MARVEL 2000 PRESENTS...

Law & Order
Part One of Two

Written by D. Golightly

NEW YORK CITY
The law offices of Murdock and Murdock

“Mary, where’s the Parker file?”

Mike Murdock rummaged through the files that were stacked on top of a filing cabinet, flinging the manila folders left and right. The office, in general, was a wreck and it was all the secretary, Mary, could do to keep up with Mike. Files lay strewn about the entire office, along with depositions, interview logs, financial statements, and police reports.

Mary rushed from her desk at the front of the office to Mike’s side, slipping a file into his hand. “Here,” she muttered.

“About time,” Mike shot back. “When is Parker stopping by? Noon?”

“One o’clock.”

Mike nodded and nearly stumbled over a pile of newspapers at the foot of the cabinet. He stalked back to his own desk, leaving a weary Mary behind. She was glad that he would be absorbed in what she assumed was work for the rest of the morning, leaving her alone for the most part.

She didn’t smell any alcohol on his breath, but he was acting as if under the influence of something. He had gotten more and more aggressive recently and she found herself wondering if it had anything to do with the separation from his brother.

Matt Murdock, the lawyer that had originally hired her along with the late Mr. Nelson, had been a much more pleasant employer. He had been spending a lot of time on the West Coast, however, working with the refugees from the terrible Equinox incident that had devastated the city of San Francisco.* She admired him for that, but at the same time wished that he would return soon.

* [Check out Josh Reynolds’ insanely awesome Avengers West Coast run for the whole story – D]

They were twins, and when Mary had first met Mike he had been the much more carefree of the pair. Now he seemed tired and irritable, stuck in a constant state of directionless depravity.

The small bell on top of the front door chimed, alerting her to someone entering the office. She pulled in a deep breath, collected herself, and turned to greet the entrant.

“Good morning, how can I—”

“You can grab me a cup of coffee, for starters,” a familiar voice interrupted her. “Good morning, Mary. How’s your son?”

Mary smiled. “Speak of the devil,” she replied. “I was wondering when you might return, Mr. Murdock. Your brother is at his desk in the back and there’s a fresh pot on the burner. I’ll grab you a cup.”

Matthew Murdock returned the smile. “Thanks.”

“So, is your work all done out west?” Mary asked as she poured the java.

“Hardly.” Matt tapped his cane against the side of a chair near Mary’s desk, creating the illusion that he was a regular blind man and needed a bit of help when moving around the office. Swinging the cane in the opposite direction he struck a stack of folder, knocking them over. “I notice things here haven’t slowed down.”

“The Malik case has been eating up most of your brother’s time,” Mary replied. She touched the back of Matt’s hand, a signal that she was about to hand him the coffee. She gave him the mug of hot liquid and sat beside him at her desk. “It’s been a bit…cluttered around here.”

“In answer to your question,” Matt said just as he took a sip of coffee. “Mm. That’s damn good. Anyway, San Francisco is going to need a lot of work before things settle down out there. It’s actually the Malik case that brought me back. Mike is still going to trial this afternoon, correct?”

Mary nodded.

“I haven’t been able to reach him to go over the opening argument. In fact, I’ve barely spoken to him at all over the last week.”

“Join the club,” Mary blurted out. She immediately regained her composure and quickly said, “Uh, I mean he’s been somewhat distracted, Mr. Murdock. I’m sure everything is alright.”

Matt took another swig of his coffee, enjoying the concentrated blast of vanilla and cinnamon that his taste buds picked out. His enhanced senses allowed him the ability to pick out individual ingredients, meaning that he insisted on having top of the line coffee grounds for the office. There were some things in life that could be spared no expense, as far as he was concerned.

His radar sense picked out the silhouette of Mike from behind his office door. His “brother’s” composure was intact but his heartbeat was beating faster then normal. Matt sniffed the air and detected a trace amount of sweat coming off of Mike’s brow.

