The Marvel Knights Group presents: The Enforcers #7

The Russian watched the car pull away, full of crime and criminals, and then watched as the little man started down the street, a box shaped like a coffin bumping over one shoulder. He’d arrived just as the big one had stomped the black clad man into the pavement.

It had been funny to watch.

Bullseye, that had been his name. Sirens in the distance attested to the fact that the authorities would be here soon enough to scrape him up. Whatever was left. The Russian could admire that kind of brutality. It reminded him of himself.

He smiled as he started after the car, gap-teeth flashing beneath tiny cobalt eyes. After a few minutes he began to jog, then run, big clodhoppers eating distance.

In the car, Ox was snuffling as he cradled the body of ‘Hammer’ Harrison. He held the cooling body to his wide face, eyes squeezed shut, nose running. Beside him in the backseat ‘Snake’ Marston’s head lolled as he passed in and out of consciousness, the bruises forming on his face darkening with every second. Montana, sitting in the front seat, was twisted around to look at his partner, reaching over the distance every few seconds to brutally shake him awake.

“Stay awake, Sly! Damn it! Stay awake!” Montana snapped. He glanced at Sheila Dupree, sitting in the driver’s seat. “Drive faster!”

“Pedal is to the damn medal, cowboy!” Sheila said, not looking away from the street as she swerved up onto the sidewalk to avoid a bus. “Last thing we need is to get the 5-0 on our asses!”

“We can handle the cops,” Montana said, deathly grim. “Me an Ox, we been handling cops for years.”

“Yeah and look where that’s gotten you.”

“Shut up and drive, woman!”

“Fuck you, cowboy. We’re here,” Sheila said, slinging the wheel to the left and hurling the car into an alleyway. Opposite the car was a simple wooden door set into a brick wall. Graffiti bifurcated the wall with angled neon slashes and a simple red cross was painted onto the door. Sheila slid out of the car and helped Montana ease Marston out, his arms over their shoulders. Ox stomped towards the door, Harrison’s body in his arms. Sheila knocked on the door once, twice.

A peephole opened up in the center of the cross.

“Ethel?” a female voice asked. Sheila flinched.

“Linda, please open the door. Please!”

The door swung open and a woman dressed in an old fashioned nurse’s outfit complete with Florence Nightingale cape and peaked cap stood behind it. “Ethel? Is that you?” she asked, looking at Sheila. Montana looked at Sheila.

“Ethel?”

Dan caught a cab up the street. The cabbie tried to make small talk for a few minutes but gave up after Dan’s glare wilted his words in his throat. Dan opened the trunk he’d been lugging and began assembling weapons. Pistols mostly. In minutes he had a half dozen situated all over his body. With quick fingers he put together a P-9 assault rifle and screwed a silencer into the barrel.

He looked up as the silhouette of Fisk Tower crawled over him through the windows and he tapped on the safety glass separating him from the driver.

“Stop.”

The driver’s eyes bugged out a bit as he caught sight of the weapons but he said nothing. Dan didn’t bother to pay him as he got out of the cab and the driver didn’t press the issue. Dan looked up at the building, barely noticing the damage an explosion earlier in the week had done to the penthouse. *

* (For that story, check out CITYSCAPES #1 – Dave the ever-present EiC)

Switching off the safety on the P-9, Dan headed for the front doors.

The secretary behind the desk yelped like a kicked puppy and froze as Dan plodded past her, the soles of his shoes clattering across the marble floor. He ignored her and jabbed the barrel of the gun into the ‘up’ arrow.

Up, up and away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The click of safeties sliding off. Dan sank into a crouch, spinning around on squeaky-soled shoes even as the elevator pinged open. The P-9 spat softly and two men in suits stumbled back, blood erupting from them in dark waves. He scrambled back into the waiting elevator as the secretary screamed and screamed.

The elevator coughed and began to move, carrying him upwards. Trembling fingers found the black rag that had been Bullseye’s mask shoved in his pocket. He rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

All his fault.

Everything up to and including this.

But he was going to fix it. Fix everything.

Why had Fisk sent Snart after them? Was he behind the double-cross with Hammerhead? It didn’t seem like his style. No. No, it was someone else. There were plenty of crime-bosses out there. All of them looking for one advantage or another. One of them had decided to knock Hammerhead out of the running and used the Enforcers to set the ball rolling. Get the costumes mad, got yourself a ready made army.

But who’d want that?

The elevator dinged and Dan rolled to the side, tight in the corner, as a fusillade of bullets pounded through the wood and plastic of the back wall. He slung the P-9 around the door and let it snarl in return. A man screamed and Dan dug in his pocket, pulling a hand grenade out of his coat and popping the pin. He lobbed it without looking. A roar and then a vomit of smoke and Dan swung around the corner, P-9 held in both hands. It burped and bodies fell. He felt a sting on his cheek and another at his side but didn’t stop moving, charging forward.

Hands grabbed at him and the P-9 clicked on empty as he smashed an elbow into a throat. He smashed the gun across a skull and leapt over a body, drawing a 9 Millimeter and an antique .45. He couldn’t see faces, only blurs of white and black and tan suddenly covered in red. Everything but him was moving slow, so slow.

And then he was inside.

It was small, as offices went. Or maybe it only seemed that way because of the size of the man behind the desk.

Wilson Fisk stood up as Dan came towards him, guns pointed towards Fisk’s oblong head.

