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2.24p.m.

Lister arrives swiftly in a billow of dust and Relter looks up from his card game with the twins and pays for it as I see Harry palm a card. I look up at Lister from the throne and watch him expectantly.

Scuffling on the ladder is indication enough that Draven and Gabby come to hear what Lister’s news is as well.

Sneering, Lister eyes the two on the ladder and looks back to me, “We got a rat, and you won’t believe your ears, Boss.”

“Try me.”

“Flanders rolled on Simms today, straight up. Heard it from Twitch not two hours ago who got it from Vern who was escorting a well-to-do in the Judge’s Quarter. Flanders is leaking like a stuck pig but not nearly as much as he’s going to when I get close enough to him.”

“You are not to move against Flanders,” I say evenly. “What about Simms, how is he?”

“Johnston heard from the innkeeper who knew the, ah, previous owner of the store he’s running, that Simms killed two of the fat fuckers Ferns usually wallows with and nearly got away. He lives I think but things are getting weird in the city, Boss, my guess is that they’ll torture him. Word is, Flanders took a lick too even after he gave them the low down on Simms. That fucking bastard.”

I purse my lips, torture is the reason I figured on Simms being the man for the job. If there was anyone with something to prove it was Simms and he wouldn’t bend for anyone.

“I repeat, Lister, you are not to move against Flanders.”

“Boss, that rat bastard rolled on one of us! He knows where almost everyone is, who knows who will be next, he’s mine!”

“Do I have to detain you here, Lister? I said no. We needed someone on the inside, I sent Flanders to get it done.”

Lister’s jaw drops a mile and Relter grins from ear to ear.

Slowly, Lister put words to his unusual silence, “You sold us?”

Draven sidles to the doorway and loosens his short sword and I shake my head quickly, Gabby wide eyed and worried.

“Lister, you’ll hear fairly soon that Flanders rolled on our location but you are absolutely forbidden to return here until given word. We’ve got a false location being set up by Beebee and Alton north of the city. Under no circumstance do I plan on giving up any more of the 20, but Flanders and Simms walked into the city knowing their job.”

Shaking his head with a wide grimace of dislike Lister shifts his weight. I carefully keep my eyes on his face but notice the quick dance his fingers do near the hilts of his weapons.

“Fuck it!” Lister snarls and turns, just now noticing Draven and pushes him out of the way and nearly walks into Amm, standing like a barrier in the doorway.

Unconsciously Lister takes a few steps back as does Draven who is the next closest.

Amm is dripping blood into the dirt from a wound in her arm and a bolt appears to be sticking through a thin piece of skin in her left arm but it is hardly her wounds that make her presence outstanding.

Her hair is jet black and what I had taken for black tears before is still laced down her cheeks. I can’t meet her eyes; they are so bright and searing that I hurt when looking straight on.

The card game is now completely paused and Gabby has her back to a stall, fingering her long dagger.

When Amm sways I am the first to her, off my throne to catch her before she hits the ground. “There are things in the woods…” she murmurs and then appears to drift off into sleep.

“Lister, you wait until night to leave. Draven, to the roof with the crossbow and Relter, get the doors closed and barricaded. Gabby, help the twins ready anything they’ve got and stand by.”

4.55p.m.

But the rest of the day is quiet and we spent the hours of tense waiting caring for Amm and her many wounds, the least of which is not the long claw mark on her back. She woke twice and mercilessly apologized to me before falling asleep again.

Now I give Lister a nod in answer to his constant barrage of “Can I go now?”

The bolt removed and her injuries taken care of, Amm sleeps soundly in a nest of hay in the stall farthest from the door. I check her twice before I leave her to walk out close to the door where the others are gathered quietly.

“Gabby, go through the city and find Beebee and Alton and get them out of there. I’ll expect you back tomorrow night at latest. Here is some money, split it three ways and each of you pick up rations in different places on the way back so it doesn’t look like we’re buying in bulk.” Accepting the money, Gabby sidles to the door, glancing at Draven who nods reassuringly.

“Also,” I say loudly and Gabby turns back, “come back through the south gate and stop at the stables to look at some livestock, see what Nod has to say.”

“Sure, Boss,” Gabby replies meekly and she’s gone.

‘Boss, are you sure she should be out on her own? I mean, what Amm said…” he trails off.

“It’s bad enough we’ll have three traveling with goods back to the barn, we don’t need any more to gather attention.”

Draven nods but I know he’s unsure and worried. He should join the club. I don’t speak these words, I just go back to sit with Amm who slumbers restfully, her wounds closing quickly.

10.04p.m.

“I calmed down almost as soon as I left, I knew you didn’t mean anything by it, we’re all tense.” Amm is lying with her head on my leg, her hair almost bled of the black and the stains on her cheeks have faded. “I stayed out so I could think; I spent a lot of time around you when you were at the east point and the rest near the river.”

I don’t respond; I feel as if I owe her my silence, my ability to listen, not to comment.

“I came up on a camping group of police near the Little Hand docks while they were packing away their tents and getting ready to move. I kept at the edge of their camp watching for some indication of which way they were headed or if they had information we could use.”

She pauses, her breathing even, and after several minutes I look down to see if she isn’t sleeping. My movement may have interrupted her reverie as she begins again soon after, “Whatever was shadowing them came up on me fast and I was fighting hard just to stay alive. We fell into the camp and startled the police and a few died when they didn’t move fast enough to escape the wild actions of the creature.”

“It was obvious to me pretty quick that it wasn’t with them when it caught the first volley of bolts and turned on them. I caught it as it killed another man but they were firing on me now also and after one caught me in the arm I threw the creature into them and got out of there.”
“Now I just wonder if they got out of there.”

Combing my fingers through her hair I nod and she looks up at me. “Do you think they did, Hank?”
“I think you gave them a fighting chance and I would like to think those men were grateful and quick witted enough to get while the getting was good.” Her eyes are brown and warm and reflect the smile that is on her lips now.

All is quiet. Draven is sleeping in the loft, Relter is on the roof Harry is at the northern watch, Larry at the eastern; the southern point is abandoned for the night.

I do not know how long I’ve watched her breathing but the black has drained from her hair completely and the crickets outside the dark doorway of the barn have started their song.

Her features are the soft beauty of her daytime persona and I run my finger along her jaw line and smile when she shivers as if cold.

“Amm, so much has happened and I get more and more worried about everyone, especially you.” I pause and she sighs, squeezing my leg. “I just… I love you, Amm.” My eyes burn and I blink away the tears rapidly.

