The Vespertine Hour
an excerpt

Will can change the past. Jon can foresee the future.
Together they can end the present.

From Chapter One - Four cities

Gatis touched his tonsure, it was sweaty. He coughed again. His bad throat made his voice even raspier than usual. He wanted to know the details but he knew that his master didn’t like questions.
“No, Master, there’s nothing for you to worry,” the monk repeated. He needed time to think. “As for the boys…?”
“You need not bother about them. One will soon be with us.”
Gatis remained silent.
“Do your work properly and we’ll be rewarded.” I won’t fail, Gatis thought. But you… Will you keep your promise?
Gatis never uttered the unspeakable question. Their conversation was over. He just listened carefully to his Master’s final words.
“The countdown has begun. Only five days to the Vespertine Hour.”

From Chapter Eleven - No way out

There was no point in lying down. Will crawled outside his room and listened. The Winchmores had to be in the living room with the other guy. He could hear them talking but their voices were too far off for Will to distinguish who was who. If both Mr and Mrs Winchmore were entertaining him, then there would be nobody else in the house to stop him from going slowly downstairs and out the front door. He couldn’t believe how confident they had to be to think he was fast asleep with whatever drug they put in the orange juice or whatever was on that tray.
Will inched forward a little. He only had to pay attention on the staircases, which were old and creaky. His hands landed on the first step. How silly he looked, crawling down like a big baby. That didn’t make sense at all. He stood up and flattened himself against the wall along the staircase, one foot gingerly putting his weight extremely slowly on the next step. Another foot soon followed. The muffled sound of the voices was hardly audible. All he cared about was to hear them staying in the living room.
Inch by inch Will landed in the corridor at the bottom of the first staircase. Nothing creaked so far. The loudest noise came from his heart firing like a machine gun against his chest. He thought his ears had turned extra powerful when he actually heard the tiny thud of a drop of sweat falling on the wooden floor from his forehead.
He moved experimentally along the narrow stretch of naked floor that would bring him to the next flight of stairs. Advancing one foot at the time, Will placed each one of them gently on the floor. But nobody can prevent old wood from creaking. Two steps away from the staircase, the floor gave in and squeaked painfully under Will’s foot. He froze. Not a muscle moved, nor a nerve writhed inside his body. Would they have heard him? He didn’t even dare move his hand to brush away thousand of drops of sweat that were crawling down his face, prickling his skin madly.
A few feet below where Will now stood like a scarecrow, the living room door opened.
“Milk and sugar?” Mrs Winchmore said.
“Yes, please,” said a voice that Will did not recognise.
He listened to every step Mrs Winchmore took. She closed the door behind her and walked to the kitchen. Will gave out a noiseless sigh but remained still. And waited. He waited for the kettle to boil. He waited for Mrs Winchmore to prepare three mugs of coffee. He waited for her to go back to the living room and to close the door.
At last he moved forward again, with one long step he reached the staircase, pulled his other leg along, pushed himself against the wall, and started his slow descend to freedom. He had to be careful now. The moment he stood on the last step, they would see him through the glass panel of the living room door. He planned his next actions as he moved slowly down. He was going to jump over the last three steps and head for the door. Once outside, he would run like mad and later tell Jon where they could find him.
Half way down Will reassured himself that everything was going well, no problems at all. He had stopped there for a reason. The engine of a car died outside. Or was it a van? It didn’t matter, it could have been anyone. There was a road outside, freedom, that’s what it was. Now or never, he thought.
He jumped over the last few steps. When his feet touched the ground again, his shoulder and elbow hit the wall, sending a shotgun pain all the way up to his nostrils. But he didn’t care. He sprang up towards the door and opened the latch. A wave of fresh air welcomed him pleasantly.
But the reality he faced was anything but pleasant. A silver, satin covered arm was stretched at an angle towards the bell. The arm belonged to a woman wearing a black silken dress. Behind her was the bloke with the shades and the cap. And behind him was a fluorescent looking vehicle with the word ambulance on it, and three people in white loose trousers and shirts.
“Get him!” Mrs Sharrocks said.