Page 36 of Sinner's Salvation

Anna kept her eyesclosed and pretended to be unconscious. Someone tore paper quite close to her head, and she allowed her eyelids to open a crack.

The paramedic was unrolling a gauze bandage and draping her left shoulder and arm with it.

“Why are you putting the bandage over her clothes as well as her burns?” Brian asked.

“Often it’s the best thing to do,” the paramedic said. “We’re not set up to treat them, and infection is one of the biggest dangers. So, we do what we can to protect the area until we can get the patient to the hospital.” The paramedic took a good look at Brian. “Were you also injured?”

“Yeah, but this is from before the fire.”

“What happened?”

“I didn’t dodge a bullet fast enough.” He lifted his arm slightly. “All this blood on my clothes is mine.”

Anna couldn’t see the medic’s facial expression from her vantage point, but it must have been suitably skeptical because Brian added, “I’m an FBI agent. Occupational hazard.”

The paramedic sighed as if he were very irritated. “Take your jacket off, please.”

Brian began to shrug out of his suit jacket, wincing as he put pressure on his injured arm.

The ambulance came to an abrupt stop, jerking everyone and all the supplies and equipment forward. Brian was pitched off his box and nearly face-planted on Anna’s left arm.

“Sorry,” the paramedic driving called out. “Two vehicles just cut us off and came to a stop.”

“Back up,” Evan ordered, in a tone with no room for argument. “And go around.”

Anna stopped pretending to be unconscious and propped herself up on her elbows so she could see what was going on better.

The driver changed gears, and they moved backward, but stopped after only a couple of seconds. “A van just blocked us from behind,” the driver said.

“What the hell is going on?” the paramedic sitting with them asked.

“Nothing good,” Evan said. He pulled his gun out of his holster and held it up.

“Whoa,” the paramedic said, raising both hands. “What the hell, man?”

“Do you know who’s out there?” Anna asked Evan.

Everyone turned to stare at her with eyes wide and jaws loose.

Evan was the first to recover. “No, but—”

“Put your weapon away,” she ordered. Then added, “Please.”

He studied her face for a moment, then lowered his hand, though he didn’t holster the gun.

The rear doors of the ambulance rattled, then one side opened. At first, it was too bright outside and she couldn’t see who was standing there, then the other side opened and dispelled the shadows.

Two men stood there, dressed in suits with a decidedly Italian flair. They looked at everyone in the ambulance, then paused on her.

Both men smiled, showing off canines that had been filed sharp.

Enzo and Luca Agosti. An Italian family who were infected with the same disease as Anna and her family, then became the same kind of monster. It happened to them in the early fifteen hundreds, and they went on a rampage through their part of the world.

It took a few years for the news to reach Anna and her family, but she’d come to see them once it did. They’d been irritated to discover that they weren’t the only ones who were suddenly more than human. She’d had to have a very pointed conversation with them. They hadn’t liked taking orders from a woman then, and they still didn’t.

“Sirs,” the paramedic next to her said, the tone of his voice telling her he was confused. “Please, close the doors and allow us to take these injured people to the hospital.”

“Not taking very good care of your people, Anna?” Enzo asked, completely ignoring the man.

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