Almost inaudibly, I hear her soft snoring and almost laugh out loud. Talking to myself I smile and lay my head against the wall to sleep, “So much for intimacy.”

12.21p.m.

She isn’t back yet and worry, not to mention guilt, is eating at my stomach. I had hoped she would appear on my watch but last night passed fruitlessly and the day is hot and boring. Draven is finished spreading bolt holes through the barn and Gabby, after following Draven for most of yesterday, is twisting several thin twine lines into thick stretches of rope.

Relter returned last night with a very impressive crossbow with a black stock and smoked metal fittings to hide well in the darkness and word that Johnston was set up very well with only a bit of grumbling from the storekeeper who was less than happy to be confined to his supply room.

I am sitting again in the middle of the floor on a bench Relter was crafty enough to build with snide remarks about the King needing a throne, sharpening long wooden shafts into decent spears. I keep an eye on the barn doors, expecting Amm to stroll in, her features soft and pretty in her daytime persona.

Harry and Larry are also back, their heads together in the corner, a malicious ‘har har’ drifting to my ears every few minutes. These are truly their shining moments, when they’re in the element of explosions and fire.

Thousands of possibilities with the plans I’ve lain keep pushing themselves into my head and I banish them once more and they’re replaced by worry about Amm. It’s only when I’m inactive that I have problems being the ‘Boss.’ I feel I should be protecting the 20, who have put their faith in me.

A loud crack and a flurry of motion and Larry his on his back and what looks like a small animal is whipping around the barn floor sprouting flames and breathing fire as it goes. It whips closer and I roll off my seat into the closest stall, waiting for it to burn itself out and hear Larry and Harry hooting with laughter, Larry still lying in the hay.

Sizzling, the flaming animal stops and trembles like the top of a boiling kettle then shrieks deafeningly and shoots out of the barn faster than the eye can follow and explodes.

“Yar, Boss, some quick feet you’n got thar!” Harry bellows between laughs and Larry hoots off again.

“What the devil was that?” Draven’s head appears over the loft ledge, his hair unusually disheveled and his face flushed and I only now notice Gabby is no longer twining rope.

“Skive off, purdy face!” Harry laughs and Larry answers, “It’s an Exploding Squirrel, obviously!”

My stomach sinks, “Tell me you two didn’t just blow up a…”

“Har har! No, Boss, would’ve lef’ quite a bit more mess, yar? No, just some leaves patched over a firework and a couple of jointed wheels. Spanked you, though, didn’ she? Har har har!”

Harry breaks down in laughter once more and falls on his back and I can’t help grinning.

After many loud minutes Harry finally controls his humor and sits up, wiping his eyes, “Thinkin’ it’ll give them that try an’ get at us a pause. Give us somethin’ to laugh at anywho!”

Then Relter’s shaggy head poked through the door timidly, as if expecting another screaming rodent to come his way and quietly said, “What in the hell was that?”

This time I join in the twins’ laughter.

6.15p.m.

Draven has taken the north watch point tonight, Gabby east and the twins are taking the south, leaving Rel and I sitting at the barn. I’ve assigned myself to the roof watch point and from the scratching I hear from the hole we made in the roof on the first day, Relter is continuing my spear making.

Everything in the last week is cramming itself into my head and tomorrow Flanders hands himself in to the Judges. My gut wrenches thinking about it and the danger I’ve sent twelve of the 20 into without explanation.

And Amm, hopefully still safe in the woods around the barn but as yet refusing to return to the barn. I’m certain she wouldn’t have turned herself in, almost as certain as I am that one of the 20 in the city would have returned to report it by this time.

Only the last hour has been quiet, the hours before that filled with the popping and crackling and shrill shrieking of the twins’ exploding squirrels. The last of which caught fire to some hay and finally lit Harry up like a candle. Though all was contained and Harry was still in quite good humor, I forced them to make that their last experiment and sent them on to their watch.

Not a minute passes that I find myself thinking of reasons to go into the city and check on the 20 that are secreted in various positions. Of all the people who cannot enter the city, Amm and I are the high list, we would be spotted long before we accomplished anything of value.

So I sit still, the sun still hot but fading toward the west steadily.

The heat of the roof makes me drowsy and the constant swish and flick of Relter whittling spear points serves as a soft, repetitive lullaby…

12.37p.m.

 

            I draw a very rough rectangle in the dirt floor of the barn, “We have a wide area to cover but I’ve kept each of you for several reasons. “Gabby, Relter, you two will help with the defense of the area but every third day one of you will enter the city to get me an update on the situation.”

            “Get a bit of the action on that budget o’ Nods, eh?” Relter laughs and nudges the short blond girl next to him. She looks less than amused at the joke and Relter’s smile fails and fades away, Gabby doesn’t take well to innuendo.

            Amm shakes her head, looking at the drawing on the floor.

            “In the meantime though, Draven,” and I look up into his dark, handsome face, the slight hint of a smile that never seems to leave and he meets my eyes, waiting, “take Gabby and the two of you pick out plots for watches to secure the area.” Draven winks at Gabby and she blushes and looks away.

            “Amm, Relter, and I will work on the inside of the barn. When you’ve finished finding our watch points, the two of you come back to indicate them on my horrible little drawing here.” I point at the rectangle on the floor.  I make some rough squiggly lines to the left of the barn figure and then a long curving figure down the middle of them.

            “That’s roughly where you’ll find the river, so make sure our watch points aren’t visible for passing boats and ferries.”

            “Surely, Boss,” Draven drawls and offers his arm to Gabby which she accepts and they stroll away.

            “Harry, Larry, you know the deal, anything that you can turn to our advantage in the worst case scenario, do it. If it can explode or catch fire, I want it ready to do so if we’re cornered.”

            “Ach, that’s a sure thing thar, Boss. We likes blowin’ things up.”

            “Har har, likes it a shade much, says them Judges.”

            Harry and Larry chuckle identically, their hair in ragged patches all over them, having burned or blown most of it off at some point.  The pair step away a few feet and start gesturing animatedly in what appears to be scenes of destructive explosions and I swallow my worry and move on.

            “And then there were three.  Relter, let’s get up to the loft and make us a nice fat hole.”

 

1.22p.m.

 

            “Not the work of a master architect, Boss, but I think it looks good on the hole,” Relter sniggers and winks at Amm who smiles with good grace.

            “It’ll do.” The hole in the roof is quite large enough to allow all but maybe Partum to pass through it and onto the roof.  Relter very deliberately dips one in of the tin we have removed into the high side of the hole and pushes the other end out onto the roof.

