Chapter 1: Nightmares
"Matt?" The old priest sipped on his coffee slowly as he stood by the new coffee-maker his church was granted. In the corner of his eye, a mirror showed the reflection of a man with red-tinted glasses. The resident blind lawyer of Hell's Kitchen had visited before. Today, the purpose seemed no different than the last. "Would you like some coffee?"
Matt Murdock did not respond, standing still between the doorway of the lounge room. Lantom looked away from the mirror and turned to face the younger man. "No coffee? Oh! Latte then? I make a mean cup. Sister Ann did say..."
Lantom's voice trailed as he took a good look at Matt. His thick auburn hair was a sloppy mess. His shirt was barely tucked in, buttons haphazardly worn. Bruises lined his face.
"Huh." It was all Lantom could manage out. The priest took another sip of his coffee. "You look, well, disheveled."
"Last night, something went wrong. Horribly wrong. I, ah, couldn't, n-n-no, I didn't... last night just went wrong."
Matt's voice strained as he spoke. He seemed on the verge of breaking. Lantom placed his mug on the counter and filled another cup with the latte brew he had just made. He placed the other cup on the table in front of him, pulled out a chair for himself and sat down with his mug in hand. "Sit down, and drink."
"You don't understand. I've been awake the whole night. I can't sleep, and I don't want any-"
Lantom cut off the younger man's anxious reply with a wave of his hand. He motioned to the cup he had poured for Matt. "Sit down, son, and drink."
Matt walked warily to the table, each step seemingly laborious, and sat own. He reached out to the cup slowly and held it with trembling hands. Lantom watched as the blind man sipped at the coffee.
"Now tell me, Matt, about last night."
Sergeant Brett Mahoney fiddled with his peak cap as he stared out the hospital window. The early morning view of the Kitchen skyline did not put him at ease. Tall office towers pierced into the sky and on more than a few of these glass structures, large 'Union Allied' logos cast menacing shadows over the dirty back alleys and run-down apartment blocks Brett had come to accept as part and parcel of his neighborhood. They were an ominous presence. From the thirteenth floor of the hospital building, he could see how far gone his neighborhood had become. Two years had come and went, with nothing to show for. The world of Hell's Kitchen was as gray and derelict as the day it saw its thriving community brought to its knees. So many still reeled from the battle that took place not far away.
As his thoughts drifted back to May fourth, he felt a familiar rage. He was there when it happened, when a terror unlike anything ever seen before came and swept through his beloved city. He lost a lot of friends that day and every day after that, for the longest time he could remember, the hospitals were full of dead and dying. There was always a family in mourning on every street he passed by. Crime shot through the roof; and how could it not? Homes were destroyed and businesses were shattered. People were reduced to desperation. Then, as the city began to rebuild, as resources flooded from all across the country and even abroad, Hell's Kitchen was left behind. That was really broke his neighborhood. It changed the Kitchen forever.
"Brett."
He turned at the sound of a familiar voice, shutting away the anger in his heart and the dark thoughts that filled his mind. He smiled at the sight of two veteran detectives. "Blake, Carl, glad you're here."
The two detectives nod as they shook Brett's hand. Blake smiled weakly as he fell back into the leather chair behind him. "How's the kid?" said the younger, Caucasian detective.
"Dying. Dead, soon enough," said Brett with a deep sigh. He felt somewhat guilty, ashamed even to face the two detectives. After all, the two had been the first mentors of Mikaela and Boyle, and had even recommended their posting to the precincts Gang Division. "I'm sorry about the two. They were a good team. Young, hot-blooded and really, really good. Gone, just like that."
Carl Hoffman, the father among the two detectives, shook his head. "There's nothing to be sorry about. They knew the consequences of the job; of the risks they were taking."
"The kitchen takes what it wants. If you can't handle the heat, y'know?" said Blake in agreement.
Brett kept to silence as he pondered over what they said. It did little to comfort his private fears. He had sent the boys without backup and paid for his mistake in blood. One young detective brutally murdered and his partner still in critical condition. It was a bad situation, but at the very least, they had caught a number of known criminals at the scene of the crime.
"I heard the guys who did this were knocked out cold when we found them?" Queried Blake.
"Yeah. It was pretty strange. Their guns were thrown all around the room. Bullet holes almost everywhere. Blown out bulbs was particularly peculiar. Probable murder weapon, a 12-gauge, is at forensics right now."
"Any leads open up yet?"
"No, not really. A few of the suspects are still here in the hospital, getting checked for internal injuries. The ones that could talk are still being interrogated but we're not getting much off them. Not yet anyway. Every single one of them was banged up pretty bad."
