Guardian Read Online Free PDF Page A

the same time as he released the spring of the bolt gun with a flick of his thumb.
    The spring unwound and shot a small bolt from the end of the barrel. There was a snap as it broke the sound barrier and tore clean through the Purifier’s shoulder. “Ah!” the Purifier screamed, as the force of the bolt spun him around and knocked him against the broken wall of a building. At the same instant, the knife hissed through the air just beside Liam’s ear and crunched straight into the forehead of a nope that had shambled into the alley behind them.
    Liam snapped the spring back and chambered a second bolt, bending down to pick up Syd as he did so. The nope took one more step forward before falling against Liam’s back with a spurt of black blood, then tumbled sideways into the dirt.
    “Liam! Syd! It’s me!” The Purifier held himself on his feet, his right arm hanging useless at his side. With his left, he peeled the balaclava off his head and Syd gasped.
    Liam cursed under his breath.
    The Purifier was a she.
    “Marie,” said Syd as his only living friend in the world bled through the green of her uniform.

[ 6 ]
    MARIE ALVAREZ WAS THE only patron allowed into the ranks of the Purifiers, because of her role in the Jubilee. She served the Reconciliation faithfully, efficiently, and with tremendous skill. She never expected to get a bolt in the shoulder from Syd’s bodyguard.
    “You could have killed me!” she yelled at Liam, shoving her mask into the pocket of her uniform. Her black hair was cut short, her milky tea skin quickly losing color even as her crescent eyes blazed anger.
    “Impossible,” Liam said, trying to regain his composure. “I was aiming to disarm you, which is what I did. If I’d wanted you dead, you would be. Anyway, you should know better than to come at Syd with a weapon.”
    “I was trying to stop that nope from infecting him.”
    “Marie . . .” Syd caught his breath. He looked at the dead Guardian on the ground, her black blood pooling around her veined face. It was hard to believe she had once been beautiful, that all the Guardians had once been beautiful. “What is . . . happening?”
    “I don’t know,” said Marie. “But our orders are to terminate them. You need to get out of here.”
    “Syd came into contact with a lot of their blood,” said Liam. “I think we need to—behind you!”
    Marie glanced over her shoulder to see another nope crashing through the jungle. It moved fast, its hands scouring its body, ripping at itself, tearing its own flesh open as it charged. With one arm limp at her side, Marie grabbed it with her good arm, rolled the nope over her shoulder in a flip, and smashed it onto the ground on its back. She raised her foot to stomp down on the gasping creature’s neck.
    “Stop it!” Syd yelled. “They’re harmless! The Guardians can’t even feed themselves!”
    Marie brought her foot down, crushing the nope’s throat. “They aren’t Guardians anymore. They are nonoperative entities and they have to be put down. Orders of the Reconciliation.”
    “This isn’t right.”
    “It is not our place to question the advice of the Council,” Marie said back.
    “Then I will speak to the Council about it myself.” Syd got in her face.
    “That is
your
right,” she said back.
    Syd stared her down. She didn’t look away from his mud-and-blood-coated face; she didn’t even flinch. Her face was going pallid as she bled, turning the color of rotted concrete. The gentle slope of her eyelids had caved into steep chasms. The bit of purple left over in her corneas from the fancy gene hacks she had before the Jubilee were hardly visible anymore. Still, she didn’t move a muscle. She wasn’t about to back down. She’d bleed to death first. Stubborn as ever.
    Syd turned away. “Liam,” he snapped. “Can you bandage her up? We can’t let her bleed out.” He turned back to Marie. He cocked his head.
    “Fine,” she said.
    Liam nodded. He pulled out a