            Relter pushes it a bit, seeing if the tin is secure, “That should keep out most o’ the rain, I think.”

            “If it doesn’t, I vote you sleep up here, Rel.”

            Relter grins, “As long as I have something to keep me nice and warm, lass.”

            “I’m sure we’ll have to buy some livestock sooner or later, Rel.  You prefer sheep or pig?” Amm counters with a wicked grin in my direction.

            I’m chuckling and Relter sniggers, “Boss, you sure got a live one.”

            “Draven and Gabby back, Boss,” Draven’s smooth soprano drifts up from below.

            Amm leans over the edge of the loft while Relter starts down the ladder. She leans close to me, draping her arms around my neck and whispers with her lips touching my ear.  As her words tickle my neck I want to kiss her and find a dark corner, “Looks like they did more than find watch points, maybe we should go double check them?” A swift, teasing kiss and she flits away and down the stairs.

            Cold shivers run down my spine and I count to five before following.

            I see what Amm was talking about right away, Gabby is flushed and smiling, her hair healthily bushy and unkempt.  Draven shows no outward signs of the forest adventure he’s had and points at the square on the ground.

            “So, slightly north east we’ve found a perfect spot, armed with a crossbow the watch here could easily deplete the numbers of attackers after giving the barn a warning shot.” A little star symbol was in the area he indicated with a small arrow drawn above it. “There really isn’t any reason to watch the riverside of the barn as there is a twenty feet sheer drop onto rocks for at least a mile in either direction.” He drew a curving line that dropped southward according to the sketch.

            “The south side has a good view of the river but is well covered in foliage right here,” drawing another star to the south of the barn, close to the river, “and east a ways right here. That leaves us with a considerable gap north side, to the west of the first watch point. In a way, this is overcome as the first point has a very nice view of the flat farmland in that direction,” his eyes betrayed him, glancing at Gabby as he said this. In Gabby’s favor, her blush did not deepen.

            “Also a gap between the east and north point, which they could cover between themselves or to solve both of these problems, use the barn as the last point and watch the farmland gap and the eastern gap.”

            I nod and I am very conscious of the hand Amm has put on my back to steady her as we lean over the drawing.

            “Sounds like the beginnings of a plan, Draven, thank you, you will please take first watch on the barn tonight to test your theory.  Relter, you will visit town tonight and acquire us a crossbow. If you can do this where Johnston has set up shop that would be nice but if he has not had time to do this yet, get the best you can, then you will take first watch at the north point.”

            “Yeah, Boss, maybe I’ll find the view as good as some.” The twinkle in his eyes was almost cruel.

            “Go ahead into town, here’s some money, no liquor. I think the twins are a bit north of here, send them back if you will.” Money exchanged, Relter headed out whistling a lilting tune.

            I sigh softly, dealing with murderers and thieves on a daily basis and controlling their base instincts is a wearing activity. “Gabby, you’ll take south side point tonight and I will take east side.  Draven, will you get us some functioning bolt holes from the loft, Gabby, could you help him please?”

            “Happily,” Gabby almost purred; her features pretty in the light of her soft sexual glow.

            The pair trundled up the ladder and was lost to soft murmuring. I was left with a few minutes to embrace Amm and she stroked the back of my neck. Wishing I could find time to be alone with her a hardy, “Har har har” preceded the return of the twins.

            “Yar, Boss. What gives? We gots some good jokes in the works for thems that want ter get at us,” Larry says, I know this because he has two fingers missing from his right hand, the identifying mark of an explosion gone badly in our first year.

            “Sounds great, guys: do either of you remember the hedge that is in a bend in the road coming out of the south gate?  You may have seen it on your way here.”

            Larry nods and Harry puts a finger in the air, “Southy hedges, yar, purdy deep if you follow ‘em in, them are. What gives?”

            “Make them deadly. That’s your job tonight. I want the ability to make that hedge sing in a pinch.”

            Both of their faces alight in imaginings and Harry nods vigorously as Larry dry washes his hands. “Harry an’ me will do it right up, we will, Boss.”

            “Off you go then,” and they disappear almost giddily.

            Amm watches them go and speaks aloud without looking at me, “That hedge…”

            “Will serve the purpose of saving us once again if things go bad, by and large,” I finish her thought with my own.

            “So I am stuck in the barn alone, being babied while the others take a watch and the danger of gathering information?”

            “No,” I say slowly, picking words out, “I thought you might like to be with me tonight at the east watch. The next two days will be our easiest, on the third Flanders will be on their side and we’ll begin the game in earnest.”

            Half expecting her to smile she disappoints me, turning to look me in the eye and I feel as if a Judge is staring into the depths of my soul.

            In a small voice, she speaks and I have to lean toward her to catch everything she says, “You can’t let them die for me, Hank.”

            “Amm, we’ve been through this…”

            “No, Hank, I’m a 20, fine. But there are 19 others and I can’t live being the reason they all die.”

            She was serious, as serious as I’ve ever seen her when she wasn’t killing or fucking.

            “They know what they got into… No, Amm, let me talk. We are the 20 and we’re all alike and need to rely on each other. Don’t think that if you gave yourself over any of us would be safe at this point, there are criminals and killers abroad like never before- No, don’t blame yourself, they put you in that situation.”

            Amm grits her teeth in an angry grin, her eyes flashing angrily, “It’s only because I’m a monster and a freak that I was put in that position!”

            “And you asked for it, did you?” my voice is raising and I can’t stop it. “You sat down one day and said, please, please make me turn into a killing machine every night so that my life is exciting?  That’s what happened, huh?” I’m virtually shouting now.

            Stricken and wordless Amm looks at me in horror and looks sickened, “I didn’t ask for it for that reason, no.”

            Now I stand dumbfounded, taken aback.  There are things she and I have never spoken of and we were close to treading those paths.

            Slowly words spill from me, “Amm, no…”

            “Yes, Hank, I asked.  I was scared, alone and lost and I asked for it. I asked to be scarier than the things I was scared of.  My mother had died and I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from and suddenly I could take care of myself and no one looked twice at me.  I couldn’t remember my nights a lot of the time but the days were a lot nicer to me.”

            “It felt good, not being afraid.” Her words crack and though she has turned from me I see her shake with the sobs she withholds.

            “Amm…” I don’t know what to offer her.  I’m scared to touch her, worried that I should be touching her, and completely at a loss.

            “No! Don’t let them die for me!” As she whips around I feel the breeze rush past me and the sudden hush of the nature sounds and she is a different woman that turns to face me.

