by Shai August
THE CASE OF THE LOST OPERA SINGER
A RARE AND UNKNOWN WORLD
By Shai August
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Shai August, Three Fortnights Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form on by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Book Cover Design by Three Fortnights Press
Edited by Elizabeth Anne Lance
First Edition
First Edition: April 2020
Published by
Three Fortnights Press
P. O. Box 168401
Irving, TX 75016
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Table Of Contents
Chapter One – Road Trip
Chapter Two – The Briefing
Chapter Three – Check In
Chapter Four – Reconnaissance
Chapter Five – Myth, Legend, Whatever
Chapter Six – Mystery Solved
Chapter Seven – Escape
Epilogue
Other Works By Shai August
Lagniappe About The Author
Chapter One – Road Trip
Tuesday, October 29th
Reese
Plainview, Texas was almost the exact place where the landscape of deciduous trees started to recede to the land of desolate scrub brush, and the tires of the luxury sport utility vehicle rode like a dream over the miles of broken blacktop of West Texas. Opera music, Magda Olivera’s nineteen ninety-three recording of a selection of Adriana Lecouvreur blasted through the custom speakers. The opera singer’s unusual voice and singing style was still controversial even after her death.
She chose to be surprised by his choice of music, but she shouldn’t have been deceived by the golden boy persona that he cultivated. Her regular partner, Artis Patterson was fascinated by Special Agent Shifter Colt Landry, ‘Mr. Perfect’ she called him sighing like a preteen whenever she said it. Reportedly, he’d never broken a single rule and there were so many rules, which is why her service record looked like triptych of ink splatters. She’d had moments to study Agent Landry through her friend’s eyes and her own. He was too everything; too handsome, too sexy, too by the book, too perfect from his brown speckled green eyes to his blemish free butterscotch skin to his spotless Agency record.
She fanned herself, October should never be this hot. The dog days of summer were indeed real as the heat wave was on outside the SUV as evidenced by the waves bouncing off the blacktop. Inside, Colt Landry’s brooding had raised the temperature of the SUV with his smoldering good looks and the waves of heat that emanated from his hard body or maybe it was just her own body temperature that was soaring. The air conditioner was blowing full blast, but it didn’t seem to cool her in the least.
Colt
The scent of her was everywhere. They’d only been driving for eight hours, but mentally it felt like they’d been together for eight days. In his twelve years as a Steward Agent never had he wanted to quit a mission before it started, she was a quiet, non-communicative distraction. If they’d shared more than twenty words the whole drive, he’d be dismayed.
He’d seen Special Agent Witch Theresa ‘Reese’ Freeman and her partner several times at Headquarters, he’d just never been in close sniffing range. Now he could feel his beast prowling the perimeter of their mind, pushing him. No, urging him to lean over the console and breathe in a nose full of her scents. Her natural body scent was that of apricots and honey, but the scent of her magic was warm brandy. Combined, the trio of smells were a heady intoxicant that had him partially drunk and ready to sink his teeth and manhood into her.
He needed to distract himself from the glorious smells. “Want to review our cover story one last time? Before we get too close to prying eyes and listening ears?” They were still an hour from their destination according to the in-dash navigation system.
“How do you know we aren’t being observed already?” she challenged, her Alabama accent was thick, like her hair and her lips and her hips and her thighs, which was visual eye candy to him. His gaze could barely stay on the road with her leaned back in the passenger seat with one perfect thigh crossed over the other in a tight white romper.
Stifling a groan as his mind and that of the beast began undressing her for the hundredth time since they’d left Headquarters in Houston. “I’d assume that you would have informed me if you suspected surveillance. Was I incorrect in my assumption?”
“No.” That no dropped from her lips with the force of a bomb. That no felt like a curse word, she didn’t seem pleased to be around him at all and it made the beast want her more. They loved a short chase, but Reese was more of a big game hunt.
“I’m Troy Wilmington the Third,” Assuming his poshest, oil and gas money had greased the skis of his whole life Texas accent, he practiced, “and you are my blushing bride, Felice Wilmington.”
She looked down on the French-set diamond banded ring with the four-karat emerald cut diamond sparkling in the middle, courtesy of the property room. Every woman on the floor had inhaled dramatically when the Special Agent Warlock in charge of the Property Room brought it out.
“You’re a stockbroker or some type of finance guy. I, Felice can’t be bothered to know the details, just as long as you keep me in pretty baubles.” She flashed her left hand, showing the ring and the matching tennis bracelet that dangled beautifully from her slim wrist, against her creamy dark skin. Skin he wanted to lick to see if it tasted of apricots and honey.
“You’re a classically trained opera singer,” he started in the posh accent, but dropped back to his own natural one. “Can you really sing opera?” he asked skeptically.
“Do you really believe Zosime would send an Agent undercover who couldn’t do the assignment?” she countered, referring to the centaur head of the Shifter and Magic Task Wardens.
