Red Light (44 page)

“Family puts the ‘fun’ in dysfunction,” as Jean said. I agreed.

“Hey, you know, you never told me how you figured out the twins thing,” Nina said as she handed me my niece.

“It was the rhythm, you know, when I listened for tones? Just something about the sound,” I explained as I carefully shifted the baby in my arms.

“Good ear, good hands. You would have made a great musician, Tori,” she said with a smile.

I laughed. “Thanks, Nina. You would have made a great EMT. But,” I said, still smiling, “ya never know what the future holds. Maybe I’ll play the drums or something when I get tired of playing knight in a tin can. I’ll probably learn to play a bagpipe.”

She chuckled. “Ethnic color, not a bad thing.”

“Actually, Jean’s got a nice voice.”

“Yeah?” she raised an interested brow. “I’ve never heard her sing, though she’s got a great speaking voice. Maybe you guys should drop by the studio sometime.”

I tried hard not to blush. “Well, she does kinda only sing for me.”

“You might want to keep it that way. Ask me or Sam about that sometime.”

We both glanced over to where Sam stood, trying not to look too anxious as Nina’s father held her son.

“I’ve got to go give her a hand,” Nina said. “My dad always makes her tense.”

“You okay with my holding her?”

Nina put a hand on my shoulder. “You held my life in your hands, Tori.” She kissed the baby that slept in the crook of my arm, then kissed my cheek. “I’ll always be okay with you doing it again.”

I stared at her, stunned at the magnitude of what she trusted me with, as she walked away, and I watched as she kissed her father and her son, then handed the baby back from her father to her wife, who put an obviously relieved arm around her.

A warm hand clasped my shoulder. “Are you hogging all of our niece’s attention?” Jean’s voice was liquid and low.

I turned to find her smiling at me. “You want to hold her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

We found a vacant spot on the sofa, and I carefully passed the baby over before I sat down next to them.

“Of all my nieces,” Jean said softly as she cuddled her close, “I like
you
best.”

“That’s because she’s named for you,” I teased. I brushed the hair off her cheek and behind her ear.

“Well, there’s that too,” Jean conceded with a grin, then kissed me.

We both focused on our niece, playing with the reflexive grip of her toes when we pressed a finger right below them, examining the tiny, tiny nails and the perfect joints of her hands, the typical Del Castillo long lashes that lined her tightly closed eyes.

“Now there’s a sight I’d like to see in my own living room one fine Sunday.”

Jean and I both looked up to see her da smiling as he came over, camera in hand. This time, I couldn’t stop the blush I felt crawl warmly up my neck, and I think Jean flushed too, as he snapped a picture.

“Now, granted, you’re both young, you’ve got some time, but don’t make an old man wait too long.”

I glanced at Jean, observed the way she held our niece, the gentle way she played with that tiny fist curled tightly around her pinkie, and the smile I’d bet anything she didn’t know she had while she did it.

“I don’t think you’ll have to wait too terribly long, Da.”

Jean glanced over at me, surprised.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “After the medic class.”

The smile she returned was so delighted, so radiant, it made my chest hurt.

“Not too long at all, Da,” Jean seconded.

*

About two minutes later, someone got the idea for a group picture. “Come on, three generations of Del Castillo women? How often are we gonna get that?”

“Well, that’s my excuse to get up from this comfortable seat,” Jean said. “I’ll be over there, on the
other
side of the camera.”

“Thanks, thanks a lot,” I said as she transferred the baby back to me, then stood.

She kissed my forehead and chuckled. “Anytime.”

I glanced down at my niece, who seemed oblivious to the noisy circus of her family as her grandmother, aunts, and cousins gathered around. Just then, she opened her eyes and looked straight into mine, a strong, searching glance, before she held her hand up to me and smiled.

My heart caught in my chest, a pained and joyful throb, because I instantly recognized those eyes, that hand gesture, the expression on that little face.

“Nina, look!” I said, and Nina leaned her head over my shoulder. “It’s Nana!” I gazed up into my cousin’s eyes, which shone with the same happy tears mine held.

“I know,” she said, and smiled her beautiful smile as I put her daughter in her arms. The flash went off. “Isn’t it wild?”

Jean and I hung that picture up in our living room, between our certificates from the academy and below the photo from our wedding.

“Hey, come take a look,” Jean called and pointed at the picture as she finished straightening it. “Did you notice this before?”

I came closer to see for myself. “That’s just artifact from the flash.”

“You sure?” she asked. “Look closely.”

I did. A quick glance showed an arc of light behind the group that clustered about the sofa, but as I studied it…

“You see her, don’t you?” Jean asked softly from behind me and put her arms around my waist.

“Yeah,” I answered just as softly and covered her hands with mine, “I do.”

Jean rested her chin on my shoulder and stared with me.

It was an outline etched in light, an outline with the unmistakable curves of a woman. She stood behind the group, her arms outstretched to hold us all.

May, earlier that year

“Did everything work out the way it was supposed to, mission accomplished and all that?” Nina asked Samantha as they readied themselves for sleep.

“Yeah, I think so. Kitt delivered the papers, and I stayed by the car with Jean.”

“Uh-huh,” Nina answered with humored skepticism. “Is that all you did?”

Samantha shrugged as she pulled the blankets down. “Well, I did help Jean let the air out of her tires. I think she kept the caps as a trophy.”

“She deserves something, at the very least,” Nina sighed as she sat on the edge of the bed.

Samantha stretched along the mattress. “Come here, love, lie down. Don’t think about it right now—it’s not good for you or the littles.”

“I know, you’re right,” Nina answered as she slid onto the bed. She eased herself onto her left side, and Samantha automatically wrapped her arms around her.

