The Blood Guard (The Blood Guard series)

by Carter Roy

  “From you? Nothing,” she said. “But you’ll be useful in making your mother give up the Pure one she protects. And then…that person will contribute his soul to our grand undertaking.” Ms. Hand smiled again, and for the first time since I’d met her, she seemed genuinely happy.

  There were a series of beeps and a clank, and the doors opened. Greta stepped in between two guys I recognized from the train station. Mr. Two and Mr. Five, I guessed. They walked her over to the other wooden table. One took her arm and clasped something I hadn’t noticed before over her wrist: a black metal shackle. There were four of those things, I could see now—one at each corner of the table.

  Greta hunched over the shackle and tugged at it. “What are they doing?” she asked me.

  Mr. Four began rooting around in one of those giant rolling red metal toolboxes. Every now and then he’d raise up a tool—a hammer, a pair of huge clippers—and then put it back.

  Mr. Two and Mr. Five went to the doors, punched in a code, and left the room.

  Greta rattled the cuff. “What’s going on, Ronan?” she cried.

  “How are you going to contact your mother once you reach Washington, DC, Evelyn?” Ms. Hand asked.

  “Until you told me, I didn’t even know she was there,” I said. “I was just supposed to go with Dawkins. And now he’s dead. That’s all I know.” I couldn’t allow Greta to be hurt. “Just let her go, and I’ll tell you where those weapons are, the ones we took from the SUV.”

  “That will be a nice start, but just to show you how very serious I am, Evelyn, and to stop you from making your little jokes, we are going to have a little demonstration. Mr. Four?”

  Her partner came plodding back to her side. In one hand he held a silver hatchet, the kind you might use to chop up firewood while camping out. In the other hand he held what looked like a small black brick.

  “Mr. Four,” she explained, “will now take your friend’s hand off at the wrist.”

  CHAPTER 15:

  HATCHET JOB

  My fifth-grade summer coach, Mr. Entwhistle, used to grouch that I didn’t have enough “heart.” He coached a unicycling class, and we had to ride a timed course while juggling bowling pins. (My mom signed me up for a lot of weird programs.)

  Anyway, I always figured balance was most important, but my coach insisted otherwise. “Something matters enough to you,” he promised, “you’ll reach a make-or-break point where heart comes in. That’s what pushes you to do the impossible.” Make-or-break? I thought at the time. I just didn’t want to drop a pin while rounding flag fifteen.

  I knew what he meant now. A cold desperation left me sweaty and breathless. I had to do something to save Greta. Only problem was, I had no idea what that might be. “The impossible” sounded about right.

  “No!” Greta cried. She planted her heels and jerked hard at the manacle.

  Mr. Four set the black brick down on the corner of the table where Greta was cuffed, then began slowly dragging the blade across its surface. It was a whetstone, I realized, and he was sharpening the hatchet’s edge. The light rasp of his work filled the quiet room.

  “We want the cut to be clean,” Ms. Hand said by way of explanation.

  Greta gulped. “You know, you haven’t even asked me if I know anything. I’m happy to talk.” A grin flickered across her face, like this was all a misunderstanding between friends. “I need my hand.”

  “Of course you do,” Ms. Hand said to Greta. “But you needn’t worry. We’ll let you keep it afterward. Mr. Five will fetch a bucket of ice for you.”

  Greta didn’t have any response to that. She just turned back to the shackle and yanked at it again, trying to force her hand free.

  “Greta, stop,” I said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

  “Shut up, Ronan. It’s going to hurt a lot more if they cut it off.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” I took a calming breath. “Ms. Hand, the stuff about Mount Rushmore? It came out of that notebook, which belonged to Dawkins, the guy who got run over by the truck. He’s the one you should be asking questions of.”

  Mr. Four scraped the blade first one way, then the other. Rasp, rasp.

  “Tsk-tsk.” Ms. Hand reached out and gently laid her palm against my cheek, the one she had slapped. I broke out in a sweat. “I’d like to believe you, Evelyn, truly I would. But every time I begin to do so, you reveal yourself in another lie.”

  “He’s telling the truth!” Greta said, shaking her head so hard her hair fell over her face.

