It would be no big deal to walk past the room the singing housekeeper had just entered and check the number to make absolutely sure that it was 604. It would not be good for her future as a J&J specialist if she screwed up on something that important.
She started down the hall in what she hoped looked like a leisurely manner, card key in hand, as though she were on her way to her own room. There were no other guests about.
Another housekeeper, pushing a heavily loaded cart, appeared at the far end of the corridor. She paused in front of a room and rapped lightly.
“Housekeeping,” she called.
That was something else the operatic maid had failed to do, Grace recalled. The woman had entered the room without knocking and without announcing her presence, as if she knew full well that the occupants were not inside.
Grace reached the singing maid’s cart. She looked at the closed door: 604.
She kept going, unsure what her next move should be. It seemed logical, however, that a sharp, independent-thinking J&J agent would keep an eye on the singing housekeeper and follow her after she left Eubanks’s suite. This was a surveillance mission, after all.
It was also imperative to notify Luther that a woman with a high-level psychic talent who may or may not have been a member of the hotel staff had just entered the room of one of the Nightshade members.
She took out her phone and entered a quick text message. Talent entered E’s rm. Will watch.
She dropped the phone back into her purse and looked around for someplace to conceal herself while she waited for the singer to reappear. All she could see were two long rows of doors stretching out ahead of her. The hall ended where it intersected with another corridor. She had two choices, either go back the way she had come and hide in the stairwell or go around the corner at the far end and wait for the door to 604 to open.
She opted for the stairwell. It was closer. She hurried back past Eubanks’s suite and was almost at the door when she sensed movement behind her. She turned to look over her shoulder and saw the second housekeeper striding purposefully toward 604.
She switched to her other senses and studied the woman’s aura. It was average for a nonsensitive but it was clear the housekeeper was annoyed. The sight of the other cart in the hall bothered her for some reason, perhaps because this was her territory.
Grace was suddenly very certain that it would not be a good idea for the housekeeper to confront the woman who had just disappeared into 604.
Impulsively she started back toward the suite but the housekeeper was already knocking briskly. Without waiting for a response, the maid jammed her master key into the lock and pushed open the door. She stared into the room, her body tense, her aura registering a growing unease.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “This is my floor and I didn’t ask for any extra help today. You must be new.”
The singing started up inside the room, intense and so darkly compelling that Grace felt as if she were in danger of being extinguished by the crushing weight of impending doom. Power and violence conveyed in a coloratura soprano’s pure, utterly mesmerizing voice poured out into the hall.
The second housekeeper’s aura pulsed with terror. The woman retreated a step, turning slightly, as though preparing to run. But she went statue-still instead. Then, as though drawn by invisible chains, she started toward the shadowed doorway of 604.
The energy of the song shivered across the paranormal spectrum. Grace could feel its inexorable pull even though she recognized intuitively that it was aimed at the housekeeper, not at her.
The maid was transfixed by the music. She took another step toward the fatal doorway. Soon she would vanish into 604.
“Wait,” Grace called loudly, hoping to shatter the spell of the music with the force of a command. “Stop. Don’t go in there.”
The housekeeper ignored her cry of warning. Her aura was no longer pulsing in a normal manner. As Grace watched, horrified, it became unstable and erratic. Through it all, panic still pulsed. The woman knew that she was being drawn to her doom but she could not stop.
Grace rushed forward, jacking up her own aura to the max. The music was not loud out in the hallway but the controlled power of it seemed to fill all the available space.
She had not had to do what she was about to do for a long time. But she had not forgotten the inevitable reaction of her senses. It was going to hurt.
Bracing herself for the shock of physical contact, she seized the housekeeper’s shoulder, simultaneously pushing back hard at the wavelengths of the fearful music, trying to shield the mesmerized woman with her own aura.
Pain splashed through her. The thin fabric of the housekeeper’s uniform offered almost no protection. She clamped her teeth tightly together and managed to keep her grip on the woman’s shoulder.
Momentum carried the two of them several feet beyond the doorway before they stumbled and fell together onto the carpet. Grace rolled frantically to the side, struggling to free herself from the other woman’s unmoving body.
She scrambled to her knees and looked toward the doorway to 604.
The curtains inside had been drawn tightly shut, sealing the room in dense shadows. The singer stood near the bed, her mouth still open on the last notes of her terrible song. The combination of the oversized dark glasses, the heavy wig and the dim light made it impossible to see her face clearly. But Grace was still on high alert. She had no trouble viewing the spiraling rage in the woman’s aura.
The housekeeper launched into another fiery cascade of song. Each note struck Grace with the force of a shock wave from some invisible explosion. Her senses reeled beneath the onslaught. She could not breathe. Her heart pounded. The hallway whirled around her.
Instinctively she forced all her energy into a counterpoint pattern. The hallway steadied. Her head cleared.
The rage in the singer’s aura grew stronger but the power of her music lessened. The crystal pure note she was singing suddenly fractured.
