The Blood Guard (The Blood Guard series) Read online

  “Why would anyone want to kidnap Dad?” I asked. “He’s like a fancy accountant.”

  She didn’t reply. In silence we tooled along the broad concrete walkway that ran by the lake, following its gentle curves toward the parking lot on the far side.

  “Maybe it was him,” I insisted. “Maybe he was looking for something, and he was just sloppy. Did you think of that?”

  “Yes, I thought of that, Ronan,” Mom snapped, using her discussion-is-over voice. “There are a couple of things you should know,” she said, honking at a redhead pushing a stroller. The woman steered it off the path in a hurry. “First, the truth about me. I’m part of a group called the Blood Guard. We protect people from bad guys.” She exhaled sharply. “That’s the important thing. I’m one of the good guys, Ronan. And so are you.”

  “Blood Guard?” I repeated. “Does Dad know about this?”

  I was thrown hard against my seat belt as Mom punched the brakes. The car squealed to a stop. “Maybe,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe he knows.”

  We’d reached a little parking area. It was empty—except for the police cruiser parked sideways across the exit, the lights on its roof spinning blue and red. Crouched down outside the car, behind the front end, were a man and a woman.

  They had their pistols drawn. Aimed straight at us.

  Mom reached behind me and rooted around. When she came forward again, she was holding something long, curved, and dark—a sword in a fancy leather scabbard.

  “What’s that?” I asked even though I knew; I’d been taking fencing classes since fourth grade. In the backseat was a large open duffel bag full of swords and other dangerous-looking things. And a blue suitcase. My blue suitcase.

  “Cutlass,” she said, closing her eyes and whispering a few words under her breath.

  “Mom, those are cops. They have guns.”

  My mom rested her hand on my arm. “Those aren’t real police officers, Ronan.”

  They looked real enough to me. It was a little strange that they weren’t wearing uniforms. Or caps. I couldn’t see them too well behind the cruiser, but the woman had short brown hair, and the guy was bald.

  “The second thing,” Mom said, her teeth gritted in anger, “is that people are often not who they pretend to be. They lie. Those two out there?” She nodded toward the police car, pushed her door open, and slid the cutlass from its scabbard. It came loose with a pretty metallic chime. “They’re killers. If you’re going to survive, Ronan, you’ll have to heed my warning: Trust no one.”

  “Sure thing,” I said, thinking maybe I shouldn’t trust her.

  “Stay in the car and keep down, honey. There may be ricochets.”

  And just like that Mom was galloping across the parking lot, swinging the cutlass.

  CHAPTER 2:

  THE MOST DANGEROUS MOM ALIVE

  She ran straight at the police car.

  The blade she carried gleamed blue, like it had stored up the light of a full moon. Every sweep of its point left a bright, burning arc in the air.

  But that wasn’t what made my jaw drop with wonder.

  When my mom ran, she blurred. There was a moment when her legs were visible; then something shifted, and she was a smear of color streaking across the pavement, halving the distance between us and the police car in a single breath. No regular person moves that fast.

  But she still wasn’t fast enough: before she reached the two cops, I saw light flare from the muzzles of their pistols.

  The gunfire didn’t faze my mom at all.

  There was a shimmery halo of silver around her as she spun her cutlass, followed by an ear-stinging series of clangs. And then she soared into the air with a jump that carried her forty feet in a heartbeat.

  Midair, she tucked and somersaulted. When she came out of the roll, she swept out her right leg and caught the bald guy hard on the side of his head. He went down as she landed lightly in a crouch on the hood of the car, the point of her sword poised against the woman’s neck.

  The woman dropped her gun and raised her hands.

  I scrambled out of the VW. By the time I reached them, my mom had cuffed the woman and her unconscious partner to the rusted metal gate of the parking lot.

  “You will burn!” the woman snarled through clenched teeth.

  My mom went through the unconscious man’s pockets.

