The Church and the Superhero

While they waited for dinner, John stepped behind the bar, picked up a bottle to inspect it, and casually tossed it to Matt.

Matt caught it, gave it a sniff, then set it down and took a seat at the bar.

"So you weren't planning to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" John asked in surprise.

Matt pressed a hand to his forehead. "Who are you?"

"John Wick." John opened a bottle and chuckled. "Your employer. Isn't that enough?"

"No." Matt shook his head and said gravely, "Why are you here, and how did you do that..."

Matt searched his vocabulary before asking uncertainly, "Magic?"

"Let me think." John rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "That's right. Magic."

"But does it matter?"

He took out a glass and poured some liquor into it.

The aroma outlined the liquor's ingredients in Matt's mind. He reached for the glass and drained it.

"How did it taste?"

"What?"

Matt froze at John's question.

John patiently explained, "The liquor."

"Decent tequila. Why do you ask?"

"Because I grabbed that glass from the bar," John said casually. "I have no idea whether some junkie or someone with an STD drank from it."

Matt said nothing. His grip tightened around his white cane.

John quietly took a step back. "You took it yourself."

Thinking it over, Matt realized that was true.

This is infuriating. I'm the one who got screwed, and somehow he talked me into accepting it.

"Ding-dong, ding-dong." An old man entered with his own musical accompaniment. He strolled into Hell Paradise as though it were his own backyard, removed his hat for the two men at the bar, and said elegantly, "Gentlemen, I believe you ordered dinner."

A blind man and a young man.

An unusual pairing.

The old man's lips curved upward. He put his hat back on and adjusted the brim.

Simon's influence in Hell's Kitchen was considerable.

These two were interesting.

"I ordered dinner." John placed a fresh glass on the counter and poured the old man some tequila. "You might need to count the diners."

"We would be delighted, sir."

The old man looked less like someone who collected corpses and more like a collector of antiques and fine paintings.

He had brought a sizable crew, who readied their tools and got to work without batting an eye.

John handed him the glass. The old man took a sip and set it down.

Apparently, it wasn't to his taste.

"A fine day today." The old man extended his hand. "Hume."

John shook his hand. "John."

With that, the two were acquainted.

As for Matt, what was the point of getting acquainted with a lawyer?

Hume watched his crew work and smiled. "In our line of business, we can't ask too many questions. But I am curious."

He looked at John, his gaze penetrating. "You're not an assassin registered with the hotel."

"You can't remember everyone." John's expression remained unchanged.

"But I can remember everyone in New York," Hume said with a smile. "Still, as I said, I can't ask too many questions."

One question, and no probing further.

Knowing too much was worse. That was Hume's way of keeping himself safe.

The dinner crew was very professional. As they worked, bodies were carried downstairs, each wrapped in a bag.

"What should we do with the ones who aren't dead?" Hume looked at John. "We don't handle the living."

John shrugged. "Then leave them alone."

"By the way, this place isn't registered with the hotel?" He tapped the glass with a finger and chuckled. "Consider it a favor for buying you a drink."

"All right, though I only had a sip." Hume wished he hadn't taken that sip. "Some tough customers work outside the hotel, but they don't dare cross it."

John nodded in understanding.

He wanted to find out how many more enemies his father had.

Apparently, Simon was an exception. He had dared accept a contract to kill John's father, and was likely the only one.

Dinner service was over.

The kitchen waste was hauled away in bags of all sizes. Matt and John stood at the entrance, watching the refrigerated meat truck leave. Matt asked, "What now?"

"Do you know this place?"

John held out the address he had just extracted from Simon between two fingers.

Matt didn't take it. "I'm blind."

"Oh, sorry."

John awkwardly withdrew his hand. "The way you act makes it easy to think you can see."

"What about you, magician?"

"Or should I call you Daredevil?"

Matt hadn't given up on getting some information out of John.

John simply took out his pocket watch and checked it. "It's been two hours."

He set off in one direction, and Matt followed.

He still hadn't gotten the answer he wanted.

"Hey, calm down, man. Can't you see my skin color?"

"I don't give a damn what color you are! Hand over your money!"

Ferdinand wanted to cry, but no tears came. John's parting words had frightened him too much to leave.

But in Hell's Kitchen, even parking could get you into trouble.

Now three men with skin just as dark as his were robbing him.

He only carried a switchblade when he went out, while the man opposite him had a gun pressed against Ferdinand's forehead.

"Get your money out! No tricks!" The robber was furious, clutching the sixteen dollars and twenty cents he had stolen.

Ferdinand had turned out all his pockets. On the verge of tears, he said, "I really don't have any more."

"Fuck! Give me the car keys!"

The paltry sum enraged the robber enough to slam the gun's butt into Ferdinand's forehead.

