Running Hot (16 page)

There was a more formal title for the organization, but it had adopted the name that the Arcane Society had given it.
Nightshade
. And she was its future.

“I understand, Daddy.” That’s what fathers did, she thought. They took care of their daughters.

“Don’t worry. Once Eubanks is dead, things will fall into place very quickly. Within a few months we’ll be ready for phase two of the operation. Go make the call.”

“All right. Daddy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

She ended the connection, feeling markedly better. She always did after she talked to her father. But she was not looking forward to Plan B. It meant dealing with a killer who was not only a consummate professional but also mentally unbalanced. Her sister.

SEVENTEEN

She did not need to hear the key played in order to find the right note. She was La Sirène. Endowed with perfect pitch, she plucked the A out of thin air and launched straight into the Queen of the Night’s second aria.

The elegant, acoustically precise practice room had been designed and built for her by her current lover. Newlin Guthrie, a billionaire who had made his fortune by inventing any number of boring computer gadgets and high-tech security software programs, had spared no expense in the construction. The room was on the second floor of the Mediterranean-style villa he had purchased for her shortly after she drew him to her with her Siren’s talent. The lovely mini palazzo was perched above the bay in Sausalito and offered stimulating views of San Francisco.

She had chosen the florid “Der Hölle Rache” for the very private performance on Maui for two reasons: The first was that it was good practice for her role in the upcoming production of
The Magic Flute.
The second reason was that it was ideally suited to her unique talent. The challenging high F, the note that hardly any sopranos could sing full voice, was one of the few that allowed her to project and focus the specific wavelengths of psychic energy required to interfere with certain critical neurological functions of the human brain. Glass had been known to shatter when she sang that note; people had died.

Besides, when you set out to kill a man, you could hardly go wrong with a song that had a title that translated as “The Revenge of Hell Cooks in My Heart.” She had learned long ago that the music chosen for a performance—especially one of her unique
private
engagements—had to be right. Art was all about the communication between artist and audience.

She had not planned on going to Maui. In a week she was scheduled to sing the Queen of the Night at the opening of the new opera house in Acacia Bay. The engagement, arranged by dear Newlin, was critical to the rejuvenation of her career. Things had not been going well since that dreadful night at La Scala two years ago when the claque had dared to boo her.

But when her sister had called and begged her for a favor, she had been unable to refuse. Damaris was family, after all, the only family she had.
Daddy
didn’t count.

Nevertheless, she was annoyed to find herself preparing to board a plane for Maui on such short notice. It was not as if she did not have a great deal to do between now and opening night. Furthermore, she knew that the only reason Damaris wanted her to give this particular performance was because of
Daddy.

Personally, she despised the father who had shown up out of nowhere to claim his daughters. How on earth Damaris could care for a man whose only contribution to their lives had been to ejaculate into a glass vial and deposit the result in a sperm bank was beyond her.
Daddy
could keel over tomorrow as far as she was concerned. In fact, she often fantasized about giving one of her private performances just for him. The problem with that little scheme, unfortunately, was that Damaris would very likely guess the cause of death and have a fit. There was another issue, as well.
Daddy
had his own psychic talent, and it was lethal.

Although the Maui trip was an imposition, she was starting to look forward to it in spite of herself. Successful performances of any kind always gave her a euphoric sensation that was impossible to achieve in any other way. For hours afterward she felt gloriously powerful. But there was nothing like the absolutely dazzling rush that followed one of her special
private
performances. Following those engagements, she knew what it was like to be a true goddess. The sensation of immortality sometimes lasted for days.

She had been twenty-three years old, at the very start of her career, when she first discovered the ultimate power of her talent. Her singing had always been special, of course. Mother had planned her future before she was born, having chosen the sperm donor with great care, not for his particular psychic ability but for the strength of his raw energy.

Descended from a long line of sensitives herself, Mother had studied the complex laws of psychic inheritance with attention to detail. Everyone was endowed with some degree of talent, but at the lower end of the scale—the so-called normal end—it usually appeared in the form of a murky sense of intuition that an amazing number of people either took for granted or willfully ignored.

But there were others, those who were gifted with a considerable degree of psychic power: too much to be overlooked or suppressed. When that talent was strong enough to register at level five or higher on the Jones Scale, it tended to differentiate into specific, more narrowly focused types of abilities. It was a given that when it came to the most powerful talents, no one got more than one. Mother had explained that it was some sort of evolutionary law, nature’s way of preventing the creation of super predators.

Mother had also understood that certain talents, including the nearmythic Siren talent, were dominant and sometimes gender-related traits. Historically all Sirens had been female, probably because only females—musically trained females at that—could hit the so-called money notes, the glorious, almost surreal high D’s, E’s, F’s and even G’s that were the only ones capable of focusing a Siren’s particular type of psychic energy. Not all coloratura sopranos were Sirens, by any means, but all true Sirens were capable of singing the coloratura repertoire, provided they had been trained.

Mother had also comprehended another one of the complicated laws of psychic genetics: When a strong dominant trait such as the Siren talent was enhanced by the power of almost any other type of talent, the result was an even more powerful Siren. Hence Mother’s choice of sperm donor.

Singing and music lessons had begun before La Sirène could walk.

“You will be more famous than Sutherland or Sills or Callas,” Mother had assured her. “You have the power to become the most brilliant soprano of your generation, perhaps of any generation. The talent is in your bloodline.”

She had, indeed, skyrocketed to fame and stardom but not without having to overcome a few obstacles. The first serious glitch had been an ambitious young rival who had shown up at that important audition in her twenty-third year. The creature had walked off with the title role in the production of
Lucia di Lammermoor
even though it was obvious that she could barely pop off the E-flat in the Mad Scene, let alone embellish it with the high F the way La Sirène could. The rumor that the untalented bitch was sleeping with the wealthiest and most influential backer had spread quickly. It certainly explained a few things.

