Angels of Music

by Marco Incognito

Once Upon a Time a British author named Kim Newman asked the question: What if the Phantom of the Opera ran a "Charlie's Angels" style group of femme fatales called "Angels of Music"? It then became a book and then a Fanfiction writer decided to try and create a shared universe of fanfictions and decided to include it but didn't want people to have to buy it so he put it here.Enjoy

26. Act Four: The Mark of Kane I

ACT FOUR: THE MARK OF KANE

'Mr. Kane was a man who got everything he wanted and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't get, or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything... I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a... piece in a jigsaw puzzle... a missing piece.'

- Jerry Thompson on Charles Foster Kane, 1941

I

A ticket had been delivered by pneumatique. The Special Performance would commence, unusually, at half past ten in the morning.

He entered his box via the trapdoor. Plush upholstery matched the velvet curtains, soft and rich in the electric lamplight. A phonograph apparatus stood on a trolley. A programme lay on his chair. It was an unfamiliar design – not from the Paris Opéra, but a theatre in Chicago.

The half-hour chimed. He cranked the phonograph and raised the needle-arm to the revolving cylinder. After a few seconds' hiss, an anonymous voice issued from the bell.

'Good morning, Monsieur Erik…'

He opened the programme as indicated by a tasselled bookmark. A full-page rotogravure portrait showed a plump, smiling, expensively dressed patron.

'The man you are looking at is Charles Foster Kane, the American millionaire and press magnate. Kane believes his financial and political interests, and those of the United States of America, would be served by war among the Great Powers of Europe. Presently, he is summering at Royale-les-Eaux, a spa town north of Dieppe where he has substantial holdings, ostensibly to acquire works of ancient and modern art for his private collection. In truth, Kane has convened a gathering of powerful, like-minded or simply malign individuals and plans to found a cartel dedicated to bringing about a catastrophic conflict.'

Kane had small, piggy eyes; a ridiculous nose, perhaps artificial; fat, complacent cheeks; and an impertinent double-flick of a moustache.

'Your commission, should you be inclined to accept it, is to ensure this offensive organisation does not come into being and that Charles Kane is dissuaded from further meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations other than his own. As before, should you or any of your angelic associates be apprehended or eliminated, the Minister will profess never to have heard of such fantastical individuals. Long live France. This cylinder will perish within a matter of moments…'

A bar of magnesium fizzed blindingly inside the works of the phonograph. Box Five smelled like a burning wax museum. The cylinder resolved into molten residue.

The Special Performance was at an end.