Women of the Dark Streets Read online

  Synopsis

  Enter a midnight world of the supernatural—a world of vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, and demons. A seductive world limited only by your imagination, full of dark fantasies, hidden desires, and sexy women who rule the night. Edited by award-winning editors Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman, Women of the Dark Streets presents all new tales of the paranormal from your favorite Bold Strokes authors.

  Women of the Dark Streets:

  Lesbian Paranormal

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Women of the Dark Streets: Lesbian Paranormal

  © 2012 By Bold Strokes Books. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-691-5

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: March 2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman

  Production Design: Stacia Seaman

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Introduction

  When we read about the paranormal, we question what it means to be human. In reading about the other, we confront our deepest fears about ourselves as a whole: Is reality limited by what our senses can perceive? Is life defined by birth and death? Are we really at the top of the food chain? and as individuals: Is there someone out there for me? Am I worthy of being loved?

  This is a book filled with temptation and seduction, redemption and perdition. Join your favorite Bold Strokes authors on a journey filled with vampires and shape-shifters; previous lives, the afterlife, eternal life; angels and demons—the full range of paranormal, from bone-chilling terror to erotic and exotic encounters to the sweetness of everlasting love.

  Radclyffe and Stacia Seaman 2012

  Lucky Number Seven

  Merry Shannon

  The world was awash in blood and fire. Thick black smoke, flickered through with a dull orange glow, choked the night air. Sirens shrieked madly from multiple directions, blue and red flashes searing Kara’s peripheral vision as she struggled to open her eyes. A single thought tore through her dazed brain, and she sat up in terror.

  “Nic!”

  Across the dark, hard-packed earth her wife’s blood-soaked form lay prostrate atop a glittering spread of broken glass. Kara screamed and scrambled over to her, but even before she reached her, she already knew.

  Nic was dead.

  “Oh God, no. No!” Kara collapsed over her wife’s broken body. She twined her fingers with Nic’s left hand, their matching gold wedding bands glinting in the crazy colored lights of the emergency vehicles. “Nic, baby, oh my God…”

  Her wife’s strong, handsome features were scarcely recognizable beneath layers of blood and dirt. A large triangular shard of glass jutted from her torso, and a thick, hot puddle of blood had formed beneath it. Her close-cropped blond hair was singed and part of her scalp was burned away in a sticky mess. Other parts of her seemed blackened and unnaturally twisted, and Kara squeezed her eyes shut, grateful that the darkness spared her from the most grisly details. She crushed Nic’s hand in hers and rocked back and forth in agony. This was not happening. How could this be happening?

  She was only vaguely aware of footsteps crunching through the warped metal and glass all around them, the hiss of water hoses aimed at the burning remains of the train, the shouts of emergency personnel as they sifted through the rubble. A pair of black boots suddenly came into view as someone stopped and bent over them.

  “We’ve got another body over here!”

  Another set of boots arrived, and a stretcher dropped to the ground next to Nic’s body. Gloved hands reached down and rolled Nic over so that Kara got a good look at the cruel blade of glass impaling her wife’s chest just beneath the sternum. Kara screamed again.

  “Stop, don’t touch her! Nic!”

  The strangers ignored her, seizing Nic’s shoulders and feet, but they were arrested by a soft female voice.

  “Wait a moment, gentlemen.”

  Kara looked up to see a woman gazing down at her compassionately. Unlike the emergency workers in their soot-smudged coveralls, she was wearing a trim khaki pantsuit and pink satin blouse that looked starkly out of place against the smoky chaos. Soft chestnut hair framed her face in gentle waves. An ID badge was clipped to her lapel, though from this distance Kara couldn’t read it. The woman laid a hand on the shoulder of the nearest man and said quietly, “Will you give us a minute, please?” She bobbed her head in Kara’s direction and fixed him with a long stare.

  Both emergency workers gave the woman disgusted scowls, but they left Nic’s body where it lay and stomped off.

  The woman crouched down on her heels next to Kara and surveyed Nic’s battered form. “I’m so sorry. Was she a friend?”

  Kara shook her head, a bitter laugh rising through the sobs in her throat. “Nic is my wife.” As usual the words came out defiantly, as if daring the woman to contradict her. But the woman only nodded all the more kindly.

  “I’m so very sorry,” she said again, with even deeper feeling. She paused for a respectful moment before introducing herself. “My name is Elsa Cramer. I’m a special investigator working with the FBI.”

  Kara could read the laminated badge on her lapel now, which confirmed the name. “Kara Stinson,” she replied automatically.

  “Kara, I know all of this has got to be overwhelming right now, but I need to ask you a few questions. Were you and your wife on the train when this happened?”

  “I…” Sharp fragments of memory dazzled her with images. The groan of tearing metal. A deafening explosion. Glass breaking. Gravity shifting. A raging wall of fire rushing toward them, and the sudden horror in Nic’s eyes as she grabbed Kara’s hand and they ran through a disintegrating tunnel of metal and flame… Kara pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head. “I don’t know. I think so.” She stared at Elsa numbly. “What happened?”

