Chapter Text
“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”
Hell’s Kitchen, New York
1:57AM
A Random Nightclub on W46
“Shit! Watch where you’re moving, asshole!”
The indignant shout is hardly loud enough to break through the cloud of pumping techno music, but he doesn’t care. In a place as loud and packed with bodies as this, noise is just more noise. Marcus shoves the woman away, and the glass in her hands disintegrates into the floor in a deafened shatter. He staggers away from the running alcohol as it seeps into the hardwood and in blind panic, he steps on the nearby sneakers of unsuspecting partiers. It’s just fucking beer, Marcus has to tell himself as the woman screeches something incoherent after him, but the sharp singe of burning flesh from his arm is leaving him more than just on edge. It’s burning, the heat from the wound licks at his bone – and it's so loud it’s all Marcus can do to focus on anything outside of the ringing in his ears. He can’t stay here. He can’t stay here.
Marcus makes it about three steps deeper into the crowd when a hand grabs his still-sizzling arm. The raw nerves of his boiled skin alights in white-hot agony, and Marcus feels his mouth snap open in a silent scream.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Hey, asshole,” some asshole yells at him over the music and the ear-ringing. “She said watch where you’re moving!”
Already thin patience is worn out. Now the fucker’s done it. With an enraged screech, Marcus twists his arm, feels the raw flesh pull and then tear apart beneath the vice grip. The man that’d grabbed him reels back. “What the–” the man throws an arm over his mouth and nose as the stench of rotted blood bubbles in the air. “What the fuck is wrong with–”
Marcus doesn’t give the fucker a chance to finish. He leaps at the man and relishes the rip of claws through live skin as he burrows his claws into Asshole’s face. “Do not,” he snarls; punctuates his words with a sharp thumb through the eye. “--touch me.” And what’s left of the human’s face sees Marcus and the horrified shriek that erupts deep from within the human’s chest brings him life .
The crowd is screaming now, too; the blood that slides slick between his fingers and pools into the floor’s grooves, dark and seductive like crystal burgundy, has finally drawn the party’s attention. The sound of unbridled panic is overpowering the music, and the forest of swaying legs transforms into a stampede. Between frantic-moving bodies, Marcus catches a clear glimpse of the high-rise window at the back of the club.
Shit. He’s out of time. Some useless human distracts him for one second and now he’s out of time. Marcus leaves the dead man be. The body is still writhing and choking as demonic rot begins to eat at his blood, but it’s too late to save him, Marcus made sure it would be the second he’d retaliated. He scrambles to his feet and runs for the closest door. So much for his exit strategy. Stupid fucking humans, always getting in the way.
“No, no, no,” Marcus makes it to the front of the club, a hanging Employee’s Only sign denoting his only way out. He kicks open the door, the wooden frame splintering into a thousand angry spikes just as the sound of shattering glass breaks through the back of the club. More screaming, pounding footsteps. Marcus retreats to the stairs and yanks at a shelf full of wine with his good arm. The whole thing comes down in an angry crash, and Marcus bolts up the staircase.
There’s a muttered curse from behind him, and Marcus hears a one-two-skip of someone leaping over the broken shelf and resuming the pursuit up the staircase.
Fuck. The guy is fast.
Marcus makes it to the rooftop half a second before his pursuer does. He kicks open the access door, which gives way with a heavy screech as he tumbles onto the asphalt, and rolls to his feet just in time to catch a kick to his chest.
The strength behind it catches Marcus off guard. Muscles in his chest spasm and contract as he fights for air, the last of his breath having left his lungs with a choked wheeze.
He claws into the asphalt, desperate to dig himself to his feet as he sputters and gasps. The air refuses to come. Footsteps draw closer. Something grabs him by the back of his neck and lifts. Marcus fights back, twisting and scratching and biting at the arm that refuses to let him go. He’s dropped back onto the rooftop and a boot stomps down on his chest. Marcus coughs.
“Marcus Petrov,” the man in black growls, and Marcus doesn’t have the breath to snarl back, so he shows his teeth instead. “Who sent you?” It’s a question, but it comes out of the masked man’s mouth as a command. “Who is your–” the sentence is broken off as Marcus grabs the masked man’s leg and flips himself onto his stomach. Mask falls, Marcus pushes himself to his feet. He doesn’t even make it a step before Mask is pulling a leg from beneath him and they’re back to rolling over each other on the roof.
