it matter?"
I chewed on my sandwich. "It matters to me, I guess."
"Because I might have broken the law?"
"Yes."
"Ah," Felicia said. "You mean, the way the Rhino breaks the law. I mean, that's what you said made him a bad guy. How he broke the law all the time."
"What I said—"
"I mean, logically speaking, if you would have busted him for doing something illegal, I should expect you to treat me the same way. If I tell you that
I broke all kinds of laws getting the prints, are you going to take me in, Peter?"
Mary Jane said nothing, but her lips compressed and her eyes narrowed.
"No," I said. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Ah," Felicia said. "Well. You'll be pleased to know that I broke no laws whatsoever."
That surprised me a bit. I guess it showed on my face, because Felicia laughed. "All I had to do was contact Lamont. I told him what it was about and that I was working with you and he was happy to let me get a copy."
I blinked. "He was? Why?"
Felicia fluttered her eyelashes. "I asked him in person."
I snorted and shook my head. "You're shameless."
"Why, thank you," Felicia said. "I'm told you had some success this afternoon? MJ said something about magic rocks."
"That remains to be seen. I don't see how they're going to be of any help to us—at least not yet." I explained the rocks and showed her the page describing them. "Were you able to turn anything up from the prints?"
"Too soon," she said. "Oliver's good, but it will take several hours, at least, to start comparing them to all the databases."
I nodded. "All right," I said. "Meanwhile, we need more information. I think we should head out and tail these creeps around a little, find out what they're up to, where they're staying."
She nodded firmly. "Way ahead of you. I think we should—"
My spider sense began to stir, a slow tingling that rippled lightly over my spine and scalp.
Mary Jane sat up straight, her eyes widening as she saw my face. "Peter?"
"My spider tracer," I said quietly. "It's close."
"What should—"
"Shhhhh," I said, trying to focus on the sensation. There. The electronic signal the tracer emitted resonated off of whatever it was that made my spider sense work It was south of us, and coming closer, fast.
Just then, Felicia's jacket beeped. She reached in, grabbed her visors, and put them on for a moment. Then she let out a quiet curse. "My tracking paint," she said. "Closer than three hundred meters." She looked up with suddenly wide eyes. "Peter, we need to go now."
My spider sense quivered oddly, and I began to feel the first stirrings of the primal dread the Ancients caused in me.
"It's too late," I murmured. "They're here."
Chapter 15
No TIME. No TIME. Think fast, Spidey.
"Mary Jane," I said. "I want you to grab the credit cards, any cash we have, and a change of clothes. Now, move."
My wife nodded and hurried to the bedroom.
"Felicia," I said. "Get her out of here."
Felicia had never been much of a fan of tanning beds, but she looked especially pale about now. "Right. Where?"
"Aunt May's. Then we—"
Mary Jane emerged from the bedroom in a flowered dress and a fleece coat. She carried a nylon backpack in either hand. "That was fast," I told her.
"I thought it might be smart to have a traveling kit ready for emergencies," she said. "This one's mine. This one's yours. Cash, two credit cards we haven't used, medicine, a first aid kid, a blanket, some dried food, clothes."
I felt a surge of sudden pride. "That was pretty good thinking," I said.
"It never hurts to plan ahead." I kissed her on the mouth. "All right. Felicia's going to get you to the car, and then you're both going to scoot to Aunt May's."
"What?" Mary Jane protested. "I'm not going to—"
"Be used against me," I interrupted. "You're going with her."
"Peter…"
"Don't worry about me, MJ. I'll just bounce around insulting them for a while and then run away." I pulled off my street clothes, put on the mask, and the whole time the sense of panic in me continued to rise. "This can't be a discussion right now. They're getting closer. Go."
She swallowed, nodded, then said to Felicia, "We should use the stairs."
Felicia detached the flimsy skirt, produced that grappling baton from a sleeve, and opened the window with a grin. "Stairs?"
"Oh my," Mary Jane said. "Don't worry, MJ," Felicia said with a feline smile. "It won't be like with Peter, but I'll get you there." Her head tilted to one side as she presumably looked at something in the visor. "They're within a hundred meters already."
I checked in with my spider sense. "Yes. Mortia's almost directly below us. They're at the front of the building."
"They came in fast," Felicia said. "Come here,
MJ." She produced a strap of nylon webbing, clipped one end to a ring at the waist of her bodysuit, and flipped it around Mary Jane. "I thought you said they had to touch you to track you down."
"They do," I said. "They must have found us some other way."
"Like what?"
"If I knew, I'd have been making sure it didn't work," I said. "Tick tock, Cat."
"Don't get your webs in a knot," she advised me. She ran the strap around Mary Jane and secured it to something on her own outfit with a muted click. "Okay, MJ. We go out the window on three. Hold on tight."
"Wait," Mary Jane said. "Do I have my car keys?" She fumbled a set of keys out of her pocket and clenched a plastic tag on the key chain in her teeth. Then she nodded, donned her backpack, and she and Felicia went out the window on the slender cable extending from the Black Cat's baton.
I went out behind them, part of my attention on Felicia and MJ as they descended at a controlled pace that Felicia couldn't possibly have managed on upper body strength alone. It was hard to tell in the near-dark, but I was betting that there was some kind of rock-climbing-type harness built into the suit. Felicia guided them down in long, smooth rappels, obviously being careful. That would be for my sake, I knew. Given a choice, Felicia generally likes to do things in the most insanely dangerous fashion she thinks she can survive.
I hit the building above us with a webline, let it stretch, and used the snap to get some more air and throw myself out into the autumn air, nailing the building's corner with another webline to swing around. I sailed clear across the street in front of our apartment, stopped on the building across the street, and froze in a shadow halfway up while my spider sense clubbed me with what had become an almost familiar amount of brainstem-level terror.