The Blood Guard (The Blood Guard series) (21 page)

But I never got to hear what Sammy was going to say.

The door led to a junction of corridors. At the center was an empty reception desk and lying on the floor around it were several men in dark blue suit
s
—
m
en like Mr. Four, though I didn’t see him among them. It was pretty clear that they were all dead.

“What happened to these guys?” I asked.

“Their Han
d
—
y
our Ms. Han
d
—
w
as broken,” said Dawkins. “She was the only thing that kept them animate. When their Hand burned up, so did their life force.”

Dawkins looked at his map. “There are too many corridors to search. We’ve got to split up. Me, I’m guessing that shipping and receiving is the most likely place for them to depart from, so that’s where I’ll be headed. Ronan, you go the other way. If you see them, don’t engage, just come find me.”

“Okay,” I said, and took off running.

The corridor he’d sent me down ended at a stairway. As I started up, the power went out again, and I was plunged into darkness.

I crept along slowly, feeling my way up the steps until the backup generators kicked in once more and the little red lights came on. At the top of the stairs was a door of reinforced stee
l
—
a
nd it was slightly ajar.

I pushed it open and found myself in an unfinished passageway. The concrete walls were bare cinder block, and the floor was steel decking. Behind me, the door swung closed, some kind of magnetic lock thunking into place.

But I wasn’t really worried about that, because at the opposite end of the passage were five people I’d seen before: Dr. and Mrs. Warner, then Donald and Goatee Guy carrying the case with the woman’s soul, and at the front, leading them, the Head. Before I thought about what I was doing, I shouted, “Halt! Don’t you take another step, o
r
—
”

The funny thing? They actually
did
hal
t
—
a
t least for a moment.

“Or what? Are
you
going to stop us?” the Head asked, turning. “All by your lonesome?” That terrifying red mask was still squirming on his face, its third eye open.

There were five of them and only one of me, and two of the
m
—
D
onald and Goatee Gu
y
—
w
ere armed with swords.

Me, I wasn’t armed with anything. “Um,” I said. “Scratch that. Feel free to proceed.”

One of them heaved open the door at the far end of the corridor. The Head gazed at me, tilting his gruesome face. “This is the only way out of here, son.”

I thought of the magnetic lock I’d heard snap into place behind me.

“Come now.” The Head’s voice was calm and smooth and weirdly familiar through the mask. “You and I aren’t supposed to be enemies.”

I looked around for something I could use to defend myself. There was nothing remotely like a weapon nearby, just a push broom and a plastic dustpan.

The Head waved his companions on. “Secure that soul in the boat,” he told them. “Donald and I will follow after we take care of this boy.” Then he turned back to me, reached up, and lifted the mask away. The creepy thing stopped moving as the Head’s real face came into view.

He was an ordinary-looking middle-aged man, with a beard and close-cropped brown hair that was going bald on top. It would have been a relief to see someone so normal under the mask, except that now I saw the Head for who he really was.

My dad.

C
H
A
PT
E
R
27
:

ALL IN THE FAMILY

“Y
ou’re
the Head?”

“Ronan!” He grinned and tucked the no-longer-alive mask under his arm. “I’m so glad you’re here, son.”

I wheezed, dizzy, unable to get enough air. Reaching out, I steadied myself with a hand on the wall so that I wouldn’t pass out. “You’re not kidnapped?” It didn’t make sense. Mom had said he’d been taken by the Bend Sinister, hadn’t she? She’d gone to rescue him. “But who trashed our house?”

He shrugged and said, “I was looking for some information that your mother had hidden. I wasn’t as tidy as I might have been.”

“The Pure,” I said, thinking of Greta. “You were trying to find the Pure she was guarding.” The edges of my vision were darkening; I was hyperventilating.

His smile slid away and a hardness I’d never seen before settled into his features. “So you know about that.” He flexed his hands and looked down at his gold wedding band. “I always wondered how much your mother told you about her work.”

“I only found out about the Blood Guard yesterday,” I said, still struggling to get my breathing under control. “When she picked me up from school.”

“Yes,” he said, his face lighting up with a smile again. “She got to you before me. I sent a team to fetch yo
u
—
f
irst at school, and then at the train station. You and your friends led us on quite a merry chase.”

“That was you?”

“People working for me.” He handed the mask to Donald, then held his arms wide. His voice was husky with emotion as he said, “Our family was broken, and I wanted my son to be with me. I miss you. Is that so terrible?”