The blow left Ferdinand unsteady, and then he was grabbed by his clothes and slammed against the car door.

We're brothers. Why do we have to tear each other apart?

Three Black men beat up one Black man.

Ferdinand's car keys were taken, but just as the robber was about to get in, a white cane blocked his path.

Before he could get a word out, the Black man took a cane to the face.

The other two immediately rushed over. Matt sidestepped an attack, caught the attacker's fist and twisted it, then turned sideways and kicked one man flying.

John took the keys from the fallen robber and tossed them to Ferdinand.

"Let me introduce you. This is Ferdinand." John turned to Ferdinand. "This is Matt. He's a lawyer."

"Hell's Kitchen has lawyers?"

Ferdinand was dumbfounded, but then remembered that his forehead was still bleeding.

"Take us to this address. Wait." After handing Ferdinand the address, John thought of something and asked Matt, "Do you need to change? Don't superheroes all have combat suits?"

Matt did have one, and he understood that wherever John was headed was probably dangerous.

Matt nodded. "Take me home."

Ferdinand felt his head. How had his wound disappeared?

Then he heard something about superheroes and lawyers.

What did those two have to do with each other?

Without a shred of sympathy, John sat in the car and urged Ferdinand along.

"Hurry up, Ferdinand."

"Coming."

Ferdinand climbed up from the ground, looking miserable.

What the hell is happening to me today?

If he could do it all over again, he definitely wouldn't have stepped forward that afternoon.

He was still lost in thought when John slapped him on the head and asked pleasantly, "Is there a problem?"

"No problem!"

Ferdinand shuddered and forced a smile.

The engine started.

After a trip home, Matt sat in the car in a different outfit.

Ferdinand's mouth fell open at the sight of Matt's costume.

"D-Daredevil?"

Matt turned to John. "He didn't know?"

John looked innocent. "I only met him this afternoon."

Matt's expression darkened again.

He had exposed his identity for the second time.

But now wasn't the time to argue about it. John told Ferdinand to drive.

The pickup traveled through Hell's Kitchen, finally stopping outside a church.

"Hell's Kitchen has a church?" Ferdinand got out and looked at the building with the cross, voicing his confusion.

"The more chaotic a place is, the stronger its religious faith," John said calmly. "No matter how many people those villains kill, they still want their souls to be pure."

Matt turned to "look" at John. He felt that the John standing here now was different from the one he'd seen earlier.

"Let's go. Maybe we can grab breakfast before sunrise."

Matt and John walked toward the church, leaving Ferdinand standing alone outside.

A gust of wind blew past, rolling a bottle to Ferdinand's feet.

Conflict crossed his face. John hadn't said whether he should wait here or leave.

Just thinking about John knowing Daredevil made his teeth ache.

He didn't dare leave.

He gritted his teeth and stamped his foot.

Then he retreated into the car and locked the doors.

Waiting it was.

The church was quiet inside.

After all, it was already midnight. No one would come here to pray at this hour.

John and Matt walked side by side.

"It's quiet here," Matt said. "There's a smell."

"What smell?"

"Chicken."

At Matt's answer, John said, "Looks like they don't respect their Lord all that much."

"Let's split up." With that, Matt slipped into the darkness and vanished.

"Lost child."

A priest walked in, his face kindly, like a grandfather from next door.

"I would prefer you came during the day." The priest wasn't angry at John's intrusion. On the contrary, he was very cordial.

But John could see the malice he carried.

John slowly approached, smiling. "Father, I'd like you to swear to your Lord that you don't want to kill me."

A trace of impatience flashed in the priest's eyes. Then, with an exaggerated, absurd expression, he said, "Of course, my child. I certainly don't want to kill you."

"Shh." John raised an index finger for silence and smiled. "Liars don't get into heaven."

He beckoned with his right hand. Before the priest could react, an unnatural force dragged him over.

Object-Grasping Magic.

John seized him by the throat, his pupils turning into vertical slits.

"You lied to your Lord. I saw it."

He stared straight into the priest's eyes. "Tell me why you're trying to assassinate Wick."

At that question, the priest knew he had been exposed.

His expression changed, and he roared, "Attack!"

"Attack? You should look around." John chuckled.

The people concealed throughout the church fell one after another.

Matt emerged from the darkness. With his extraordinarily sensitive hearing and sense of smell, he was terrifying in the night.

The priest's expression changed when he realized his men were gone.

John grabbed his sleeve and tore it open.

The Ten Rings tattoo underneath was exposed.

"Tell me, or I'll pry your mouth open." The vertical pupils in John's eyes were suffocating.

The priest struggled to breathe. The man before him became a mass of darkness that swallowed him whole.

"I'll... tell... you."