by ID Johnson
“Damn it, Ru! We’ve got this. Will you please close the goddamn portal?” Rider shouted.
Ru realized that, for some reason, it had been easier to contain the demons than the Reapers, though she had no idea why that would be. Deciding it was time to stop experimenting, she turned back to the portal just as Lyric put the fire out behind her with a gust of wind.
She’d never levitated before, but she felt like she could walk on air right now. Ru stepped off of the edge of the ravine and was overjoyed when her foot caught and she was able to control her descent into the hollow. If anyone else noticed, they didn’t let on, and she figured she’d tell them later, after they defeated the enemy.
Ru positioned herself back in front of the portal, resolved this time not to let anything distract her. However, as she raised her hands, another form materialized in front of her. It was a human, a man, and he was on the other side of the portal opening, still in the tunnel. If Ru acted quickly, she thought she could prevent this one from coming through at all. She gathered her strength and prepared to strike.
A voice called to her from inside the portal. “Rune! Wait! Don’t close it! Not yet!”
Puzzled, Ru paused. How did this person know her name? As he drew closer, a flicker of recognition flittered across her mind. She’d seen that face before. “Larkin?” she called, unable to believe her eyes. What were the chances her father would be trying to flee the underworld through the very portal she was trying to close just as she was about to begin the incantation?
“Ru! Let me out first, please! It’s been so long. I need to see you!”
“Ru!” Rider’s voice cut through her father’s pleas. “That’s not Larkin! It’s a trick. Close it!”
“Close it, Ru!” Cutter shouted. “I can’t hold Nat off much longer.”
Ru turned her head to see Cutter looked exhausted. Nat seemed to be gaining the upper hand. Even as she watched, Cutter began to crumple, and Nat increased the stream of blackness headed toward her friend. Without releasing Cutter, Nat began to walk in her direction. “Let your father through, Ru!”
Standing in the ravine, her hands ready to fire, the incantation on the tip of her tongue, the conflict within Ru rivaled the war going on around her. Her friends were begging her to close the portal while the unfamiliar eyes of her father beseeched her to let him out first. If her mother were here, what would she tell her to do? Ru closed her eyes and reached out, hoping for guidance.
The answer came almost immediately, and even without words, she knew exactly what the message was, what her mother wanted her to do. With a deep breath, Ru looked the being claiming to be her father in the eyes, and calmly said, “In nomine domini, ut claudere infernum est effi- cimur, omnium aeternum!” as a burst of blue light poured out of her hands, surrounding the portal.
As the energy from her palms and the conviction in her words made contact with the portal opening, Ru saw the look of shock and then pain on her father’s face. Upon impact, the light exploded into the portal, causing a shockwave which sent Ru reeling backward. Her head hit the ground hard as the blast of scorching air washed over her. Ru held her breath, waiting for the pain to come. She squeezed her eyes shut and slowly slipped into oblivion.
Chapter 6
An unfamiliar smell invaded her senses as Ru tried to remember where she’d been and what she had been doing. The ringing in her ears was almost intolerable, matched only by the pain in her head. The smell of scorched earth was not a familiar one, but she recognized it as she slowly sat up.
Everything came rushing back to her all at once. The portal. The demons. Her father. The Reapers. Her team. Ru turned, bracing herself for what she might see. Behind her, crumpled bodies littered the ground. No one was moving. Ru cried out in anguish, wondering if closing the portal had somehow caused her to kill everyone, including her friends.
As tears poured down her cheeks, she managed to pull herself up off of the ground, digging at the earth with burned palms as she found her footing. She realized someone else was moving, however, and she wiped the tears from her eyes to assess the situation.
