The Soprano Hunt

Chapter One

The sky was full of a dark black smoke that covered up the stars and hid the moon in its thick blanket. The streets of Paris had grown quiet and the only noises were the soft mewing of stray cats and the faint music and laughter coming from the inns that beckoned in the riff raff from the rainwater soaked streets. Christine listened to her own footsteps, a gentle tap tap upon the cobbled stones.

She felt a strange presence with her, as if someone was watching from deep within the shadows, waiting for her to make a wrong move. Christine gulped and tried to ignore it, believing she was paranoid. Christine had to focus on the matter at hand.

She searched hopefully for a carriage to take her from Paris immediately and safely. With her new papers in one hand she used the other to pull back her hood, allowing her long dark curls to cascade down her covered shoulders. She spied a carriage with a man nearby. He held a lantern and was startled to see such a young woman of such pristine out on the streets of Paris alone.

"Mademoiselle," he said softly and removed his hat from his head.

Christine smiled slightly and came closer. She was a very trusting person, perhaps too trusting, but she recognized the man from the opera house and could remember him picking up Lords and Ladies from the front of the once great Opera Popularie.

"Are you quite alright? Do you need a ride home?" he asked hopefully.

"I am fine thank you, Monsieur," Christine began in a soft but serious voice. She looked the coachman in the eye and prepared herself for what she was about to ask. "I need a ride to Remis," she requested. "Or further still."

"Remis!?" the man exclaimed in shock. "Mademoiselle that is too far away, and even if I did travel that far you could not afford it."

Christine frowned. She had known it would be too much to ask and so she decided to take second best.

"Then please take me as far as you will go," she tried once more. "I can afford it, I promise you. I will give you the money now if I must, but I must leave here tonight."

Surprised and intrigued the man accepted the deal and helped his client into his carriage. He was confused as he had never had a young woman travel alone before, especially so late at night and with so much money. Christine swiftly handed over the money in a small brown bag and she sat her single bag of belonging down on the floor of the carriage.

"Thank you," she said to the coachman as he went to close the door.

"No Mademoiselle," the coachman corrected with a grin, "thank you!"

And with that the door was closed and the carriage began to speed away from sight. Christine took deep breaths as she listened to the horses' hooves on the street and the singing of the drunks as they burst through the doors of a nearby inn. She couldn't believe she had walked there all by herself and without anyone noticing. And now she was going to start a completely new life elsewhere where no one would know her and her new identity papers would serve as her past.

But Christine would never forget the friends and family she had there and all the memories she had made. It was for some of those memories Christine was leaving, for some things from her past haunted her still.

Christine was not a weak person. She could survive with Raoul with the memories of what had happened below the opera house and Christine knew she could be happy with him. They could have a dream wedding followed on by the perfect life with beautiful children. She would never be alone, never hungry and always surrounded by love.

But lately some strange goings on had coaxed her from her comfortable nest she had made with Raoul and now it was time for her to fly away to protect the man she loved and the friends she had made.

Christine had come back from a Gala night over a week ago with Raoul to find a long stemmed red rose lying upon her bed without a note. No one admitted to giving it to her. This was the first event that shook her new world but as the events went on they got worse. She received threatening letters all without a name, yet she knew exactly who it was from. A ghost from her past, a man she thought was dead and gone had started to play pranks on her and creep inside her mind again. Most of the letters threatened that the writer would come and take what was his and destroy all who got in their way. But the last one was by far the worst. It was written all over her dressing room mirror in fresh deep red blood.

"You will never be free from me…"

It had been so few words but they were forever engrained in Christine's mind and had unnerved her so. Then after hunting the grounds of the mansion they found the source of the blood, an innocent housekeeper who had been slit open from throat to pelvis and left out in the garden to bleed to death.

Christine knew it was time to leave. She had to.

Without her in Raoul's life and the lives of her friends she knew they would be safe from her past stalker. Where she went he would surly follow, and so she knew chances of her escaping her pursuer where slim but it was not impossible.

She had to try.

Christine soon slipped away into her dreams and felt at peace knowing that soon she would have a fresh start with a new name and past. Her friends and loved ones would be safe and at last the torment would end for them and perhaps her.

But Christine could not have been more wrong.

What Christine did not know was that someone had been watching her very closing, jotting down her every move into his mind. She was the only thing he had thought of for weeks now.

He had followed her from the safety of the shadows with the stealth of a cat, flexible and silent. Christine had no idea he had been following her that night in particular, even after everything he had done to drive her away from the safety of Raoul's home.

Erik grinned widely as he chased after the carriage. He wondered where Christine would run to and what she actually hoped to accomplish by going so far away from what she knew. Perhaps she was acting as the sacrificial lamb to save her lover and friends, or maybe she had no idea she was inviting him into her life with open arms. Now nobody could stop him from taking what was rightfully his.

All of a sudden Erik leapt from his hiding place and pounced up onto the front seat, quickly knocking the driver over but not quite off. All it took was a swift slash with his knife to the throat and the man gargled. All Erik had to do was push and he had complete control of the carriage and its precious cargo. His Christine.

But the game was not over yet, not until Erik said it was over.

Erik would toy with his prey a little longer, just as she had toyed with his love and affections before leaving him for her lover. Now she was playing his game.

Erik set out his plan in his head and followed the road the whole night until he reached their final destination, the place where he had been hiding for weeks and preparing for his Christine's return.

L'Opera Belle, where past events would be relived and rewritten.

But this time the victory was his.

This was his hunt.