The Blood Guard (The Blood Guard series) (22 page)

“Did you know about my dad, too?” I asked Dawkins.

He glanced at my mother and back to me. “Look, Ronan, your mother didn’t know for sur
e
—
n
one of us did. But even if she
had
been certain, there is no easy way to give a boy that kind of news about his father. It would have destroyed you.”

How
would
I have reacted if my dad had gotten to me first, before my mom? What if he’d told me about his work with the Bend Sinister, revealing that my mother was a liar and had a secret life? Would I have sided with him? Signed on for his vision of the world to come? Would I have felt for my mom what I now felt for my da
d
—
t
hat sickening swirl of disappointment, betrayal, and fear?

Dawkins raised up a fist. “Instead, she made you your own man. Gave you the means to make the right decisio
n
—
B
lood Guard or the Bend Sinister
?
—
s
hould you ever be faced with that choice. One that, as your mother, she never wanted you to have to make.”

“I
am
truly sorry, Ronan,” my mom said, looking straight into my eyes. “More than I’ll ever be able to express to you. But I don’t regret a single thing I’ve done.”

“Nothing?” I asked, looking right back at her. “You named me
Evelyn
.”

Mom smacked my shoulder. “Your great-uncle was the best man I ever knew.
And
a member of the Blood Guard.”

“You really need to get over that already,” Dawkins said, smiling. “It’s a
grand
name.”

C
H
A
PT
E
R
28
:

OUR FATES ARE DECIDED

A
bit after that, Greta found me and asked, “Are you okay, Ronan?”

I didn’t really know what to tell her. I wasn’t hurt or anything, but I was confused and a little bit angry. I wasn’t
okay
at all. Not that I could explain any of that to Greta. So instead I said, “I’m glad your dad wasn’t hurt.”

Her smile was big enough to make me forget for a minute why I was upset. “Me too! And I’m happy about your mom.” She looked out at the choppy waters of the Potomac and asked, “Did she manage to find and rescue your dad? He’s all right?”

“It was all a dumb mistake,” I lied, turning away from her and back to the hangar. “My dad was never in any danger at all.”

Just then, a squadron of Blood Guard arrived in a half-dozen white vans and saved me from having to say anything more. They were too late to rescue the Pure or to stop my dad from escaping, and for some reason I felt guilty about tha
t
—
l
ike it was all my fault somehow. The eighteen men and women were led by a cranky Overseer named Bruce, who barked orders while his team quickly cleared the facility.

“All of these people are part of the Guard?” I asked Dawkins when he came back out.

He shook his head. “They’re not all Guard proper, no, but they…help us. Every organization needs people who keep the business organize
d
—
e
ven a secret society of protectors.”

They herded the bound Bend Sinister agents into one of the vans, loaded the comatose Pure woman into an ambulance, and packed away the Eye of the Needle.

“I just pray we can find some way to reverse engineer this thing,” Bruce muttered, scratching at his beard. “Because I don’t know how long we can keep her alive without her soul. But if we can get this thing to put souls
back
into bodies, maybe we can undo what they’ve done.” He scowled at the seven of us. “Dawkins, Ogabe. Truelove, Sustermann. No one blames any of you for what happened here today, bu
t
—
h
ow should I put this
?
—
i
t was a complete and utter disaster.”

“Yes, sir,” my mom said. “Though I d
o
—
”

But Bruce talked right past her. “The Bend Sinister made off with this woman’s soul. Their Head escaped. This Needle’s Eye device has been ruined. That you’re alive at
all
is more luck than anything else.”

“We understand what you’re saying, sir,” Dawkins began, “but the situatio
n
—
”

“The situation is as I’ve described i
t
—
a
mess
,” Bruce said, glancing at his watch. “Debriefing is at the Arlington safe house at thirteen hundred. After that, we mobilize.”

Bruce swung himself into the passenger seat of the lead van. As they all began to roll away, he leaned out the open window and said, “Oh, and Ogabe? Put your head back on. You look ridiculous.”

We stood in silence as they drove off, all a little ashamed, I think.

All of us except for Dawkins. “That gives us two hours,” he said, breaking the quiet. “Anyone else hungry?”