  “Please, Ms. Hand, don’t hurt Greta. If you have to hurt someone, hurt me. Maybe that’ll convince you I’m telling the truth.”

  The blade rasped across the whetstone a half-dozen times before Ms. Hand responded.

  “We will hurt you,” Ms. Hand said. “But all in good time.” She turned away. “Mr. Four, cut off the girl’s hand.”

  “No!” I shouted, standing.

  “You need to understand, Evelyn—I am not playing.” She took a step toward me. If she was angry, it didn’t show. And yet somehow her icy calm was completely terrifying. “Now sit down.”

  My legs shaking, I edged back into my seat. If Dawkins were here, I knew, he’d find something to use as a weapon, but all I had was the chair I was sitting on. Maybe that was enough. I could swing it around, I thought quickly. I could fling it hard into the air, and hit Mr. Four before he—

  But Mr. Four and Greta were too far away, twenty feet at least. I’d never be able to take him out—not in time, not with Ms. Hand between us.

  Mr. Four raised the hatchet, the sharp edge of its blade glimmering.

  “Please,” Greta cried, squirming and tugging at her arm.

  “Be still, child,” Ms. Hand said. “You don’t want Mr. Four to slip, do you? He could easily cut off more than what’s at the end of your wrist.”

  Greta froze, her mouth open. This was my chance.

  While Ms. Hand had her head turned, I stood and swung the chair up over my shoulder like a baseball bat.

  Everything happened fast after that.

  With the hatchet held high, Mr. Four reached down with his other hand to grasp Greta’s forearm, to hold her steady.

  As he did, the shackle holding Greta popped open. She swept her arm up, hooked Mr. Four’s arm, and pulled his wrist down to where hers had been.

  With a loud “Ha!” she snapped the cuff shut, locking him in, and rolled out of range as he swung at her with his hatchet. Wound around her fingers, I saw now, were two bent hairpins—that was why her hair had fallen across her face.

  Mr. Four dropped the hatchet and began moaning. He flailed against the table, jerking his whole body, trying to free himself. I just stood there like a dope, holding the chair, trying to make sense of what was going on.

  Greta grabbed the hatchet and backed away.

  “Mr. Four!” Ms. Hand shouted. “I command quiet!”

  Abruptly Mr. Four’s moans ended, though he continued to pull at his arm.

  “What’d you do to him?” I asked Greta.

  “Nothing!” she said.

  “He…” Ms. Hand seemed at a loss for words. “The flesh is all he has left. It dislikes confinement.”

  Flesh? I thought. Confinement? I had no idea what she was talking about, but that was nothing new. “Just stay where you are,” I told Ms. Hand. “I’m not afraid to…use this chair.”

  Ms. Hand scoffed. “You think you’re in control? Because the girl slipped out of a simple handcuff?” She straightened her jacket.

  “Simple handcuff?” Greta repeated. “That was like a six-pin tumbler.” She tipped her chin up. “Not a challenge for me, obviously. I could pick it in my sleep.”

  “Okay, Houdini,” I said, “you’re the master locksmith. Can we just go already?”

  Ms. Hand took a step forward, but paused when Greta swung the hatchet in the air. “Careful with that, child. You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  Greta snorted. “Your concern for my well-being is tou
ching.” With a roll of her wrist, she flipped the hatchet into the air. It spun a tight loop, and she caught it by the handle. Without looking away from Ms. Hand, she brought the blade down to her right—straight across the intercom line. The little lights in the base went dark.

  “You know how to use hatchets, too?” I asked as we backed away.

  “And axes,” Greta said. “My dad’s an outdoorsman. You think you’re the only one who’s ever gone camping?”

  “You are outnumbered,” Ms. Hand said. She didn’t appear in the least bit alarmed by our escape. “Mr. Two and Mr. Five are outside, as well as the two acolytes and that boy.”

  “Acolytes?” Greta asked.

  “I think she means Izzy and Henry,” I said.

  “They will kill you,” Ms. Hand said.

  “We’ll take our chances,” I replied. I pocketed Dawkins’ notebook, the money, and the Zippo lighter. “What’s the code for the door?”

