4
Seconds creep like minutes and I can see the details of the jewelry stall crisply as my legs refuse to gain speed. The stall leans precariously on itself and the bottoms of the counter have begun to splinter with the pressure Amm has pressed on it. Amm’s black tipped hair is spread wide like a cat’s tail and I can make out single strands and the angry guttural nature of her growl.
I know her teeth are bare and she is beyond the edge of control but every instinct in me screams that if I can reach her I can help her.
Time sways back into motion, Amm’s claw-like hand shoots up and falls with quick efficiency at the young girl’s head.
Thinking back to the night before and the many other times I’ve seen her destroy a person with her inhumanly fast attacks I brace myself for the spray of blood and the screams of the crowd.
My vision swims as the girl dodges her head to the side and hisses, spittle splashing her lips and sun darkened cheeks. The girl jackknifes and kicks Amm in the chest, launching her several feet in the air and into the next stall from which the lady who makes beads into art has already fled. Like a flash the girl is on all fours and I see what Amm had already seen.
The girl is almost a golden blond and her eyes are shot with red veins and cold steel grey eyes. She is boyishly skinny and her clothes are striped with repair stitches but are otherwise a rather bright blue and currently ripped at the collar.
I finally close on the altercation and pull my daggers from their hidden sheaths and roll beneath the flying wreckage and beads. Amm is already on her feet and she crushes the rest of the wood of the bead stall when she jumps to the solid stone ground of the market square.
And roars - and the roar is like nothing I’ve ever heard in its anger and pure animalism. The birds spying for dropped food and crumbs all take to flight and I can hear nothing but the ring of her challenge.
The young girl lunges for Amm, screeching her answer as I can only imagine a banshee would shriek - Amm ducks to accept the attack and the air is filled with hissing and inhuman growling when the two grapple. I move in, my daggers crossed to protect my face. Most of the blows they land would tear asunder or severely wound a normal person but the attacks that are deflected meet wood or ground and the wood is destroyed on contact and large rents stretch in an odd snowflake pattern around them in the stone.
Seeing a brief opening I slash down, aiming for the tender neck below golden hair. I know my mistake when the girl’s eyes meet my own and she spins to catch my dagger arm in a steel grip.
Howling in rage Amm leaps on the girl from behind and lands a head butt to the base of her neck. The girl loses her grip but leaves long jagged cuts in my arm and I know my life blood is spilling onto the flagstones and I stagger, moving away from the fight that continues without relief. My knee hits a stone bench and sweeps the balance from under me but I catch myself against the tidy brick wall of a horticulture median.
Darkness creeps into my vision and I lose consciousness looking at a dead red bird with stripes along its back.
I think it may be a cardinal…
I blink, my eyes adjusting to the continuously flickering light of the mirrored candle enhancer. Turning my head to the left I can see a water-clock and continue blinking until the hands of the clock face stop blurring and become crisp and clear.
5.47p.m.
She whispers and I turn away from the clock – she’s sitting in a chair in the shadows beneath the candle and I can’t make out her features.
But I’d know Amm’s voice anywhere.
“What, sugar?”
“I said I’m glad you’re awake. They told me you had lost enough blood that you may not recover, I –“ she paused and I saw her fidget before squaring her shoulders, “I couldn’t figure out what I was going to do if you…”
“No worries, where are we?”
“Squad medical facility in the specialist wing and the rest of the 20 are waiting very impatiently down the hall.”
I knew the 20 would be close. Relying on one another in the night time streets bonded people together and we were like family now after two years saving each other’s lives. “You can let them know I’m awake,” I forced a smile.
Amm’s shadow nodded and she stood to the left of the candle and I caught a glimpse of broken finger nails and bloodied hands. She walked crisply to the wooden door; light peeking in through the rectangular slit illuminating bloody streaks etched on her face and neck.
“Amm,” I know I shouldn’t ask. We have worked out well by not sharing the event of her night time persona. She pauses at the door, her chin resting against her chest; her hand resting on the handle of the door.
“Tell me…” I’m crossing lines but so did her night time persona, entering the day time streets.
Gulping, Amm turns and kneels next to me and I see the scale of the damage.
“I’m sorry,” her tears follow the rents in her cheeks and travel in forlorn rivers down her lips. She bites back a sob causing her to cough raggedly.
Now her daytime eyes look at me with a sadness that makes my heart ache and bulge into my throat. Even as I watch the rents in her face and neck are growing shallower and bridging the gap in the flesh, healing before my eyes. I try not to imagine how deep the cuts were when she had left the market.
“How did it happen?” I know I sound stupid, worrying about the confrontation in the market while I sit here trying to produce enough blood to stay alive.
“They told me I would never be afraid again.” Her eyes are haunted and in her pupils I can almost see the ghosts of the past flitting in her thoughts. “Never again, but that girl, she was just there suddenly and I felt her coming out and could not stop her. She has never done that before. Not during the day. Every night at 3a.m. but not in the day,” and then I understood her broken talk. Only one thing ever happened at 3a.m every night.
My mind reels in my weakened state and it must tell on my face because Amm is on her feet now and leaning over me. She holds my face so softly for all the death that they can cause and she kisses my forehead slowly and I feel her tears drip onto my head.
The door opens with a soft click and Amm turns to the shuffling of feet expecting some of the 20 but what we see instead is Ferns with his caldera of bulky police. He surveys us coldly and sneers in the light of the candle enhancer.
“Ante Meridiem, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of several citizens in the Freeman Market. You have the right to defense in the Courts of the Justice-born. Until such a time as your trial, you will be held accountable for the charges in the Sanctum of Guilt: starting now.”
He waves to his companions who do not look nearly so smug or sure when they approach Amm with her bloody clothing and blood covered hands, her cheeks healing. But Amm bows her head and looks to me with tears sparkling in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
“No, Amm. I’ll get you out of there. You’re a 20.”
Ferns wears a slender half smile and he looks at me from the safety of the door, “Not likely, Flossen. It’ll be a quick trial.”
6.02p.m.