If you are looking at this for the first time and are unfamiliar with my work, my first chapters set the stage for the drama to come. I am also known for my twists and turns in my narratives, which means that you should take nothing for granted. My stories are unique, and deeply written. I am looking to make you laugh and sometimes cry and most importantly feel for the characters. Some are borrowed from Leroux, ALW and Kay. Others are products of my own imagination. So welcome to my domain if you dare, or leave now. Your choice. If you decide to enter I, like most authors here love hearing from you either by review, PM, favoriting or following or all of the above.

Chapter 1

A mountain near Madison, Colorado USA: March 22, 1889

A lone horseman rode up the forlorn pathway leading to a high peak outside of the city of Madison, Colorado. The town was a mining settlement in the high mountains of Summit County west of Denver. It looked as if it had once been a raw frontier community, but the railroad connection to Denver and the East and San Francisco to the West had brought civilization to the verdant yet snowy peaks. The horseman's goal was a house several miles outside of town but it was a difficult climb for both man and beast. He could barely make out the outline of the pathway up the mountain it as it meandered through the woods. The resident of the house clearly did not want any visitors. It was more foreboding than even the Chateaux of his native France. The man began to panic as nighttime started to fall, a sudden wind blew snowflakes into his face.

The man began to wonder whether or not he was insane to attempt such a trek, alone. The townspeople would not go to the house perched almost to the edge of the tree line. It took most of the day to make the climb and the destination was known to be most unfriendly to outsiders. It was said that the owner had made a fortune in gold and silver, and retired to the mountain to escape humanity. He owned many of the mines in the area and had hundreds of employees and yet no one had ever laid eyes on him. The owner had posted no trespassing signs all over the borders of his vast property. Unfortunately the traveler had urgent business to attend to and had to risk a meeting with the man. If it was the person that he sought, he might never find his way down the mountain again. The man was purported to possess a violent temperament and had killed at least two men in France, possibly more.

The house that he lived in was said to be haunted. Although the house was large, the man employed no one but two men of foreign birth from some distant land such as Arabia or Persia. The two men made the trek into town once a month or so to obtain supplies and carry correspondence to, and from the mansion, but the owner was as scarce as a ghost. Many claimed that he had been horribly disfigured during the Civil War or during the Indian wars and that he had been scalped, tortured and mutilated. It was also rumored that he had been with Custer at Little Bighorn and was the sole survivor. He supposedly escaped captivity and made his fortune; but then retired to the seclusion of the mountain top to hide his face from the curiosity of his fellow men.

The visitor knew that if the man was who he believed him to be, that he had been born disfigured and that he once lived across the sea in France, beneath the Paris Opera house. He had ruled over the Palais Garnier like a tyrant ruling his kingdom, but his reign was cut short when he fell in love with a soprano. She drove him into madness, and first he killed a man and then he kidnapped the girl, who was in love with someone else. In his desperation he burned down the Opera house and fled into the night, leaving behind both a shell of a building and a legend.

The traveler, Pierre de la Croix, was once a Captain of the gendarme, in charge of apprehending the elusive Phantom of the Opera. He was there on that final night and witnessed the ghost in his final moments of madness. De la Croix had attempted help a nobleman, the Vicomte de Chagny, capture the ghost and bring him to justice for his crimes. The man got away and was never heard from again. For several years they searched in vain, de la Croix was his hunter, but he could never find his quarry. The Vicomte was desperate to make sure that his wife was safe from the man and repeatedly implored him to give him a report on his progress at apprehending him, but the result was always the same. The Opera Ghost had vanished into thin air like the specter that he claimed to be. Several years elapsed and the same Vicomte came to the Inspecteur with a strange request. He offered Monsieur de la Croix a great deal of money to retire from the gendarmes and work on his behalf. Strangely, he asked the same man to close the case of the Phantom of the Opera, before he retired and to declare that the Phantom had died in the fire on the same night. The Vicomte signed a sworn statement that he had witnessed the man burn to death. He produced a charred white half mask, known to belong to the madman as 'proof of his claims'.

