Chapter 19: Chapter 19

Ru went straight upstairs as soon as they returned to Cutter’s parents’ house, and he couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t said a word the entire ride home, and he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have so much of her past dumped in her lap all of a sudden when she’d been searching for even a whisper of a memory for most of her life. While he wished she hadn’t taken the picture of Larkin, it did open his eyes just a bit to the possibility that he had yet to completely convince Ru that her Keeper side was more important than her father’s family.

Thoughts of where to go with that problem were interrupted by laughter coming from the kitchen, and Cutter realized his mother’s voice wasn’t the only one he heard. He quickly rushed into the back room, delighted to see his sister Cinder innocently tossing handfuls of flour at his mother. Windy was not one to go down without a fight, and Cinder’s hair was even whiter than usual. They both looked up as he approached, and Cinder opened her arms just in time for Cutter to scoop her up.

“It’s so great to see you,” he mumbled, squeezing her tighter than he probably should have.

“Take it easy there, baby brother,” she said, wiggling free. “It hasn’t been that long has it?”

“Long enough,” he replied, taking a step back. It had been almost two years since he’d seen her face to face, and that was actually far too long in his book. He knew she’d come in to town just to see him, and that she couldn’t stay very long. His excitement at finally seeing her with his own eyes was a little more overwhelming than he cared to admit. “How was your flight?”

Cinder made a sound in the back of her throat that somewhat resembled, “Bluck,” before answering. “You know. Same old same old. Flights from the Middle East are always long.”

“Right.” He had made that flight a few times when he was younger and had been glad when his assignments took him elsewhere. There definitely was a lot of spiritual warfare going on in his sister’s neck of the woods, and he wouldn’t have minded being involved in it, but he preferred staying stateside, or visiting Europe, to getting involved in the ages old conflict his sister was involved in. Cinder, on the other hand, relished it. She had done so well she was one of the most influential Keepers in the area now and was looked upon as a leader for the region, which is one of the reasons she couldn’t stay long.

“We were just baking some cookies,” his mother explained. “That is… until someone decided the ingredients would look better in my hair.”

Cinder giggled, and Cutter couldn’t help but smile. Even though she was well into her thirties, his sister would always be a kid at heart, something she had in common with their cousin Rider, he supposed. He loved to hear her laugh, a sound that had been all to uncommon in their household the last few times they’d gathered here. He pushed the thoughts aside and took her in. She’d changed her hair some. It was shorter now, in waves that fell just above her shoulders. She was tall, of course, but not quite as tall as their mother, or even Ru for that matter, and she had always been a bit more wiry than most Keepers. She was capable of defeating any human with the flick of a wrist in battle, though, and her martial arts skills also proved valuable when she was chasing down Reapers or demons. Cinder had a lot more experience with the latter than Cutter did, which was one of the reasons he wanted her to meet him here.

“Why don’t I finish up the cookies and the two of you can go catch up?” Windy offered, and Cutter thanked his mom, knowing she understood the importance of getting Cinder’s insight into the situation with Ru.

As if reading his mind, Cinder asked, “So… where’s your friend?” as she dusted her hands off on a tea towel and headed toward the living room.

“She’s upstairs,” he replied, looking up the staircase as they passed by. “I can get her in a few moments if you want, but I think the visit with Nana Sue wore her out.”

Cinder nodded and dropped onto the couch, leaving space for Cutter to join her. “I bet. It’s got to be hard having everything dropped on her all at once. I can’t imagine.”

Like him, Cinder had grown up in Los Angeles knowing who she was and what her legacy was her entire life. “She’s coming along,” Cutter replied, though he wasn’t sure his tone was as convincing as he wanted it to be. There were still things that bothered him about Ru’s transition. One of them in particular he hoped Cinder could help him with.

“How did Nana Sue take it when you left? It’s gotta be hard on her, too, seeing her granddaughter for the first time.”

“She took it well,” Cutter admitted. “She’s just glad we found Ru and that she’s interested in having a relationship with her.”

“Yeah, Mom told me that she had a pretty horrific childhood. It’s really too bad she wasn’t here with us. Imagine how different things would be.”

“Right.” Cutter had spent more time thinking about that particular topic than he cared to admit.

“Of course, she wouldn’t be able to lead us to the portals if that were the case,” Cinder continued.

“Do you think she really can anyway?” Cutter asked, keeping his voice low. “I mean, Cinder, we had to be practically right on top of it in the woods at Reaper’s Hollow, and she couldn’t find it.” Thoughts of the pains Ru was having in her stomach, the topic he wanted to discuss with Cinder, caused him to pause, and his sister jumped in with a response before he could mention the strange reaction.