            Her chest heaves and the unnatural beauty is an irresistible aura, her scent clings to me and I can taste it on the tip of my tongue but my words are locked inside my mouth. The tears she could not blink away are black upon her pale face and still running down to her mouth.

            A purely guttural sound rumbles in her throat and she looks at me with wide eyes and I have no idea what my expression looks like, I am so torn between lust and revulsion.

            She is a blur as she runs out of the barn and disappears into the heavily shadowed forest.

Flanders is overseeing the last of the minute changes I’ve made to the defense system of the large barn we’ve made our head quarters. One of Lister’s better ideas, the 20 had pooled money somewhat grudgingly and purchased this land less than a year ago rather quietly from a widow who had been in her last years.

            It serves its purpose, we are definitely squared away.

            “Flanders, time!”

            “Four minutes shy of noon, Boss!” comes Flanders voice muffled by the stalls on the north side of the barn.

 

11.56a.m.

 

            I wink conspiratorially at Amm, “Keeps him on his toes.” She chuckles softly, her features back in alignment with her daytime persona.  I want to ask her what happened at 3a.m. last night but haven’t the heart to break our good mood.

            My shoulder is still tight when I move but I’m feeling better than I have in days, what with loss of blood and police shooting at me.

            Flanders strolls back into the main area in the barn, an open space of about fifteen hundred square feet.

            “You about ready, Boss?”

            He turns and whistles keenly in answer to my nod and tired people groan and roll over in whatever corner or stool or stall they’ve managed to fall asleep in.  Partum joins us almost immediately, sometimes I wonder if he actually sleeps.

            Partum is a tower that everyone is crouching or standing about, most bleary eyed and grumbling.

            “First things first,” I say and feeling idiotic.  I know I’m the Boss but I feel like I talk to my closest friends and so I rush on, “We need visibility all over the city.  Johnston, set up shop somewhere in the first quarter, near north gate.  Lister, you’ll watch his back.” Both nodded and waited for him to go on.  “I mean now.”

            Lister blinked rapidly and opened his mouth to spew a bile retort but Johnston caught his attention and nodded toward the large doors.  I watch them depart with their few belongings and turn my focus back to the gathered 20.

            “Partum and Shank, find some grunt work in the third quarter, west side.  Stay visible and ask few questions, chum up with anyone you can.  Anyone you can stomach, Shank.  We’ll be checking in.”  With a quick incline of his head, Partum turned and lumbered out the door and Shank followed not a minute later, secreting daggers and knives around her person.

            “Nod,” I begin.

            “The usual, rent a penthouse on in the second quarter, high side? Room service and a budget to make a Judge cry, am I right?” There was a sparkle in Nod’s eye; there always is when he is elbowing me. His weasel-like, pointed face is split in an easy smile.

            I smile back at him, “Stables, second quarter, south side, and try not to spend up that budget too fast.”

            He chuckles and heads out the doors.

            “Beebee, Alton,” I shift to my left to look at them both, scarred and constantly angry looking, whether they actually were or it was just the effect of broken noses and missing bits of ear, it was hard to tell.  “I need you two to get to north of the city and make an area look as if it was home to the 20.  Here’s some money, set up tents, watch stands, anything you can come up with to look as if we’re there.”

            “Reckon we can match that, Boss. This considerin mine an’ Alton’s R&R?” Beebee chuckles like a cheese grater and limps off toward the doors, her husband Alton tucking away the gold for their efforts.

            Shaking my head with a smile, “Twitch, you…”

            “Shucks, Boss,” Twitch interrupts with a slur though I’m sure he’s sober, “just gimme some pocket moneys and I’ll have you right up informationed as you can get. I know my specialty and it’s at the bottom of a tankard.”

            Amm giggles softly; she has a soft spot for Twitch because he tells lewd and disgusting stories with less than moral endings.

            “Yes, Twitch, just keep switching bars and pubs. We’ll find you.  And watch out for the others as they may need to make contact with you if we move.”

            “Course,” he says and accepts the gold from my hand with no greed and lumbers off, looking four sheets to the wind already.

            “Vern, pick one of your associates in the fourth quarter, north gate and make it as obvious as you can that you aren’t with the 20.” The pretty girl stands up and smiles at me wickedly, her hand on her well shaped waist and I feel Amm tense. “And let’s remember what we’re out there for, Vern, keep in contact with Twitch.”

            Vern winks at me lazily and holds out her hand, “What, Hank, no money for me?”

            I put a reassuring hand on Amm’s knee and I can almost hear a growl in her throat, “We both know you’ll have more than enough money where ever you choose to go.”

            Laughing musically, Vern flutters her eyelashes and leaves the barn, swaying her hips.

            Amm trembles and puts her hand over mine where it rests on her knee, “That cheap little piece of…” and trails off.

            “Blitz. Blitz! BLITZ!” he turns, prying his eyes off the swaying form of Vern disappearing in the distance.

            “Yar, Boss.”

            “Second quarter, east gate, try to find something out of the way and contact Twitch as soon as possible. Keep your head down.”

            Blitz nods and huffs his way out the door and I have a feeling he’s well on his way to catching up to Vern. No matter how much I try to separate infatuations and the job, 20 people in close contact breed feelings.

            I look at Amm and she smiles sweetly. This is exactly what I mean.

            “And then there were 10.” I say thoughtfully, taking stock of those left in the huddle. “Just one more thing and we can get on with the defense plans of head quarters.”

            I look to my second in command.

            “Flanders.”

            “Sir.” He answers dutifully, the reason he is second in command. His death sentence had been questioned often by the 20 and yet no one, including myself, knows the truth about the crime he had purportedly committed.

            “You’re going to turn yourself in, Flanders.”

            Amm gasped and Flanders turned stiffly to look at me, his eyes wide in surprise. Flanders opened his mouth and shut it several times.

            Finally he reached his conclusion, “But Boss, the…”

            “You will enter through the North gate, lay low and take lodging at the sleaziest inn you can find, I suggest fourth quarter slum.  Wait-“

            “Boss, seriously, there are..” Flanders cuts in.

            I continue, “For three days! Then you will hand yourself in to the High Judge, he already knows you.  I believe you know him as well.”

            He is quiet now, his eyes narrowed at me.

            “Simms, you will join Flanders into the city and take a room at the same inn.  When Flanders turncoats, he is going to give up your location, please don’t go quietly but don’t get yourself killed.  That clear, Simms?”

