He was barely conscious, even with his enhanced resilience. If I left him there, he was as good as dead.
"For crying out loud," I complained. "I haven't got enough to do?"
Mortia screamed again. It sounded like she was a lot farther away this time, maybe all the way to the edge of the inlet. A second later, I heard another brassy, weird-sounding call from the opposite direction. Thanis and Malos were closing in.
"No good deed goes unpunished," I muttered. Then I bent down and slung the Rhino over my shoulder. The extra eight hundred pounds was going to make web-slinging difficult, but I couldn't just leave the loser there to die.
So I got moving again, if more slowly, this time carrying an unconscious foe, avoiding the incoming Ancients, and making my way back to MJ and Felicia.
Chapter 16
When I tapped on the glass, Felicia opened the window of Aunt May's apartment. She looked at me. Then at the Rhino, wrapped in webbing from the shoulders down and strapped onto my back like a hyperthyroid papoose, the horn on his silly hat wobbling as his head bobbed in the relaxation of the senseless.
Then she looked at me again, blinked, and said, "You're kidding."
"Just open the window the rest of the way and stand back," I told her.
"I hope Aunt May is insured," she said, but she did it.
I climbed in with the Rhino on my back. I wasn't worried about hurting him if I banged him into something. I was more worried about the something. So I brought him in as carefully as I could and laid him out on the kitchen floor.
Aunt May's apartment is somewhat spartan, for an elderly lady. When she moved out of the house I grew up in, the one she had shared with Uncle Ben, she put many of her belongings in storage, rather than attempting to stuff them into her little apartment. She still has some of her furniture—a table, chairs for it, her rocker, her couch. She replaced their double bed with a single one; there's a small guest room where she put the double, for when Mary Jane and I visit. She keeps a couple of bookshelves filled with everything from
Popular Science
(which I'm still half-sure she only subscribes to so that I'll have something to read when I visit) to romance novels to history books. She has a few small shelves, a few knickknacks, and that's about it.
Mary Jane came in and hugged me tight, then stared at the man on the floor. "Oh, God. What happened to his face?"
The Rhino looked bad. No worse than he had when I had picked him up, but no better, either.
"Mortia did it to him," I said. "She decided he wasn't useful anymore and started feeding on him."
Felicia regarded the Rhino with a cool, distant expression. "He's dead, then?"
"Not yet," I said.
"Are you insane?" Felicia asked quietly.
Mary Jane gave her a sharp glance.
"If Mortia did this to him," Felicia explained, "she touched him. If she touched him, she can follow him, find him, as long as he is alive. Which means—"
"She can find us here," Mary Jane breathed. She looked at me. "Peter?"
"No names," I said quietly. "He's out, but he'll be coming to anytime now. He doesn't need to know any names."
"This is massively stupid," Felicia snapped. "You're going to get yourself killed. And me with you."
"She was going to kill him," I said. "What else could I have done?"
"You could have let her kill him," Felicia said.
I was glad that I had my mask on, because I wasn't sure I could have kept the anger I felt off of my face. "What happened to treating him like a human being? To his not being all that bad a person?"
"He might not be Charles Manson, but he chose which side to play for." She folded her arms. "It isn't a pleasant thought, not for anyone, but he knows there are risks in this kind of life. You should have let her have him. If nothing else, then she might not have been quite so hot and bothered about coming after you."
"So I guess he's not a person after all," I said, and I didn't keep the bitterness out of my words. "Is that it?"
"It isn't about that," she said. "It's about you putting your life at risk. If I had to choose between the two of you, it would be you. Without a second thought. All I was saying is that I wanted you to show a little respect for him. I never wanted you to throw your life away trying to save him."
"He isn't worth that?"
"Worth you?"
Felicia asked, her voice tired. "No. You can't save everyone. This time around, you'll be lucky to save yourself. Don't throw your life away on some boy scout scruple you can't survive."
Mary Jane stood to one side of the kitchen, motionless, almost invisible, listening, her wide green eyes on me.
I forced myself to take a slow breath. Then I asked, "What do you think I should do?"
"Put him on a train. A plane. Throw him on a truck. Anything, but get him out of here until we can learn more about the Ancients. Once we get up close with these things, once they've touched us, we only have one chance to put them away. If you keep the Rhino here, they'll find us. Maybe in the next few minutes. Certainly soon. So you use him to lead them off and buy us more time."
"That would be the same thing as murdering him myself," I said quietly.
Felicia shook her head, frustration evident on her face. "You didn't ask him to come back to New York. You didn't force the Rhino to get involved with the Ancients. You didn't make them turn on him. He did that all on his own."
"Should that matter?" I asked. "If your places were reversed," she said, "he'd do the same to you. In a heartbeat."
I looked down at the Rhino, maimed and helpless on Aunt May's kitchen floor.
What Felicia said was probably true. But…
maybe not, too. The Rhino could have done nothing while Doc Ock and his buddies finished me. He'd opposed them. They hadn't worked up to a fight or anything, but he'd said something, at least.
If our positions were reversed, would he have stood by and done nothing? Would he have let me die to save his own life?
Probably.
But…
But in the end, that didn't matter. Regardless of what the Rhino might or might not have done, it did not change who I was. It did not change the choice I had to make. It did not change the responsibility I would bear in making that choice. It did not change what was right and what was wrong.
"Earlier," I said quietly, "you asked me the difference between people like the Rhino and people like me." I looked at the man, then slowly nodded. "Maybe it starts right here. I'm not letting them have him. I'm not letting them have anyone."
"Gosh, that's noble," Felicia said, her voice tart. "Maybe MJ can put it on your tombstone."
"Felicia," Mary Jane said, stepping up beside me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You know he's right. If you could stop thinking about yourself for a minute, you'd realize that."
"Hey, Mrs. Cleaver. When I want your opinion, I'll read it in your entrails," Felicia snapped.
MJ's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"Enough."
I growled, loud and harsh enough that even MJ looked a little surprised. I turned to Felicia and said, "This is what I'm doing."
The Black Cat stared at me for a long moment, and then demanded, something almost like a plea in her voice, "For him? Why?"
"It doesn't matter who he is. I won't leave him to Mortia."
She got in my face, quietly furious, spitting each word. "This. Is. Suicide."
"Look, I get it that you're afraid—"
"Don't you patronize me," she hissed. "I'm not afraid of anything and you know it."
"I'm not saying you're a coward. There's no reason to feel ashamed of being afraid."