Chasing Shadows

By Morgan De Guerre

A hundred years ago, I hung up my cape.

I was tired of being Destiny's puppet, serving my purpose through my country's history, signing my name in blood and death. I had enough of intrigues, mysteries, and betrayals. I sought sanctuary in the Bakirville National Opera, where I found peace, hiding in plain sight.

Killing people onstage after having killed so many in real life keeps my memories alive. I don't recant my past. I'd like to think I learned from it.

A hundred years was enough for people to forget. They love me now with a different kind of passion than they did centuries ago. I am content to exist here, to bring joy with the same diligence with which I used to bring justice. But I can sense my time of peace is about to end. When two of our singers disappear in the space of a month, I know something is wrong. Someone is hunting my people. Someone is in my house.

Sooner or later, I'll have to do something about it.

Welcome to Talinia On this side of the Unbroken Barrier, humans live alongside vampires, werecreatures, wizards and witches, prophets and hellhounds. In our world, souls, youth and power are commodities to be bought and sold.

"Chasing Shadows" is a prequel to "The Vampire of the Opera".

• Language: English
• Publisher: MDG
• Release date: May 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224929078

Book preview

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The Eagle Archive

MRGAN DE GUERRE

Copyright © 2021 Morgan De Guerre

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Careless Compliment-2763

Chapter 2 - An Old Enemy

Chapter 3 - Nothing New under the Sun

Chapter 4 - The Art of Detachment -- Part One

Chapter 5 - The Art of Detachment -- Part Two

Chaper 6 - Missing Shadows

Chapter 7 - The Hound of Bakirville

Chapter 8 - The Girl with No Magic

Epilogue - The Audition

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Edited by Hot Tree Editing

Cover design by Covers by Christian

hapter 1

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Wednesday, March 4

The irony that I got to kill people onstage after having killed so many in real life was lost on the audience. A hundred years was enough for people to forget. They loved me now with a different kind of passion than they did centuries ago.

They didn't know that more than a hundred years before this scene was written, I had killed a woman who laughed at everything I held dear. The warning I sang to Carmen now---For the last time, demon, will you follow me?---was closer to my own words than anything else I ever sang. Nearly three centuries ago, I gave that choice to a demon spawn. She laughed and walked away. I could have let her go. I could get past my broken heart and my wounded pride, but the woman I still loved in those moments of madness was working against my country. That was not something I could allow.

Plunging the stage dagger into Carmen's heart brought back the pain I felt when I pierced the heart of a woman I couldn't save. I relived that moment with the hunger of a man starved for punishment.

During the performance, I kept a one-way barrier between me and the rest of the world. On the stage, I forged another reality with my emotions and my memories. I gave of my energy with reckless abandon. Now, the play was over, and I replenished my reserves.

As soon as the curtain descended, I broke my self-imposed containment and drank from the stream of emotions pouring from the audience. The thunderous applause from hundreds of music lovers was the physical manifestation of their feelings. On another level, they were giving us back the energy we expended. For me, this was quite literally the case.

While I helped my leading lady stand up from where I had murdered her, and we sprinted into the wings, I observed the shimmering shades only I could see. During the decades since I switched from drinking blood to feeding on emotions, I learned to translate from colors to meanings.

The purity of the emotions coming from the audience moved me. None had the ugly tints of fear, resentment, or disgust. There was the orchid pink of admiration and the cotton candy pink of joy where once had been the bloodred of fear-tinged awe and the vivid burgundy of lust. They loved me without fear, and they didn't even know that I was, for all practical purposes, defanged.

When the curtain rose again, we started to go out one by one in front of the applauding audience, beginning with the smaller roles.

We had done a good job that night. Natasha Kandinsky was impeccable as Carmen. I much preferred her to my usual leading lady, our undisputed prima donna, and my least favorite person in the world, Giselle Mallory.

Magnifica, I said and bowed deeply as one always should in front of una grande diva.

La Kandinsky smiled, and a shiver of pleasure rippled through her. If our Opera ever ran into financial trouble, we could pay our singers in compliments, and they might be happy with that.

It was a rare treat for me to have a mezzo-soprano as my leading lady. Other than in Carmen, the only time I got to sing next to a mezzo these days was in Faust. In most operas, the tenors were the heroes, the sopranos the heroines, and the rest were supporting cast.

Speaking of supporting cast, they were more than adequate tonight. The most welcome surprise was young Vivienne Marshall. This was her sixth time as Micaela in this season's Carmen, and I finally heard the improvement I'd been waiting for since we decided to cast her in the part. She was already onstage, getting her share of applause.

In a few seconds, my turn would come to run out onto the stage and take a bow. I used the time to separate myself from my role. Carmen was one of the operas that required special mental preparation. Before I stepped on the stage, I had to secure certain doors in my mind palace because, at the end, I'd be onstage, holding the body of a woman I had loved and killed.

Historically accurate or not, I had influenced the costume designer to include gauntlet gloves in Don Jose's uniform. The director went along with the idea, thrilled to have me take off my gloves when Don Jose decides to help Carmen escape. He saw it as the turning point in the evolution of Don Jose from an honorable dragoon corporal into an outlaw blinded by obsessive love.

Unfortunately, that meant I didn't wear gloves for half the time. It also meant that now, as we took our bows, I had to hold the hands of my costars without anything between my skin and theirs.

This was the way of the Opera. All the singers with solo parts would be onstage at the end, holding hands, bowing to our adoring public. The diva let go of my left hand when she was presented with an enormous bunch of roses. That took care of half my problem.

The younger singer on my right squeezed my