            The short man, his face red and his shaggy yellow mane spiked in every direction huffs, “Sure, Boss. But why-“

            “Damn it.  I need information from everywhere and some of the best places are from criminals. The Sanctum is down, you won’t be put there but hopefully you can get inside and get some word of what’s happening in a holding cell and Flanders, being a turncoat and informer, can relay that information via Twitch.”

            Simms nods without further argument and gathers his vest from a stall in the corner and stands at the doors.  Flanders hasn’t moved and still looks at me through the slits that are his eyes.

            “No arguments, Flanders. If the time comes when you have to reveal a location of camp, confess the northern encampment that Beebee and Alton will be faking. I will get more word to you as soon as possible. Now go.” I keep my eyes fastened on his and for several minutes I hope he will suggest another tactic but in the end he averts his eyes and slouches out of the barn without a look back or to acknowledge Simms.

            A beckon to the remaining 20 and the ragged circle closes ranks around me and I begin, “Now…”

Footsteps fading down the hall as the door swings shut on spring controlled hinges and I can hear raised voices.

            “Boss!  Boss!  Are you up, they’re taking Amm!” it’s Partum, the huge bear of a man who could hold a baby in his enormous hands with the utmost care and an hour later tear a man’s arm from its socket.  I can hear the nervous edge to his voice and Flanders is trying to calm him.  “They’re taking her, boss!”

            Partum’s entry is like a watching the door birth a full grown man, he ducks low and squeezes through the frame sideways.  Once inside his bald head comes close to the ceiling but he no longer ducks.

            “Boss,” his baritone voice rumbles over me. “They took her; Flanders wouldn’t let me stop them. Ferns took her.” His eyes are filmed in a watery sheen.

            “I know, Partum. We’ll get her back, stopping Ferns wouldn’t have helped anything.”

            Flanders maneuvers into the room past Partum and Shank and Lister push their way in as well.  Lister and Shank stand together emphasizing the ‘two sides of a coin’ personalities they have: Lister with his tightrope suicidal tendencies often rushing into danger hoping for the worst, and Shank, her boyish looks offsetting her wildfire evil temper willing to spark at any minute.

            Lister looks at my arm and smiles thin lipped. “I think I can catch them before they reach the Sanctum. I’m betting I can drop all of his bodyguards before Ferns pisses his pants.”

            “No,” I affirm as best I can in my weak condition to the Lister’s rolling eyes. “Flanders, go ahead of us and find the First Judge.”

            “Boss?”

            “You heard me. Go now and when I’m dressed I’ll be on my way.”

            I push myself up on my good arm and swing my legs off the bed.  My legs make odd shadows on the floor and the shadows grow wider, blacking out the details of the room and I feel hands on my chest and head –

 

8.48p.m.

 

            I can feel my heartbeat in my arm.  The bandages are an unhealthy bruised color; I tore my cuts open again when I fell.  A nurse wearing white from head to toe, her hair blue with age and the soft eyes of a mother, feeds me chicken soup while telling me how much stronger it will make me.

            I would give up a year’s pay to scratch my arm. Gritting my teeth against both the itching and the continuous drone of the nurse, I remain seated and doted on as I wait impatiently for Flanders to return with the First Judge.

            Sighing, I accept another spoon of watery chicken soup and think of how long the string is that I have just pulled.  This particular favor was very, very old indeed and though probably remembered, it might not be remembered it good light.

            Rather than dwell on the specifics I continue to swallow and wait. The 20, swarming just outside the room and randomly entering to drop reports, were much more graceful in their patience but they were also able to stand on their own.

            From what I’ve been able to gather from the reports of the 20 thus far, Amm purportedly killed at least seven people -4 men, 2 women, and a street urchin- before picking up my bleeding, unconscious body and carrying me to the closest hospital. From there we were both transported to Squad medical where I am now gathering reports.

            No reports were made of the blond girl who had fought with Amm and from four reports she was not the street urchin killed at the scene.  The nurse begins another rendition of how strong I will be and I sigh into my next spoon of soup.

            Finally the rustle and scuffle of feet in the corridor where most of the 20 appear to be relaxing announce the arrival of the First Judge.  From my viewpoint it seems that only Partum has gotten to his feet out of respect to the First Judge – I frown pointedly at no one in particular, I am going to have to knock heads when I get out of my chair.  Most of the 20 sag against walls or sit cross-legged on the floor in midst of jaunty conversation but to the trained eye, any of the 20 were ready in a moment’s notice to kill any intruder that attempts to reach my room, including the First Judge and his two Magister bodyguards, should the need arise.

            The First Judge is not a large man but the robes fill the doorway as he enters.  He frowns momentarily before concluding my inability to stand but my nurse curtsies in my stead.

            “Leave us, please,” the Judge intones quietly, almost in a whisper and the nurse nods and retrieves her spoon and bowl before dodging through the feet and empty smiles of the 20 in the corridor.

            If the Judge signals his guards I do not see it but the Magister’s file out and take up a position on either side of the portal and the First Judge swings the heavy wooden door closed.

            “You sure know how to call in a favor, Hank. I’ll be dodging rumors for the next fortnight.”

            “Yeah, thanks for coming so soon, I know you’re busy,” I say, flashing a forced smile.

            “Of course, whatever I can do. Does this concern the judgment on the young lady this afternoon?  I hear it was a very quick decision based on the evidence of multiple murders,” his robes rock like a pendulum as the Judge walks the room.

            I nod and swallow my worry and meet the Judges eyes, “Stephen, I would stand on the edge and take oath that those deaths were not by her hand.”

            The Judge’s brow furrows and he cocks his head slightly in a canine expression of confusion, “Stand on the edge, Hank?”

            I nod again and explain, “When we swore in the 20 each stood on the edge of the executioner’s blade. Except for me, had any of them refused to join the 20, a swift death on a block was their fate.”

            Lips pressed into a thin line, the Judge’s silence is reply enough. Then he nods, his brown skin shining in the bright light of the candle enhancer. “I don’t know if I can get her out, Hank.”

            “Don’t. I need to get in.”

            “You want in? There is no telling how many convicts you and your 20 have put in the Sanctum, they would be thirsty for your blood.”

            “Stephen, you have no idea what Amm is capable of and if I don’t go in there after her… Ferns doesn’t realize what he’s caged.” I meet his eyes once more and I feel the searching, exposed feeling that is inherent with the ability of the Judges.

            After what feels like several minutes, the elusive feeling dissipates and the Judge squares his shoulders and opens the heavy door.

            Over his shoulder, “Tell your men that we’ll be taking the Judges carriage.” And the Magister guards fall in to either side of him as he strides into the hallway.

 

9.26p.m.