Somehow, they find themselves back in a similar position. Marcus, face up and panting on the ground, and Mask, with his boot back in place on his chest, and this time having pinned his arms to his sides. “Let’s try this again,” Mask grunts, and Marcus doesn’t even see the punch coming before stars burst across his vision and his jaw flares in pain. “The one who houses Marcus Petrov– Who is your contractor?”
A tooth has broken off in Marcus’s mouth, so he gathers it with his tongue and spits it alongside a wad of blood at Mask’s face. Mask grimaces. “Who’s yours?” Marcus wheezes, jutting his chin at the twin horns that pierce through Mask’s black fabric. Another punch to the face.
“Try again.”
“I don’t know… what you’re talking about.” Marcus bucks, trying to throw Mask, but he’s pinned. Panic begins to set in as the chances of Marcus’ escape dwindles further. He’s trapped. He’s trapped. “I’m just a worker .”
The boot digs deeper, and Mask reaches into one of his pockets. “Who brought you to Assiah?” He produces a vial.
Marcus squirms, attempting to throw off Mask, but his efforts are rewarded with a stomp on his leg that breaks the knee with an angry crunch. Marcus screeches. “Nobody, nobody!”
“Don’t lie to me,” Mask growls. He breaks off the end of the vial and brings the water so it hangs over Marcus’ broken arm. Marcus goes still.
“Just let me go,” Marcus says. He begs the towering demon. “Please, please.”
Mask’s mouth twists into a snarl. A horrible shiver rolls up Marcus’ spine. “You killed an innocent man tonight. If you don’t answer me, more will follow.” Mask shifts, lowers himself closer so they’re face to face. “Give me a name.”
“It’s the docks,” the words spill from Marcus’ lips as he eyes the tipping vial. The water creeps closer to the lip. “The docks, the docks! I’ve been sent to watch the docks!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!”
“Who?”
“The Northerners! I don’t know what they are – the accents – rough winter accents!”
“The Russians,” Mask rumbles. “Why?”
“I just told you I don’t– AGH!” The water spills over and into the wound, all holy fury and white-hot agony. Marcus thrashes, scores a lucky kick which throws Mask off balance. Marcus pushes through the throbbing that echoes throughout his body and rakes a claw down Mask’s chest. Mask shouts when Marcus’s claws catch on something soft – and suddenly Marcus is back on the ground, taking one, two, five, seven punches. He loses track after a moment, the tether between his spirit and the body temporarily shorts out between the eighth and dubious double-digit hit, when suddenly he’s back again.
“Who gave your orders?” Mask is shouting now, and shit, Marcus hit a nerve. Marcus grins up at him, certain his teeth are coated fresh with blood and demonic ichor.
“What’s th’ matter, little Devil?” Marcus laughs. “Did I catch something?”
Mask growls, and Marcus feels his head slam back into the roof. “Name, Marcus. Now!”
Marcus grabs Mask by the arm, and hefts himself up, brings his face closer to the mask. “I fucking told you. No name, Mask. I was –” Marcus breaks off with a scream when Mask twists his arm. “– Contracted! I was contracted! Fuck!”
“Name,” Mask grits out, and Marcus, worn out and halfway back to Gehenna, falls limp.
“No name,” Macrus says. “Part of the deal. Got nothing for you, little Devil.”
Mask is still for a long time. His mouth is pulled into a deep scowl, the eyeless mask drilling holes into Marcus’s forehead. Mask sniffs sharply, goes quiet for another minute. Marcus tries not to hold his breath. Then suddenly the pressure on his chest lessens, and Marcus takes the opportunity to twist out from Masks grasp. He staggers up, limps on one unbroken leg and starts hobbling to the fire escape.
“Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts.”
He doesn’t make it very far. The words invade his ears, they start to swarm and eat at his core like an infestation. Marcus falls to the roof with a strangled half-scream.
“Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve.”
“No, no!” Marcus writhes, he clamps his hands over his ears but it does nothing to stop the relentless attack. Mask’s voice still rings through the night, clear and frightfully strong. His muscles have begun to fail him. He kicks uselessly until the words have forced his nerves to go numb. “How?! How did you find my – No! Let me go!”
