Chapter 9: Judgment Night
Judge Harold Morrison sat in his private chambers, reviewing the next day's docket while counting bribe money with the casual efficiency of a bank teller. Eighteen cases scheduled, twelve of them already decided by the thickness of envelopes slipped under his door. Justice was indeed blind, but she could still feel the weight of cash in her scales.
Harold had been accepting payments for judicial decisions for so long that he'd forgotten what it felt like to make rulings based on law rather than remuneration. Twenty-three years on the bench, and he'd probably sent more innocent people to prison than most serial killers. But the guilty ones who could afford his services walked free, returning to the streets to commit the crimes that kept his retirement fund growing.
The news of Detective Morrison's death had reached him six hours ago, delivered by Captain Hayes in a phone call that reeked of barely controlled panic. Vincent Torrino dead. Detective Morrison missing, presumed dead. The entire network that had protected their operations for years was collapsing like a house of cards in a hurricane.
But Harold wasn't panicking. He was a federal judge, appointed for life and protected by marshals, congressional privilege, and two decades of carefully cultivated political connections. Whatever had killed Vincent and Ray Morrison would find him a more challenging target.
Harold's private chambers were in the federal courthouse, a fortress of marble and steel that housed the machinery of American justice. The building was secured by federal marshals, metal detectors, and enough surveillance equipment to monitor a small city. Harold felt safe here, surrounded by the symbols of legal authority that had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.
His computer chimed with a new email from an address he didn't recognize: *[email protected]*
Harold frowned and opened the message, expecting another piece of spam or a routine administrative notice. Instead, he found a single line of text that made his blood run cold:
*The Honorable Harold Morrison. Docket #666. The People vs. Harold Morrison. Charges: Corruption of office, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit murder. Verdict: Guilty. Sentence: Death. Court is now in session.*
Harold stared at the impossible email address. Justice.gov was a secure government domain, accessible only to Department of Justice personnel with proper clearance. Someone had either hacked the federal email system or... Harold didn't want to consider the alternatives.
His desk phone rang, the caller ID showing his own chamber number.
"Judge Morrison's chambers," Harold answered, his voice carefully controlled.
"Your Honor." The voice on the other end carried harmonics that human vocal cords couldn't produce, speaking with the formal cadence of a court reporter reading a transcript. "This is the Final Court calling to inform you that your appeal has been denied. Execution will proceed as scheduled."
Harold's hand tightened on the phone receiver. "Who is this? How did you get this number?"
"I am the Architect of justice, Your Honor. I've been reviewing your case files. Twenty-three years of corrupted verdicts, dismissed charges, and sentences bought with blood money. The evidence against you is overwhelming."
The line went dead, leaving Harold alone with the sound of his own hammering heartbeat. He immediately called federal security, but the phone lines were down. His computer had locked itself, displaying only a single image: a pair of broken scales with his name carved into the balance arm.
Harold opened his desk drawer and retrieved the .38 revolver he'd carried since his days as a prosecutor. The weapon felt reassuringly solid in his hands, a reminder that he'd survived three decades in the legal profession by being prepared for any eventuality. Whatever had killed Vincent and Ray would find him armed and ready.
The lights in his chambers flickered once, twice, then went out completely. Emergency lighting should have activated immediately, but the room remained dark as a tomb. Harold could hear his own breathing, loud and ragged in the sudden silence.
"Bailiff!" Harold shouted toward the door. "Marshal Williams! I need security in here immediately!"
No response. The federal courthouse, usually bustling with activity even in the evening hours, had gone completely silent. Harold felt his way toward the door, his revolver extended in front of him like a shield against the darkness.
The door was locked from the outside—impossible, since his chambers locked only from the inside. Harold fumbled for his keys, his hands shaking as he tried to find the right one by touch. Behind him, something moved in the darkness with the sound of leather sliding across marble.
"Judge Morrison." The voice came from inside his chambers, though Harold was certain he'd been alone moments before. "Please return to your bench. Court is in session."
Harold spun toward the sound, his revolver tracking through empty darkness. "Show yourself!"
"As you wish, Your Honor."
The emergency lighting suddenly activated, bathing the chambers in harsh red illumination. Harold found himself face-to-face with something that belonged in his worst nightmares rather than his courtroom. The Architect stood behind Harold's own bench, wearing the black robes of judicial office but filling them with an inhuman frame that suggested vast strength barely contained by fabric.
"What are you?" Harold whispered, his revolver wavering in his grip.
"I am justice personified, Your Honor. The natural consequence of a system that has forgotten its purpose." The Architect's head tilted at an impossible angle, studying Harold with predatory interest. "You've spent twenty-three years corrupting the law. Tonight, the law returns the favor."
Harold raised his weapon and fired three shots center mass, the reports echoing in the confined space like thunder. The bullets struck the Architect's chest and simply vanished, absorbed into the creature's biomass without leaving so much as a wrinkle in the judicial robes.
"Attempted murder of a court officer," the Architect observed conversationally. "That's a federal crime, Your Honor. Shall we add it to your list of charges?"