At the top of the ravine, across the way, a figure stood. He, too, had difficulty clambering to his feet, but Ru knew instantly it was Nat, even before he turned to face her. His eyes were not as vibrant as usual, and Ru recognized the whole world was off-balance. It was as if someone had taken a watercolor painting of the woods and soaked it in water, washing away the vibrancy before letting it dry. She shouldn’t have been able to see in the dark without her Light, but she could. The sun seemed to have come up while she was lying on the forest floor, but rather than lighting the forestscape in its normal palette, everything was colored in drab shades of death.
Nat’s mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing. Ru shook her head, trying to make it stop. His head slowly swung back and forth, as if he was in disbelief, and then he snapped his fingers. The ricochet seemed to disturb the air around her head, and the ringing ended abruptly. Fear and dread overwhelmed Ru as she took in the scene around her, but she didn’t fear the man who dropped to the ravine floor and slowly walked toward her, even though he was supposed to be her enemy.
“What did I do?” she asked quietly, trying to control the trembling in her hands.
“You did what they told you to do,” he replied, an air of defeat in his voice. “You did what you were supposed to do.”
“But… are they all dead?” It was difficult to even let the last word escape her lips. She didn’t think she wanted to hear the answer.
“Unfortunately, no,” Nat replied. “Just unconscious. Well, some of mine might be dead.” He kicked at a crumpled body dressed in black just a few feet from his boots. An arm flopped free, revealing a shattered rib cage and copious amounts of blood soaking the entire left side of the man’s body. Ru wondered if he had fallen from the tornado.
“I didn’t know they could… die,” she said.
“Of course we can die,” Nat answered, dumbfounded. “We are half human, Ru.”
She opened her mouth to answer but didn’t know what to say. Everything was so confusing. She thought Reapers could only be destroyed or sent to Hell through incantations.
“You know what you’ve done by closing that portal, don’t you? You’ve simply trapped us all here until we can reach one of the two remaining ones. Which means any Reaper that had been using this portal will be forced to kill his or her way back for more instructions. Even compliant Reapers might not know who is marked and who is unmarked now, thanks to this.”
Ru wasn’t sure what he was saying. It had never occurred to her that Reapers who were actually doing what they were meant to might need the portals. “I thought… I thought they received their directions some other way. Or… bodies literally had marks on them. I didn’t know….”
“There is much that you don’t know, Ru,” he replied, running a hand through his dark hair. “And if you continue to listen to them, you’re going to end up hurting many more people than you can help. Haven’t you figured out yet that in this story the good guys don’t wear white?”
Ru opened her mouth once more, trying to formulate some sort of a response, but she was so confused at this juncture, she had nothing to say.
“Ru, please, consider all that has happened recently. They are using you. Your mother, Ru. They promised if you’d find her, they’d leave her be. Where is she now?” Ru hesitated, her lip quivering. She didn’t know how much he knew. “Where is she?”
“She’s, uh… she’s…”
“Sky took her, didn’t she?” Ru nodded. “Don’t you find it odd that within a week of your father finally escaping, your mom is found and then captured?”
Once again, Ru had no words. Tears were streaming down her cheeks now.
“And now you’ve closed the portal, but do you think they’ll show up and give you a medal for that? No, I guarantee you, they’ll find something that you did wrong instead.”
Looking at the bodies of he
r friends lying unmoving on the ground, Ru thought that might very well be the case. Ivy was still bleeding from her side, and the rest of her teammates looked battered and bruised as well.
“Ru, please. Before you go running off looking for more portals, consider what I am saying to you.” Nat took a step closer to her, and she turned to face him. Gently, he lifted his hand and brushed back a strand of her blonde hair. “Ru, I know that you feel this, too. It’s not because you have me confused with Kyle. You and I… there’s something there. Stop pushing it away. Stop listening to what they’re telling you, and make up your own mind for yourself, please. For once in your life.”
Staring into his green eyes, it was easy to think his words were true, that there really was something between them, something potentially as powerful as what her parents had had. The kind of love that made a person choose burning in Hell for two and a half decades over denying its existence. The kind of love that made someone give up everything she’d ever known, family, friends, her calling, everything, to give that love a chance to prove itself to the world.