Mr. Sustermann drove us all to the safe house in one of the white vans Bruce and his gang had left behind. The whole time, my mom and Dawkins argued about how best to reattach Ogabe’s head.

“Glue won’t do the trick,” Dawkins said.

“I can sew a nice cross-stitch with some thread,” my Mom suggested.

“Thread is
not
going to keep a massive head like Ogabe’s in place,” Dawkins objected. “We need something strong and durable so he can keep it together until the wound has sealed itself up.”

So duct tape it was.

I wondered exactly how the smooth skin on the end of Ogabe’s neck would reattach itself to his head, but no one else seemed worried, and before long we’d pulled into the driveway of a nice-looking two-story house set back behind a line of trees.

In the garage, while Ogabe held his head in place, Dawkins wrapped his neck round and round with silver tape. He bit off the excess and patted down the end. “There you go! Good as new.”

Under the tape, his body parts sealed themselves with a barely audible, disgusting, wet
slurp
sound.

“Wild,” Sammy said in a hushed voice. “That’s all you have to do? You’re all better now?”

Ogabe grimaced and cleared his throat. “Hardly! I’ll have to wear this tape for a week at least,” he said in a voice that was a lot higher than I’d been expecting. He scratched under the edge of the tape. “And it itches something fierce.” He looked at his reflection from a few different angles. “This looks
terrible
. How am I going to be inconspicuous with a band of tape around my neck?”

Dawkins put an arm around his shoulder. “My friend, you’re six foot eight and two hundred and eighty pounds. There is
nothing
you can do to be inconspicuous.”

As if in argument, Ogabe’s stomach growled.

“My thoughts exactly!” Dawkins said. “You don’t have to tell
me
twice!”

“The big dilemma,” Dawkins said a half hour later, wiping his mouth with a napkin, “will be what we do with you three.”

We were sitting around a big trestle table inside the safe house, the remains of lunch in front of us. “Normally,” Mr. Sustermann said, “you kids wouldn’t be allowed to know about any of thi
s
—
n
ot the Blood Guard, not the Bend Sinister, nor any of our activities. What we do is secret, and has been for centuries.”

“It’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it, Dad?” Greta asked.

Mr. Sustermann busied himself with his food, not looking up.

“There is a method by which the Guard can remove memories,” Ogabe said, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s not very, um, precise. In order to erase a few days, they have to blank out years.”

“NO,” Sammy said, standing up. “No way. My memories are the only place where my mom is still alive.” He grabbed Greta’s arm. “Tell ’em, Greta. Ronan? You won’t let them do that.”

“Mom,” I pleaded, catching her eye. “You
can’t
. That’s as bad as what the Warners were going to do.”

“Everyone take it easy,” Dawkins said. “Ogabe’s not recommending anything. He’s just telling you one method Bruce and the other Overseers may suggest. Me, I have other ideas.” He smiled. “But first: Ronan, what do you think should be done?”

It seemed obvious. “We join the Blood Guard.”

Mr. Sustermann laughed as though I’d made a joke, but then stopped when Dawkins said, “Precisely!”

“Absolutely not,” my mom said, pulling her eyes from me and glaring at Dawkins. “I can’t believe you’d suggest that!”

“But Ronan’s right,” Greta said. “The only safe place for us is
in
the Guard. The Bend Sinister know who we are. They’re never going to leave us alone.”

“And me,” Sammy said. “Don’t forget me.”

“Trust me,” Ogabe said. “No one is forgetting you.”

“Isn’t this what you’ve been training me for all my life?” I said to my mom. I glanced at Greta. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“You’re only thirteen,” my mom said. Her voice was deadly cal
m
—
u
sually the sign a storm was about to be unleashed.

“And how old were
you
when you were recruited, Bree?” Dawkins asked her.

She said nothing, which I knew meant she didn’t like what she’d have to answer.

“The Blood Guard is in a shambles,” Dawkins continued. “Bruce told me we’re not the only group attacked in the past twenty-four hours, and we can only assume the Bend Sinister has more dire plans afoot. Our identities have been compromised. And we have allowed a Pure soul to be captured.” He swept his gaze over everyone at the table. “There is a battle coming, and soon. We are going to need all the help we can get.”