“Who are you?” the singer shrieked. “How dare you interrupt my performance?”
Grace managed to get to her feet. She stood over the fallen housekeeper. “You were going to kill her.”
“The stupid woman deserved to die. She interfered.”
“I’m in your way, too,” Grace said. “Do you intend to kill me?”
“Yes.”
The single word should have come out as a scream. Instead it floated through the shadows on a cloud of dark, exquisitely controlled energy intended to pull Grace into the room. The note was so intense that it hurt. Once again Grace felt her heart start to pound.
She resisted the compulsion with everything she had, fighting back with all her power. She could tell that she was having some effect. The singer went higher, apparently in an effort to compensate for the resistance. Sooner or later she was bound to attract attention. There had to be someone in one of the neighboring rooms. Surely not every single guest was at the beach or the spa or the golf course.
But none of the doors in the long hall opened; no one appeared to inquire about the music. A terrible possibility occurred to Grace. Maybe those who heard the music assumed that it was being piped into the hallways by the hotel.
The perfection of the music literally stole Grace’s breath. She realized with horror that she was no longer inhaling. Her chest and head were in agony. It was as if she were drowning in an invisible sea.
Breathe, she told herself. You’re going to die if you don’t breathe.
From out of nowhere she managed to summon an extra flicker of power. The killing song weakened again.
She was still dizzy but she managed to use the reprieve to suck in one gasping breath and then another. She lacked the strength to scream for help. It was all she could do to fill her lungs. But the oxygen suddenly flooding her system fueled her will to live. She had not survived the death of her mother, the foster care system, the streets and Martin Crocker only to die at the hands of a killer diva.
She f
orced herself to concentrate. There were signs of definite instability in the pulses of power that flashed and sparked in the singer’s aura. The woman was not only a little crazy, she was on the verge of flying into an inchoate rage. Grace’s resistance was infuriating her.
Push her a little harder, Grace thought. You’re going to die here in this hallway if you don’t.
Her intensified resistance had an immediate effect. The singer’s aura darkened and flashed with unstable rage. She was losing her emotional control. Surely that would impact her vocal control, Grace thought. She had read somewhere that professional opera singers claim it is fatal to feel too much emotion when they sing. The logic was obvious. It was difficult if not impossible to maintain perfect control over your voice when your chest and throat were tightened by rage or tears, or fear.
It dawned on Grace that she had the same problem. If she did not pull herself back from the brink of panic, she would lose her own control. She needed to think of something other than impending death.
Luther.
There was power in a name if the person attached to the name had a strong connection to you. The strength she drew from Luther’s name told her just how important he was to her.
The singer screamed. There was no other word for it but the sound was no normal shriek of fear. It was an intense pulse of raw rage. The incredibly high-pitched note was all wrong.
Grace discovered that she could move again. Instinctively she jammed her fingers into her ears. The music and the pain receded slightly.
And then another sound echoed down the hallway: the distinct chime of the elevator bell.
The singer must have heard it, too, and understood that other people were about to appear. Chaos sparked across her aura. Teetering on the edge of insane fury, she launched herself at Grace, fingers hooked like claws.
Grace scrambled out of her path, putting the cart between them. She groped for something to use as a weapon. Her fingers closed around a feather duster.
The singer tried to adjust her trajectory but she stumbled over the unconscious housekeeper and went down, sprawling on the carpet. Grace shoved the cart toward her but it did not roll far enough.
The singer staggered to her feet. Her mouth opened. Her throat worked. But the only sound that emerged was a choked gasp.
She glanced back once toward the elevator lobby. The doors started to open. Logic or maybe her own survival instincts overrode her rage. She fled, running straight past Grace, and vanished around the corner.
Grace waited, clutching the duster, but there was no more singing.
She took a deep breath and started toward the fallen housekeeper, who was just beginning to stir. Something crunched under her foot. She looked down and saw sparkling shards of glass scattered across the carpet. One of the clean drinking glasses that had been sitting on top of the cart had shattered.
It dawned on her that the door to suite 604 was still open. She closed it. Something told her that Fallon would want to keep this incident quiet if at all possible.
She crouched beside the dazed woman.
“Are you all right?” she asked gently.
“Yes, I think so.” The housekeeper gave her a blank look. “Did I just faint?”
“Yes. Don’t try to get up. There’s a house phone down by the elevators. I’ll call your supervisor.”
“I’m okay, really. Just a little tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.”
“It certainly has.”
The housekeeper would be all right. Her aura had returned to normal. Automatically Grace reached out to pat her in a reassuring fashion. At the last instant she remembered how her palm had burned when she had pulled the woman away from the doorway. The pain was gone but she dared not touch the housekeeper. It would take days or even weeks to recover.
Back to square one.
“Damn,” she whispered. “Damn, damn, damn.”
She pushed herself to her feet and went down the hall to the phone.