A large payment of restitution to the victims of the madman, paid by the Vicomte further convinced the Parisians that the man once known as the Phantom of the Opera was dead. The man could have walked down the Champs de Elysee in full mask and evening suit and no one would dare ever accuse him of being the same man who had terrorized the Opera house. Monsieur de la Croix knew that the Vicomte was protecting his former enemy for a reason known only to him. Since he was no longer employed by the gendarmes, and was in the Vicomte's employ, he had not bothered to question him. It was not his place to care. The Vicomte also asked de la Croix to help him obtain a pardon for one E. Destler for all crimes committed prior to the events of February 6, 1881, the date that the opera house was burned. The Inspecteur knew that this was the same man as the one that had been declared dead. The Vicomte clearly wanted no stone to be left unturned in exonerating a clearly guilty man.

One day, six months prior to the present time, both the Vicomte and his wife were found shot in their mansion on the outskirts of Paris. The Vicomte had died instantly but the Vicomtesse was still alive but very weak. Their young son Gustave was found unharmed, he had not been home when the assassins called. A doctor was called using the recently installed telephone in the house; the dying Vicomtesse weakly motioned to Monsieur de la Croix. He could barely make out her words but it was clear that she had at some point crawled to a desk in the room and pulled out a small music box which had a monkey in Persian robes on top of it. She was clutching it in her hands and weakly told de la Croix to open it. He looked for a latch and found it and a small drawer popped open with a letter inside addressed to 'Erik'. There was a diamond engagement ring next to the letter. He took out the letter and showed it to her.

She looked relieved that he had done so and told him. "Find the Phantom, and give him this letter and this box and the ring. Ask him to raise our son and to forgive me. Tell him that I never stopped loving him, and that I regret making the wrong choices in the past." She seemed to grow weaker as she spoke. She was losing a lot of blood.

"But Madame la Vicomtesse I have searched for him for many years and have found no clues, not a single one. Perhaps he really is dead."

She shook her head no "He is alive. I would feel it if he was dead. I share a bond with him, and I know that he is there somewhere. Please find him and bring our son to him, he is the only one who will keep him safe."

"But I don't know where to find him. I have hunted for him for years." He told her gently "Do you?"

"Giry." She said faintly imploring him "Find Madame Giry."

"The ballet mistress?" he asked her.

"Yes. She will know…" She replied faintly.

"Who did this?"

She didn't have the strength to answer, she was fading into unconsciousness. A moment later he was distracted by the voice of the child shouting for his parents. Standing next to the child with her mouth agog was the child's nanny. The child was a handsome boy of around eight years of age. He seemed to be a bright boy with very intelligent aqua blue eyes, yet he lacked the arrogance of so many sons of the nobility. De la Croix wanted information, and she appeared intelligent so he turned to the woman and asked to speak to her in private. Another servant was found to tend to the boy, who would not move from his mother's side. He was pulled away from her kicking and screaming as the doctor arrived.

When they were alone, he asked her. "The Vicomte employed my services as a bodyguard but never mentioned to me where the danger to him might have come from. He was most concerned about protecting his wife and son. Do you know who might have done this?"

"No Monsieur, the de Chagny's were well loved for the most part. The boy and I were away when it happened, we were in the park down the road from here." She told him.

The man asked her "Who are the next of kin?"

"There are none, Monsieur. The Vicomte was disowned by his family when he married the Vicomtesse. The Vicomte had an inheritance from his mother's family but his father, brother and sisters had nothing to do with him."

"Do you think that they will take the child now?" he asked.

She hesitated "I don't know Monsieur. There were rumors. Always rumors since the boy was born, that he was not really his son. He does not resemble him at all. The Vicomte loved him with all of his heart. He and the boy were inseparable but the Vicomte had a condition which made it impossible for him to father a child. It was discovered several years into their marriage. The condition was congenital. When the Vicomte discovered that he had it, he and the Vicomtesse did not speak for many months. Apparently the boy was fathered by a different man. The Comte was quite aware of the Vicomtes' condition and therefore he knew that the boy was not a true de Chagny. Since the Vicomte acknowledged the boy as his son and heir he will bear the title of Vicomte, and inherit the Vicomte's fortune, just the same. The Vicomte would discharge any servant who would dare question the boy's parentage."

