Running Hot (The Arcane Society #5)(39)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

She opened the door and moved out into the corridor just in time to see the singing housekeeper vanish into a room at the far end of the hall. The woman, her aura flaring hotly, left her cart outside. She did not follow the hotel’s usual routine of leaving the door open, however. Instead she closed it firmly behind her.

Grace glanced at the number on the door across from where she stood and did the math. More adrenaline splashed through her. If she had counted correctly, the housekeeper had just vanished into 604, Eubanks’s suite.

Mr. Jones, what are the odds?

Whatever was going on here, it was important. She was very sure of that. The question was what to do next. Luther would know but he was not around. A good field agent had to be able to make independent decisions.

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.