  Up close, the woman and her partner definitely didn’t look like police officers. They wore dark suits, like Secret Service agents, and on the wrists of their cuffed left hands were two identical tattoos: a wide-open eye.

  “Nice tat,” I said.

  My mom’s head snapped up. “Ronan! I told you to stay in the car. You need to listen when I tell you something.”

  The woman thrashed on the ground, scrambling to reach two long swords in woven cloth scabbards that lay on the pavement by the car. My mother kicked the weapons aside, and the woman spat at her. “You will burn!”

  “So you keep saying.” My mom turned back to me. “Ronan, get our bags.”

  I ran to the VW, slung my backpack over my shoulder, grabbed my suitcase and the duffel full of weapons, then rushed back across the lot.

  Mom tossed our luggage into the back of the police cruiser, then threw her own car keys deep into the shade of the trees. We climbed in. “See if you can figure out how to get the siren going.”

  “Seriously, now you’re stealing a police car?” I asked. “What the hell is going on?”

  Mom smiled and pushed my hair out of my face, then eased the cruiser toward the exit. “Ronan, honey, do me a favor and buckle up, would you? Also, don’t use the word hell. It’s not polite language for a young man.”

  Running the siren really made people pay attention.

  Cars careened wildly to the side of the road when they heard us coming and stayed out of the way until we’d passed. Mom rarely dropped below sixty as she took us out of the park, over the river, and into downtown Stanhope.

  It all might have been fun if a bunch of people hadn’t just tried to kill us.

  Any doubts I’d had before vanished when I’d watched my mom take down those two fake cops in the park. I studied her face as she drove, searching for…I don’t know what. Some hint that my mother had always led a secret life in which she stole police cars and took down gun-toting bad guys with ease and belonged to a secret society called the Blood Guard.

  But all I could see was my regular old mom.

  She squinted into the rearview mirror. “Rats.”

  “What is it?”

  “They figured out we switched cars.” She spun the wheel, and with a squeal, the police cruiser turned a perfect ninety degrees into an alleyway between two looming skyscrapers. We bounced through one alley, then another, and suddenly we were on a sleepy downtown street lined with glass-fronted buildings. A few people strolled along the sidewalk.

  “Is Dad—is he going to be okay?” It wasn’t fair. My dad was completely harmless. He was one of those guys who never looked comfortable except when he was in a suit. He wore dorky glasses and an even dorkier beard that he’d grown when he started going bald. He worked hard—so hard that he’d all but disappeared into his job the past couple of years. After we’d moved to Connecticut, I’d barely seen him at all.

  “They won’t hurt him, honey—not before I track them down and put an end to this business.”

  “I’ll go with you!” I said. “I can handle a sword. Remember? You made me take fencing lessons!” And suddenly the years of extracurricular activities made sense. Mom had always said all those classes were for self-improvement, or to “round me out” and help me get into a good college. But really, she’d been training me, preparing me for a day like this one.

  Mom smiled. “Unfortunately, you can’t help with this, Ronan. It’s something I have to do alone, and I can only do that if I know you’re safe. That’s why I’m taking you to the train station.” She turned down a side street and sped down a trash-strewn alley, before finally pulling into an u
nderground parking garage.

  In the moment it took my eyes to adjust to the cool shadows, Mom had rolled us around the ramp and into a dark corner.

  “You’ll find a ticket in the top pocket of your suitcase for the 3:41 to Washington, DC. Make sure you’re on that train—that’s where your escort expects to find you.”

  “Escort?” Everything was moving way too fast. “Who?”

  She bit her lip. “Someone from the Guard. There wasn’t time to find out exactly who.” She gently shook my left shoulder. “This is important: Your escort will tell you the time if you ask.”

  “The time? Mom, anyone will tell me the time if I ask politely enough.”

  “But your escort will tell you it’s twelve minutes till midnight.” She pointed to the door of a stairwell, dimly visible in the gloom. “From the top of those stairs it’s only a couple of blocks to the station. Don’t dawdle.”