The Mask stands over him now. His body eclipses the faint shine of the midnight moon, it leaves Marcus in darkness, and he feels his breaths grow shorter, slip from his control. Mask holds out a hand, makes the sign of the cross with the other.
“Because they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord and what his hands have done, he will tear them down and never build them up again.”
Marcus screams, but the vessel is silent. He screams, and screams, and screams as he’s dragged back down,
down,
down.
“Praise be.”
“Dad, what’s a Nephilim?”
A heavy, exhausted breath. “It’s who we are, Matty.”
Rain patters against the window. It’s dark out, an old street lamp flickers weak light into the kitchen. It glances off the chilled bottle of rum, and the bloodied medkit that lays open and used on the table.
“Yeah, but…” Matt thumbs the yellowed pages of the Bible. The words jump at him in angry blank ink, citing words like Nephilim, Satan, Kindred, and Forsaken. “Why do they hate us?”
His dad shifts, a hulking figure which takes up a good percentage of their tiny kitchen. His horns are grey-red and stark; the brightest parts of him, they glimmer with every minute shift he makes in the rickety wooden chair. Matt hopes his horns will come out like that too.
“Because they’re afraid, Matty.”
“I don’t understand. We’re just like them, aren’t we? We’re just like humans?”
His dad smiles and ruffles Matt’s hair. His hand lingers for just a moment over the small bumps just beginning to form beneath the skin on his forehead. The smile falters.
“No, Matty,” his dad whispers in that voice he uses when he’s too tired to keep up the conversation. “No. We’re not.”
“But if we’re not human, and we’re not demon…” Matt trails off. He looks at the Bible, reads the accusing words over, and over. “Then, what are we?”
His dad bows, leans across the table and plants a kiss atop Matt’s head. He tells him to go to bed, it’s getting late.
The rain falls harder.
The time is ticking close to 4:30am when the hidden entrance to Clinton Church creaks open. The wooden frame catches on rusting nails, of which are decades old and long in need of replacement, and Matt grimaces as the noise bounces along the empty church halls. He pauses for a moment, waits for any of the nearby heartbeats to suddenly switch their even tempos, but nothing happens. He’d gone unheard. Matt sighs, and slips the rest of the way in and carefully closes and locks the door behind him. He’s looking forward to some sleep.
Tucking the one of two existing keys to the secret entrance into his hind pocket, Matt turns and tries not to limp down the set of concrete stairs. He makes it into the basement and halfway to his room when he hears her heartbeat, awake and alert, sitting on his bed. Matt tries not to roll his eyes and peels off the mask, wincing as it catches on his horns. He has to tug at it again before it comes off.
“I see you’ve been busy tonight,” Sister Maggie greets him as he enters. She’s perched at the edge of his bed, facing the wall where an old CRT is hooked up. It’s powered off. “So, a man mysteriously winds up at Metro General with a broken leg and a chewed up arm after a freak attack in one of Hell’s Kitchen’s busiest nightclubs? You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Matt stops at the foot of the bed. “Bed,” he says simply.
Sister Maggie turns and she must be giving him a sharp look, because she returns his tone. “You’re not supposed to be out by yourself like this, Matthew.”
Matt doesn’t deign that with a response. He’s too tired to be getting into that particular argument tonight. “And you’re not supposed to be up this late, Sister,” he says instead. “Don’t you have Mass tomorrow?”
Sister Maggie huffs. “I was waiting up for you, and we have Mass tomorrow, Matthew.” She stands, gestures to the bed. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this so easily. Sit.”
Matt sits. Sister Maggie follows, and Matt detects the wet rag in her hands right before she scrubs his face with it. He tries not to jerk away from the rough cloth, and forces himself to sit still.
“You’ve got some bruises,” she remarks.
“I can feel them.”
“Mind telling me how you got them?”
Matt shrugs, gestures vaguely towards the CRT. “You tell me.”
Sister Maggie scoffs. “I had to hit it a few times before I got a signal. I think I missed a few things. Enlighten me.”
“Nothing that needs worrying about. I’ve dealt with it.”
Sister Maggie hums a short note. The rag comes down over the same spot on his cheek again. “Is this something I need to worry about?”