“It’s just, I can’t help but think…Samantha, we should have told her, we could have
stopped
this,
prevented
it.”

Samantha sighed and pulled her wife even closer, knowing how close to tears she was. She was on that edge herself. “Love, what were we supposed to tell her? Trace Cayden’s a human hound turned soul-sucker, and while she may have been astrally restricted oh, about ten years ago, she’s still got plenty of power on this level, so you might not want to date her?”

“She tried to bind her, Sam.”

“I know,” she answered quietly, remembering the cross over Tori’s heart chakra, representing the pain that’s slow to fade. A bruise like that could have been a simple mark to begin the binding, but this particular pattern was a combination of symbol and initial; Trace had been attempting to create a complete thrall. Then there was the night Samantha had followed the trail of bright red dots to the smear on Tori’s doorknob and had found Tori half awake but clearly out of it, a neat, straight, and slightly too deep gash on her arm—the left arm, the side traditionally associated with stronger flow from the heart…

She’d known in that instant several things: Had Trace not known before, then she had discovered Tori’s relations then, for if Tori hadn’t revealed it herself, it had been scryed through her blood—and it was no secret who Nina was married to.

Samantha herself had bandaged the cut, had recognized the second mark of the binding ritual, the trance state, probably drug induced…and she’d also performed the unbinding, shed her own blood, to break it.

The Law was the Law: to interfere not in another’s free will, to give aid when asked, unless clearly, clearly, free will had been violated. Samantha had done that, by performing the unbinding, but she was still bound by other aspects of the Law; she was forbidden from interfering in any way.

And…what could she really have said to Tori, anyway? How could Nina or Samantha have told her about Trace, especially after her reaction when she’d heard of Kerry’s past association with Nina?

The Law had been followed, respected: Tori had been unwillingly bound, then freed. Her choice, her free will had kept her from being bound again, from becoming a vessel, or a thrall. Perhaps Samantha had skirted the edges of the Law by offering Tori alternative ways of spending her time, but they were offers only, not directives, and Tori had made those choices freely, without prompting. She’d thought they were safe; Tori had broken free, perhaps with a little help, but still free, whole and healthy after, and not too long later so very clearly in love with Jean.

Nina sat up and buried her face in her hands. “She…she raped her. God, Sam, she
hurt
my little sister.” The words were anguished, torn, and Samantha’s heart ached for both of them, for the wife she so loved whose heart bled for Tori’s pain, and for Tori herself, whose own goodness had been used to betray her, for what Samantha knew from experience Tori had yet to go through.

She held Nina carefully as she schooled her own mind against the memories. Nina, whether she wanted to admit it or not, was an empath. She literally felt not only textures, but emotions, thoughts, through her skin. Bound as closely to Samantha as she was…but Samantha would not willingly or easily put the strained control that protected her wife and their children at risk, but there were things they had to discuss, things that Nina had to know. Nina’s aura carried her sorrow, which Samantha could tell she was trying so very hard to not let touch the energy field that surrounded their children.

“She’s marked two chakras on her, one over her heart, where she hurts most, where you’d hurt most if something happened to her, and the other—she knows you’re pregnant.” Samantha felt the first hint of ice in her heart as she realized what it meant. “Nina, she’s blood linked to you through Tori.”

Nina nodded against her chest. “That’s what I thought. What do we do?”

Samantha kissed her head, then cautiously released her. She walked over to the dresser she’d folded her pants on and took her cell phone out of the pocket. “I have to call my uncle,” she explained as she dialed. “I’m gonna need backup.”

Samantha watched Nina shift on the bed. She seemed oddly calm, even knowing what the dangers to her, to all of them, were.

Perhaps…Samantha considered. Perhaps Nina was still in shock, mourning even, over what had happened to Tori. She’d cried for hours, silent tears the first night, her head pressed firmly against Samantha’s heart, and again after the deposition, unable to take comfort from her or from Kitt. Her stillness now worried Samantha.

“Uncle, it’s me,” she said into the phone as soon as the message beep sounded. “Get the soonest flight if you can. It’s hungry and coming our way.” She clipped her phone shut with a nervous snap.

“Are you okay?” she asked as she sat next to Nina on their bed. She ran her fingers through the shiny, rich length of her hair.

Nina turned eyes that shone with tiredness in the half-light of the room. “I’m fine. You know what? I’m just gonna get a glass of water.”

Samantha jumped up. “I’ll get that for you.”

Nina stood and stretched her arms above her head. “I’m not a veal, you know,” she said with a smile, “and it’s good for me to move around, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re not a veal,” Samantha responded. “I just, you know.”

Nina kissed her gently. “I do know. It’s one of the things I love about you. Besides, nothing bad is allowed to happen today, you know that, right?”

“Really? Why’s that?” Samantha murmured softly against her lips.

“Because,” Nina answered after taking another moment to savor the softness of the mouth that pressed against hers, “tomorrow is my grandmother’s birthday, so nothing bad can ever happen. I’ll be right back.”

Once Nina had left the room, Samantha paced.

She had thought—probably wishfully, she realized ruefully—that it was over. She was mistaken. She would have berated herself but had no time. She had to
think
, to find the clues, because there was more: the last cut, the last symbol, a direct strike in so many ways to the seat of life, an actual bleeding cut both inside and out…

Oh, Tori,
she thought in empathic sympathy,
I should have found a better way—I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you better.

Dammit, what phase was the moon in? she wondered frantically. This had happened how many days ago? It had been a blood spell, cast in the waning moon, and tonight—Samantha calculated quickly—tonight it reached its nadir.