  “That’s what I intend to find out.”

  “Nic’s dead.”

  “And I want to catch the people responsible. I need your help, Kara.”

  For the first time Kara took a good look at the scene of destruction behind them. It was like something out of a macho action flick—one train car was completely derailed, lying on its side with electric sparks raining from broken wires above. It had crushed the chain link fence and concrete barrier that lined the light rail and was protruding dangerously into the oncoming traffic lanes of I-25, the freeway that ran alongside the train track. A second train car was leaning haphazardly against the first, with tongues of angry flame licking their way out of the broken windows. Several bench seats, with their tacky blue pleather upholstery, had been flung out onto the ground. Unidentifiable pieces of metal and plastic were scattered everywhere, and the air hung heavy with acrid smoke and the bitter smell of burning chemicals. All along the track, dozens of men were carting away sheet-covered stretchers just like the one they’d left lying next to Nic.

  Kara felt sick. “Are you saying someone did this to us?”

  “We believe someone set off a
bomb, either on the train or on the track itself. The FBI received a bomb threat just before it was detonated. Tell me, did you see anyone or anything unusual?”

  Kara tried to think back, but still all she could recall were jumbled flashes of panic, the other passengers screaming, the awful quaking of the train beneath her feet. “I can’t…I can’t remember. It’s all in pieces.” She reached down for her wife’s lifeless hand again.

  “That’s all right. Don’t try to force it. Try going back further, maybe to earlier in the evening. Can you remember why you were on the train?”

  “We were on our way home.”

  “From downtown?”

  “Yes. We went out to dinner for our second third anniversary.”

  Elsa blinked in confusion. “Second third?”

  “Nic and I have been married in six states so far, all of the ones that have legalized same-sex marriage.” With a trembling hand Kara tried to turn Nic’s wedding band so that its single small diamond would be centered on her finger. She could not make it move, and wondered if Nic’s fingers were too swollen. “It’s kind of our thing. Since we can’t marry in our home state yet, we make special trips to other places when it becomes legal there. We went to Massachusetts first, then California—though Prop 8’s still trying to reverse that, the bastards—and two years ago today, we were married for the third time in Connecticut. So today is our second third anniversary.” Kara reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a little colored envelope. Tears blurred her vision as she handed it to Elsa. “This was Nic’s anniversary gift to me.”

  Elsa opened the envelope and withdrew its contents. “Tickets to New York?”

  “She proposed tonight. For the seventh time.” Kara turned back to Nic’s body and a sob racked her insides. “But we won’t get to go now, will we?”

  Elsa said gently, “Can you tell me what happened after you and Nic got on the train?”

  “We were excited, talking about all the things we wanted to do in NYC. She wanted to go to a Giants game. We wanted to hold our little wedding right in the middle of Times Square. Something simple, just us and an officiate. I wasn’t really paying attention too much, you know? I mean, we’ve taken the light rail a hundred times. The train runs. It stops. People get on, people get off, it runs again. We were almost home, and then everything just…blew up.” Shock was quickly giving way to rage. “If someone did this to us—if someone took her away from me, I want that person to pay.”

  “And I don’t blame you one bit.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” Kara said in frustration. “I can’t remember anything out of the ordinary at all.”

  The two rescue workers returned then, one of them grumbling under his breath while the other said gruffly, “Sorry, Ms. Cramer, but we’ve gotta take this one now.” His companion had already halfway dragged Nic’s body onto the stretcher.

  Kara ground her teeth and turned to Elsa with a determined stare. “I’m going with her.”

  “I understand.” Elsa held out a neat white business card. “If you think of anything else, here’s where you can find me.”

  The rescue workers gave the FBI woman strange looks. Kara didn’t even glance at the card. She just turned to follow as the men carried her wife away.

  *

  The day of Nicole Stinson’s funeral was just another cheerily sunny summer morning in Denver. The cemetery grounds were lovely, with dragonflies and bees humming happily between the sedate headstones, enjoying the lavish flower bouquets set out by the residents’ loved ones. The other mourners were sweating profusely in their prim black dresses and suit jackets, but Kara’s fingers felt like ice, as did her soul. Maybe Nic’s death hadn’t truly sunk in yet, because she couldn’t seem to feel much of anything since the train wreck. A deep, aching cold had settled in her bones, and it made every part of her feel crystalline and numb.

  Nic’s sleek dark casket was lowered, inch by inch, into the neatly framed grave. Directly across from Kara stood Nic’s parents, who hadn’t so much as looked in Kara’s direction throughout the service. Not that their disdain was much of a surprise. In spite of the six marriage licenses that hung proudly on the wall of their little condo, in spite of the fact that Kara’s Social Security card and driver’s license both stated proudly that Kara shared their family’s last name, the Stinsons had always refused to acknowledge their daughter’s relationship with another woman. Even now they stood there, tossing flowers after Nic’s casket, weeping, and still managing to pretend that Kara was invisible.

