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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.