When he said that, an ache opened up in me that I hadn’t even known was there. I missed him, to
o
—
I
’d been missing him for years. But then I remembered the bumpy flight down the park stairs, the sword fight on the train, the semi rolling over Dawkins. Mr. Four going after Greta with a hatchet, Izzy trying to skewer me. Ms. Hand. Sammy about to be run through the Eye of the Needle. “Those people working for you tried to kill me. To kill
us
.”

“Not so!” he said. “Maybe it
seemed
like that, but trust m
e
—
t
heir orders were to get rid of those with you, but to capture you with a minimum of injury.”

“A minimum of injury,” I repeated.
That
sounded more like my dad, the man who’d ditched his family to go crunch numbers as a comptroller. Though the minute I thought that, I realized his job was probably a lie, too.

“I love you too much to let anything bad happen to you, Ronan,” Dad said. “If you’re not with me, then the work I am doing with the Bend Sinister means nothing. It’s all for yo
u
—
y
ou represent the future.”

The sad thing? I wanted to believe him.

My mom’s pride in me was obvious in everything she said, but Dad’s never was. His faint smile of approval was the thing I always wanted and almost never got. When I’d been little, we’d been pals, but that changed a long time ag
o
—
s
ometime after my mom had started training me, I realized. Did she do that just because I got bullied at school? Or because she feared I’d one day face some other, bigger enemy? Not my dad, but the Bend Siniste
r
—
w
hich, as it turned out, were the same thing.

“You may think I was dishonest about who I really am, but I wasn’t the only one. Your mother has lied to you, too. Do you think she truly didn’t know who I work for?”

“If Mom lied,” I said, “she did it to protect me from you.” She hadn’t gone after Dad to save him; she’d been trying to stop him.

And that was why Sammy had run from us on the highway, why he’d acted so strangely after we rescued him. He’d heard my name and recognized i
t
—
n
ot the silly
Evelyn
that my mother had given me. But the
Truelove
I took from my father. The same name as the Head he feared so much.

The Head who had almost taken his soul just to test out a piece of equipment.

“You were going to kill Sammy,” I said.

“Who?” he said, then shook his head, smiling easily. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Come. Do as you’re told. We are running out of time.”

“You set the fire in Brooklyn,” I said. I’d meant to ask it as a question, but as I said it I realized I already knew the answer.

“Ancient history,” he said, waving it away. “You weren’t supposed to be home. The whole idea was to make your mother crack and show us who she really was. We thought that by destroying her old life, we’d force her to lead us to…someon
e
—
h
er Overseer, another Guard, maybe even the one she guarded. But no.” He rubbed his temples. “I wasted well over a decade in that marriage, and what came of it? Nothing.”

What about
me
? I wanted to say.
I
came out of that marriage. Or was I just part of his cover story, too?

My dad pulled back his cuff and looked at his watch. “We’re out of time, Ronan. I’m afraid I’m going to have to force your hand.” He motioned, and Donald sauntered forward. An aura of pale pink light flickered around the long blade Donald held in his right hand, snaking through the runes carved in its steel.

“Whatever your mom told you about the Bend Sinister isn’t true. We are going to bring about a new world, a better world. And I intend for yo
u
—
m
y only so
n
—
t
o be a part of it. You know how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you.”

I stooped down and grabbed the broom and dustpan.

“You going to do some cleaning?” Donald asked with a snort. He swung the point of his sword in little circles.

“We don’t have to argue about this now.” My dad pointed at my head. “The Perceptor reveals you do not wear the sigil. You’re not one of the Guard. It’s not too late to join us, not too late to make the right decision.” He stretched out his left hand, palm up.

And that’s when I knew: There was no decision to be made. I knew in my heart that my Mom was one of the good guys. And so was Dawkins. And even if I wasn’t an official Blood Guard with a sigil, I was a Guard where it mattered, in my heart.

My Dad had stolen an innocent woman’s soul and left her near deat
h
—
a
nd would do the same thing to thirty-five other innocent people if he could.

To Greta, if he knew what she was.

I threw the dustpan.

It whipped end over end, scattering dirt as it sailed right over Donald and caught my father square in the face.

He yelped and staggered back.

Rubbing his jaw, he said, “Donald, dispose of my one-time son and meet me at the dock.” At the threshold, my dad paused. “I offered you your
life
, Evelyn. And how do you thank me? You throw a
dustpan
at me. A dustpan!” He spun and stalked away.

“Don’t call me Evelyn!” I yelled before the door hissed shut.

Donald’s smile grew bigger as he strolled forward, as though he were coming to give me a hug, not skewer me.

“Well, Donald,” I said, brandishing the broom, “what are you waiting for?”

With a roar, he lunged.