The paranormal version of the Federal Bureau of Investigations that they worked for, even though the Stewards were older than the FBI, CIA and MI-6 combined. The Stewards were the police force shifters and witches called when the regular human police wouldn’t do. You didn’t want human cops trying to arrest a pack of werebears, that’s how you got massacres.
“You’re a witch who sings opera? More than that, you’re a Freeman witch, given that thick Alabama accent means more than likely, you hail from Freemanville, Alabama, and as far as I know, Alabama is not a hot spot on the opera touring companies.” The woman was a fascinating mix of contradictions and he wanted to undo the knot. He chuckled. More than her scent had gotten to him, she was invading his psyche more every minute. He should turn this SUV around and head back to Houston.
“I can sing,” she told him.
“I’d like to hear you sing.”
“I don’t perform on command. I don’t sing because someone wants to hear me sing. I don’t smile because some man tells me to smile. I don’t laugh when told to laugh,” she said distantly, her head turned so far to the right he could only see the back of it. It was a dismissal, if she could have left the vehicle she would have.
“That wasn’t a command, just an acknowledgement of my interest in your musical stylings.”
She ignored his verbal peace offering, shrugging. “We live in Terrell Hills. And anyone who knows Texas knows that Terrell Hills has the
highest median income in the state.” Neither of them had to explain the impression that a Terrell Hills zip code made.
Tapping the top of the leather steering wheel, he finished, “Hence this top of the line Land Rover Range Rover Autobiography, the designer wardrobes and luggage, the flashy rings and real jewelry. This three-hundred-dollar haircut, which I hate by the way. I look like I’m about to sing in a barber shop quartet. You don’t know how badly that will go. I sound like a toddler gargling when I sing.”
There was a snort followed by a giggle, did he just crack the hard wall around Reese Freeman with a joke?
Chapter Two – The Briefing
Monday, October 28th
Reese
Zosime had forced herself into a two-legged form, and she looked like she was ready to burst out of the designer suit she’d used to clothe her normally four legged and perpetually nude centaur body. She tried to be sympathetic to her boss, but the centaur was nude ninety-five percent of the time while she was dressed in the terrible blue suit what felt like one hundred percent of the time.
However, when the senior United States Senator from the great state of Texas demanded a meeting and Zosime was trying to be more political in her dealings with the Washington, DC crowd, taking the meeting was a necessity. It wouldn’t do for her to turn down meeting the minority chair of the Appropriations Committee especially while the committee was currently in session determining the budget for the next few fiscal years.
She was unsure why she was here, but when Zosime said show up, every Agent in the HQ building and around the world responded so fast they gave themselves whiplash.
The senior Senator from Texas, one Zechariah T. Dennis was a virulent anti-shifter and anti-magic bible thumping, strict Constitutionalist, constructionist, human politician. Her personal opinion was he needed to pull the stick out of his ass and lay off the alcohol, but she didn’t get paid for her opinions. Her professional observation was he was easily one hundred pounds overweight with a rotund belly that rivaled her sister’s eight-month twin pregnancy belly. His white skin was complete with florid red nearing maroon undertones from the amount of sun damage and high levels of alcohol consumption. She suspected he consumed gallons of the potent stuff in what would be alcohol poisoning type amounts in any other human being. He dressed always in Colonel Sanders style three-piece suits and sounded like a non-stuttering Elmer Fudd. How the people of Texas continued to vote for him election after election made her mind control, alt, and delete.
Also, in the room was Special Agent Shifter Colt Landry, The Seer and her and Colt’s supervisory agents. The five of them sat on one side of the table with Zosime at the head and Senator Dennis all by himself on the other side, no need to bring witnesses to him throwing around his power, she mused.
“Are these the agents?” Zechariah demanded to know, looking between the four agents dressed conservatively in dark blue suits.
“Only two will be going in, Special Agent Shifter Colt Landry and Special Agent Witch Theresa Freeman.” At the calling of both their names, they each raised a hand. “Both Agents are highly decorated and have done significant time undercover. Each has special skills that will be valuable in determining if your daughter is being held against her will or not,” Zosime explained.
“I don’t care if she is there willing or not, she needs to be brought out and brought out now,” he insisted, banging his meaty fist on the conference table.
“Senator, it isn’t our job to remove willing people especially those above legal age from places they have consented to be.”
“I’m telling you for the last time! My daughter wouldn’t associate with puffed up Copperfields and dirty, mangy human dogs! She isn’t there willingly, she couldn’t be.”
All the shifters in the room bristled at the insult. Zosime wouldn’t let the Senator’s snide remark pass her by. “Senator, I’ve allowed you to meet the Agents who will go in to see your daughter as a courtesy. You will apologize or they will resume their normal duties and you’ll have to hire an expensive mercenary company to go in and retrieve your daughter. They of course won’t have the law or jurisdiction on their side.” The words fell from Zosime’s mouth like flint against whetstone, each word sharpening the one before it and after it with figurative sparks igniting in the air of the conference room.
Dennis blanched an unflattering shade of puce at her reprimand, but he was a politician. “I apologize for my remarks if they offended you. To a good Christian as myself shifting and magic seem unnatural and demonic.”