It could be the stress of the looming case causing his twin’s discomfort. Albert Malik, the Communist Red Skull, had retained their services in a law suit. While controversy surrounded the case, the core issue was sound: Malik had suffered serious health issues while under the apparent employment of the United States Government. Matt had doubted the former villain’s intentions, approaching the case with caution, but after doing a bit of research he found validity in Malik’s claims. A dossier provided by a contact at SHIELD confirmed the dates and times of Malik’s employment, which coincided with his deteriorating condition.

Not long ago Matt would have been forbidden from accepting the case, as his position as an assistant district attorney for the state of New York would have been a conflicting interest. Since his arrest, however, he had been removed from office “pending formal investigation.” The charges were dropped, of course, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight to retain his ADA position.

Seeing the devastation in San Francisco had metaphorically opened his eyes. There were people out there that needed him. Really needed him. Hearing the people flock through the city, hoping to find a place to sleep that night, had reminded him why he had gotten in the practice of law in the first place.

After helping his “brother” with the Malik case he needed to make an important decision about his future. It was a decision he couldn’t make alone, however. Karen would have to make this decision, too, and he prayed that her future aligned with his.

Although, helping Mike might end up taking longer then he thought. Reading the body language of his twin left him with a disturbing feeling. He wondered if Mike assuming the alter ego of Hellspawn and becoming the protector of Hell’s Kitchen while Matt was across the country had taken a toll on him.

Matt drained the last of his coffee from the mug, handed it to Mary, and stood up to face his problems head on.

NEW YORK CITY
St. Margaret’s cemetery

She stood in front of a tombstone, wondering why her life had never flashed before her eyes when she had died.

Karen Page caught a chill up and down her spine even though there wasn’t a single wisp of wind in the graveyard. The gravity of her recent troubles was nearly too much for her to handle. It was the kind of thing that a person would turn to close friends to get over.

Unfortunately for her, one of her closet friends had his name carved on the tombstone in front of her.

“Here lies Franklin P. Nelson,” she read aloud. “Friend, confidant, and loyalist. You hear that, Foggy? Loyalist. I don’t think you ever met a person that you didn’t try to help.”

She felt like she should cry, but she couldn’t. Death held little meaning for her, save that she had missed Foggy’s. She had been dead herself, only recently returning from that hellish prison that Mephisto called home, thanks in no small part to the sacrifice of the mutant Copycat.* It pained her that she hadn’t been able to grieve for the loss of Foggy Nelson like the rest of the world, but for some reason she was unable to show it.

* [Last ish – D]

St. Margaret’s cemetery was just outside of Hell’s Kitchen, a small slice of peace housed within the ever-moving city of New York. The graveyard was packed with tombstones and she supposed that Foggy had been lucky to have his final resting place so close to where he called home.

The towering skyscrapers of the bustling city dwarfed the small graveyard, juxtaposing the atmosphere typically associated with such places. She checked the rooftops, wondering if Matt had ever ran along those particular edges.

Now that she had new life she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. Matt had business to take care of, and she was scared to go to familiar territory since she had been declared legally dead for years. Matt had promised her that once his business was taken care of that they could plan for their future. She didn’t know exactly what that meant, but at the very least she was glad to even have a future.

“Excuse me,” someone said behind her.

She turned to see a blonde man, well built, wearing an expensive suit. He looked familiar somehow, as if the features of his face were reminiscent of someone else. “Can I help you?” she replied.

“I certainly hope so, Miss Page. My name is Richard, and I have a job offer for you.”

NEW YORK CITY
A courtroom of the district courthouse

Matt sat in the first row directly behind the plaintiff’s side of the courtroom, using his acute senses to study the demonic doppelganger of himself. Mike’s heart rate was lower than it had been that morning, which was a good sign. Perhaps it was just the stress of the case getting to him, although when they had spoken at the office he seemed perfectly in control.