 

            Even for a carriage the ride was smooth and the clip-clop of the horses gait was soothing and muffled outside the padded carriage doors.  Flanders knee bounces against mine to my left and the Judge sits quietly, his single guard looking menacing even while sitting.  Partum, Lister and Shank ride the bumper ledge outside and out of sight.

            Just as well, Lister and Shank had obvious issues with authority and there were few higher authorities than the First Judge himself.

            I sit with my head against the padded window that is curtained with a thick rug-like fabric.  Finally, Stephen, the Judge, breaks the edgy silence that shrouds our trek to the Sanctum of Guilt.

            “Pardon, “the Judge begins, speaking to Flanders, “but where do I recognize you…”

            “Flanders, your Honor.  You read me and found me guilty of the murder of a street urchin and four bar-hands. The sentence was death but the 20 saved me from the chop.”

            Stephen’s forehead wrinkles and his brow raises and he glances at me briefly.  He sits back quietly and folds his hands in his lap.

            Continuing without prompt, Flanders says, “And I was guilty, your Honor, you read me correctly. I didn’t want to kill that kid, but when the bar-hands jumped me the little rat tried to gut me from behind. Sometimes it’s hard to judge when you didn’t see what a man’s choices were.”

            Silence stretches. The Magister bodyguard looks most uncomfortable, unsure whether or not to take offense to Flanders’ comment.

            “Perhaps you are more right than you know, Mr. Flanders,” the First Judge speaks softly, the quickness of his words almost harsh in its suddenness.

            Flanders smiles and I raise my head, my instincts screaming something I can’t quite grasp.

            “Flanders, it’s quiet.”

            “Yes, sir, it is.”

            “No, it’s absolutely quiet, the larks do not sing, the street talk has hushed. Flanders…”  It happens every night, as if the air is being vacuumed from the sky. Even with the thick curtains and heavy padding the air whispers past my skin like a heavy breeze and I know of the smoke before I smell it.

            “Let me out, your Honor.  You need to turn back; this is not where you need to be. Come on, Flanders.”

            The First Judge begins to raise questions and I turn back to him as Flanders opens the carriage door and the driver slows to a stop. “Stephen, Ferns doesn’t know what he’s done. I have to get up there and you have to get back to the Courts or away from here, at least.”

            A black cloud is now blotting out the stars and the acrid smell of smoke hangs heavy in the air.  I lift myself slowly, wary of my waning strength and it is good to have the ground under my feet again.

            Very seriously, the First Judge searches my eyes and his gift delves deep within me and then, “On the edge?”

            I nod and smile grimly, “On the edge.”

 

9.40p.m.

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.

She pushes me down by the shoulders and kisses my chest, pulling my tunic farther apart and unbuckling my pants.

            Amm sits upright and pulls her shirt off over her head and then presses her breasts against me.

            She’s more feral when she turns to pleasing herself.

            When I fall asleep it’s filled with baseless thoughts I will never remember and she snores softly, her flesh bare and pale blue in the moonlight.

 

..9.45a.m.

 

            Her features are softer in the day, her skin a soft bronze and the muscles of her stomach twitch every so often as she breathes. The beautiful arch of her nose is pressed against a pillow and she lays on her stomach, her left leg, which is jackknifed beside her, and the rest of her left side is naked to me as I warm tea at the stove I keep burning low because of the already natural heat of the day.

            I sit and write the passage you see now on a small wooden table polished to a generic shine, I couldn’t even come close to naming the grain of the wood.  The sunlight makes her hair a healthy gold and it ripples like water when she yawns and stretches in bed.

            Amm raises and sits with her legs folded beneath her, the sheet folded forgotten around her ass. She moves with subconscious grace and her nudity is an afterthought but she looks at me mid-yawn and smiles, her hands in fists above her head.

            Her head cocked to one side and her teeth flashing white my vision tilts and skews, doubles and reels and in my unusual vertigo her 3a.m. counterpart overlays her daytime persona then the sunlight catches my eye.  When I look back to her she is the beautiful, naked daytime Amm, her eye brows furrowed in concern.

            “Hey,” she says simply, stepping off the bed and sidling to me. “You okay?  Were you injured last night?”

            I wonder for the thousandth time how much she remembers of the night life and the jobs we pull but we never talk about the death and violence of the darker hours.  The time I tried, the haunted look in her eyes was enough to make me regret the words.

            “Yeah, no, the sun got in my eyes for a second, that’s all.” For her own good I’ve learned to lie to her.  I shrug and put my arm around her, squeezing her hip in my hand and rest my head on her stomach.  I feel the urge to hide my writing but she has never looked at my writing nor do I believe she feels the urge to break confidence now.

            Her hands feel so good combing through what little hair I haven’t shaved off.  “Can we go to Freeman’s today?” The market, somehow I would rather face the brutal gangs of the night life than go shopping but I nod my head and kiss her firm stomach and move my hands down around her legs and pull her to straddle me over my lap.

            She kisses me and her hands run over my head again but her touch contains a hint of lust and possession that her night time persona always lacks.  Amm thrusts her hips against me and I fight my pants down with her cooing into my ear and her nipples hard, rubbing my chest through my shirt.

            Reaching down she takes me in her hand and…

 

..11.17a.m.

 

            There’s a dead bird marring the perfect horticulture median in the center of the Freeman market.  It’s some sort of red bird, like a cardinal but the black stripes over its back make it unrecognizable to me in my ignorance.  I look away and scan the closest merchant stalls finding Amm happily talking to a lady who weaves beads into paintings. Somehow I know one of these awful works of art is going to end up on my wall.

            She winks at me slyly as she ends her conversation with the bead lady and visits the neighboring stall to look at gracefully plain silver and gold rings that I can barely see in their displays at this distance.  Two younger girls cut off my view as they step up to view the same wares and I look through the crowd, enjoying the odd peace of the crowd.

            It may sound odd but in my work crowds tend to be filled with brass knuckles and snarled words – but these are day time citizens.

            I was deciding to join Amm to see what she found so interesting about these stalls though I knew it had to be something ingrained in a woman when the hair on my neck stood on end and I thought I could feel the air rushing past me.

            Colors blend and blur and I turn to find the jewelry stand leaning haphazardly toward the next stall over.  Amm stands, her hair held in a breeze that I don’t feel and one of the young girls that had recently joined her in shopping is pinned her Amm’s athletic body.

            The young girl struggles to no avail and my entire body goes cold because I’m looking at Amm’s back and the tips of her hair have suddenly gone a liquid, creeping black that has already begun the climb to her head.