“Why?” Matt turns so he’s facing her. He feels her breath cool his skin still left wet from the waterlogged cloth. She smells of leftover fragrance from cheap shampoo and a late night meal of home-cooked chicken. “Are you going to report me?” He doesn’t want to, God he really doesn’t want to, but Matt gears himself up for another fight.
Sister Maggie is quiet for a moment. Then her hand reaches up and turns his cheek so she can reach the bruise again. “No,” she says quietly. She takes a long, weary breath. “Not yet.”
“I can’t stay here forever, Sister,” Matt says. The familiar sentence feels stale in his mouth, now. “You can’t keep me.”
“The church is protecting you, Matthew,” Sister Maggie says. She drops the cloth with a sigh. “You know this. The only reason why we called you back –”
“They weren’t supposed to find out,” Matt grits. “How did they find out? How –”
“I don’t know,” Sister Maggie says, and to Matt’s mild surprise she actually sounds sorry. “I don’t know, but if you want to keep your head on your shoulders I suggest you follow your orders and keep up your practice.” She pokes a strong finger into his forehead, right between the horns. “That includes attending Mass.” Sister Maggie stands, folds the wet cloth and places it in a small baggie. “And keep your nose out of trouble. Heaven knows we already get enough questions about you from the congregation.”
“The city needs help, Sister.” Matt says. “I hear it every night. I can’t just… sit here and do nothing when I can hear them crying out.”
“Yes, well, doing something is how you’re going to get caught. You’re a Nephilim, Matthew, and the Vatican already has their eyes on you. You might be blind, kiddo, but they certainly are not. One step out of line is all it would take. Just one step.”
“I know what I am,” Matt grumbles. He thumbs at the hem of his shirt, the reminder itching at him to take it off. He refrains.
“Do you?” Sister Maggie says, then she sighs. “Please try to stay out of trouble. I don’t want to have to bury you too.”
Matt smirks, wane. “Not many of us left out there to bury, Sister.”
Sister Maggie says nothing, but her heartbeat fluctuates, and Matt tilts his head curiously.
“No,” she says, nearly under her breath. “I suppose not.” She takes a deep breath. “Go on, then. Is there anything else I need to stay up for?”
Shaking his head, Matt declines her. With nothing else to say, Sister Maggie departs, and Matt is left on his own. He listens as she ascends the stairs, and waits until the doors close behind her to exhale and remove his shirt. Matt hisses as the cool basement air hits his bare chest, feels the four shallow cuts from Marcus’s claws stretch and break through some of the scabbing that’d begun to form. Matt ignores the sluggish bleeding in favour of his most pressing concern.
Carefully, Matt unravels his sleek tail that he normally tucks around his chest, unwinding the injured limb once, twice, then he tries not to cry out when the seething cut is disturbed by the movement. Damn, that stings. Matt feels the patchy fur along the base, wincing as he comes across old scars and battle scrapes that never healed quite right until he finds the fresh one. It’s a minor cut, he maps out the dimensions, feels the amount of blood still leaking from the otherwise shallow injury, and grabs a bottle of water from his nightstand and dumps some of the contents over it.
“You gotta take care of your tail, Matty,” comes his dad’s voice from some memory a long, long time ago. Back when he could tell that the fur on his tail matched the colour of his hair, just the same as his dad’s. “You gotta watch it. It’s just like your Heart. That’s how they’ll get you. It’s too sensitive to leave it out in the open like that.”
Matt fumbles for the gauze he keeps at his bedside and wraps up the cut, careful not to make it too tight around the damn limb. It whips angrily out of his hand once he’s done, and Matt lets it snap around the air behind him like a tufted rattle-snake until he finally gets a second to calm. It’s uncomfortable, forcing it to be cooped up around his chest all day and night. Wrapping the tail causes it to cramp, and a sore tail is more distracting than anything else. Off-handedly, Matt wonders – and not for the first time – if there’s a better way to hide his tail during his nightly activities.
Later, Matt figures to himself, he’ll think about it later. For now, Matt cleans and wraps up his fists, then changes out of his black mask clothes and into something he can sleep in a little more comfortably, and lays back into bed for – he checks his phone –
“Five-thirty-seven AM.”
