Red Light (45 page)

That bitch had had ungodly good luck with her timing, assuming it had been luck at all, Samantha thought grimly. Dammit it twice, because Trace had apparently found a way to get around the restrictions placed on her so long ago, to manipulate the energies in a different way, a dirtier way.

And the door had been opened with compassion, augmented with the power of death behind it, and all tied to the blood that ran through Nina and Tori’s veins, and Samantha’s as well, since that too was part of the lives Nina carried.

Samantha felt the ice that had touched her heart seep through her. This series of actions wasn’t simply directed at Nina for refusing Trace so many years ago, or anger—jealousy, even—at Tori for breaking free.

It all came down to the knife cut, she thought, the representational severing at the seat of life—it brazenly bore Trace’s initial, a challenge to Samantha, a threat to her children. As the final piece clicked into place, Samantha knew one solid fact with almost blinding clarity: in failing Tori, she’d failed them all.

The numbers on the clock face shifted, catching Samantha’s eye. Midnight. On the nadir. It was already too late to stop, or even deflect, Samantha realized as she started walking automatically to the door. She felt the gathering of power tingle on her skin, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She felt the wood under her feet and gathered energy from the earth, breathed in slowly and drew it from the air, tried to center and draw it from aethyr, before she surrounded herself, then blew it out toward her wife, the only shield she really had time for. All she could hope was to blunt its impact, to—

“Sam?” Nina called in a tone that Samantha knew meant nothing good. She tore out of the room in a dead run, knocking on Tori’s door on the way.

She could smell the blood before she saw it, knew before seeing that this was it, was dangerous for her wife, for their children.

All she could hope was that they might all get through it, that that unholy glorified hound hadn’t finally gotten everything she’d wanted in one blow, Samantha thought as she caught her wife in her arms.

Tori stood beside her out of seemingly nowhere, helping her, helping Nina. There was a time to lead, and a time to follow, and Samantha followed whatever orders she received.

No matter what happened, Samantha swore to herself as she followed the stretcher that carried her world on it down the stairs and to the ambulance that waited outside, as soon as this was over? The hunt was on.

If you are in a situation and you think you may need help, please visit this Web site: http://www.thenetworklared.org/english/resources/ natl_intl.html

Ketamine became a Schedule III drug in August 1999, and GHB was outlawed later in the same year. Both were legally available before that; however, GHB is easily made, while ketamine is still available via prescription.

In 2001, the state of New York passed SARA, the Sexual Assault Reform Act, which, among other things, created new provisions for crimes previously undefined and therefore unprosecutable under the law. In 2006 the statute of limitations on rape was eliminated.

JD Glass lives in the city of her choice and birth, New York, with her beloved partner. When she’s not writing, she’s the lead singer (as well as alternately guitarist and bassist) in Life Underwater, which also keeps her pretty busy.

JD spent three years writing the semimonthly
Vintage News,
a journal about all sorts of neat collectible guitars, basses, and other fretted string instruments, and also wrote and illustrated
Water, Water Everywhere,
an illustrated text and guide about water in the human body, for the famous Children’s Museum Water Exhibit. When not creating something (she swears she’s way too busy to ever be bored), she sleeps. Right.

Works in progress include
American Goth
(Bold Strokes Books 2008).

Further information can be found at www.boldstrokesbooks.com and at www.myspace.com/jdglass, where you can check out the daily music plays, blogs, reviews of all sorts of fun things, and the occasional flash of wit.