TWENTY-THREE
She was huddled on the sofa, the computer open on the coffee table in front of her, when Luther arrived. He stalked into the suite looking like the Lord of the Underworld—a very pissed-off Lord. He started toward her, using his cane to emphasize each word.
“What” thud “the” thud “hell” thud “did” thud “you” thud “think” thud “you” thud “were” thud “doing?” Thud.
“Don’t touch me,” she yelped. She leaped off the sofa and backed hurriedly toward the open door to the lanai, shielding her hands under her crossed arms. “I mean it. Please don’t touch me.”
He halted, thunderstruck. “You think I’d hit you?” he asked, disbelief and pain etched on his face.
“No,” she said, chagrined. “Of course not. I just meant don’t touch me. Not yet, at any rate. I’ve been sensitized again.”
“Damn.” He didn’t look any less angry but his pained expression evaporated. “All right, tell me what happened.”
She gave him what she hoped was a thoroughly professional report. When it was over she expected him to take out his phone and call Fallon Jones. Instead he just stood there, regarding her with an unnerving consideration, as if he had never seen anything quite like her before.
“That trick you used on the housekeeper,” he said eventually. “You said you’ve done it before?”
“A few times.” She unfolded her arms and looked at her palms. “After my mother died, I went into the foster care system. I left it after about six months. I was on the streets for a while. There are some badly warped people out there.”
“No shit,” he growled.
She chose to ignore that. “Some of them are sensitives who have learned to use their talents to manipulate others. There was one pimp, some kind of weird charisma talent, I think. He was able to seduce young girls, make them fall in love with him. They’d do anything for him.”
“So he sent them out onto the streets to turn tricks for him,” Luther said, a savage edge on the words.
“I see you’ve encountered that particular species of sewer rat,” she said quietly.
“Yes.” He did not elaborate.
“I used to hang out with some of his girls at night. I’d use my talent to tell them which johns were safe and which ones to avoid. One day the pimp discovered that the girls were turning down some of the dangerous tricks. He was furious. He decided to beat one or two as examples to the others. I figured out what he was planning. I even knew which girl he intended to beat first, the newest and youngest one. I was there when he came to get her that night. She was terrified. There was so much violence surrounding him you could have cut it with a knife. When he reached for her, I took hold of her arm and jacked up to full strength, overwhelming her aura with my own and forming a kind of barrier to his. The instant he touched her he got fried.”
“Define ‘fried,’ ” Luther said. “Are we talking dead?”
“No,” she said quickly, appalled. “No, I didn’t kill him, I swear it.”
“I wouldn’t give a damn if you did terminate him.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Well, I didn’t. But something happened when he came in contact with my aura. It was as if his own energy field short-circuited for a few seconds. I can’t explain it. All I know is that he went unconscious for a while. So did the girl. But when she woke up she was okay, just a little shaken.”
“What about the pimp?”
“He was not okay. It was as if he’d had some kind of mental breakdown. He just sort of fell apart. I think something permanent happened to his talent. Whatever it was affected not just his psychic senses but everything else, as well. He became a basket case and just drifted away from the neighborhood. After a while we heard that he’d been killed in a drug deal gone bad.”
“You said there were other incidents like that one?”
“A few,” she admitted. “The technique works against nonsensitives, too. After all, everyone has an aura. But every time I do it, I get sensitized again.”<
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“Huh.”
She waited but he didn’t offer anything further, just stood there, looking lost in thought.
“What?” she prompted.
“Just wondering. Do you think you shorted out the singer’s aura today?”
“No. She was much too powerful. Fortunately when she lost her cool a lot of her control went with it. And then the elevator started to open and she panicked and ran.”
He watched her very steadily. “What would have happened if the singer hadn’t fled the scene?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose the outcome would have depended on which one of us was the stronger. We didn’t get a chance to finish the contest. Guess you could say it was a draw.”
“The last thing I want is to see a rematch. Got that?”
She shuddered. “Trust me, I’m not eager for one, either. Okay, you can start yelling again now.”
There was another long silence.
“You’re not yelling,” she pointed out.
“Don’t get me wrong, I feel like yelling.”
“But?”
“But you saved the housekeeper’s life. That’s pretty much what a J&J agent is supposed to do in a situation like that.”
She suddenly felt much better. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure I can’t touch you?” Luther asked.
She tensed. “It was a bad burn. It will probably take days, maybe weeks to heal.” Her brief moment of professional pride went out like a light. It was all she could do not to burst into tears. “It’s so maddening because I just got over the last burn.”
“Can I talk you into running an experiment? You said yourself the fact that we’re both auras might have some protective effect.”
She hesitated. “Okay.”
“You do the touching. That way you’re in complete control.”
For a few seconds she did not move. You’re a J&J agent. Take a risk.
She walked slowly toward him and stopped when she was a couple of feet away. He held out one hand, palm up. Gingerly she touched it with her fingertips. There was no shock, no jolt of pain. Relief crashed through her. Deliberately she flattened her hand on his, palm to palm.
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