Beside his twin was the Communist Red Skull, sans the horrifying crimson mask he had worn in the 1950s. His age showed but there was an underlying determination that kept him moving as if he were twenty years younger.

“Having a clone is pretty weird, isn’t it?” a young man with short, brown hair beside Matt inquired.

“You would know better than me I suspect, Peter,” Matt replied. “You’re the one with a clone. Mike’s my twin. Sort of.”

“And you’re comfortable sitting with the rest of us poor schmucks in the peanut gallery while he showboats like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men?”

“I’m here merely as a legal advisor. Frankly, after your interview with my brother after lunch I’m surprised you decided to tag along and watch the proceedings. I know Malik and you have a sort of history.”

“He killed my parents,” Peter Parker replied. The alter ego of the webbed wallcrawler stared at the back of Albert Malik’s head. “It’s all classified, though. Not admissible. That’s why Mike wanted to talk to me, to see if I could shed any light on his client’s history. We’ve been through a lot, Matt, but I have to say that I am surprised to see you helping the defense of that monster.”

“Actually, Peter, he’s paid for his crimes. When he faked his death and went into SHIELD custody to escape the wrath of the original Red Skull he didn’t hide in a cushy safe house. He was held in SHIELD’s detention center for over twenty years before he brokered a deal to work for the government. He did his time. Justice was done.”

“That’s not how I see it.”

“I can’t make it personal,” Matt said.

“Must be nice.”

“Mr. Murdock,” the judge said. “We’ll have your opening statement now.”

The general murmurs in the courtroom went silent as Mike stood up from his seat and walked to the center of the floor. He faced the jury and smiled. “Retribution,” he said. “It’s a word that many of us have had the misfortune to experience. Whether we were on the receiving end of that retribution or the ones dishing it out, it can either be just or malicious.

“Albert Malik is a man that many despise. He committed acts of treachery. He wore a mask that was and still is the very symbol of evil in this world. But he turned himself in and paid for those acts. Feeling remorse, after years of continuing his life sentence he made a deal to turn his life around. He became a changed man, not only helping the United States Government but saving lives as well. Where a misguided individual once stood there was now a loyal servant of this country.

“But during that time of dedicated service Albert Malik began showing certain symptoms, symptoms that at the time were dismissed as nothing. These symptoms only worsened, even after his dismissal from government service. The facts will show that the experiments that Albert Malik conducted, at the insistence of the United States government, resulted in him contracting cancer of the stomach and cancer of the brain.

“Albert Malik is not seeking retribution, although he is entitled. He merely wants to live out his remaining years in comfort, seeking the peace he helped this country achieve after his loyalty was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

Mike nodded once to the jury and returned to the plaintiff’s desk. Malik sat there, staring up at him. Matt detected a steady pulse in both men. It was a nearly perfect opening statement, considering the circumstances. Matt had helped Mike to carefully craft it, hoping to elicit patriotic emotions from the jury. It was a delicate thing to do since most people say Malik as nothing more than a criminal.

The judge made a few notes and was about to ask for the next opening statement, but Mike hadn’t yet sat back in his seat. Instead, the lawyer poured himself a glass of water, drank a large gulp, and turned back to face the jury.

“What’s he doing?” Matt wondered.

“Of course, if he did seek retribution it isn’t hard to imagine the kind he would discover,” Mike said. He walked directly to the jury box, placing his hands on the wooden rail that ran along the front of it. “Albert Malik was a master torturer. A killer of the worst kind. When challenged by someone beneath him he was known to capture that someone’s close friends and family. He would slowly dismember them from top to bottom in front of the person who had wronged him until he got what he wanted.”

The judge banged his gavel and the spectators began to voice their concerns for the words falling from Mike Murdock’s mouth.

Mike leaned forward and looked directly into the face of one of the jurors. “And what Albert Malik wants is for you to vote in his favor.”

