Heroes For Hire: The Gang Wars Trilogy Book 1: After Midnight

Prelude: R'WST

The moonlight, pale and as mournful as lilies shone onto the chessboard through steel-grated windows. Marc spector sat in the recreation room of the Ravencroft Institute for the criminally insane,  a committed patient. He looked away from the ensuing chess game momentarily to gaze through the secured windows. He observed a bird sitting in the tree just outside the window that He was sure  was a Falcon, perched there and looking in at him.

Marc had been committed for a number of atrocious crimes, the most severe of which include murder. The courts had said he had once cut a man’s face off. Since being at the hospital and receiving extensive treatment he had been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, paranoid Schizophrenic hallucinations, and Hero syndrome (a phenomena in which the afflicted desperately crave notoriety or attention for heroic acts, to the extreme of creating catastrophic situations it seems only they can resolve). Hero syndrome most commonly has manifested itself in arson cases that went too far out of hand for the hero/arson. Dissociative Identity Disorder or Split-Personality as it had always been called before seemed to be the root of Marc’s troubling psychoses, according to his institutional psychiatrist. He had developed 3 personas to share his mind with.

He was born Marc Spector. A nondescript Jew growing up in the bronx. The rebellious son of an academic rabbi who had fled avoiding persecution in the '30's. But he later became Jake Lockley, a cab driver with some shady connections and talent as a Heavyweight boxer, before being recruited into the Marines as a Commando.  Shortly after, when he was recruited into the Central Intelligence agency as Steven Grant, playboy millionaire, he quickly grew fed up with the espionage and went Independent and became a fierce soldier of fortune, renowned for his willingness to perform any job assuming the pay was sufficient. While working for an international Terrorist known as Raoul Bushman, Marc became increasingly disturbed by the savagery and ruthlessness of his new employer.  For the first time In Marc Spector's life his conscience had awoken, and it troubled him deeply. While in Selima, Sudan, Marc stumbled across Archeaologist Dr. Peter Alraune's excavation site of an ancient pharaoh's tomb. Believing there were gold and riches inside Bushman murdered Alraune to plunder the tomb. Sickened by Bushman's behavior,  Marc attempted the decent thing, in helping Alraune's daughter, Marlene, escape Bushman's notice. Annoyed by his betrayal, Bushman brutally beat Marc and stranded him alone in the desert to suffer before death. Barely conscious, he staggered into the ancient tomb for shelter. Marlene was there with her father's men who brought Marc to rest near the shrine of an ancient Egyptian Deity, Knoshu. Mercilessly beaten  from his fight with Bushman and the elements of the desert, Marc Spector was declared deceased. As Marlene cried over his cooling body, Spector suddenly sprung back to life and claimed that he had recieved visions from the Moon god Knoshu whom had returned him to life to seek vengance. vengeance. Then removed his burial shroud from the ancient statue, and Moon Knight was born. He had created the persona of the costumed vigilante Moon Knight, and claimed to have done the egyptian moon god Knoshu’s bidding. While under the guise of Moon Knight he performed numerous illicit activities.

Eventually, like many other psychopathic murderers, Marc was arrested and committed after being deemed mentally unsound to stand criminal trial. For months it seemed that Marc had finally received the help he needed and where he could be protected from and against the community.

But, Marc started having his horrible visions again. Cold sweat-inducing, scream evoking, night terrors that stirred him from his sleep to the light of the moon shining in on him in his cot. He was convinced, as he stated in the preceding therapy sessions that he believed Knoshu was sending him a message through his dreams. Though the message was enigmatic to Marc, the content of the dream itself was vividly concise : flame, with no heat, searing him deeper than the flesh. Dark spirits plotting and menacing. A brutal, savage war amid the very streets of New York littering the streets with the bodies of the youth. An ancient tome. All of this interspersed with vistas of the egyptian deserts and mythic symbolism of the egyptian polytheistic lore. “Typical of his schizoid delusions”, the good Dr. Leonard Samson proclaimed on one occasion.