Running Hot

Siren, Sweetwater can do a better job of finding her than I can. She operates in his world. He’s got the connections it’s going to take to track her down.”
    “How high is she on Sweetwater’s to-do list?”
    “Right at the top,” Fallon said, flat and brusque. “Seems Harry’s a tad irritated to find out that he’s got some upscale sensitive competition that he didn’t even know existed.”
    “What if Grace is right about the Siren being an obsessive type? What if she becomes obsessed with Grace because of what happened on Maui?”
    “Then we would have a problem,” Fallon agreed in the tone of voice one used to placate a kid who won’t stop asking questions. “But like I said, we’re talking about a pro. Trust me on this, she’s in the wind, long gone.”
    Luther snapped the phone closed and tossed it onto the table. He turned his head and saw that Grace was watching him with her haunting green eyes.
    “The Siren got Eubanks,” he said. “Fallon says Sweetwater will find her.”
    “And until that happens?”
    He closed his hand around her hip, savoring the firm, feminine shape of her as she lay curled beneath the sheet. “Until then you’re on vacation in Hawaii.”

TWENTY-EIGHT
    The chef carried a large knife that looked like it had been designed to slice and dice something other than vegetables. The heavily tattooed waiter kept a gun strapped to his leg beneath his trousers. The auras of both showed above-average levels of psychic talent and unmistakable signs of permanent damage done by extreme violence. There was also evidence of an odd Zen-like acceptance of what they had done and what they knew themselves to be.
    The Dark Rainbow appeared to cater to a weird crowd of misfit sensitives, most of whom looked like they had fallen off the edge of somewhere far, far away and washed up on the beaches of Hawaii. The majority of the customers had profiles typical of people whose auras had been scrambled, warped or badly dented. Most of them probably didn’t even know that they were psychic, let alone that their problem stemmed from that side of their nature.
    So why do I feel right at home here? Grace wondered.
    She sat with Petra Groves in a booth at the back of the room, adjacent to the swinging door that opened onto the hot, steamy kitchen. It was late afternoon. Behind the bar Wayne polished glasses with scary precision, as if each was a cartridge he planned to load into a rifle and upon which his life might depend.
    Petra had explained that they were in the lull between the lunch rush and the dinner service. There was only one customer in the place. He had parked his rusty shopping cart containing a stained bedroll and a number of empty soda cans and bottles outside in the courtyard. Referring to him as a customer was pushing it, Grace thought, since he was getting a free meal.
    “That’s Jeff,” Petra explained in low tones. “Head trauma while he was doing his third tour.”
    “I can see the damage,” Grace said softly. “He’s low level. Looks totally paranoid.”
    “Yeah. Doesn’t trust the VA. Probably just as well. Doubt the doctors would know what to do with a sensitive. When he gets one of his spells, he shows up here. Luther tweaks his aura a little. Calms him right down. On his good days, like today, he stops in and orders the fish and chips.”
    “Which you serve him without charge?”
    Petra shrugged. “He always offers to pay but we don’t need any more empty cans and bottles.”
    “Judging by the lunch crowd, a lot of your clientele look like they should have an appointment with one of the Society’s shrinks.”
    Petra snorted. “Most of ’em don’t even know the Society exists. What’s more, if they did find out that there was such a thing, they’d probably run like hell in the opposite direction.”
    Grace nodded solemnly. “They become so paranoid they would probably fear anyone who tried to coax them into a clinical setting.”
    “A few of them have good reason to be paranoid,” Petra said grimly. “A lot of our regulars got into trouble somewhere along the line when their psychic natures brought them to the attention of folks in white coats.”
    “You mean when other people decided they were crazy?”
    Wayne paused in his polishing, eyes as cold as those of the snake that crowned his shaved head. “Couple of ’em ended up in some damned lab experiments.”
    Petra lowered her coffee mug. “We don’t try to play doctor here at the Dark