The moment she donned her dark leather suit and hid her face behind the beak mask like a plague doctor, she was no longer somebody's sweetheart but the Revenging Raven. Her name alone sent chills down every lowlife's spine. Her baton and whip would then break it.
"Eat shit, bastard!"
With a swing of baton the last hooligan left standing hit the ground in a backstreet parking lot. Half obscured by shadow she came upon him, ready to bring down another thunder of justice, but between the car wheels her enemy was already out cold. Fear congealed on his face. She lowered the whip held in the air. They were dropping like flies tonight. It was almost too easy.
"And stay down!"
The mask muffled her voice into something cold and dry. She turned to the poor girl lying and shaking on the hood of an old Ford, her clothes half undone. She checked the girl's eyes with flashlight. Dilated pupils. There were bruises all over her face. She knew how that felt.
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No... There was another... They had my friend Goldie... she's taken to the Dolphins..."
Dolphins Road. The Raven shuddered. Roughest of the rough part. An officer was almost beaten to her death last year. Happened right in the middle of the street, while the thugs cheered on like it was a blood sport. This Goldie girl was in serious trouble. She must get her out.
She carried the girl's arm around her neck. They reached a well-lit spot. A dispatch was on it way. Cops would take the girl from there. As for her, she needed to go. The Raven was not supposed to be seen in the light.
"Wait... take me with you."
The girl got a little better. Her big blue eyes followed Raven's beak.
"No way. You're no fighter. You'll just slow me down."
"You're right. I can't fight. But I can watch you beat the shite out of them with my own eyes."
She looked at the girl and saw a sister she never had. Blood for blood, an eye for an eye; that was the only line in the Raven's bible. They were out of the broad streetlight by the time police siren began reaching down the road.
Dolphins Road was just a stone's throw, yet it felt like the entrance to the underworld. Smokes from the riots had tainted the buildings' walls all black. They burned a lot of things to dust. The flower shop. The pub. The school buses. The old church. The faith in rebuilding the community by those who once lived and loved.
Now hell is empty, and all the devils are here.
They were in a courtyard guarded by derelict flats on all sides like some forgotten evil gods. Intuition told her this was the place, the safe haven for all crimes imaginable. She checked around. No sign of any struggle. No sign of anything. Had she been too late? Was it already over? In the cloudless sky there's bad moon rising. She suddenly felt lost.
Something was wrong. Wrong place, wrong hour. All felt like a nightmare. She stood still listening to the wind.