  “You’re just dumping me here?”

  Taking my face in her hands, she stared into my eyes, and I saw she was scared—maybe not of the people chasing us, but of sending me away by myself. “Someone has to lead them away from you, and that someone has to be me. I’ll be in touch soon, I promise.” She pulled me forward into a crushing hug. “I don’t tell you this enough, but I really do love you, Ronan.”

  Tears stung my eyes, and for a moment I thought she wasn’t going to let go. Then she pushed me back, dragged the back of her hand across her nose, and said, “Now get out and do as I said.”

  “Wait—”

  “There is no time for wait, Ronan. You need to be on that train.”

  When I still didn’t move, she said, “Honey. Please.”

  So I slung my backpack and my suitcase out of the car, pulled up the suitcase handle, and rolled it over to the stairwell. I looked back from the doorway, and my mother smiled at me. I could see the shiny tracks of her tears even in the dim light of the garage. Then she gave the engine some gas and quietly drove out of the parking garage.

  That’s when I knew this was all for real, and there was a good chance I might never see my mother or father again.

  CHAPTER 3:

  I TAKE A BATHROOM BREAK

  It was two short blocks to the train station. Striding along the sidewalks were lots of business people, moms with kids, and old people who just seemed to be out enjoying the nice weather. The world seemed totally normal.

  Until, when I was across the street from the station, a red SUV zoomed past.

  I froze, and someone plowed into me from behind.

  “Sorry about that, old boy,” the guy said. He was young—eighteen, maybe—and so wire-hanger skinny that his brown leather jacket hung slack from his shoulders and his belt barely held up his black jeans. Under his jacket was a dirty red T-shirt with a drawing of a very tired-looking cat hugging an enormous coffee mug, and the words I’LL SLEEP WHEN I’M DEAD.

  He pushed his shaggy blond hair behind his ears, smiled briefly at me, and said, “Best get moving—you don’t want to be late for your train!” And then he ambled through the intersection and disappeared through the station doors.

  I took a deep breath, crossed the street myself, and followed him inside.

  The Grand Terminus in Stanhope is like a lot of train stations on the East Coast: huge and imposing and kind of run-down.

  Giant pillars support the roof several stories overhead, and huge arched windows let in a dusty gray light that makes the polished marble tile floor look slick, like something in a king’s palace. You can tell that once upon a time, trains were a big honking deal, but now these stations stink of dust and varnish, and the wooden benches look old and uncomfortable, and the low hum of noise within the walls sounds like the echoes of all the people who’ve passed through. It can be kind of creepy, especially if you’re feeling creeped out already.

  Which I completely was.

  I hauled my suitcase over to one of the benches and sat down, rooting around in its front pocket for my ticket. My mom wasn’t kidding: I found a one-way to DC and a creamy envelope with her handwriting on the outside: Give this to your Guard escort. BE CAREFUL WITH IT. It’s very valuable. I love you, Mom. It bulged with something heavy: When I opened it up, a purplish glass disk about as big and thick as a cracker slid out into my palm. A twisty, tarnished silver frame covered its edges, and there was a little loop of metal on one side. It looked like an antique monocle.

  I held it up to my eye: Through the violet lens, people became dark shadows, and the light rippled like oil on water, but that was all. I looked at the giant antique clock over the ticket desk: 3:27. Fourteen minutes until my train departed. I slid the lens back into the envelope and put it and the ticket into a pocket of my jeans.

  I slid my cell phone out of my backpack and turned it on, and it immediately started buzzing like crazy with all the missed calls and texts my mom had sent while I was in school. There were a dozen texts, each more alarming than the last. Things like:

  CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS!

  and

  DON’T GO HOME! THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!

  and finally, the one that spooked me the most:

  TRUST NO ONE.

  I was so freaked out by the messages that I almost missed the woman.

