Page 98 of Sinner's Salvation

She switched to Mandarin. “I’m going to be a distraction. If a few of you help these men escape while the rest scatter, I would be grateful.” She took her floppy hat off and plunked it on Brian’s head, then she slithered out of her jacket and stepped out of the group on the left side.

She smiled, a huge, wide grin that showed off her filed canines. She walked toward the turnstiles, holding up her ticket. “Excuse me, I need to catch a train.”

Four of the agents in front of her pulled their weapons out, trained them on her, and started yelling at her.

“Stop.”

“Hands in the air.”

“Get down on the ground.”

“Get down on the ground,now.”

“Well, which is it?” she asked, still holding up her ticket. “Stop, put my hands up, or get down on the ground? Your directions make no sense.”

“Shut up and get down,” one of them yelled at her, while another holstered their handgun and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

Anna dropped her gaze and began to crouch.

Off to her right, Evan shouted, “Anna,no.”

She brought her head up and smiled into the face of the agent with the handcuffs. A woman who was taller and very fit.

The agent reared back, but it was too late. Anna grabbed the woman by one wrist with one hand and the handcuffs with her other hand.

“Thank you, these will come in handy.” She twisted them out of the other woman’s grip and dropped them down her bra.

The female agent punched her in the throat.

Ouch. That was a good hit. If she’d been a normal human, it would have incapacitated her to some degree.

But she wasn’t a normal human and hadn’t been for eight hundred years.

Still, she could fake it for effect.

Anna let the woman’s strike push her back a step. She made some choking noises, brought her hands up to her neck, and folded over as if about to collapse. The woman followed her, bringing up her foot for a strike at Anna’s knee.

Anna’s hand came in from the side, connected with the woman’s ankle, and using the woman’s own momentum, thrust it past her, putting the agent into a spin.

The female agent collided with the agents who’d just started coming toward her, knocking them all down like they were bowling pins and she was the ball.

Anna slid through the gap she’d created between the agents, using a burst of speed that was slightly faster than a normal human could go. They reached for her, but they were just a little too slow. She hopped over the turnstiles and continued toward the train platform.

Several of them yelled at her to stop. She imagined they were pointing their guns at her and glanced back. Three men had followed her over the turnstiles, their weapons in their hands, but no one fired at her. Yet.

There were still too many civilians around.

She slowed a bit. She wanted them to chase her, to think they had every opportunity to catch her. To forget about the Chinese tourists.

To forget about Evan and Brian.

In front of her, about fifty feet away at the platform, someone screamed. Then several people shrieked while others shouted incoherent words, all of it laced with fear so sharp it pierced her ears and into her brain.

She slowed, then stopped as a few of the people at the back of those waiting for the train turned and sprinted toward the nearest exit and the stairs.

Behind her, the agents pursuing her had also stopped. As the screaming and running got louder and more chaotic, she heard a couple of agents shouting into cellphones for information.

So, this wasn’t something they were behind.

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