I let my training take ove
r
—
t
he same training that had served me ever since my mom picked me up from school yesterday.

I caught him in the face with the head of the broom. He turned, spitting bristles, and I hooked his neck and yanked him off balance.

Then I planted the broom on the ground and pole-vaulted forward, throwing myself past him to safety. He swung at me with his blade, but I was already running down the hall, still clutching the broom.

“Hey!” he said. “Wait!”

I pulled the exit door shut behind me, and then turned the handle that locked it.

Yet another staircase took me up to a steel door with a push bar. I crashed against it and came out onto a concrete porch.

The blue-gray ribbon of the Potomac lay in front of me, glinting in the late morning sunshine. To my left a concrete pathway led away from the building, snaking around the corner.

I took the path and came upon a hangar-like building set into a low hillside. It had a small loading dock with space for a truck, and a boat slip. In the slip was an open motorboat, and in the boat were the Warners, Goatee Guy, and my dad. The case with the stolen soul sat beside him on the boat’s deck.

My dad looked up, saw me, and shook his head, then turned away and started the engine. Goatee Guy threw off the mooring ropes, and without another look back, my dad steered the boat out of the slip and into the river. I thought about throwing the broom I was carrying, but I couldn’t imagine how it would do any good.

Instead, I watched until the boat was out of sight.

“Sorry, Mom,” I said aloud. “I tried to do the right thing.”

The harsh sounds of sword fighting pulled my attention to the hangar.

I hadn’t been able to stop my dad. But I could still help my mom.

I crouched down and edged along the loading dock to get a better look.

The inside of the hangar was empt
y
—
e
xcept, that is, for my mom and Greta’s dad engaged in a fierce fight with five Bend Sinister agents. My mom had an enormous sword in her right hand, and every few seconds she would spin on one foot like a top, blurring in place, parrying the blades of the three agents attacking her, forcing them to fall back. Gaspar held a short sword in each fist, using one to block an agent while attacking with the other.

Watching from the edge of the loading dock stood a man in a dark suit. With one of his glowing gloved hands, he seemed to be conducting a tiny symphony, sweeping his fingers back and forth, curling them in upon themselves, flaring them outward.

A Hand.

A wild mix of emotions surged through m
e
—
p
ride in my mom, fear that she might get hurt, and above all, anger at my dad that had me running forward before I knew what I was doing.

The Hand wasn’t expecting anyone to be behind him.

I’m not much of a baseball player, but Mom had me in Little League when I was eight, so I knew how to swing at a ball. Gripping the shaft of my broom like a bat, I aimed at the man’s head as though I were swinging for the fences.

It was a solid base hit.

With a soft “Oh!” the man fell to the ground. At the same instant, the Bend agents around my Mom and Greta’s dad collapsed and lay twitching on the floor.

In the sudden quiet of the hangar, my mom called, “Ronan? Are you okay?” She dropped her sword and ran to hug me.

I let her. “You should have told me,” I said against her shoulder. I felt her body tense. “About Dad.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, letting me go and stepping back. “I didn’t know how. Things were already confusing enough, having to tell you about me and the Guard. If I’d also had to explain about your father and the Bend Sinister…well, I chickened out. I’m so sorry, Ronan.” Tears aren’t my mom’s thing. She isn’t the crying type, never has been, but I swear at that moment her eyes got shiny. “I messed up.”

“When did you know?” I asked. “That Dad was part of this Bend Sinister thing?”

She stiffened, then said, “When was I
certain
? Yesterday. But after the fire I had strong suspicions that something wasn’t right with your father. He has always been a little odd, but he’d become downright strange these past few years.” She swallowed and looked away. “I
loved
him, Ronan. At least once upon a time. Maybe that’s why I was blind to what he had become. Or what he always was.”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t happy about any of it. Greta, Mom, Da
d
—
n
o one was who they were supposed to be. “So all this time, he was one of the bad guys.”

“One of the
worst
guys,” my mom said, squeezing my hand. “Sorry, honey.”

The doors at the back of the hangar suddenly banged open and Greta came running out. She embraced her father and then they got to work tying up the fallen Bend agent
s
—
t
he sort of father-daughter activity they did together all the time, I guess. They’d nearly finished when Dawkins strolled out, leading Sammy and Ogabe, who still carried the Pure
woman in his arms. Dawkins took in everything with a quick,
wild-eyed look, then proclaimed, “Strong work, team!”

He drifted outside, to where Mom and I stood in the sun. “I must tell you, Bree, your son has been truly heroic, and kept himsel
f
—
a
nd Gret
a
—
o
ut of trouble.”