Blake shot a look at Carl who nodded his head in agreement. A look of concern furrowed Brett's brow. "What?"
"Coincides with those recent reports we keep getting," said Blake. He looked at Brett, who shrugged in confusion. "Come on. The word on the street."
"You've gotta be kidding me," said Brett in disbelief. "The ninja guy?"
"The man in the mask, that's what they call him," Carl clarified. "Or to be dramatic, 'the Devil of Hell's Kitchen'."
"You can't be serious. You guys believe that tabloid crap?"
"Well they certainly do," said Blake with a hand outstretched, pointing to the window and the city beyond it. "Come on, a guy with an iron suit, a magic hammer, freaking May 4th. A man in a black mask isn't really that farfetched anymore."
Brett looked back to the window and the city skyline. Blake was right, the notion that some masked vigilante was going around New York City terrorizing the living daylights out of criminals in the cover of night didn't seem too far-off anymore. Not after everything that's happened over the past few years. He thought of a reply but before he could gather his thoughts, he heard another familiar voice call out to him.
"Uncle Brett!" Shouted a ten-year old as she ran straight into Brett Mahoney. Her eyes were glistening and tears were still trickling down her cheeks. Brett embraced her in a warm hug, tightly holding onto her as he heard her weeping into his shoulder. "Where's daddy?"
Brett was at a loss for words as the brown-haired child looked into his eyes. He thought of all the things he could say but as he felt the tightness of her grip on his shoulder, all he could manage was, "Daddy will be okay."
The two detectives silently took their leave and waved goodbyes. As they left, a nurse approached them slowly, a blank look across his face. Brett saw past that; he noticed the nurses' fingers digging into the paper chart he carried in his hands, the subtle shaking of his legs and the hesitant gaze on Jane. Brett's heart skipped a beat as he braced himself for bad news.
"Sergeant Brett Mahoney and, Jane Mikaela, I presume?" The nurse's voice was stable, but his eyes kept their gaze. Mahoney nodded and for the briefest of moments, the nurse shifts his gaze away. "The doctors operated as best as he could. Detective Mikaela will reside in our Post-Anesthesia Care Unit but he lost too much blood on the way here. His vitals are still weak and he's in a... coma. He could wake up, get better, but we aren't sure. He could go any second."
Mahoney kept his hold on Jane as stable as he could. A coma.
"What does he mean? Is Dad okay?" Jane looked straight into Brett's eyes. Hers were still wet.
"He, well, he, well, he's going, going to be o-uh, he's going to, uh," His mouth was drying up. He didn't know what to say. There was so much to say, in so little ways to say it.
"Follow me, I'll bring the two of you to his bedside." Without waiting for a reply, the nurse turned around and walked away. Mahoney knew how the nurse felt inside; it was never easy being the bringer of bad news. As a senior sergeant, he was sometimes put into the same position. However, out of all those years, he never had to explain death to children. He had always dreaded the day would come. Now, with Keane in an unstable coma, he felt the day was coming soon.
"The nice man is going to take us to see your dad, okay?" Mahoney put up the best smile he could as he looked into Jane's eyes.
The three made their way down a busy corridor full of doctors and nurses shuffling past them in quiet discussion before stopping right outside a room. A large plain glass window revealed a patient, strapped to a bed with all manners of tubes and medical equipment travelling the length of his body. Much of what was visible, beyond the bed sheets and hospital gown, were bandaged. His face was swollen and bruised. Detective Keane Mikaela was barely-recognizable to Brett. He doubted who it was that lay on the bed inside the room. Jane seemed to have no such trouble however, as she leapt off Brett's hands and rushed into the room.
"Dad?" Her voice was low and hesitant. She stood still but a few feet away from the bed. Keane did not respond. Brett exchanged worried glances with the nurse as they remained at the doorway of the room. Still no movement from Keane. She called out to him again, this time her voice beginning to quiver. "Dad!"
Brett searched himself for answers. How was he to explain that Jane's father was asleep, and could never, ever wake up? He steeled himself and decided to take her back into his arms. As he took another step forward, Jane suddenly stomped her foot into the ground in anger and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Keane Rhys Mikaela! It's not good to be sleeping on the job, so you wake up this instant!"
All of a sudden, the patient on the bed rustled awake, his eyes slowly opening. His head gently turned towards Jane and a smile crept onto Keane Mikaela's face. "Sorry, hon." It was barely a whisper as the words left Keane's mouth, but Brett knew Jane had heard it. She dragged a nearby chair closer to the bed, stood on the chair and hugged her father's chest. "It's okay, I forgive you dad," she said as she planted a kiss on her father's cheek.
