Sanctuary Read Online Free Page B

no questioning the fury of the gathered crowd. The taunts had ended. In angry silence, they advanced upon Senyaka. Then, finally, one young woman snarled, "C'mon, guys, he can't take us all."
    Even as the crowd surged forward, Amelia 'ported the few feet to Senyaka's side.
    "Enough!" she commanded, and her sudden appearance was enough to startle the crowd to a momentary stop.
    "Another mutie!" someone yelled.
    "So? We can take her down, too! We gotta take 'em all down!"
    "Your arrival is well timed, Amelia," Senyaka said, his expression hidden behind the linen cowl that covered his face. Still, she thought he meant it. Unusual, for one so proud.
    "I try," she said quietly, then turned to the crowd. "Apparently, many of you have failed to grasp your new situation as citizens of the new sovereign state of Manhattan," she announced. "Perhaps you feel that because the Sentinels patrol the shores of this island, and Magneto can only be in one place at a time, that you are still free to do as you please.
    "You are wrong."
    "Mutie freak!" a man screamed, then jumped into a crouch, pistol leveled at Amelia and Senyaka.
    Before either of them could move, he squeezed off several rounds. Her reaction was immediate and instinctive, self-preservation skills she had honed over years as the object of humanity's hatred. Without conscious thought, Amelia teleported the bullets away, then brough them back headed in the opposite direction. The gunman did a little three-step jig as his own bullets caught him in the chest and abdomen.
    The crowd gasped in horror and astonishment, and drew more tightly together, an unconscious defense mechanism.
    "You're nothing but monsters!" the same young woman shouted. "This is our city, and we don't want your kind here."
    "Your city, is it?" Amelia said acidly. "It's so nice to see how well you take care of what is yours."
    With the fire, and the looting, all around them, Amelia was still uncertain if the people would understand the irony of the situation. She did not regret the death of the gunman. That, after all, had been self defense. But if they did not disperse immediately, she knew she would have to do something that she would regret.
    "Return to your homes," Amelia said loudly. "If you wish to leave, pack your things and go. There is still time. If you want to stay, you must live by Magneto's law. For as of now, there is no other."
    "We're not going anywhere, bitch," the young woman said, then stepped to the fore of the crowd and produced a long knife from within the folders of her knee length leather jacket.
    "That will do," Amelia said, exasperate. They could not play at this all night. She had no choice.
    Amelia lifted her right hand and made a gesture which helped focus her mind. The young woman dematerialized instantly, her knife clattering to the pavement. Someone in the crowd whispered a prayer.
    "Bring her back, mutie," a wiry dark-skinned man said ominously. "Bring her back or you're dead."
    "If you could have killed me," Amelia responded. "I'm quite sure you would have done so already. But, you wish me to bring back the shrill harpy who was standing here threatening me with a blade? Indeed, if that is your wish, I will be happy to oblige.
    "Look up, if you will," Amelia said, and pointed to a spot in the sky.
    At first, though she knew precisely what she was doing, even Amelia could not see through the blanket of darkness that hung over the city. Then the woman started screaming, several hundred feet above them. It was easy to spot her after that, plummeting through the air, firelight flickering of her black leather jacket, and her pale terrified face. She screamed all the way down, and when she struck the pavement, nobody looked. Not even Senyaka.
    But Amelia watched. it was her doing. Her responsibility. She would have to live with what she had done. Though she knew that her cause was just, and that this one death might save dozens of other lives, it would haunt her. Killing always