“Sure, I think she can do it,” Cinder replied. “She just doesn’t know what she’s capable of yet.”

Cutter shrugged. “Maybe. But just because she’s Larkin’s daughter doesn’t mean she’s any less of a Keeper than the rest of us, does it?”

“Cutter,” Cinder began, her eyes wide, “she’s half-Reaper.”

“Not half.”

“Okay, well we both know her human parts would’ve been long overridden by her supernatural abilities. That leaves her half-angel, half-demon by my calculations.”

“I don’t think so,” Cutter argued back. “She seems like she’s all Keeper to me.” The thought that Ru might have any connection whatsoever to their archenemies made him both furious and sick to his stomach.

Cinder seemed to be acquiescing, perhaps because she just didn’t want to argue. “Okay, so let’s say somehow her Keeper powers have flushed out her Reaper traits. We don’t really need her to have those qualities in order for her to be able to find the portals anyway if she can find her mother. We all know Sera has to know where the portals are located.”

“Do we?” Cutter almost couldn’t believe he’d posed the question. For as long as he could remember, he’d been told finding the lost Keeper would lead him to Sera, who knew where the portals were. What if she didn’t? “We really don’t have any evidence that Ru’s mother knows any more than we do.”

“What’s gotten into you, baby brother?” Cinder asked, her forehead crinkled in concern. “You do not sound like yourself at all.”

With a sigh of frustration, Cutter ran his hand through his hair. “I know. I’m sorry. I guess, I just thought finding her would be the hard part. And while it wasn’t easy, we had enough clues to track her down eventually. Now that we have her, I have no idea how to proceed.”

“Well, let’s start with the obvious. There are runes etched into her back? Where her wings would’ve been?”

Cutter nodded. “But even after weeks of research, we aren’t any closer to figuring out what it says.”

“Has anyone contacted Raphael? Wasn’t there a theory they were there at his hand?”

“Yes, but he has said nothing. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think… someone else put them there?”

“Who?”

Cutter swallowed hard. He hadn’t voiced this theory to anyone, not even Rider. “Uh, what if Ronobe put them there?”

“Ronobe?” Cinder repeated. Hearing her speak the name of the fallen angel, the father of Larkin, Ru’s dad, made Cutter’s breath catch in his throat. “Why would he? How could he?”

“I don’t know,” Cutter admitted. “But… it would make sense that we wouldn’t be able to decipher them if she was marked by a demon instead of an angel.”

Cinder’s eyes seemed to look right through him. “Let me see,” she said, quietly.

Compliantly, Cutter reached into his pocket and drew out his cell phone. He had the photographs Ivy and Lyric had taken that night at Angel Grove and had spent more hours studying them than he would ever admit to. He handed his phone over to his sister.

It didn’t take Cinder long to say, “These have been manipulated, Cutter. Some of these scars are newer than the rest. She wasn’t born this way.”

“What?” Cutter asked, shocked. Thoughts of Ru mentioning that her adoptive mother, Liddy, had told Ru that her birth mother, Sera, admitted to cutting into her daughter’s back flooded his mind, but he hadn’t thought it was true. “You think someone cut her when she was a baby?”

“Yeah, I do,” Cinder replied. “Look. This area here is slightly raised. The color is off. The older scars, the ones she was born with, are under.”

While Cutter could see exactly what she was referring to, he was too shocked to comment. Cinder continued. “I think you haven’t been able to decipher them because you’ve been looking at them wrong. You need to look only at the newer scars. That’s the clue to where Sera has been hiding.”

Before he could respond, Cinder stood and rushed over to her mother’s desk in the corner. She pulled open the drawer and returned with a pad of paper and a pencil. “I’ve seen this some in Middle Eastern countries where flogging is still acceptable,” she stated as she studied Cutter’s phone and then began to sketch something on the pad. “The scars form on top of scars. You can usually tell which ones are the newest.” A few minutes later, she picked up the paper. “Here. This is your message.”

Cutter took the piece of paper and stared at it. The shapes Cinder had drawn meant nothing to him, but they did look familiar. Where had he seen them before? He dropped the pad and stared up at the ceiling, willing the memory to come back to him. “Wait a minute!” He reached across Cinder and picked up his phone, flipping to the picture he’d taken of Sera’s sketch, the one he’d taken of the drawing on her desk. The writing on the cross matched the letters Cinder had written on the paper. “Look! It’s the same!”