            I gulp down a painful mouthful of bile and sprint for the jeweler’s stall but Amm speaks and her words are terror embodied and she raises her hand like a scythe above the young girl.

            I can hear my heartbeat and in my ears and my lips are dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

            And time seems to stand still…..

3a.m. had come and now the seconds were falling closer to one minute after.  I knew from the reports that there were at least four dozen men inside the building. I also knew that Amm was warming up because one of those men was screaming incoherently. A solid thump on the outside wall opposite us was followed by a brick dust as something pounded on it from the inside.

            The 20 had all drawn weapon now and merely waited.

            At the metal door I could hear muffled shouts and then the door, surely a solid four inches of iron, bowed outward like a sheet of tin and held for mere seconds before exploding into the alley.  Amm rode atop the door with the bloody leavings of what I guessed to be the man with the muscled arms.

            A gang of men swarmed after in a shower of sparks and shouts brandishing weapons of all make and size. 

            Amm, a beautiful girl at any time, stood when the door skid to a stop – she was covered in blood and gore and bits of rock and she stood like a goddess of death. In the light of day and in the first dim shine of twilight Amm stood only a head under myself at six feet with a blond and brown mixed hair and smiling brown eyes. She was athletic, even well muscled for that, and fairly curvaceous and never wanted for suitors in the least.

            At 3a.m., on any night, and when she stood feral before a pack of men, each of whom was easily twice her weight and size, she was transformed. Her hair was still a sandy brown and blond mix but the edges had taken on a black stain and it crept up the follicles at a snails pace.  And the eyes, her eyes so happily brown at any other time sparkled with firelight that was not there and shone with an eerie light as if consuming darkness.

            Even from above and even after two years of this experience I was frightened of the creature which Amm had become. The 20 closed on the scene to apprehend the hoodlums and low men, acting swiftly not in fear of escape but for the safety of our bounty.  Amm was what the Warden’s on the Block called a ‘loose cannon’ and could turn a bad situation into a blood bath.

            Flanders left my side and fell from the edge of the building catching a pinion we had placed there when we climbed up and he was lost in the fray.  I watch on as the 20 work with deliberate efficiency and nearly all the hoodlums are unconscious or restrained now.

            Then, as things often do in this line of work, the plan goes awry as more men spill out of the building and enter combat with the 20. I lean on the edge of the building, calling out signals to the 20 in the alley when things go from bad to disastrous as four of the gang members corner Amm.

            I scream to any member I think can get to her but all are involved with struggles of their own and one of the hoodlums takes a swing at Amm with a dice club, knife blades and nails sticking out from it’s head.  I leap down from the building myself, using the same pinion as Flanders had and run for Amm but I knew from the moment the men closed on her that they were dead.

            The man with the club misses by a long shot because Amm was now beside him and she reaches up almost lazily as if about to caress his jaw line and her shadowed face twists in rage. Amm grips the man’s jaw and removes it leaving a gaping hole of tissue and blood and the man falls with a low guttural slurping shriek.

            Braver than I would be, the remaining three men close on her.

            One wields a knife and immediately goes for a gut shot but finds himself biting down on his own knife in a gush of blood pitiful murmurs.  A wooden club whistles over Amm’s head and she pivots to one side and kicks high and wide, catching the man with the club on the ear, bowing him over. His remaining partner, also bearing a knife, stabs down and into his head and the wooden club falls heavily to the ground.

            The last man stands confused as his knife lodges in his friend’s skull and tries to free his weapon.

            I’m almost to Amm now and hoping to save the man’s life by knocking him the hell out but she’s on his back already, pulling his head to the side and exposing his neck. I can almost see the pulsing vein near his shoulder and then Amm bites into it, tearing away the skin and flesh.

            The man screams and pushes away from her and falls beside his friends clutching at his neck as if he could stop a flow of blood that great.  I shake my head and run to a stop mere feet away from the small massacre.  Around me the 20 are bringing things to a close and Amm turns her strangely pale face to me in the dark of the alley and gives me a half smile covered in blood that raises a bile in my throat.

            She fondles the palm of my hand with the tips of her fingers and presses her body against my left side and I feel the inhuman warmth that comes to her at 3a.m. Amm purrs in my ear and paws playfully at my shirt with the same hand that tore a man’s jaw from his face only minutes ago. Some sadistic side of my subconscious lust rises to her lack of indecency but I quell it as I look beyond the carnage to the gang thugs and hoodlums we captured alive.  It wasn’t a bad night, all things said.

            Feeling ignored Amm slips her fingers into the top of my trousers and massages the length of my groin.  Amm became my lover during the daytime hours over a year past and I failed at that time to realize how much of her personality carried into her night time transformation.  So I became the lover of a woman who was two very different women, and the night time woman did only one of two things with any enjoyment:

            Kill and fuck.

            And if she has recently killed there is only one thing Amm really wants to do – fuck.

            I look at her and know I have to pay her some tribute of gratitude and admiration for her contribution to the night’s work.  I brace myself for the taste and kiss her bloodied lips and feel her tongue tasting of salt and raw flesh flick into my mouth.  Even in my disgust she triggers erotic flashes and lust and I pull away, trying to focus again on the job.

            The 20 are gathering the captured hoodlums and Flanders dispatches Mannick to bring in the pokey so we can collect bounty on our live heads.  Amongst the blood, death, sweat, and the carrion eaters I am sure circle already; the night is good.

            I swallow the sweat and blood from my kiss with Amm and shudder with the effort it takes not to lose the nights dinner. Amm stands at my side fondling and caressing me to get my attention but I refuse to look at her for the moment and respond to the cough Flanders uses to interrupt my thoughts.

            “Speak, Flanders.”

            “The inside is a blood bath. I’m not sure how many we lost yet, there are some… body parts we haven’t connected with bodies yet. It’s bad inside. The problems in the alley were mild by comparison,” Flanders finished, but I watched him fidget with the hem of his tunic.

            “What’s your issue, Flanders?”

            “Sir, with your permission I will speak with you later.”

            “Sir? Yeah, Flanders, we’ll talk later.  Get your ass in gear, gather all the valuable weapons and get the 20 in whatever parade rest dress down you can manage out of them. Ferns and the police will be here shortly.”

            Flanders grunts and says with a sneer, “Pokey.”

            I speak through my gritting teeth to my second in command, “Stow your flak, Flanders and move your ass.”