  Ms. Hand put her arms behind her back. “Do you really think I’m going to tell you that?”

  “We could always take a page from your book and cut off Mr. Four’s hand,” I said.

  “And you pretend you know nothing of the Blood Guard.” Ms. Hand muttered something under her breath, a quiet singsong.

  “I don’t,” I said. “Why won’t you believe me?” That’s when I caught the reflection in the windows: her hands were beginning to glow. “Cut that out!” I shouted, and raised the chair, ready to fling it. “Stop casting a spell or whatever you’re doing!”

  But she didn’t stop, only brought her arms out where we could see them. The space around her hands shimmered with a red light.

  “It’s okay, Ronan,” Greta said. She punched the keypad, and the door unlocked. “Those two guys didn’t bother to block my view when they brought me in here.”

  Ms. Hand’s cool composure fell away and she raised her glowing hands. “Mr. Two!” she yelled, her eyes angry slits. “Mr. Five! Come to me!”

  But the hall was empty.

  Greta turned the hatchet in her hand and brought the blunt end down hard on the keypad. The face popped off its housing and dangled from a bunch of sparking wires.

  “You will not—” Ms. Hand began to say, but by that point we were on the other side of the door and pulling it closed behind us. The lock clicked into place, and Greta repeated her move on the outside keypad until it, too, was a mess of broken hardware.

  The lights were off in the hall. The only illumination came from a flickering, buzzing light somewhere around the corner.

  “Just to be clear,” Greta whispered while we waited for our eyes to adjust to the dark, “I am not cutting anything off of anyone.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I’m just glad she didn’t.”

  Behind us, the door shuddered in its frame. Ms. Hand sang something, and the metal of the door slowly began to buckle outward with a deep groan.

  “We should get out of here,” Greta said.

  “I wonder where those other two guys are,” I said.

  She eyeballed the metal chair I was still holding. “What are you going to do with that? Invite them to have a seat?”

  I hefted it up. “What else have I got?”

  Greta looked ready to say something more, then held a finger to her lips. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.

  I held my breath and could hear light footsteps in the corridor. The ratchet of a cell door being opened, then eased shut. Footsteps again, coming closer. Another cell door opened. Periodically a spot of light would dance along the wall—a flashlight beam.

  “Maybe they caught more prisoners?” I whispered, thinking of my mom and dad.

  Greta’s eyebrows rose. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she raised the hatchet up—still backward, blunt end first.

  “No,” I said, raising the chair over my right shoulder. “I’ll hit them with this and knock ’em down. And then we can go for their weapons.”

  I quietly edged along the wall toward the corner.

  The flashlight’s beam grew brighter. We could hear whoever it was breathing as he shut the last door and walked toward the end of the hall.

  Behind us, Ms. Hand let loose on the door with another spell of some sort—the metal that had buckled outward now shimmered and bent inward. But the door still held.

  The footsteps paused, then started again, but more quietly. Whoever it was had heard her and changed his gait.

  “Now!” Greta hissed.

  We stepped around the corner, and I swung the chair as hard as I could.

  It connected with a muffled clang—the sound of a steel chair thudding into a human torso.

  “Ow!” someone said, falling back in a heap. The flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled away. “What the dickens did you hit me with?”

  I brandished the chair at the shadowy figure on the floor and said, “Don’t even think of getting up.”

  “I’ve got a hatchet,” Greta added, “and I know how to use it.” With her left hand, she felt along the wall until she found the light switch, then flipped it on.

  Lying on the floor was Jack Dawkins.

  CHAPTER 16:

  NEVER SAY DIE

  “What’d you go and hit me for?” He glared at us while hugging his arms around his middle. “And with a chair? What sort of brute uses a chair?”

  “Dawkins?” Greta squeaked, her voice catching in her throat. “Dawkins!” She dropped the hatchet and dove forward to hug him. “You’re alive!”

  “Mind the ribs,” he said, wincing. “Still a bit tender.”

  “But you were dead,” I insisted. We’d seen his arm sticking out from beneath a couple tons of semi. People don’t just get up and walk away from things like that.

