Running Hot

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