"Does the child know the truth?" de la Croix asked.

"No Monsieur, it might devastate him. He and the Vicomte were very close. I do not know what will become of this child." She added. "He is a sweet boy, very bright, musical like his mother."

"Does anyone know who and where the real father is?"

"The Vicomtesse was very quiet about it. There were rumors that it might be the Phantom of the Opera himself, but the child is so handsome and gentle. He could not have possibly come from a monster such as him. The Vicomtesse must have had another lover." She told him speculatively.

"Well, we must find him." De la Croix exclaimed. "Do you know anything about Madame Giry; the former ballet mistress at the Opera house?"

"She came here once, along with her daughter long ago, but then never again. The Vicomte forbid it after the first time. I think that she is still in Paris. The Vicomtesse would correspond with them, they were her foster family."

The man thanked her and took the items that the Vicomtesse had given to him. By the time that he was finished speaking with the servants the bodies had been removed. He spent the next several days with the Vicomte's attorney. He left a will granting everything to Gustave de Chagny. The document instructed that in the event of both his and Christine's death custody of the child would be given to one Erik Destler, if he could be found. There was a provision that they would prefer the child to be raised in France as befitting his noble heritage, but it was not a necessity. The attorney instructed de la Croix to seek out this Erik Destler. From his earlier research, Pierre knew who the man in question was. It at least partially answered the mystery as to why the Vicomte had changed from hunting the Phantom, to exonerating him. It was clear that the Vicomte believed the Phantom to be the boy's real father.

It took the former gendarme several days to find Madame Giry. She had long retired from the Opera and was living with her daughter who was a Baroness. When de la Croix first questioned her she was very hesitant to tell him anything. She seemed to be protecting someone. Her daughter watched him while he was interviewing her mother. The older woman would reveal nothing, given Pierre's past as the chief investigator in charge of finding the Phantom. It was clear that she would not trust him, no matter what the boy's needs might be. As he was leaving, the Baroness handed him an address which she had neatly written on a scrap of paper.

"Christine was my best friend and I miss her so much. I hope that you can help her little boy, Monsieur but be very careful. The man in question will not be happy to see you. We have not heard from him in many years. He will not have anything to do with any of us here in France any longer. He may kill you before you ever get the chance to speak with him." She warned. "Keep your hands at the level of your eyes."

Pierre remembered hearing the same warning years ago at the Opera House.

He almost refused the assignment to go to find this man, but he remembered the desperation in the mother's eyes and that the poor boy had no one to care for him save the Vicomte's old servants; he still was unaware of who had murdered the de Chagny's. If the man in question truly was the Phantom, he would make a formidable guardian for the child. Those reasons compelled the old inspector to go in search of the man. De la Croix, the child, and his nanny, Simone left France almost immediately and set sail for America. They had been away from France for many months now and had finally neared the end of his long journey. He left the boy and Simone at the hotel while he undertook the last leg of their long journey.

He could make out a distant light through the swirling snow, but just then his horse slipped on some ice and sent him sprawling to the ground. He was unhurt but the horse had broken his leg. He would not be able to carry him back into town. He prayed that the man was not as inhospitable as he was rumored to be or he might just die in the snow. Even if he were to survive, it was likely that he would become a casualty of the Phantom's vaunted Punjab lasso. The former opera ghost knew, that in the past, de la Croix had hunted for him mercilessly had almost captured him. That was long ago but most likely the man would find him to be a threat.

Pierre was not sure what would be a worse fate to freeze to death in the snow or be the next victim of the Phantom's murderous rage. In the dying light of the day he could hear a distant wolf cry, and a coyote howl as well in response. "No doubt they are arguing over which one of them might enjoy me as their next meal." He thought to himself darkly. "It might still be better than meeting with the Opera Ghost." It was too late to turn back, but the former inspector was regretting his decision not to bring someone with him just in case. He had hidden the boy and his nanny from the night of the incident until this time. He did not want the murderers to find the boy. He prayed to God that the opera ghost would prove receptive and give him the chance to explain everything to him before he struck.