The Blood Guard (The Blood Guard series) Read online

  “Getting hurt?” I repeated. “Once we stop it won’t—”

  Dawkins’ hand clenched my shoulder hard, and with his other hand he grabbed the waistband of my jeans. Before I knew what was happening, I was airborne.

  He’d thrown me off the train.

  CHAPTER 6:

  ALL MESSED UP AND NO PLACE TO GO

  A half second later, my feet slammed into the gravelly embankment, and I fell forward, hard. What happened next might be called “rolling,” but that sounds like I had some control over it.

  I screamed the whole time.

  After a few seconds, I came to a stop and lay there hacking, the wind knocked out of me. I’d skinned my hands, and I had dust in my mouth and eyes, but I didn’t think I’d busted anything.

  As the screech of the train’s brakes faded away, I heard something else: indignant yelling. Twenty feet away, Greta was sitting cross-legged in the dirt, pounding her fists against her knees and hollering curses until she ran out of air.

  Then Dawkins himself leaped out. He tucked himself into a ball, did a perfect little roll like some kind of martial arts movie star, and came up on his feet. He clapped his hands against his clothes to shake off the dust, then jogged our way, waving happily.

  As he came nearer, Dawkins called out, “Sorry about that, you two—but there wasn’t time to ease you into it.”

  “You threw me from the train!” I shouted.

  “Right. And this is me apologizing. Now let’s go collect the luggage and clean ourselves up.” He dusted off my shoulders. “You look okay to me. How are you feeling?”

  “Bruised.”

  “You guys are in so much trouble,” Greta muttered. She took her phone out of her pocket and began typing on it again—probably finishing the text to her dad.

  With a yell, Dawkins plucked the phone from her hands, dashed it to the ground, and then stomped on it. There was a sad soft crunching sound.

  Greta worked her jaw silently for a moment before finally blurting out, “You ruined my phone!”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Dawkins said. “There’s GPS in those things, you know.”

  “What, you think they won’t figure out you jumped off the train?” she said, raising her fists and swinging at him like she knew what she was doing.

  “Easy there, slugger!” Dawkins said, skittering backward and raising his palms. “Sure, they’ll know we’ve scarpered, but I’d rather not make locating us too easy. So no phones.” He pointed across the scrubby plain, to a sprawling truck stop alongside the highway. “Come on—I thought we’d go to that petrol station yonder.” There were several low-slung buildings and gas pumps, all of them crowded with eighteen-wheeler semis and cars. The place was busy. Even from this distance I could see people milling about like ants on a countertop.

  Beside me Greta said, “This guy is super corn nuts crazypants. You get that, right?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” I asked.

  “Don’t get smart with me, Evelyn Ronan Truelove.”

  “He saved us when those guys attacked us with swords.”

  “What makes you think they were after us? Did it occur to you that maybe they were after him? He’s a thief! He smells! He has the phoniest British accent I’ve ever heard. There are probably thousands of people who’d like to skewer him.”

  As I slogged along beside her, I couldn’t decide whether to tell Greta about my mom, about the people in the train station. Back in New York, we’d never exactly been friends. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s simple,” she said. “We go with him to the truck stop, and then when we see a chance, we get help. My dad will save us.”

  Watching the back of Dawkins’ dirty brown leather jacket as he picked his way along the embankment, I thought maybe this was how he’d gotten so dirty. He probably jumped from trains all the time.

  “Success!” Dawkins cried from ahead, raising the satchel in one hand and the duffel bag in the other. “I’ve got a good feeling about what’s in these bags,” he called out, “but why don’t we wait until we’ve crossed the road to check them out.”

  “Sure thing,” Greta said, giving Dawkins a look. “Whatever you say.”

  “As you pointed out, it won’t take our foes long to deduce we’ve left the train,” Dawkins said. The train sat on the tracks several hundred yards away. Several vehicles had pulled up alongside it—familiar red SUVs that seemed almost to glow in the late afternoon sun. “So maybe we should all…run!” he chirped, sprinting away.

