Running Hot (The Arcane Society #5)(38)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

Luther was shaving beside her, a towel draped around his waist. She met his eyes in the foggy glass.

“It was a fight,” she said.

He grinned. “We should do that more often.”

TWENTY-TWO

The housekeeper was humming. She pushed her cart past Grace and continued down the hallway. The melody sounded vaguely familiar. Grace found herself trying to identify it. The harder she concentrated, the more intricate and compelling the tune seemed to become.

The song was definitely not from the contemporary pop repertoire. Not classic rock, either. It was far more elaborate and sophisticated; an aria from an opera, perhaps.

She wondered how many housekeepers hummed opera. Someone had certainly missed her calling. Then again, perhaps the woman sang professionally. Maybe housekeeping was just her day job.

The humming echoed softly in the corridor, growing ever more illusive and more intriguing as it faded.

Music was a form of energy. It acted directly on all the senses and across the spectrum. The proof was evident everywhere. It could stir the passions, excite the nerves or send adrenaline rushing through the veins. Some religions feared its power to such an extent that they tried to ban it. Others harnessed its unique energy to exult and glorify their deities. Music could throw an intoxicating spell over crowds, drawing people to their feet and compelling them to discharge the energy in the form of motion; dancing.

Music could make you want to focus on something very important. Name that tune.

An odd chill fluttered through Grace. It suddenly seemed very important that she identify the housekeeper’s song. She had attended the opera on several occasions over the years. The over-the-top emotions of the stories appealed to her primarily because she had always been so careful to control her own passions. The singers’ astonishing ability to project their impossibly gorgeous voices to the farthest corners of a three-thousand-seat theater without the aid of microphones never failed to amaze her. But she was not a dedicated fan. She lacked an intimate acquaintance with the music. She had heard the housekeeper’s piece somewhere on an opera stage, though, she was sure of it.

The inexplicably intense need to recall the name of the song dissipated almost as swiftly as it had come.

Ice touched the nape of her neck. Her pulse beat harder, faster. From out of nowhere an anxious, almost panicky sensation gripped her senses. She recognized the syndrome. Her survival instincts were kicking in hard and fast. Get out of here.

Music was a form of energy.

It occurred to her that although she had come within a yard of the housekeeper, she could not recall anything about her, not even her hair color, let alone whether she had been plump or thin or middle-aged or young. Nothing at all except an overpowering urge to focus on the tune that the woman had been humming.

Grace stopped and turned. The housekeeper and her cart had disappeared around the corner at the far end of the long corridor.

She hesitated, uncertain of her next move. She was on her own for the morning. The five Nightshade executives and their bodyguards had left for the golf course an hour ago. Luther had followed them after giving her strict orders to remain either in the suite or in the hotel’s public spaces.

She had been on her way back to the room to pick up the hat she had forgotten to take down to the pool when she passed the humming housekeeper. For a moment there, she had been so distracted by the compulsion to identify the song that she had even forgotten the purpose of her return to the suite.

Something was very wrong.

She had to get a look at the housekeeper.

She walked quickly back the way she had come, following the path the housekeeper had taken. When she reached the corner, she heard the humming again, very faintly this time. Once again the urge to focus on the pattern of the music came upon her. But she was ready for it this time. She pushed back, gently but firmly. The urge evaporated.

She went around the corner and saw the housekeeper. The woman was waiting for the freight elevator. Her hair was an explosion of dark curls that partially obscured her profile. A pair of heavily framed dark glasses veiled her eyes. She moved with vigor and grace. There was an air of glowing enthusiasm about her; clearly a woman who loved her work. She didn’t appear to be struggling with the heavily laden cart. She manipulated it effortlessly.

Grace slid into her other senses. The housekeeper’s aura flared brilliantly. Waves of an unfamiliar but extraordinarily powerful psychic energy pulsed through it. The rest of the profile was complicated. There was also something wrong with it. There was none of the darkness that was the signature of the Nightshade auras; nevertheless, the pulsing bands of energy looked warped in places and very erratic in others.

The housekeeper might enjoy her work but she had some serious mental health issues.

It’s not like I’m one to talk, Grace thought. She had just gone an entire year barely able to touch another human being.

The door to the room across the hall from the freight elevator opened. A couple emerged.

The housekeeper stopped humming and started singing. Her voice was soft but it floated down the hallway on wings of energy. Every note was crystalline. Grace had the impression that she was not the intended audience; even so, she had to resist the urge to try to capture the bell-like notes as they drifted through the air.

The couple went past the housekeeper, paying no attention. A lot of people might be inclined to ignore a hotel maid, Grace thought, but surely not one who could sing like this. The expressions on the faces of the man and the woman were utterly blank.

The elevator doors opened. There was a ping and an arrow glowed indicating that the cab was going up. The housekeeper pushed her cart inside. The doors closed, cutting off the song. Grace watched the couple become visibly more animated and engaged. The woman blinked a few times and then looked at her companion.

“My spa appointment is at eleven,” she said. “When will you be back from the golf course?”

“Not until five,” the man said.

“In that case, I think I’ll do some shopping this afternoon.”

They nodded politely at Grace and continued along the hall to the guest elevators.

She waited until they were out of sight before she opened the stairwell door and stepped inside. There were two floors above the one on which she stood, five and six.

She rushed up the concrete stairs and listened intently before opening the door. No aria sounded on the other side. Cautiously she opened the door and checked the corridor. Empty.

She hurried up the next flight and again paused at the hall door. She sensed the music pulsing gently, insistently, even though it was almost inaudible.