“I’m ready,” I said, but Dawkins raised a hand for silence.

“
No one
is ready for what’s coming, Ronan,” he said, sighing. “Nonetheless, I’d rather we tried to make you three as ready as you possibly can be. Which means training. It won’t be easy. In fact, more candidates fail than succeed. But that is what we can offer yo
u
—
l
ikely failur
e
—
i
f you want it.”

“I do,” I said, looking at my mom and daring her to tell me no.

She seemed to be evaluating me. After a moment, she nodded.

“That’s what I want, too,” Greta said.

Her dad and Dawkins exchanged a look, and I guessed what it meant: Greta was always going to need protection anyway; what better way than to surround her with the Blood Guard and to train her in their methods?

That or they were plain terrified of telling Greta “no” about anything. I know I would be.

“I want that, too,” Sammy said, sitting down again. “I mean, I don’t want to go to another foster family. That has not worked out so great, if you know what I mean.”

“The Guard can arrange a new family for you,” Ogabe said. “One within the Guard. One where you’ll be safe.”

“Maybe,” Sammy said. “I’ll think about it and let you guys know my decision.” He dropped his eyes to his plate and smiled.

“Fair enough,” Dawkins said, clapping his hands together as a car pulled into the drive. It was Bruce and three others. “Time for our debriefing.”

They made us wait in the living room.

Sammy, Greta, and I waited on a couch, glancing back over our shoulders every now and then at the closed dining room doors where our parents, Dawkins, and Ogabe argued our fate with the other four Blood Guard Overseers.

“Promise you won’t let them mess with my head,” Sammy said.

“They’ll have to get through us first,” I told him.

“Getting through you’d be easy,” he replied. “Greta, though, is another story.”

It was frustrating, sitting there. “Why is this taking so long?” I wondered. The longer we waited, the more likely it was that woman would die, or the Bend Sinister would capture another Pure’s soul, or my dad would get so far away that we’d never stop him, o
r—

“Isn’t it weird that my dad and your mom are both in the Blood Guard, Ronan?” Greta asked, turning to me. “Who do you think they’re guarding?”

“Beats me,” I said, thinking of the Verity Glass in my pocket. I’d have to make sure Greta never looked at herself through it. “Maybe they’re not guarding anybody right now.”

“Maybe it’s
you
, Ronan,” Greta said. “Maybe that was how you survived that fire in Brooklyn. Maybe the Blood Guard saved your bacon.”

“Nope,” I said, thinking of my dad and feeling my cheeks grow warm. “That was just dumb luck, plain and simple.”

“And we know it can’t be me,” Greta said, scoffing. “I pick locks. I’
m
—
I
’m proud and sort of boastful. I even boast about boasting, that’s how bad I am.”

“You
are
pretty bad,” I agreed, though I knew the Pure didn’t lead perfect live
s
—
b
ut no need to tell Greta that. “I wonder who it could be?”

“Guys, isn’t it obvious?” Sammy said. “It’s
me
. My foster parents had me on that table and were going to run me through that Eye of the Needle thing.”

“That’s true,” Greta said. “Maybe it
is
you.”

“I totally bet it is,” Sammy said. After a second, he said, “So what’s a Pure?”

Dawkins’ voice boomed out before I could respond. “Never mind that, Sammy. The question you all should be asking is, what comes next?” The doors to the dining room had opened, and the eight adults had come into the living room. Greta, Sammy, and I stood up together and turned. So this was it. Our fate.

“Sure,” I said. “So tell us: what comes next?”

“Well, Ronan, Greta, Samuel,” Dawkins said, raising his arms like a salesman about to make a pitch, “it’s going to be a complete doolally, I’m afraid. You three will likely find it more than a little bit dangerous and quite probably a whole lot insane.”

I grinned at him. “You’re in luck,” I said. “I’m perfec
t
—
w
e’re
perfec
t
—
f
or the job.”

A smile broke out across Dawkins’ face. “Exactly the response I expected,” he said. “So gather round. We’ve got work to do.”