The creature began to move around the bench with fluid grace, his form shifting slightly as Vincent's and Ray's absorbed biomass integrated with his existing structure. In the red emergency lighting, he looked like a demon wearing the costume of justice, all teeth and shadows and patient hunger.
"Twenty-three years," the Architect continued, his voice carrying the weight of accumulated evidence. "Vincent Torrino paid you $50,000 to dismiss Sarah Martinez's wrongful death lawsuit. Detective Morrison paid you $25,000 to suppress evidence in the chemical plant investigation. Captain Hayes paid you $75,000 to throw the trafficking cases."
Harold backed against the door, his empty revolver clicking uselessly as he pulled the trigger. "That's not... I never..."
"Judge Morrison," the Architect said formally, producing a file folder from within his robes. "Case number 97-4455. The People vs. Marcus Torrino. Aggravated sexual assault of a minor. Dismissed on a technicality after Vincent Torrino paid you $100,000."
Harold's face went white as the creature recited details that should have been buried in sealed records. "How do you know that?"
"Vincent kept excellent records. Insurance policies, he called them. Photographs of money changing hands. Audio recordings of your negotiations. Video surveillance of your meetings." The Architect opened the file folder, revealing crime scene photographs that made Harold's stomach turn. "This is what Marcus Torrino did to that child after you set him free. Seven years old, Your Honor. She'll never fully recover from what he did to her."
Harold's legs gave out, sending him sliding down the door to sit on the floor of his own chambers. Twenty-three years of corrupted verdicts were catching up to him all at once, and the weight of accumulated guilt was crushing.
"The Hendricks case," the Architect continued, producing another file. "Vehicular homicide. Defendant was drunk, high on cocaine, and driving on a suspended license when he killed a family of four. You dismissed the charges after his father paid you $200,000."
More photographs, more evidence, more faces of the dead and destroyed. Harold had signed their death warrants with his gavel, trading their lives for money he'd spent on vacation homes and luxury cars.
"The Patterson case. The Williams case. The Chen case." The Architect's voice was patient as a teacher explaining mathematics to a slow student. "Eighty-seven dismissed charges. One hundred and forty-three reduced sentences. Two hundred and nineteen corrupted verdicts. Each one paid for with blood money."
The creature's form began to shift again, becoming larger, more imposing. Harold could see that the judicial robes were Vincent's skin, transformed and shaped into a mockery of legal authority. The Architect wasn't just wearing the costume of justice—he was becoming justice itself, feeding on the guilty and growing stronger with each absorbed life.
"Please," Harold whispered, his voice breaking like a child's. "I'll confess. I'll resign. I'll make restitution..."
"Your Honor," the Architect replied, stepping closer with predatory grace, "the time for plea bargaining has passed. The jury has reached its verdict."
Harold looked around his chambers wildly, searching for the jury the creature mentioned. He saw only shadows and red light, but somehow he could feel their presence—all the victims of his corrupted justice, watching from the darkness as judgment finally came for their judge.
"The verdict is guilty on all counts," the Architect continued, his voice carrying the finality of a death sentence. "The court sentences you to death by judicial execution, to be carried out immediately."
The creature's hands transformed into something that belonged in medieval torture chambers rather than modern courtrooms. Harold screamed as the Architect reached for him, but the sound was swallowed by the darkness that rushed up to claim him.
The feeding was slow and deliberate, educational in its thoroughness. The Architect absorbed not just Harold's life and memories, but his accumulated guilt, his suppressed conscience, his knowledge of every crime he'd helped commit. Each absorbed moment added to the creature's understanding of the corruption that had infected every level of the justice system.
Harold's memories revealed the scope of the conspiracy—judges throughout the federal system, all of them connected by networks of bribery and mutual blackmail. The Architect saw courtrooms where justice was auctioned to the highest bidder, prisons filled with the innocent while the guilty walked free, and a legal system so corrupted that it had become indistinguishable from organized crime.
When the feeding was complete, Harold's desiccated corpse sat slumped in his own judicial chair, his gavel still clutched in one skeletal hand. The Architect arranged the scene with artistic precision, positioning the body so that empty eye sockets stared directly at the scales of justice mounted on the chamber wall.
On Harold's desk, the creature left a single piece of evidence: a recording device containing audio of every bribe the judge had ever accepted. The recordings would be found by federal marshals in the morning, along with Harold's corpse and a note written in elegant script: "Justice delayed is justice denied. The scales are now balanced."
The Architect departed through the courthouse's ventilation system, his enhanced physiology allowing him to flow through spaces that would be impossible for normal humans. Behind him, emergency systems began to reactivate as his presence withdrew, but it would be hours before anyone discovered the scene in Judge Morrison's chambers.
By then, the Architect would be studying his next target, preparing another lesson in the mathematics of justice. The network that had protected Vincent Torrino was falling apart, one corrupted official at a time. Soon, the scales would balance perfectly, and the innocent would finally have their day in court.
The broken scales of justice were being rebuilt from the bones of the guilty, and the Architect was just getting started.
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Advanced chapters on patre*n
DC : Architect of Vengeance
Xmen : Evolution through Death
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