  Greta groaned, but we both took off after him.

  When you’re in a car, you don’t notice how big parking lots can be. You roll down one lane after another until you find a spot close to the doors of wherever you’re going, and then you complain because you have to walk for a whole minute. But imagine starting from the farthest edge of the biggest mall parking lot you know, one that stretches on like the scorched surface of some tar-covered planet.

  Jogging across the endless truck-stop lot with Dawkins and Greta, I felt naked, exposed, certain that the red SUVs would come skidding to a halt around us before we made it even halfway to the buildings.

  But that didn’t happen. Instead, we just got sweaty and tired.

  “Super,” Greta muttered. “And now I’m going to be sunburned, too.”

  We reached the main building, a sprawling gas station/convenience store/food court/novelty emporium. At an angle to it was another building, a garage with a half-dozen enormous raised doors and four more closed ones, the shadowy hulks of big rigs and cars dimly visible inside. In front of both buildings were triple rows of gas pumps, eight to a row, with lines of cars and trucks pulling in, filling up, and zooming away.

  Dawkins led us into an alley between the two buildings, where reeking Dumpsters were parked along the back walls. “I don’t think anyone noticed us crossing over here,” he said, peeking back around the corner and dropping the two bags.

  “I don’t know.” Greta fanned herself with her hand. “You don’t see that many people running across parking lots. We probably stuck out.”

  “Sure,” he said, crouching down over the bags. “But people have what psychologists call ‘selective perception.’ You see something that doesn’t make sense, and your brain works hard to make it fit it in with everything else you’re looking at.”

  “If you say so,” Greta said, but she was edging back the way we’d come.

  “Let’s see what those two on the train were packing.” The first things he pulled out of the black leather satchel were— “Tighty-whities!” he announced. And undershirts and dark socks, all of which he flung over his shoulder, straight into the trash. They made soft pongs against the metal wall of the Dumpster.

  “What are we waiting for?” Greta whispered to me. “Let’s move. Now.”

  “Interesting,” Dawkins said, pulling forth a sort of plastic pistol-looking thing with a squat square black barrel, like a laser blaster in an old science fiction movie.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Looks like a Taser,” Greta said, biting her lip.

  “It is not a Taser,” Dawkins said. “I’ve heard about these but never actually seen one. It’s a kind of electrical pulse weapon they call a Tesla gun.”

  “What does it do?” I asked.

  “No idea.” He set the Tesla gun on the ground, then fished out some shiny handcuffs and a huge black pistol. Last thing in the satchel was an old-school silver lighter. “A Zippo. Don’t see these much anymore.” He snapped the lid open and rolled the striker. A flame appeared.

  “Can we go inside now?” Greta said.

  Dawkins made a face at her. “Not until we find their money.” He snapped the lighter shut and pocketed it, then dragged over the duffel bag.

  Swaddled within it were swords—six of them. “Yeesh, these guys were packing some serious fighting gear,” Dawkins said, pulling them out. He heaved the swords into the Dumpster, along with a cell phone he found—after
first tearing out its battery. “So, Greta Sustermann,” he said, “you probably think those fellows on the train were after me.”

  “I sure didn’t invite them to the party,” Greta said, stepping backward.

  “They were after Ronan,” Dawkins explained. “Which is why they had his picture. That’s because his mother is part of a secret society of…protectors, I guess you’d call them. Her enemies can’t get to her, so they’re pursuing her son.”

  Greta snorted. “Mrs. Truelove works at a museum, not as a—whatever you called it—a secret protector. And if it’s so secret, why are you telling me about it?”

  “Sometimes secrets need to be told to keep people safe,” Dawkins said, rooting around again in the duffel bag.

  “Don’t take this personally,” Greta said, pivoting toward the head of the alley, “but you are completely out of your mind.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” I said quietly, remembering my mom knocking bullets aside with a sword and then leaping through the air. If I were Greta, I wouldn’t have trusted Dawkins, either. But I didn’t doubt my mom for one second. “It’s called the Blood Guard. My mom told me about it just before she disappeared.”