  Kara’s sister Lexi was there, but Kara had no desire to go to her for comfort. Lexi was one of those women who positively thrived on the drama in others’ lives. She liked nothing more than a good funeral or a scandalous affair, the more tragic the better. Oh, Lexi would be more than happy to lend Kara a shoulder to cry on, but she had a way of appropriating other people’s pain as if she was just as much a victim of their suffering as they were. Lexi called it being empathetic, but Kara knew her sister just thrived on the attention. She didn’t want Lexi leaching her feelings for her own personal entertainment right now.

  Still, Kara was beginning to feel profoundly lonely as she stood at her wife’s graveside. Though many of their friends had come to pay their respects, it seemed they were all too self-conscious to approach Kara either. Not one had offered her a sympathetic hug or even a trite muttering of condolence.

  Nic had always been the outgoing one. Kara was usually content to sit shyly in the background and watch her charismatic wife socialize. Nic’s sharp sense of humor and easygoing nature had a way of making everyone around her feel instantly comfortable. She drew people to her naturally, but Kara didn’t possess that talent. Now Kara realized that the people she’d always thought of as their mutual friends had only ever really been Nic’s friends, and with Nic gone, no one had any interest in her anymore. Was this what her life would be like now, isolated and frozen with grief? Never in her life had Kara felt so alone.

  “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Kara turned to see Elsa Cramer at her side. She was so grateful for the warmth of another person’s voice that she very nearly hugged her, and a hard lump rose in her throat as she realized out of all the people here, only this virtual stranger seemed to have the heart to acknowledge her.

  “Where else would I be?” she asked miserably. “My wife is here.”

  “I know. I’m deeply sorry for your loss, Kara.”

  “Have you caught the bastards that did this yet?”

  “I’m afraid not.” The FBI agent’s eyes were troubled. “And we received another bomb threat today. The Bureau is certain it’s from the same group that attacked the Denver light rail. We think their reign of terror is just getting started, and the train bomb was only a warm-up.”

  Kara felt her rage surge again, shattering the delicate ice that had held her emotions so carefully suspended. “No!” she hissed, and surged forward until her face was just inches from Elsa’s nose. Elsa’s hair was suddenly tossed about her face as a frosty breeze whipped through the cemetery. Surprised gasps went up from the gathered mourners as the brilliant summer heat was interrupted by an unseasonal chill.

  Elsa, however, did not appear fazed. She returned Kara’s furious stare grimly. “We don’t know what their next target will be, just that it will most likely happen in another of the U.S.’s largest cities. Los Angeles, perhaps. Maybe New York or Boston.”

  Their first two marriages had been in Boston and Los Angeles. Their seventh, the one they’d never have, would have been in New York. Kara couldn’t bear the thought of any of these places undergoing the kind of tragedy she had just been through. “You can’t let that happen!”

  “Believe me, we’re doing everything we can. But these terrorists seem to be ahead of us at every turn.”

  “Well, they probably have a whatchamacallit—a weasel? Inside the FBI.”

  “Do you mean a mole?”

  “Yeah, that’s it, a mole. I bet they’ve got one.
”

  Elsa paused. Very slowly she said, “What makes you say that?”

  “Don’t you watch television? There’s always some inside guy.”

  The look that Elsa gave her then was very strange, like she was trying to peer inside Kara’s head. “Kara, I want you to think for me now, very carefully. Do you really believe the FBI has a leak?”

  Kara snorted. “Why are you asking me? You’re the special agent, isn’t it your job to make sure things like that don’t happen?”

  Elsa gave her a wry smile. “I have a very different job description, actually. And asking you these questions is the most important part of it. Please, Kara, I want to know what your gut is telling you. Do you believe someone within the FBI is helping set off these bombs?”

  “Why in the world would it matter what I—”

  “Just answer the question.”

  Kara hissed again, a long, low sound that was eerie even to her own ears. But at last she nodded. “Yes. I do.”

  Even as she said the words, she felt certain of them. In fact, she could almost see him in her mind’s eye, a squirrelly little fellow with thick tortoiseshell glasses and a bald patch, working behind some FBI desk somewhere, slinking off to dark corners of the office to make covert calls from a disposable cell phone. There was money on his mind, she decided. Someone was paying him massive sums of cash to keep them apprised of the FBI’s movements, and he didn’t care how many innocent lives might be lost because his focus was entirely on the Caribbean paradise he planned to escape to once he’d received his final payout.

  Kara drew back and shook herself, startled. Clearly she had let Nic talk her into watching far too many episodes of Alias and 24, because her imagination was definitely getting the better of her.

  But Elsa was watching her intently. “Did you see something? Tell me.”