Uproarious cries went up all around the courtroom, muffling the objections of the other attorneys. The judge banged his gavel furiously, demanding order. The courtroom exploded into loud voices and threats. Malik himself looked disheveled, even horrified at what Mike had alluded to.

The half dozen reporters began shouting questions and within seconds no one was sitting anymore, including Matt and Peter. Mike calmly walked back to his desk and sat down beside Malik, who could do nothing more then stare at him open-mouthed.

“What the hell just happened?” Peter said to Matt, although he didn’t have to raise his voice for Matt to hear him over the ruckus in the courtroom.

Matt simply stood, shocked. He didn’t have the first clue how to respond to Peter’s question.

NEW YORK CITY
The rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen

The dark colors of Hellspawn’s costume blended well with the night. Hours had passed since the courtroom debacle and the sun had since set, allowing for the perfect cloak that only a devil would find comforting.

Hellspawn ran at full blast for the edge of an apartment building. Twenty feet before he reached the open air he removed his collapsible staff from its sheath and twisted it. The spring in the staff released and it tripled in length. Angling the tip of the staff down, he used it to pole vault over the vacant alley between the buildings, landing in a run on the other side.

His senses, fueled by demonic powers, enlightened him to the city under his feet. Criminals had cowered in this section of New York City, but never fully hidden themselves away. Human necessity triumphed over terror: paying the bills always won when pitted against the slim chance of crossing the devil’s path.

Having traded in his courtroom attire for his red night suit, Matthew Murdock, Daredevil, “watched” the silhouette of his twin as he bounded across the rooftops of Hell’s Kitchen. After the courtroom had been swallowed by raised voices, the judge had dismissed the proceedings until the following day. The other lawyers had called for an immediate mistrial when asked to step back into the judge’s chambers, and the judge said he would give a ruling in the morning.

It had been a disaster. In one fell swoop, Mike had utterly destroyed Malik’s case. The mistrial was probably a foregone conclusion, given Mike’s outburst. He would be lucky if the judge didn’t find him in contempt of the court.

Matt couldn’t figure out why his twin had done it. He had confronted him before night had fallen, but Mike dismissed him and locked himself up in his office, refusing to speak to anyone. Matt had waited, patiently, until he had sensed Hellspawn fleeing the office building once the moon had risen.

In hot pursuit, Daredevil secretly chased his twin. He wanted to observe Hellspawn more in an attempt to understand him, especially since he was being so reclusive. Had the demonic construct lost control in the last few weeks since Matt had first stumbled across him?

Hellspawn paused at the end of a street corner, perched atop a closed delicatessen. He tilted his head to one side, listening.

Daredevil stopped his pursuit accordingly, hiding behind a roof access entryway three buildings away. Extending his own radar sense, Daredevil locked in on what had caused Hellspawn to pause. In the alleyway adjacent to the deli a mugger was ripping the purse off of a scared woman.

Hellspawn stepped off the side of the roof, gripping the cast iron downspout for support, using it like a one-handed fireman’s pole. He shot across the street like a rocket, closing the gap between himself and the mouth of the alleyway in seconds. The mugger had just dislodged the purse strap from the young woman when the tip of Hellspawn’s staff rammed into his skull.

Blood filled the mugger’s mouth. He spat out a glob of crimson spit and stumbled back, tripping into a pile of cardboard boxes. The woman screamed in surprise and fright, pressing herself against the brick wall. Hellspawn loomed over the perp, his red eyes taking in the sight of his prey.

Daredevil sat, focused intently on the noises coming from the alley. Even from nearly a block away, the Man Without Feat cold pick out every word being uttered.

“Jesus!” the mugger exclaimed through garbled, blood-filled spurts of terror. “Here! Take it! Take the damn thing, freakshow! I’m sorry, okay?”

The mugger tossed the purse at Hellspawn, but he didn’t even flinch when it hit his chest and fell to the cold, wet ground. Instead, he leaned down at picked up the mugger with one hand, gripping him by his soiled t-shirt.

