11 April 2016 – Astoria, Oregon
The Phantom Blogger on the Seen From the Shadows blog
Well, it’s been an interesting weekend in the Undercity… the serial rapist who has been preying on the poor and disenfranchised of the under-realm, both female and male, for the past month seems to have met his match. And not a moment too soon.
A battered, babbling Irwin Lunt, aged 36, was found by the good officers of the Third Precinct on their doorstep in the wee hours of this morning. He apparently couldn’t wait to confess to his crimes, naming times, places and victims (well, their descriptions, not their actual names) in an almost incoherent stream, according to someone who should know.
This same someone says that the weaselly little shit’s story started to change once the minions of law and order got him safely stashed in an interrogation room and had read him his rights… all of a sudden he began to hem and haw, at one point claiming it was all just a joke… and then he started crying for a lawyer. So the poor sods consigned to question this miserable bit of human flotsam left him alone to consider his options and wait for his public defender.
Imagine everyone’s surprise, including the bewildered public defender, when on their return poor Irwin seemed once again to desire nothing more than the safety and comfort of a cell in our fair city’s new jailhouse! He couldn’t talk over his lawyer fast enough, apparently, to once again spill his guilty beans. And this time on the record…
Now the Phantom Blogger is all for due process and presumption of innocence and all that, but rumor in the Great Underdark is that poor Irwin was helped along in his sudden desire for punishment, if not redemption, by a certain mysterious Dark Angel of Retribution (or maybe Justice?). Some might therefore call his confession coerced, and as such inadmissible in court.
But a few little birds have whispered in our ear that once the champions of justice begin actually looking for the hard evidence, the whole question of little Irwin’s motivation for his singing career will become moot – apparently he liked to keep souvenirs. These same little birds say that the Dark Angel, whose championing of the downtrodden beneath our streets has graced this blog in the past, was not acting alone this time.
The last victim, or rather would-be victim, of the so-called Subterranean Stalker (and thanks to the Daily Astorian for that little gem of understatement) says he was rescued by “the ghost of some white boy,” who stuck his hand clean through the rapist’s chest, scaring the living shit out both rapist and not-yet-quite-victim.
Scrambling away and gathering his shredded clothes, our witness watched from the sidelines as his attacker hurled crates, stones and a nasty piece of rebar at the ghost, all of which passed harmlessly through the apparition… and do we detect a whiff of the meta about little Irwin? But no more than a whiff, because once the Dark Angel appeared on the scene, stepping from the shadows as is her wont, he went down hard, in a swirl of black cape, fists and heavily-shod feet.
The last that our witness saw of his would-be attacker was a bloody, dazed body in the grip of the Dark Angel, who appeared to be whispering in his ear as she snapped her cloak around them both… leaving nothing but the shadows behind.
And the Ghost Boy. But he vanished himself a few seconds later, after glancing over to see that the assault victim was OK. Good to know that even the dead have their decent souls, apparently…
BLOG ADDENDUM: Ah, Artemis! A “Dark Angel” indeed, for many years, in many places… and she wasn’t always so shy about the public eye. But that was back East, and awhile ago. Still, maybe it’s time for her to step out of the shadows again… she’s certainly been putting the spikes in the wheels of some of my local puppets recently… and since their usefulness is about up, huzzah for her! But she doesn’t always play well with others, though I know she can, and has. So even if this new team idea comes together, would she be a good fit? Or even interested? Something to think about. And yet another new meta! Who is he? Certainly not a ghost. Curiouser and curiouser…