“Brito. You’re not dead,” Fisk said. His voice was calm. Conversational.

“Not yet,” Dan said. “But you might be.”

“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do,” Linda Carter, known to a select few as the Night-Nurse, said as she stripped the gloves from her hands and dumped them in the bin. “He bled out at least thirty minutes ago.”

“Yeah. Yeah I know,” Montana said, leaning against the wall. He sank down, his hands dangling between his knees. “I know.” Sheila grabbed his shoulder and rubbed it. She looked at Carter. “Thanks, Linda.”

Carter grabbed Sheila by her elbow and pulled her down the hall. She leaned close. “Ethel, what the hell?”

“What?” Sheila jerked her arm free. Carter gestured at Montana.

“Don’t act dumb. Him. Them. I know who they are. Not exactly my usual clientele, but I recognize them all the same,” Carter hissed. “You’ve done a lot of dumb things sister mine, but this takes the cake, Ethel.”

“Don’t call me, Ethel. That’s not my name anymore,” Sheila snapped. “I’m Sheila Dupree.”

“Hell to that. You are Ethel Carter. You were named for our grandmother!”

“And now I’m named for me. Just because they don’t wear costumes-”

“That’s not it and you know it!”

“Hate to break up this family reunion and all, but how’s Sly?” Montana said. He was standing, hat held in both hands. Carter frowned.

“Concussion. Cracked collar bone. Other than that, healthy. How was he hurt?”

“Freak named Bullseye. Killed Harrison, too,” Montana said. He looked at the Night-Nurse. “You know I heard about you on the grapevine. Said you treated the super-twists. Never knew where you had your chop-shop at though…” Montana looked around. When he looked back down at Carter, he found himself staring into the snub-barrel of a .22 pointed unwaveringly at his left eye. Carter’s face was marble. Beautiful and cold. Montana found himself wondering if she was involved with any of her patients and then whether or not she was planning to shoot him.

“There’s a reason people like you don’t know where this place is, Mister Price.” Carter said, one eyebrow raised. “Need I elaborate?”

“Nope. Clear as daisies.”

“Odd metaphor.”

“I’m a bit of a philosopher.”

“So I see.” The gun disappeared. Carter brushed an errant strand of hair out of her face. “Also a bit of a criminal. One third of the triumvirate known as the Enforcers. I assume the very large man blubbering into the payphone outside is Raymond Bloch?”

“Yeah, that’s Ox.”

“Yes. Who is he calling?”

“His momma.”

“Ray? Ray izzat you?”

Ox snuffled. “Yeah, momma.”

“You crying? Why you crying boy? Somebody mean to you?” His mother’s voice was a warm rasp, like the tongue of a cat. “Was it that Brito boy?”

“No, momma. Momma, I-” Ox squeezed his eyes shut. “Willy’s dead momma. He got killed.”

“Oh. Oh my Ray. Are you hurt? Is that nice Mister Price-”

“Sly’s hurt too, momma. They’re after us. All of them. And we didn’t do nothing.”

“That’s a double negative Ray, I don’t want to hear you use no double negatives. Where are you, Ray? You want momma to come pick you up?”

“No! No, momma. I got to keep Dan’s girl safe. I got to-”

“Go night-night.”

A big, scarred hand wrapped itself around the back of Ox’s round head and drove it into the phone booth and on through it into the wall. Ox fell to his knees, blood streaming down his face. A ham sized fist came down on the top of his skull, driving him flat to the ground, unconscious.

The Russian looked down at Ox and grinned his gap-toothed grin. Then he headed for the door.

He would kill the wounded ones first. That was the proper way of things. He raised one big foot and lashed out, kicking the door inward in an explosion of splinters and noise.

“Knock-knock. Is phone call collect from Tombstone. He says howdy buckaroos!”

The Rose tapped the map with his cane. “This. This is the heart of crime. In the city. In the country.”

“Fisk.” Tombstone nodded. “He’s like a goddamn cancer.” He glanced at the others. “We’ve all been in his shadow for years. Shadow of that goddamn tower of his.”

“Speak for yourself, Lincoln.” Hammerhead grunted. “Kingpin’s always done pretty well by me an’ mine.”

“Oh? At least up until he convinced a number of costumed misanthropes to attack you. To nearly cripple you.” The Rose gestured with his cane at the bandages that covered Hammerhead. He swept the cane back and tapped Lobo in the chest. “If I hadn’t sent Lobo to collect you…” The dark eyed man grimaced, the beast under his skin flaring in his eyes for a moment before fading away as the Rose trailed off with a Gallic shrug. “Well, I don’t like to think about what would have happened.”

“Which is the only reason I’m still sitting here. Only reason I haven’t popped you one yet,” Hammerhead said, pointing a stubby finger at the Rose. “So keep talking.”

“As you wish.” The Rose bowed floridly and turned back to the map. “Fisk Tower. It is the heart of his empire. His Alexandria. His Rome. His Constantinople. And just like those great cities, it will be sacked and burned.” He turned back to the other crime-lords, his eyes raking each of them in turn.

“And we will do it tomorrow night.” He stood and unsheathed the hidden blade from his cane, jabbing it theatrically into the spot on the map where Fisk Tower stood.

“Let loose the dogs of war, and Hell have him who cries hold first.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Next Issue: The gang war begins in earnest even as Dan bargains with the Kingpin and his companions face the brutal assault of the Russian! Be here in thirty for ’DOGS OF WAR’!