After dropping their bags at the hotel, the trio hit the local markets to stock up on basic necessities. Theoretically, Peter Parker was still safely embedded with the Midtown High tour group. In reality, a Life Model Decoy was currently walking around wearing his face. Peter hadn't told a soul about the swap—except Gwen.
Gwen's observational skills were terrifyingly sharp. If he hadn't warned her, she would have spotted the android's micro-expressions in five minutes flat and panicked.
With their cover secured, Peter hit the pavement. His first stop: a dusty, cramped exotic reptile shop tucked into a side street. He didn't expect a breakthrough. The biggest missing piece of the Savage Force puzzle was why Richard Parker had specifically traveled to Italy for the Taranto spider. Did Richard know about the totem connection? If his father's mystery partner was just an American scientist, digging around Italian pet shops was a colossal waste of time.
But the bell above the door hadn't even stopped chiming when Peter struck gold.
"Professor Richard's boy?" The shopkeeper, a weathered man with a thick white mustache, leaned over the glass counter. He squinted at Peter. "I remember him. He bought a batch of Taranto tarantulas from me. Said it was for academic research. Shipped a few crates to the States, too, before the orders just stopped a few years back."
The man gestured toward a stack of ventilated plastic enclosures. Inside, thick, hairy spiders scurried over bark—a far cry from the genetically engineered Dr. Drew was currently breeding at Osborn Tech.
Peter leaned over the glass. "Did he ever explain why he needed local Taranto spiders? Why not just use stateside breeding stock?"
The shopkeeper offered a heavy, indifferent shrug. He wasn't paid to ask questions. "Customer wants local, I sell local. Simple."
Peter drummed his fingers against the counter. "Was there anyone else with him? A partner?"
"Just his wife," the man replied, wiping down the glass with a rag. "Maybe a driver waiting outside? I didn't see anyone else."
Peter's brow furrowed. A driver? Who exactly was this phantom partner?
"If you want to retrace your father's steps," the shopkeeper added, pointing a rag toward the window, "check the old town. The ancient Greek and Roman ruins along the coastline. He kept asking exactly where we harvested the specimens. I told him we caught them in the ruins."
Peter thanked the man and stepped back out into the blistering Mediterranean sun.
"Dead end," Peter said, shaking his head as Felicia and Cindy fell into step beside him. "If it were that easy, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have bagged the intel years ago."
Felicia crossed her arms, her boots clicking sharply against the cobblestone. "So we flew across Europe for a history lesson?"
Cindy ignored her, keeping her voice level. "We check the ruins next?"
"Yeah," Peter sighed, adjusting his backpack. "Let's go."
The old town was a labyrinth of sun-baked stone and narrow alleys. Scattered Greek columns jutted out of the earth, though the actual ruins were buried deep beneath the modern street level. Peter walked with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, frustration gnawing at the back of his skull.
Then, he froze.
His spine locked. It wasn't the sharp, agonizing spike of his spider-sense warning him of a bullet or a fist. It was a low, resonant hum. A vibration in his very blood. He snapped his head toward Cindy.
Cindy had stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes widened, locking onto his. She felt it too. The passive, continuous bond that tethered their spider-senses was practically ringing like a tuning fork.
Felicia stopped a few paces ahead, glancing between the two of them. She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes narrowing. "What? What are you two staring at?"
"Cindy," Peter whispered, his mind racing. "Could my dad have been...?"
"A spider totem?" Cindy finished, shaking her head. "No. S.H.I.E.L.D. swept his bloodwork. They would have flagged the genetic anomaly."
Peter's jaw tightened. "Right. But if it wasn't him... then his partner was a totem bearer."
Felicia blinked, entirely lost in the terminology, but Peter and Cindy didn't wait for her to catch up. They exchanged a single, hard nod.
They waited for the sun to drop. Under the cover of darkness, Peter swapped into his stealth suit. Moving silently across the rooftops, he and Cindy let the hum in their blood guide them, zeroing in on the epicenter of the resonance. They dropped into a narrow, shadowed alley. Peter hooked his fingers under a heavy iron manhole cover, hoisted it up with zero effort, and dropped into the dark.
Cindy and Felicia dropped in right behind him. The sewers smelled like damp earth and stagnant water. They hunched over, navigating the slick, curved walls until the tunnel abruptly banked left.
Peter stopped. He ran his gloved hand over the brick wall.
He pulled his fist back and drove it straight into the masonry. Bricks shattered, collapsing inward in a cloud of ancient dust. Peter kicked the remaining debris clear, revealing a secondary, hand-excavated tunnel carved directly into the bedrock.
He pressed his palm against the exposed stone. A faint, static charge brushed against his fingertips.
"Magic," Peter muttered, his lenses narrowing. "There's a mystical barrier layered into the rock. That's why S.H.I.E.L.D.'s satellite and ground-penetrating radar missed it."
Peter ducked his head and led the way into the tunnel. The air grew colder, drier. After fifty yards, the tunnel opened up.
The moment they stepped out of the confined space, the resonant hum between Peter and Cindy snapped off, replaced by an overwhelming, heavy silence. Faint, ethereal light bloomed from the walls, illuminating a massive, cavernous chamber. It was an ancient Roman ruin, perfectly preserved a thousand years beneath the earth.
Felicia took one step into the room and violently shuddered.
The floor was moving. Thousands of ten-centimeter Taranto spiders blanketed the ancient stone. They didn't spin webs. They simply crawled over one another in a dense, shifting tide. As the ambient light flared, the swarm scattered, retreating into the cracks and shadows of the masonry.
"I literally have spider DNA," Peter swallowed hard, "and even I think this is way too many spiders."
He stepped deeper into the chamber. At the far end of the hall, two colossal stone statues dominated the space.
Peter approached the first. It was a massive carving of a young woman wrapped in ancient Egyptian garments. Peter recognized the iconography instantly from his meta knowledge. Neith. The goddess of weaving. Ancient text glowed faintly at the base of the pedestal. Peter translated the script under his breath.
"The weaver of the Web of Fate, whose mother stole her name and became the mother of the Nile gods."
Gaia, Peter realized. In the deeper layers of universal lore, Gaia was the mother of the gods, wearing a thousand different masks across human mythology.
He turned to the second statue. A heavily muscled man carved in traditional West African attire. Peter had crossed paths with this entity before.
"The first spider totem. The god of lies and stories. He who spread the knowledge of the spider totem throughout the entire Web of Fate."
Anansi.
Peter took a slow step backward, the pieces violently clicking into place.
"This isn't a laboratory," Peter whispered, his voice echoing off the ancient stone. "It's a temple. Dedicated to Neith and Anansi."
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