Running Hot (The Arcane Society #5)(77)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Shut up, you stupid woman. I am La Sirène.”

Grace looked at the motionless man lying in the shadows. “Who is he?”

“Newlin Guthrie.”

“You killed your lover?”

“Oh, he’s not dead. Just unconscious.” Vivien smiled. “Why would I want him dead? He’s very useful to me. He’s the one who found you. Imagine my surprise when he told me you were in the audience tonight. I’m so glad you had a chance to hear me sing the Queen. Astonishing, wasn’t I?”

“Give me a break. Your career is on the skids. Everyone knows it. That’s why you’re singing here in Acacia Bay instead of at the Met.”

“That’s a lie,” Vivien shrieked, her aura sparking with fury. “I am La Sirène. No other singer alive can do what I can do with my voice.”

“Come on, we’re talking about opera, remember? You may have been good once upon a time but you’re losing it. Remember how they booed you at La Scala? The claque could hear the weakness in your voice.”

“I silenced an entire section of the audience at La Scala with my voice,” Vivien shouted.

“I’ll bet there are probably a couple dozen sopranos coming up behind you who can take your place. What’s more, a lot of them are ten years younger.”

“Stop it,” Vivien shrieked. “My voice is flawless.”

“Maybe a few years ago but not any longer. I’ve got a theory about that, by the way. I’m something of an expert on the laws of psychic genetics, you know.”

“Shut up.”

“My theory is that every time you used your voice to kill, you made yourself a little crazier. People who go insane lose control. That’s what’s been happening to you these past couple of years, Viv. You’re losing control of your voice.”

“I am not crazy,” Vivien screamed.

“Sure you are. It’s all there in your aura.”

“I’ll show you what I can do with my voice,” Vivien shrieked.

“Be careful. I doubt if screaming is good for the throat.”

Vivien clenched her hands in the skirts of her bloodied gown and erupted into song. The high notes of Lucia’s descent into madness exploded from her once again.

Grace shuddered and clamped her hands more tightly over her ears in an attempt to lessen the impact of the mesmerizing song. It was the musical equivalent of watching a volcano erupt while trying to hide under a piece of cardboard. She had braced her senses for the hellish rain of crystal fire but she could not stop all of it. The music fell on her in a molten torrent of sharp crystals.

She was going to die if she did not destabilize Vivien’s aura.

She shoved hard at all the weak places on the Siren’s spectrum.

Vivien went higher. The notes she sang were still piercingly clear but they began to grow fainter, weaker. Her fury was interfering with her ability to project her astonishing talent. She was literally choking on her frustration and rage. One very high note and then another fractured.

Still singing, Vivien whirled and stalked to the stage steps. It didn’t take a psychic to see the madness and murder in her aura now, Grace thought.

Vivien descended the steps with theatrical deliberation as though she was in the middle of a dramatic production. When she reached the bottom she advanced toward Grace, the dagger held high for a killing blow. The jagged notes of her mad song spilled forth in mere squeaks.

Grace felt the last of the compulsion evaporate. She could move freely now.

She jumped up onto the nearest seat, stepped over the back into the next row and rushed toward the aisle. Running between the closely packed rows proved complicated. Her thigh collided painfully with one of the chair arms.

Vivien was screaming now, her voice hoarse, her power almost gone. She grabbed a fistful of her bloody skirts and raced toward the far end of the front row, dagger poised to strike, clearly intent on intercepting her quarry at the aisle.

Grace scrambled to a halt, climbed up onto another seat and jumped down into the third row. She vaulted into the fourth, trying to put more distance between herself and her pursuer. She gained ground quickly, her bathrobe flying around her.

Vivien was reduced to hoarse screeching.

A blinding light spilled from the lobby entrance. The silhouette of a man appeared.

“Grace,” Luther shouted.

“I’m okay,” Grace shouted back. “Be careful, she’s got a knife but she can’t sing worth a damn anymore.”

Vivien floundered to a halt in the aisle. Her harsh breathing seemed very loud in the sudden silence of the theater. The light from the lobby illuminated her stained gown and disheveled hair. Her aura was a rainbow comprising all the colors of a nightmare.

“I am La Sirène,” she whispered.

She dropped the dagger, turned and fled back down the aisle toward the stage.

Luther started forward, cane in one hand, gun raised in the other. His aura was flaring, an icy-hot spectrum of violent hues.

“No,” Grace said quietly. “It’s not necessary. Let her go.”

For a few seconds she was afraid he wasn’t going to pay any attention to her. Then he lowered the gun and his aura.

Vivien raced up the short flight of stage steps and vanished behind the bloodred curtain.

FORTY-EIGHT

J&J sent out more people from the Society’s L.A. offices to deal with Newlin Guthrie. The minute they arrived on the scene, Luther briefed them and then bundled Grace into the car.

“Are you sure it’s necessary to drive back to L.A. tonight?” she asked, yawning.

“As long as that Siren is still on the loose, we are not hanging around Acacia Bay.”

It was a command decision. She was too exhausted to argue. She rested her head against the back of the seat and looked out over the night-darkened Pacific.

“I’m so glad to know that wasn’t real blood on her Lucia outfit,” she said. “It was just a costume from the wardrobe department.”

“Fallon Jones thinks your theory about her descent into insanity is right. She was unstable to begin with. Using her voice to kill people for little or no reason just made her crazier. And with craziness comes loss of control on both the normal and the paranormal plane.”

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“I’ll always be able to find you,” he said.

She smiled. “You are such a romantic. I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

She turned her head to look at him. “Come on, tell me how you knew that Guthrie had taken me to Guthrie Hall.”