Thirty minutes. Matt exhales, his tail slaps the bedsheets. Great. He closes his eyes anyway, he might as well get in what he can. It’s not like he’s got much to do after Mass tomorrow other than to read up on that new lead he’s got on the Russians. He knows it’s human trafficking, but with demons like Marcus getting involved… It doesn’t matter how low-level that demon was. Demonic involvement sets off just about every type of alarm in Matt’s head. And not to mention the possession of Marcus had come from a Rot descendant. Matt could smell the infection in his breath while they fought. What could a demon of rot want with human trafficking?
Marcus is in the hospital now in recovery. He could make a visit and ask some questions, but Matt isn’t so sure if that’s a good idea now. The guy will most likely be too overwhelmed to speak to him, if he still can.
Annoyed and still put out for answers, Matt settles in and prepares himself for a very short night of sleep. Of course, that’s when his phone starts to ring.
“ Foggy, Foggy, Foggy.”
“Foggy?” Matt mouths at the ceiling, confused. When’s the last time he’d gotten a call from… He fumbles for the phone when the call starts up again.
“Foggy, Foggy, Fogg–”
“H’llo,” Matt says, coughs, then clears his throat. “Clinton Church. This is Murdock speaking.”
“Hey, Matt,” the familiar voice comes through the phone hushed and frantic. Matt sits up in bed. “It’s Foggy. Franklin. From Columbia. Foggy Nelson?”
“Yeah,” Matt can’t help the fondness in his voice. Anyone who roomed with him in a college dorm for three years would be pretty hard to forget, and in that time Foggy had done the impossible and carved himself a warm impression in Matt’s heart. “Nelson. Couldn’t forget you if I tried.” Matt fights a yawn but it still comes through in his voice as he asks, “What’s with the hour?”
“Right, sorry bud. I hope I didn’t wake you.” Foggy sighs, long and loud. Sounds like Matt isn’t the only one who’s been up all night. “So, remember how you gave me this number before you left? For… you know? So, it turns out I’ve got a bit of a situation here that might require your expertise. If you’re free?”
Matt gives up on sleep and flips his legs over the bed, planting his feet on the floor. A subway rumbles beneath the church, the vibrations jar his bones. “I’ve got time,” he says. “When do you want to meet?”
“Uh, is now good?”
Matt stops short of standing up and cocks his head. He tries to listen for Foggy, but he doesn’t hear him near the church. “Are you outside Clinton?” Matt asks.
“No,” Foggy says. “Not yet. I can be soon, though.” There, Matt can hear Foggy’s voice coming from a block and a half away. And… hold on. Matt concentrates, and he makes out another heartbeat that’s huddled close to Foggy. It’s frightened, running at a stallion’s pace. Matt can’t make out any details on the strange person yet, and Foggy’s real voice and his phone voice are beginning to echo strangely in Matt’s ears, so with a faint grimace Matt stops listening. “I hope that’s alright.”
“Okay… Yeah, it’s fine. Mind filling me in?”
“Sorry Murdock, Attorney-Client privilege. As much as I trust you I don’t trust these streets to not have some freaky peepers. All I can say though is that there’s some really weird crap going on with this case, man. The type of weird crap that you used to tell me about to try and freak me out back in college.”
Matt frowns. He knew Foggy had passed the bar fairly recently, a luxury the church hadn’t allowed Matt to afford before he was called back from his studies. The last he heard from Foggy was that he’d still been working with Landman and Zack, and had scored himself a cozy full-time position alongside one of their old classmates. Matt had always been (and is, and always will be) skeptical about that particular firm’s practices. Had they pushed Foggy into a corner on purpose?
“Okay,” Matt pushes himself off the bed. “Give me a minute to get dressed. I can meet you up front. Do you know where the side door is?”
“Uh, no.”
“Take a right once you reach the gate. It’s smaller than the front door, hard to miss.” Matt feels his lips twitch as he tries to fight a smile. “Trust me, I would know.”
“Oh ha ha. Look at that, the guy still thinks he’s funny.” Foggy’s voice is filtering in much easier from outside as he gets closer to the church. “I can see the church,” he says. “Meet you in five.”
“Meet you in five,” Matt echoes, and hangs up. He tosses the phone to the bed, and sighs. Matt grabs some clean-smelling clothes from the basket he hadn’t gotten around to putting away yet and braces himself for what he hopes won’t become a very chaotic day.