A noise behind her drew Ru’s eyes away from his intense emerald stare, and she turned to see Cutter struggling to regain consciousness. His eyes were still closed tightly, but she could tell by his expression he would be back with her shortly. A wave of relief washed over her, knowing for sure that he was at least alive. The idea that without him, she wouldn’t even know where to begin filled her mind. As much as she’d denied or ignored the truth, her pull to Cutter was every bit as strong as the spell Nat had cast on her, even when he’d pretended to be Kyle.
Turning back to face him, she said simply, “You should go.”
Nat inhaled sharply through his nose and then nodded, withdrawing his hand and taking a step backward. “Just think about it Ru, especially after you’re reprimanded for all of this.” He gestured at the mess around him.
“I will.” She said the words not to give him hope but for the sheer fact that she wouldn’t be able to keep from thinking about his proposition, even if she had no intention of entertaining it.
As Nat walked away, a question popped into her head. “Nat!” she called, taking a step forward. He turned, his eyebrows arched. “The other night, on the beach. Who was that? Who was chasing you?”
He stopped and tipped his head to the side inquisitively. “You don’t know? Of course you do. The same person who told Sky where your mom was.”
Ru held her breath for a moment, trying to control her emotions. She had suspected as much. “But who was it?”
“I just told you. You already know.”
“Please, Nat. Just tell me. You saw the person, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And so did you, Ru.”
She took a step forward. “I need to know. Can you just tell me?”
“You tell me. Who was it, Ru?”
There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in her mind now. Gritting her teeth in anger, Ru let the name escape her lips. “Cinder.”
Ru heard someone calling her name from a distance, but she couldn’t open her eyes to see who it was. The voice sounded faintly familiar, though she couldn’t place it.
It wasn’t Liddy Brown, of that she was sure. How many times had she been startled out of a sound sleep by the sound of her adoptive mother’s voice ricocheting off of her brain? Bedroom lights flipped on, blankets torn off. Or better yet, a slap to the face for some transgression she hadn’t even known she’d been guilty of when she’d gone to bed the night before. Ru settled into the relief that whoever was calling for her, it wasn’t the wretched Liddy Brown.
Now, there was shaking, though, and the voice’s persistence intensified, as if the person could annoy her awake. Reluctantly, Ru strained to open her eyes, pushing up with her hands as she did so and making contact with the shaker. Her muscles felt stiff, and as her eyes flickered, she realized the bed she was sleeping in was unbelievably uncomfortable. She was cold and sore. Her head was pounding and there was a slight ringing in her ears.
Ru’s eyes flew open. Her vision was blurry at first but she realized she was looking at Cutter. His face hovered over her, and as he sat back, she could see the sky behind his head. A thousand stars winked down at her. “Where… what…?” she stammered as she tried to sit up.
“It’s okay, Ru,” he assured her as he helped her come to sitting. “Take it easy. I think you hit your head.”
Memories came rushing back all at once. She was in the ravine in the woods. They’d battled the Reapers, and she’d closed the portal. Hadn’t she? She peered off in the distance at the place where the overhang shrouded the rock wall beneath it. From here, she could no longer see the shimmering she’d noticed earlier, but did that mean it was gone for good?
Thoughts of the rest of her friends filled her mind, and she turned to where she’d last seen their crumpled bodies. Blood had gushed from Ivy’s side. Lyric and Rider had looked so lifeless, their bodies so still. But then, so had Cutter, and here he was.
“They’re okay,” he assured her. “But Ivy was still bleeding from her side, so Rider decided to go ahead and take her to the hospital.”
With raised eyebrows, Ru asked, “How does one explain that, exactly? Injured by a raving, demonic bull?”
Cutter smiled. “I doubt that’s what they’ll tell them. Probably that she fell down the ravine or something, but I’m sure Rider will figure it out. He can be pretty persuasive when he wants to be.”