“I’m not collecting pity,” Hellspawn replied. “You’ve got something else I want.”

“B-back off, man…”

With his free hand, Hellspawn pressed the switch on his staff, shortening it to its original size. He pressed a second switch and a thin blade popped out of one side. He twirled it once in his hand and then stabbed the end into the mugger’s chest.

The blade punctured the man’s lung, silencing his cries for mercy. He slouched down, falling into Hellspawn’s grasp. The demonic vigilante lowered the mugger slowly to the alley floor, ignoring the trickle of blood that was covering his glove.

Daredevil was shocked, unsure if what his radar sense was telling him was accurate. He yanked his billy club out of its sheath, rushed to the edge of the roof, and pressed a switch to fire the grappling hook. He leaped into the air as the hook rooted itself in the masonry of the building across the street. Pulling down on it once it latched, he swung across the cement roadway. He pumped his legs once as he rounded the curve of the building, providing the momentum necessary to catapult him high enough into the air to land on the top of the other building.

Once his feet were planted he retracted the grappling hook and ran to the alley. He almost carelessly flung himself off the fire escape that overlooked the alley, bounding off of the opposing wall and falling between Hellspawn and the cowering woman that had been mugged.

By the time Daredevil had reached the alley the mugger was dead, a vacant look in his eyes that could only belong to one whose life had been purged from his body.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing!” Daredevil exclaimed as he ripped his twin away from the body. He wrestled an arm under Hellspawn’s, locking him into an armbar hold.

Hellspawn flexed his biceps and then relaxed, provided slack against the armbar. He slipped his arm out and spun around, drawing his knee into Daredevil’s abdomen. Daredevil took a step back and blocked a follow-up kick from Hellspawn, but instead of allowing the foot to drop he grabbed it by the ankle and twisted.

Hellspawn went with the twist, hopping into the air and rolling over. He brought his other foot overtop of the one that Daredevil had clasped between his hands, savagely dragging the heel of his foot across Daredevil’s face.

Daredevil released Hellspawn and drew back, falling into a defensive stance. “What’s gotten into you?” he demanded. “We have to get that man serious medical attention! Now!”

A quiet feminine laugh rolled up from the floor of the alley. The soft chuckle surrounded Daredevil, basking him in eerie laughter. His ears pinpointed the source of the laugh as coming from the cowering woman behind him.

A wisp of smoke surrounded the woman, who now stood confidently in the alley. It washed over her, taking the mask of the scared young girl with it into the night. In replacement it left behind the features of a woman Matt had thought was out of their lives for good. Her heartbeat no longer blanketed by magic, Daredevil instantly recognized her.

“Calypso,” Daredevil sneered.

“Your work is almost complete, my child,” she said, turning to face Hellspawn. “The souls you’ve harvested for me have sated my hunger. I only require one more.”

She raised a talon-tipped figure to Daredevil. “Kill him. Sacrifice this man and take his place once and for all!”

NEXT ISSUE: Murdock v Murdock! Plus, the fate of Albert Malik, Karen Page’s new job offer, and Matt is forced to make an important decision that will change his life forever.

A note from the author:

Obviously, I’m not Barry Reese and this issue doesn’t cover all the things that were solicited in the last issue. The reason? Well, Barry moved on to greener pastures and left DD to fend for himself. A few other writers were interested in picking up the pieces but no one got it together enough to continue on.

This is the first issue of my nine issue run that will tie up all the loose ends from the first twenty-one issues of this fantastic series. By the time we’re done I promise we’re get answers to the questions people have been asking.

Will Matt go back to the West Coast? Will he join the Avengers? Can he start over with Karen Page? How was she affected by her time in hell? What’s the Communist Red Skull really up to? Will the Kingpin strike back? How does DD color coordinate his clothing?

Just stick with me, kid, and I’ll answer all of them (especially that last one).

-D. Golightly