  “Ronan!” Dawkins snapped. “You know that calling something secret means you’re not supposed to blab about it, right?”

  “But you just did!” I protested.

  “True enough,” he said. “Getting sloppy in my old age.”

  “Does that matter?” I asked, bewildered.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Greta said. “Trust me—I’m not going to tell anyone about these people who guard blood.”

  “The name isn’t literal,” Dawkins said, exasperated. “It’s an age-old, clandestine honor guard of soldiers who dedicate their lives to protecting the hidden righteous ones.”

  Hearing it said like that, from someone other than my mom, made something catch in my throat. Maybe my mom had led a secret life, but it was secret for a reason. For honor. To protect someone else. I’m one of the good guys, Ronan, she’d said. And so are you.

  “‘Hidden righteous ones’?” Greta said, turning to me. “Do you hear how loony this guy sounds? He’s paranoid and delusional.”

  “No, he’s not,” I insisted. “My mom is one of the Blood Guard. She told me. That’s why those people took my dad—to try and get at my mom. And that’s why they’re after me now.”

  “Wait.” The anger in Greta’s face vanished. “Something happened to your dad?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and I didn’t even care that my voice wavered. “My mom said he was taken by—kidnapped—by those people on the train.”

  “I’m sorry about your dad, Ronan,” Greta said. “I really am. And about whatever’s going on with your mom.”

  “They’re going to be okay,” I said, more to myself than to Greta. I thought again of how my mom took out the fake cops. “She’s a lot tougher than she looks.”

  Greta gave me a tight smile. “Good. But I’m leaving now. I’m going in there and calling the police.” She turned.

  “Please, Greta,” Dawkins said. “Not yet. Just let us get away first. I give you my word I won’t allow you to be hurt—”

  “You threw me from a moving train!”

  “Okay, that was kind of bad, but it wasn’t moving that fast.” He put the duffel bag down, picked up the pistol, and handed it to her butt-first. “Here, take this as an insurance policy. You know how to use one of these, don’t you? Your dad must have trained you.”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Greta took the pistol. There was a rapid bunch of loud clicks, and within a few seconds the pistol was a pile of parts in her hand. She chucked most of the parts into the trash, but the top piece—the barrel—she threw with all her might into the field behind the buildings.

  “What did you just do?” I asked in confusion.

  “Disassembled it. Guns are bad news, Ronan.” I must have looked amazed, because she said to me, “What? I told you—my dad’s in the FBI. Since we have guns in the house, he insists I know how to use them. Safely.” She pointed at Dawkins. “You see, Ronan? Your friend gives guns to kids. What kind of responsible person would do that?”

  “Lot of good that pistol’s going to do anyone now,” Dawkins said, but he was smiling a little, almost like he was pleased. And then he withdrew his hand from the duffel, holding a two-inch-thick roll of twenty-dollar bills. “Cha-ching!”

  “‘Cha-ching’?” Greta repeated to me, a pleading look in her eyes. “Really?”

  Dawkins dropped the money and Tesla gun into the satchel, stood up, and threw the empty duffel bag into the trash. He dragged a hand through his greasy hair and rubbed vigorously at his face. He looked exhausted. “Our enemies don’t know who you are or that you’re with us, Greta, so you should be safe once Ronan and I depart. But that will work only if you agree to hold off calling your father until we’ve made good our escape. Deal?”

  Greta looked back and forth between us, then growled with exasperation. “Deal. But I’m only doing this because I don’t want to make it worse for Ronan’s parents.”

  Dawkins broke into that crazy smile of his. “Then it’s time to find ourselves a ride!”

  CHAPTER 7:

  THE RIGHT MAN FOR THE WRONG JOB

  Dawkins instructed us to wash up while he attended to “more urgent tasks.”

  “Since when do you care about cleanliness?” Greta asked him, sniffing loudly.

  “Yes, yes, very clever,” he said. “If we’re going to avoid suspicion in this place, you have to look well-scrubbed and not like you’re running for your life.”