            Almost as if I’d summoned him by speaking his name Ferns appears at the mouth of the alley with his cadre of shtick savvy, round bodied policemen. They stroll in casually, stepping heavy footed around the hoods lying on their stomachs, hog tied.  Ferns is a contrast with his flesh force, skinny as a rail in the middle of mounds fat and mouth breathing. Even so, I always get the feeling of un-health more so from Ferns than from his round policemen.

            “Flossen,” Ferns drawls, peering down his hawkish nose.

            “Ferns,” I say, forcing myself to unclench my jaws, “right on time as usual. Were you crouching behind the dumpsters?”

            He chuckles softly, nodding his spindly head, “No no, Flossen. Unlike most of the raff around here lately, I try my best to stay away from trash.”

            I tighten my embrace on Amm as she stiffens and leans away from me. No matter how distracted Amm may appear, and until that point she had been busily nibbling at my neck, she never misses or forgets anything.

            And there were no happy mediums with Amm, she would kill Ferns and every one of his police rather than speak with them or trade veiled insults. She had no disdain, no anger, and no empathy; not after 3a.m. – she knew threat and affection.

            “Just get to it Ferns before things get out of hand, I’d hate for you and your men to have to leave while we settled everything down again.”

            Ferns presses his lips into a thin line and motions for his men to gather the bound hoods and get them to the wagons in the street without taking his eyes from me. Amm is nearly snarling at my side and he breaks his stare to look at her like he was viewing a rabid dog on a leash.

            I am done for the night with Ferns no longer looking for the ill banter we share almost nightly.  Hugging Amm to me I walk down the alley away from the street and into the darkness. Amm is still glancing back at Ferns, tempted to break from me and destroy him so I slip my fingers into her pants to my knuckle and squeeze her ass.

            Her tongue flicks out over her rich red lips made even more brilliant by the dark blood still wet on her mouth.

            Before we slip out of the lamplight and out of the alley Shank looks up at me where she sits on a large hoodlum crying against the pavement. It looks as if she ended up breaking most of the teeth in his mouth to pacify him.

            “Shank, let Flanders know we bugged out and flew home. The 20 have R&R for two nights, pay granted.”

            Shank whoops and starts for the rest of the 20 to spread the news gliding between the tied gang members like a swift breeze.

 

..3.17a.m.

The 20 were only hired at night when the quiet and honest slept and the twisted and vile walked the streets.  The 20 weren’t hired by the twisted and vile, no, quite the contrary, they were hired by the bright peoples of the day to police or bounty hunt the creepers of the night.

            It was also not because the 20 weren’t effective and efficient during the day that they were specifically hired for the unwholesome night contracts. It was because of three a.m. that the 20 remained in the twilight hours dealing with the twisted and vile when the lawful citizens lay abed.

            The 20 called her Amm but her mother laid the name Ante Meridiem on her birthing papers and so her name remained after twenty three summers. Amm was held inside the 20 like a hand in a glove shrunken by the spring rains. She was wild and angry and forever trying to prove to the streets and her friends that she was beyond fear.

            But it was her fear that brought this on – and the fear was born again every night at three a.m.

            And it’s at three a.m. that we fall upon this story, when Amm’s fear and curses limn the street with a palpable tension.

            So look down now, look down now from your perch, upon Amm and what is bourn of fear.

 

..2.54a.m.

 

Time, Flanders?”

            Flanders looks up at me, the urine street lamp light illuminating his shaved head, forehead and his glittering brown eyes.  Flanders truly loves this part, when the plan comes to fruition, whether or not it works the way it was written or is completely improvised.

            He, Flanders that is, nods to me and looks at his pocket watch that he winds every night at eight thirty when the street movement begins.

            “Two fifty five, Boss.”

            That’s me, Boss.  The 20 stopped calling me Hank after the first three contracts and at first it felt like a mocking admonition but I quickly learned otherwise and now I answer quicker to Boss than Hank.

            But the time has come and Amm is on the street below us, her frontal features smothered in darkness with the lamplight at her back casting a shadow into the alley. Flander and I watch from our dark perch, stashed behind crates on the roof of a neighboring building. Seventeen other people are hidden and waiting close at hand and each knew the plan better than they knew their mother and each one was fully capable of acting on the fly when the plan fell apart.

            And it always falls apart.

            Flanders raises his right hand so that the multi-hued bricks of the building across from us distinguish his hand by contrast, his fingers spread wide like an awkward star – then deliberately folds one finger out of sight.  Four minutes till three a.m.

            Amm, below us, weaves drunkenly in the alley and comes to a leaning rest against the metal alley door of the multi-hued building.  On the roof I hadn’t heard the scratch of her boots against cobble that must surely have accompanied her walk in the alley and certainly hadn’t heard the soft metallic tone when Amm leaned into the door, but she must have made enough noise for the occupants.

            Because as Flanders folded another finger (three minutes till 3a.m.) a man with a bald head and arms that seemed too muscled for the rest of his body opened the door so quickly he ended up catching Amm as she fell inward.  I could tell Amm was nerveless, sagging in the man’s arms as if a rag doll.

            The man recovered fairly fast, turning his head as if looking at someone and shouting while pulling Amm out of the alley.  Even in this soft breeze his words became only a muted droning called into the room behind him and the man and Amm were soon only patches of shadow thrown across the alley floor and then nothing when the door closed and all was calm again.

            Another finger folded, two minutes till 3a.m.

            Like shadows themselves the rest of the 20 closed on the alley like the fingers of Flanders hand folding with each passing minute.  From my rooftop perch I could see all seventeen take their places strategically placed by each of the alley mouths.

            At this point I always get a metallic taste in my mouth as if I’ve just bitten my tongue and blood is mingling with my spit but it’s not so, it’s simply the anticipation of action. I can taste it, the excitement and the threat of harm.

            Flanders folds another finger, one minute till 3a.m.  He drops his hand to the hilt of his preferred weapon, what we call a hard hatchet.  Unconsciously Flanders pulls the hatchet an inch from its sheath, testing the freedom of movement.

            Now, like every night at 3a.m. as it has been for two years or more, since the first night at the time the 20 were forged, silence falls like a blanket on the entire city block as the seconds tick past on the wound time clock in Flanders pocket.  I’ve asked the nineteen others about those last few seconds before 3.a.m and none of them admit to feeling and hearing the same things I have taken note of over the last two years as the 20 became a prominent entity in the night time activities of the city.

            Seconds before 3a.m. the same things happen each night: the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and goose bumps raise on my flesh and the air seems to vacuum out of the sky and whistle through the eaves and flues of the buildings and houses, it’s like the coming of a tornado from the tales of the northern counties. And just as those tales relate, destruction follows in the wake of the dark winds.