  Even across the vast waiting area, it was clear that she was staring straight at me. She was tall and blonde and looked like she worked in an office, prim and proper in a dark suit and a crisp white shirt and slick black loafers—what my mom always referred to as “sensible shoes.” There was something about her that made my flesh crawl, though it took me a moment to realize what it was: She never looked away. It was hard to tell from this distance, but I was pretty sure she never even blinked.

  Weird.

  As I stood up and pretended to look at the giant departure board high on the wall, she raised a cell phone to her ear.

  Of course she wasn’t alone.

  Over by the long marble ticket counter, two men in identical blue suits started marching stiffly toward me. On the other side of the room, from the archway that led to the train platforms, two other blue suits appeared. Then a fifth guy came in off the street.

  The six of them casually closed in on my bench, as though they all just happened to be strolling in my direction.

  Panic squeezed my chest. My mom had trusted me to get on the train, and I couldn’t even get out of the station waiting room.

  No way could I run past them to the train platforms, or make a break for the street, or even reach the guard at the far end of the ticket counter. “Sorry, Mom,” I whispered.

  The five guys stopped about twenty feet away, forming a loose semicircle and closing off any hope of escape. The blonde woman, who was clearly the boss, walked straight toward me. “Evelyn Ronan Truelove,” she said, “there is nowhere to run.”

  But she was wrong. I turned and sprinted for the only place she couldn’t follow.

  I wrestled my suitcase through the door of the men’s room. It looked mostly empty. An old man stood at the long row of grimy sinks, washing his hands. A guy in a janitor’s uniform was in the corner, wearily leaning on a mop. I rolled past them and peered around the corner, hoping to find another exit.

  There wasn’t one. Just an overflowing trash can, and eight ancient green toilet stalls along a wall of windows that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the year I was born. All of the stalls were in use.

  Or almost all. I dragged my suitcase into the third, slid the bolt home, and sat down. The back of the door was covered with graffiti, years of scribbles like cave drawings. On top of everything, someone had written DONT LOOK BACK!!! in silver paint. Needs an apostrophe, I thought.

  The blonde woman couldn’t come into the men’s room, but her five henchmen sure could. Would they really apprehend a kid in a toilet stall while Mop Man watched? Not likely. So they would probably just guard the exit and make sure I missed my train.

  All they had to do was wait me out. I couldn’t sit on a toilet forever.

&
nbsp; Except they weren’t interested in being patient.

  The bathroom door banged open, followed by the sharp clack of footsteps—hard heels against tile. I carefully pulled my suitcase away from the stall door and tried not to hyperventilate.

  A pair of pointy black leather shoes paced slowly past the door. At the far end of the line of stalls, I heard a rap of knuckles. A man bellowed, “I’m busy in here!” A few more slow footsteps, another knock, and then another man’s voice saying, “Ocupado!”

  I glanced at my cell phone. My train left in four minutes. I had to get out of here.

  I stared at the stall door. DONT LOOK BACK!!!

  Why not?

  The window behind the toilet was made of big double panes of frosted glass and had no lock. I quietly twisted the latch and raised the pane as far as it would go. A fresh breeze blew in, and I could see outside the bathroom into some sort of access way for station workers.

  The space was wide enough for me to slide through, but getting out wasn’t going to be easy. Even standing on the toilet seat, the windowsill was at shoulder height—scrambling up there was going to be a noisy business.

  I dangled my backpack through the window and let it drop.

  There was a knock on the stall door next to mine. Instead of answering, the man in there flushed his toilet.

  Praying the sound was loud enough to mask the noise of my escape, I closed my eyes and thought of gymnastics.

  I know, I know—I’m trapped in a public toilet, a bunch of mysterious people after me, and my parents fighting for their lives somewhere else. Leotards and ten-point landings and bendy moves on the parallel bars should be the furthest thing from my mind.

  But my training took over—I just needed to put my weight on my hands and throw myself forward in a vault. If only I weren’t starting in an awkward standing position with my feet on the rim of a toilet. There was no way I’d be able to jerk myself up sharply enough—