  The men’s room was enormous, with dozens of stalls and showers. I cleaned myself up as best I could at one of the many sinks and tried not to catch anyone’s eye, remembering what had happened the last time I was in a men’s room.

  When I came out, I found Greta at a table in the dining area, her red hair dripping wet. She was busy pinning it back and pulling it through her scrunchie. It looked complicated.

  “Why don’t you just cut your hair short?” I asked.

  “I like it long,” she said, sliding a barrette into place as she stared at me. “So spill: who are those people with the swords?”

  “I wish I knew,” I replied, feeling frustrated. “I need to find out from Dawkins. But they’re the same ones who’ve been chasing me since my mom put me on the train in Stanhope.”

  I gazed around the truck stop, wondering how long we had until the bad guys caught up with us. There were a lot of older men in rumpled jeans and baseball caps browsing the junk for sale, clearly truckers taking a break from the road. But there were also families, killing time while they gassed up their cars. From overhead came the soft twang of country music. The entire place was busy and noisy, and nobody paid us any mind at all.

  The hands of an old-style clock over the registers showed the time: just after six o’clock. “It’s dinnertime,” I said, wishing I was about to sit down with my parents.

  “It’s time to call my dad,” Greta said. “Give me your cell phone.”

  “But you made a deal with Dawkins!” I said.

  “I’m not going to break my word,” Greta said. “I just want to let my dad know I’m all right.”

  I patted down my pockets and then remembered: my phone was in my backpack on the rack above my seat. I closed my eyes. “I’m so dumb: I left it on the train.”

  “Super,” Greta said, pouting out her lower lip and blowing her wet hair away from her forehead. “I seriously don’t trust this guy, Ronan. And you shouldn’t, either.” The Greta I’d known back at school had always been pretty but with a hardness to her, like a fingernail slick with red polish. She didn’t seem that way now. Her clear green eyes looked worried. For me. “There were a couple of pay phones back there by the bathrooms. I’m just going to call my dad and tell him I’ll wait for him here. Okay?”

  This wasn’t her fight or her problem. I was just some stupid kid from her old school who she tried to help once upon a
time. “Sure,” I said.

  The smile that lit up her face made her look pretty—so much so that I had to look away. “Great!” She was out of the booth and had vanished in the back before I could even think about trying to stop her.

  Moments later, Dawkins slid in across from me. “We’re good to go. Where’s Sustermann?”

  “Bathroom, I think,” I lied.

  “Still? Girls. Anyway, I found a guy who is happy to give us a lift as far as Roanoke, Virginia.”

  “Roanoke?” I said. “We’re supposed to be going to DC!” Maybe Greta was right and my mom was wrong, and Dawkins was a madman. “Roanoke wasn’t the plan.”

  “The plan has changed. Greta got mixed up with us, and then those two agents appeared, and—well, I’ve reconsidered the wisdom of our initial itinerary. They are too much up in our business, Ronan, and I don’t know why.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I tried calling my contact on the pay phones back there, but wasn’t able to get hold of him, which worries me a teensy-weensy bit.”

  “You’re not listening,” I said, feeling sick and out of control. I needed someone I trusted to tell me what to do. “My mom told me to go to DC, and Greta’s dad lives there.”

  “And that’s exactly why DC is such a bad idea, Ronan. Something very bad is going down, and for reasons I can’t go into, it is best we get both you and Greta far away. So we’re going to Roanoke.”

  “No,” Greta’s voice cut in, “we are not.” She’d come up behind Dawkins while he talked. “Ronan, don’t go with him.”

  I looked from her to Dawkins. Would my mom want me to go to Roanoke? I didn’t even know where that was. Maybe my mom didn’t know Dawkins. Maybe he wasn’t a part of the Blood Guard at all. And yet he had known how to answer the question my mom told me to ask.

  “Don’t waste too much time making up your mind, Ronan,” Greta said. She looked upset; I wondered what she’d told her dad. She held up the weird-looking Tesla gun from Dawkins’ satchel. “Oh, and I’m taking this. Just to make sure no one gets hurt.”