  “And yet here I am.” Dawkins dragged his hands down the front of his dirty T-shirt. There were new stains on it—what looked like blood and oil, and one that was obviously the mark from an enormous tire tread—but he looked much the same. He got to his feet, stretched his neck to work out a kink, then bent and picked up the flashlight. “Dead, Ronan? Dead is just a state of mind.”

  “I’m pretty sure that dead is more than a state of mind,” Greta said. “You were smooshed.” She hugged him again. It was like by dying and coming back to life, he’d become her favorite person in the world.

  “It was a wee tiny truck—”

  “It was a huge truck. It was horrible.” Greta’s face crumpled up. “Your hand was sticking out from under the truck’s tires, all like, ‘Aaagh!’”

  “How do you even know that was me?”

  “You were wearing that.” I pointed to the dirty brown leather jacket. “The one you still have on. The one with blood all over it. And tread marks.”

  “Fine, you’re right, I’m a proper mess.” He looked down and sighed. “I wish we had time for me to wash up and explain, but that will have to wait, I’m afraid. Right now we are in a bit of a hurry.”

  From inside the room, Ms. Hand let loose with another spell, and this time the metal in the door wavered as if it were starting to melt. Dawkins aimed the beam of the flashlight at it, then at the dangling keypad. “Whoever is in there seems pretty keen to get out.”

  “It’s the woman who’s been chasing us,” I said. “The one from the truck stop. Ms. Hand. We locked her and one of her helpers inside.”

  “You two did this?” Dawkins said, beaming. “Now that is strong work! I’m impressed. My chest would swell with pride if only it didn’t hurt so much.”

  “Sorry about the chair,” I said.

  “Oh, it was more that business with the truck,” he replied. “Takes a while for me to get back to 100 percent.” He shrugged. “But enough jibber-jabber! Let’s get a move on.”

  I picked up my chair.

  “Are you kidding?” Greta said to me. “Leave it.”

  “No way. I feel defenseless without it.”

  “It’s a chair.”

  “It hurt Dawkins, didn’t it?”

  Dawkins said, “He’s go
t a point there.” He turned back down the hall toward the entrance, and we fell in behind him.

  “How did you get here?” Greta asked.

  “I don’t rightly know,” he said. “Once I came to, I discovered myself snugged up tight in a giant plastic bag. That was a first.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’d gone and picked up—well, your body. If you’d been dead, I mean. But if you were alive, then I guess it was—”

  “Still my body. I just happened to be not quite done using it.”

  “Right. They grabbed your body and the other guy’s,” I said, beginning to put it together. Someone must have moved the body bags from the back of the SUV into the safe house. “But why did they take your bodies in the first place?”

  “They were likely planning to interrogate me if I came back to myself, so to speak,” Dawkins said. “They know that Overseers are, um, especially durable.”

  “But you were smooshed,” Greta said again.

  “So you keep telling me,” he said. We’d reached the door to the lobby. “At any rate, body bags are not like sleeping bags—they don’t put zippers on the inside. Who knew?” Dawkins pressed his ear against the door. “Peaceful as a tomb,” he said, easing it open.

  Lying facedown on the carpet of the lobby were Izzy and Henry. Both had their hands tied behind their backs, their feet bound together, and socks balled up in their mouths. Izzy glared at us, a bruise blooming over her left eye.

  “Do you know these two gray-haired hooligans?” Dawkins asked, gesturing.

  “Unfortunately,” Greta said. “Who tied them up?”

  Dawkins gave a bow. “My handiwork. They weren’t being very friendly, and so. Where was I? Right: Zipped tight into this body bag, and I didn’t know where I was—I figured a morgue of some sort. I couldn’t get out, and I didn’t have any kind of blade on me, so I did what anyone would do: I started hopping around and shouting, ‘Hello! Hello!’”

  “You were still in the body bag?” I asked.

  “What do you not understand about my being unable to free myself from that thing?” He nodded toward Izzy. “That tubby old viper there came and unzipped me. I could tell from the Tesla gun she held that she was no friend of mine, so I did what comes naturally.” He tapped his temple. “I head-butted her.”