Ru nodded, certain that was probably the case. She had yet to figure out how to do that, exactly, influence others’ thoughts. One of the many things she needed to learn. But she did remember she’d levitated earlier, so that was something, assuming she could do it again. And, apparently, she’d mastered the incantations, because she’d sent two demons to Hell. And there was the little matter of the portal. “Is it closed?” She gestured with the top of her head off in the direction where the opening had been.
“Yeah. You did it.” His smile was not only mirthful but also proud, like a teacher whose student has mastered a difficult skill.
“We did it,” Ru corrected, although she couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. “If you guys hadn’t held them off, I wouldn’t have been able to get it done.”
“True,” Cutter admitted, adjusting so that he was a bit closer to her. Ru noticed he had a deep cut on the side of his head. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore but dried blood stained his hair and had dripped down onto his jacket. “Still, Ru, what you did was nothing short of amazing. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I knew you could. But that didn’t make it any less astounding to watch.”
A broad smile spread across her face as she could no longer contain her joy. “Thank you,” she said. The smile withered a bit, though, as other thoughts came to mind. “But we still have a long road ahead. We don’t even know where the other two portals are. And Nat’s probably beyond pissed. Next time, he won’t underestimate us so much.”
“That’s true,” Cutter admitted. “I hope that Sky will arrange for us to have a larger team next time. Once we use the map on your back to find the other two portals, we can coordinate a better planned attack.”
“What if there is no map on my back?” Ru asked, knowing there was no evidence that Raphael or God or anyone else had given them the secret locations of the portals the Reapers had been using. And she knew that would mean they’d have to let Sky know their plans, which she would do begrudgingly.
“I really believe the information we need is there,” he said confidently. “But if it isn’t, we’ll still find the portals. And close them. It’s your destiny, Ru. And someday, when people look back and talk about Ru Roberts, this will be your legacy.”
If he’d said those words to her even a few weeks ago, she never would’ve believed it, but she remembered how powerful she’d felt standing in the ravine, calling upon the strength within her to close that portal, to banish the demons, to send Raven flying into the trees. She had commanded the field. The metamorphosis she’d undergon
e in the past months would have been overwhelming if she had gone through it alone. The idea that her job wasn’t complete also made her stomach tighten, but as long as Cutter and the others were with her, Ru knew they truly could accomplish these daunting tasks.
“Cutter, where are the Reapers?” Ru asked, looking behind her. She’d noticed they were gone, of course, but she’d had so many questions, it hadn’t been a priority.
“They were gone when I came to,” he replied, shrugging. “I’m not sure. They’re probably getting an earful of Nat’s wrath right about now.”
That made Ru smile. She fully remembered having spoken to him just before Cutter woke her up, but she didn’t know if that was a dream, or if she’d been in another realm with him again. Something told her it was the latter.
“Are you okay?” Cutter asked. He reached up and brushed back a lock of her hair that had fallen over her right eye, and his fingertips brushed the side of her face sending electricity through her body. Ru couldn’t tell if it was just their powers interacting or something more, but she was beginning to think he could’ve made her feel that way even if he wasn’t half-angel.
“I’m okay,” she replied, forcing a smile. “It’s just… I thought I’d woken up before and that all of you were out, except Nat. And it was dawn. It’s odd. I’m not sure what it was.”
“Did he speak to you?” Cutter asked, clearly concerned.
Ru nodded. “He said a few things that confused me. He said some of the Reapers had died. I hadn’t realized we’d actually killed them. Or that we could kill them.”
Cutter took a deep breath. “We can kill them,” he said, as if he didn’t know quite how to describe it, “but that’s just not how we operate. Just as we can die, so can they. It’s much harder to kill a half-human than a full-human. But if one of us is in a car wreck or gets shot, we could die.”
“So why don’t we just shoot the Reapers?” she asked, frustrated that one of the areas she thought she had a handle on was confusing her again.