La Sirène had known for some time that it was theoretically possible to kill with her voice. Her mother had told her that some of her female ancestors had done just that. Nevertheless, she never quite believed it, not until the night when she cornered the bitch in a practice room backstage and sang the Mad Scene the way only she could sing it.

The autopsy had revealed the cause of death as an aneurism. Very tragic, promising young singer cut down on the brink of what could have been a spectacular career, blah, blah, blah. But the show must go on. And it did, with the hot new coloratura soprano who would soon be known as La Sirène in the role of Lucia.

Come to think of it, maybe the Maui engagement wasn’t such an imposition, after all. She always sang her best in the days and weeks following one of her private performances. The Voice needed to be exercised to the fullest extent occasionally in order to remain flawless.

The performance in Acacia Bay had to be perfect.

EIGHTEEN

By ten-fifteen that evening they had identified a total of ten rogue auras, five of whom looked like executives. The other five appeared to be bodyguards with incomplete hunter profiles.

Grace sat with Luther in the shadows at the edge of the hotel’s open-air bar, sipping sparkling water, listening to the slack-key guitar player and watching their quarry.

The five execs sat together, drinking and chatting in a way that Grace had witnessed a thousand times over the years. Their bodyguards hovered at a nearby table, looking tense and uncomfortable against the laid-back island atmosphere.

“You know, if you ignore the evidence of the drug in their auras and the fact that they’re all strong talents and that they’re all traveling with bodyguards, their profiles are pretty much what you’d expect from people in senior management,” she said. “I think Mr. Jones is right. We’ve stumbled into some sort of high-level Nightshade business meeting.”

“We still don’t have any proof that they’re Nightshade,” Luther said. “But I agree that, whoever they are, they look like corporate suits. Wonder where Eubanks ranks in the hierarchy?”

She contemplated the auras again. “I’d say that they see themselves as roughly equal, which means they’re probably at the same level in the organization. Judging by those luggage tags you saw earlier, they’re all from the West Coast plus the one from Arizona.”

“According to Fallon, the Nightshade organization appears to be concentrated on the West Coast and in Arizona,” Luther said. “Maybe these guys are regional managers.”

“Everyone’s certainly being very chummy and convivial,” she said, “but there’s a lot of aggression just below the surface.”

“Now, that I
can
see,” Luther said. “I’d bet any one of those five would be willing to slit the throat of any of the others if he or she thought it would be useful. Nightshade is a very Darwinian organization. Only the strong and the ruthless make it to the top.”

She shuddered. “The level of potential violence surrounding them is very strong but the really worrisome thing is that a couple of them seem to be developing additional talents.”

“Thought that was genetically impossible.”

“Not quite. I can tell you from my genealogy work that it’s true that multiple talents are extremely rare. But there have been a handful of exceptions over the centuries. The thing is, the exceptions all went insane and died young. Something to do with overstimulation of the brain.”

“So these multitalents are artificially induced by the drug.”

“Yes,” she said. “I saw the same thing in Mr. Crocker’s aura after the dark energy appeared, although I didn’t know what it meant at the time.”

“We need more information on Eubanks. I want to see just how he’s connected to Nightshade.”

“What do you suggest?”

He put his sparkling water down on the table. “I’m going to pay a visit to his room while he’s occupied down here.”

A shiver went through her. “I don’t like that idea.”

“What’s the problem? We know where he is. You can keep an eye on him while I take a look around his suite.”

“How am I supposed to warn you if he leaves the bar?”

“You call my cell. From here it’s a five-, maybe eight-minute walk back through the lobby, up the elevators and down the hall to number six-oh-four. Plenty of time for me to get out before he sees me.”

“Luther, I know this is going to sound wimpy, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“You’re right, that sounds wimpy.” He got leisurely to his feet. “Call me if he makes a move to head back to the room.”

She swallowed her next argument, which wasn’t any more convincing than the first. She watched carefully but none of the executives or their bodyguards appeared to notice Luther leaving the bar.

She settled down to wait, the cell phone cradled in one hand.

NINETEEN

He got the door open with the useful little J&J gadget that Fallon issued to all his agents. Automatically he heightened his senses and moved inside.

The only warning he got that he was not the only one in the room was the hot flash of a seriously jacked-up aura.
Hunter.

He spun around to face the threat. The cane went out from under him. He went down hard on the carpet. The fall saved him.

The hunter’s thwarted rush carried him straight into the bed. He recovered with the lightning-swift reflexes that were the hallmark of his talent, seeming to bounce off the comforter and back onto his feet.

Luther didn’t even try to rise. No one without a similar talent could hope to defeat a hunter in hand-to-hand combat. Instead he focused quickly and slammed everything he had at the attacker’s pattern, dousing the fiery energy with a tsunami wave of crushing ennui.

The hunter staggered and reeled back, disoriented. He sank onto the bed.

“Shit,” he muttered. “How the hell do you do that?”

“Who are you?” Luther kept the suppressing energy flowing at full power while he got to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

The room was in near total darkness but that wouldn’t bother the hunter. With his talent powered, he had excellent night vision. Luther couldn’t see a thing except the other man’s aura. That was enough.

“I think it’s a good bet that we’re both here for the same reason,” the hunter said. “To get some information on Eubanks.”

“You sure you aren’t here to take him out?”

“Plans have changed.”

The hunter started to come up off the bed. He made no sound but his aura shifted a split second before he did.

“Don’t move,” Luther said. He accompanied the warning with an extra shot of energy.