Brett turned away from the room and took a step outside, releasing a deep sigh of relief. His heart was beating fast in his chest. He wasn't sure how he would have comforted Jane, if he even could have, had Keane not woken up. Still, another policeman lay dead in the morgue and his murderers were still unaccounted for. His fists balled up as he thought of the sight of Mickey Boyles mangled body parts strewn on that cold, warehouse floor. His phone began to ring and he pulled it out. It was the station.
"Sarge, we've got an update on the murder case. You got a moment?"
Brett glanced back at Keane and Jane to check on them. The nurse was still inside the room, keeping tabs. "Fill me in."
"Well, autopsy report just came in on Detective Boyle and forensics are pretty much sure on some initial conclusions. Pellets found lodged within the upper half of the body, the blood splatter on the floor, the 12-gauge found, the state of the body itself, and the pieces of flesh lying around, all link up to a pretty gruesome scene: Boyle was executed. Shot to the head, no mercy. 12-gauge still had 8 shells, so the murderer only got one off."
"Damn."
"Yeah. Along the blood trail that led from the car to the warehouse, we found fabric that could have come off Mikaela and Boyle. Blood's theirs. The car and the alleyway itself is a complete wreck. We couldn't find blood samples farther away from the car though, so no leads on their initial attackers."
"Work the picture for me."
"Well, okay, so Detectives Mikaela and Boyle are in their car, and they get shot at. They dive out, shoot back. A bit of fabric rubbed off on the road matches the clothing Boyle was found in. On the other end, where we believe their attackers struck from, we didn't find anything conclusive. Lot of empty rounds though. Fight probably gets personal at that point? A melee in the car, probably between Mikaela and some other dude. We found a bit of blood and skin residue on some glass shards. Mikaela's and somebody else. We're still processing that one. After that, the two get dragged into a warehouse a block down. We know that because Boyle's blood trail leads from the car to the warehouse in question. Once we're there it gets a bit hazy. Execution gets interrupted. We're still figuring that one out. Professional opinion here – it's the man in the mask. Characteristic of his style of breaking, entering and kicking ass. Probably saved Detective Mikaela's life."
"Get me more news on the blood sample you found on those glass shards, and keep me updated on the interrogation with the suspects we caught."
"Sure. One more thing, uh, you're not gonna like this one. Task Force is being set-up as we speak but the in-charge has already been decided. It's Hawthorne."
Brett stayed silent before he gave his thanks for the information. A detective murdered in cold blood and another still hanging by a thread, and the response was Hawthorne? Three times investigated, and three times cleared on what he personally considered were some very suspicious circumstances. He decided that he would have a chat with his precinct captain when he got back. For now, he turned his attention away and onto more pressing issues. He entered the room and placed a gentle hand on Jane. "Hey Jane, I need to talk to your dad in private. Is that okay?"
Jane gave a questioning glance to her father, who smiled in return, and nodded her head. Brett motioned for the nurse to take her outside. As the two took their leave, he closed the door behind them.
"Mahoney," said Keane in a low voice.
"Detective Mikaela. I'm glad you're back with us."
"Are you?" Drawled the detective.
"What- never mind. You know I have questions. I'll leave most to when you're better. We need to know who did it. Can you give us a name?"
"Who sent us?"
"What?" Brett raised an eyebrow and leaned in closer to Keane. He wasn't sure of what he heard.
"Who sent us?" The words lumbered out of the detectives mouth a second time.
This close, Brett could hear Mikaela's shallow breathing. "That's, well, that's not what's important right now, Keane. Who killed Detective Boyle? Was it the triads? The Russians?"
"Who sent-" Before he could finish, Keane started to cough loudly. The heart rate monitor to Brett's side began to beep wildly and all of a sudden, the nurse from before burst into the room. Brett was pushed back as the nurse rushed over to Keane before shouting to the sergeant to leave the room. A doctor rushed into the room, a whole slew of instructions in her wake.
"Sergeant Mahoney, out of the room! Now!"
With that, Brett took a wary step out as the doctor and the nurse began to wheel the patient out of the room and down the corridor. More nurses rushed to help as an announcement over the intercom called for another doctor. Jane came scrambling to him, her hands immediately grabbing Bretts.
"Where are they taking daddy?"
He looked to her father, and then to the child. As he felt her tiny hand grip the edge of his fingers, he knew he had no words to say. He stepped in front of her and kneeled slowly. He took her hands into his, clasping them together. He smiled weakly as she peered into his eyes. "Let's ask for a little help on this one, okay?"