face, with eight lenses set into it, like the eyes of a spider.
The last thing in the trunk was an ornate box containing a set of immaculately-printed business cards. On one side, the cards showed a spider design, in red. On the other:
Where all inhuman
Devils revel in their sins -
The Blood-Spider spins!
As he popped the buttons on his white dress shirt and slid it off, Crane felt a strange sense of peace and contentment envelop his mind. It was a wonderful feeling to strip away the cares of the world, the outward show that was Parker Crane, gentleman of leisure, and to become his true self. How had that editorial put it? The spider at the centre of a web of blood and vengeance.
How true , thought Parker Crane. How very true.
He lifted one of the black shirts, inhaling the fresh scent of the laundry. Jonah had done a capital job, as ever - bloodstains were hard to get out of any fabric, and black clothing had a tendency to turn grey if improperly handled. "You're quite the most invaluable member of my web, Jonah," Crane murmured, as he slid an arm into a black sleeve.
"One does one's best, Master Parker." nodded Jonah, deferential as ever, then turned respectfully around as Crane continued changing.
The mask was the last thing to go on. That was the moment when it really happened. When he felt the weight of that dreadful playboy pose - that vicissitude, that narcissism, that languid sloth that felt as heavy as lead on his back - all fall away, replaced by the cold, bright, beautiful clarity of his cause. His mission. To purge the world of the criminals. To wipe out the inhuman.
It was Parker Crane who raised the mask to his face, but it was the Blood-Spider who tightened the straps.
Occasionally, he wondered if there was anyone else who felt as he did, who could lift a mask to his face and become an entirely different person, stronger, faster, harder, colder, better. If such a person existed, he should like to meet them one day. To compare notes.
If they were in agreement with the cause, of course.
Otherwise, they would have to die.
" Telephone." hissed the Blood-Spider. Jonah bowed, then turned to open a small cupboard near the door. Inside was a black telephone, connected to an unlisted line separate from the club's own. The gloved hands snatched it up, fingers dialing the numbers, stabbing savagely at the apparatus as if possessed. Then he lifted the receiver to that strange, almost-featureless mask and waited, as the spider waits, patiently and remorselessly, for the fly.
David Sikorsky jumped as the phone on the wall rang. "Christ!"
Marlene smiled, shifting her weight on the couch. "I was expecting that. Be a dear and fetch it for me, will you?"
David frowned. He was a man in his mid thirties, lean and twitchy, with a mop of black hair resting on top of his head like a bird's nest and an unkempt goatee sprouting from his chin. He had a penchant for dark-coloured turtlenecks, cheap black coffee and 'breaker' music, which blared tinnily from a clockwork gramophone in the corner of his studio; the thumping, insistent beat of the drums colliding with the insistent jangle of the telephone. He stared at it for a moment, then looked at his model, brow furrowed with impotent irritation. He'd asked her not to take calls while she was modeling. He'd told her a dozen times, he couldn't have his concentration broken during a shoot, but did she listen?
For a moment, his eyes dueled with hers - two sapphires, gleaming with superior amusement - and then his will broke and he turned to the ringing phone with a heavy, theatrical sigh. Passive aggression had always been David's forte. Rather than answer it himself, he simply lifted the receiver off the hook and, adopting an exaggerated air of indifference, carried it across the studio, the long extension cord stretching as he held it to Marlene's ear.
She was not in a position to take hold of it herself, of course. The black leather singleglove cinching her
The last thing in the trunk was an ornate box containing a set of immaculately-printed business cards. On one side, the cards showed a spider design, in red. On the other:
Where all inhuman
Devils revel in their sins -
The Blood-Spider spins!
As he popped the buttons on his white dress shirt and slid it off, Crane felt a strange sense of peace and contentment envelop his mind. It was a wonderful feeling to strip away the cares of the world, the outward show that was Parker Crane, gentleman of leisure, and to become his true self. How had that editorial put it? The spider at the centre of a web of blood and vengeance.
How true , thought Parker Crane. How very true.
He lifted one of the black shirts, inhaling the fresh scent of the laundry. Jonah had done a capital job, as ever - bloodstains were hard to get out of any fabric, and black clothing had a tendency to turn grey if improperly handled. "You're quite the most invaluable member of my web, Jonah," Crane murmured, as he slid an arm into a black sleeve.
"One does one's best, Master Parker." nodded Jonah, deferential as ever, then turned respectfully around as Crane continued changing.
The mask was the last thing to go on. That was the moment when it really happened. When he felt the weight of that dreadful playboy pose - that vicissitude, that narcissism, that languid sloth that felt as heavy as lead on his back - all fall away, replaced by the cold, bright, beautiful clarity of his cause. His mission. To purge the world of the criminals. To wipe out the inhuman.
It was Parker Crane who raised the mask to his face, but it was the Blood-Spider who tightened the straps.
Occasionally, he wondered if there was anyone else who felt as he did, who could lift a mask to his face and become an entirely different person, stronger, faster, harder, colder, better. If such a person existed, he should like to meet them one day. To compare notes.
If they were in agreement with the cause, of course.
Otherwise, they would have to die.
" Telephone." hissed the Blood-Spider. Jonah bowed, then turned to open a small cupboard near the door. Inside was a black telephone, connected to an unlisted line separate from the club's own. The gloved hands snatched it up, fingers dialing the numbers, stabbing savagely at the apparatus as if possessed. Then he lifted the receiver to that strange, almost-featureless mask and waited, as the spider waits, patiently and remorselessly, for the fly.
David Sikorsky jumped as the phone on the wall rang. "Christ!"
Marlene smiled, shifting her weight on the couch. "I was expecting that. Be a dear and fetch it for me, will you?"
David frowned. He was a man in his mid thirties, lean and twitchy, with a mop of black hair resting on top of his head like a bird's nest and an unkempt goatee sprouting from his chin. He had a penchant for dark-coloured turtlenecks, cheap black coffee and 'breaker' music, which blared tinnily from a clockwork gramophone in the corner of his studio; the thumping, insistent beat of the drums colliding with the insistent jangle of the telephone. He stared at it for a moment, then looked at his model, brow furrowed with impotent irritation. He'd asked her not to take calls while she was modeling. He'd told her a dozen times, he couldn't have his concentration broken during a shoot, but did she listen?
For a moment, his eyes dueled with hers - two sapphires, gleaming with superior amusement - and then his will broke and he turned to the ringing phone with a heavy, theatrical sigh. Passive aggression had always been David's forte. Rather than answer it himself, he simply lifted the receiver off the hook and, adopting an exaggerated air of indifference, carried it across the studio, the long extension cord stretching as he held it to Marlene's ear.
She was not in a position to take hold of it herself, of course. The black leather singleglove cinching her
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