Zosime ignored the half apology/no apology and began the briefing. “Delilah Dennis is a twenty-six-year-old graduate student at Texas Tech. Last year, she checked into the Hotel California and hasn’t checked out since.” Passing out file folders with photos of a pleasant looking young woman with the Senator’s dishwater blonde hair and what thankfully was her mother’s face. It was a lovely face but was crippled by her father’s receding chin. With the Senator’s money it was amazing she hadn’t gone under the plastic surgeon’s knife to correct that chin, Reese commended her for being secure in her looks.
“Delilah was studying opera and went to a performance at the hotel with some classmates. It was reported that she hooked up with someone, not sure if it was a woman or man. Accounts differ from the people who had accompanied her there. Next morning, they all gathered to leave, and she told them she was staying another night.”
“That was over three-hundred-and-fifty nights ago,” the senator interrupted with an anguished cry.
She wanted to laugh at what felt like a stage production of human tears, but even speciesist like him deserved help.
“The Senator’s black card that he gave to Delilah for emergencies is charged every day for one night’s stay. They’ve had the credit card company shut off the card, but every day the charges still appear on the other cards associated with the accounts.”
That bit of weirdness got her attention and all the other Agents in the room moved to sit up at full attention too. That’s some heavy-duty magic to hack a credit card system.
Credit card companies and tech companies found out the hard way they not only needed coders to write and create the systems they used but a full complement of witches and warlocks to protect those systems from being magically hacked. There was at least one Zaborowski family member at every large tech company in the world and they were singlehandedly revolutionizing the field of magical coding. No one was sure of which of the magical families were responsible for the magical hacking and infiltration, yet.
“Local police have been to the Hotel several times; each time Delilah comes out says ‘she’s fine’ and will leave the next day,” Zosime continues, she gestured to an additional page in the folder. Listing all the efforts that Delilah’s family had gone through trying to get in touch with her including hundreds of phone calls and thousands of text messages to her cell phone. The Senator and his wife had reached out, filing missing persons reports with the city of Plainview, the county and the Texas state police including the Texas Rangers.
“Twenty-four-hour locality spell maybe?” she ventured out loud.
Zosime nodded toward her.
“Maybe a Ground Hog day spell?” her Supervisor Agent Witch, Chastain Rush offered. The two of them spent hours coming up with magic causes and scenarios to almost any problem, playing them out. This felt like another Thursday night except with no alcohol and higher stakes because Delilah Dennis’s life was on the line. A naïve human could inadvertently walk into a spell and never walk out again.
“It could be all those and more, but I don’t see a satisfactory conclusion,” the Seer finally spoke. The Seer was the only non-Agent personnel who worked for the Stewards and she was probably as old as the organization. Her face had one or two wrinkles about the eyes, but that was it. She was truly aging at a glacier’s pace. She was dressed in her customary bright red from head to toe with her silver mane pulled back into an elegant twist. No one knew anything about her becaus
e she was so closed mouthed that even her name was a mystery, but she could foretell the immediate future like a Fate herself.
She looked across the conference table at Colt Landry, his green eyes met hers and they knew one of them may not survive until the end of the assignment. The Seer was never wrong.
Chapter Three – Check In
Colt
They’d reviewed their cover story twice more until he felt confident that he was Troy and she was Felice on command. It wasn’t necessary, Steward training didn’t allow Agents out into the field if they couldn’t maintain a cover under any circumstances, but he needed something to focus on besides Agent Freeman’s scent. He rolled the SUV to a smooth stop in the circular driveway of the Hotel California.
It looked like a dappled sunset by its color scheme, the three storied building was shades of deep orange stucco with a red tile roof and an assortment of purple flowering bushes like the crimson fire, vitex and lilac trees as landscape. He was sure it was by design, but he couldn’t ask Felice as two uniform clad valets were opening their doors simultaneously. He reached for his wallet, but the valet shrugged him off with a wave.
The valet also stayed just out of close smelling range. “The service is included with the bill, sir,” he said curtly, no trace of an accent. Both valets looked like they came out of central casting with their matching dark brown hair, porcelain skin, and sky-blue eyes.
He opened his mouth to protest, never having a valet to turn down a cash tip before, but Felice shook her head imperceptibly. The second valet was pulling their matching Louis Vuitton luggage from the rear. “Under what name is the reservation?” he asked as he worked.
“Wilmington,” he answered, playing up the thicker, wealthier Texas accent he practiced, walking around the front of the vehicle to pull Felice’s hand into the crook of his arm. It was the best way for her to communicate the prearranged signals to him, they’d worked out on the drive. One finger in the crook of his elbow meant magic was being used, two fingers in the crook of his elbow meant high level magics were being used, three fingers meant that multiple high level magics were being used. She dug four fingertips into the crook of his elbow, forestalling any further comment he was going to make. He smiled down at her, winking like any human couple on vacation. They had suppressed their collective powers, when they were thirty minutes out, in case the hotel had a far outer perimeter. The beast rumbled from the back of his mind anyway, all thoughts were focused on Agent Freeman.