Renewal of An Old Acquaintance, a phantom of the opera fanfic

A/N This is based on both the scene repeated below from the original Leroux novel, and a scene in Susan Kay's book. This short-story phiction is somewhat darker than my previous ones, so be warned. Please read and review.

Summary—Erik and Nadir Khan meet again in Paris, in an unexpected manner. This is part of a new series of unrelated vignettes called Night Encounters.

Disclaimer-All characters used in the Night Encounters series belong either to Gaston Leroux, Susan Kay, or Andrew Lloyd Webber. In regard to the French language, Paris, history, certain songs, the Opera Charles Garnier—all errors and liberties taken are mine.

-Riene

Renewal of an Old Acquaintance

But, suddenly, he raised himself on his elbow. A cold sweat poured from his temple. Two eyes, like blazing coals, had appeared at the foot of his bed. They stared at him fixedly, terribly, in the darkness of the night.

Raoul was no coward; and yet he trembled. He put out a groping, hesitating hand toward the table by his bedside. He found the matches and lit his candle. The eyes disappeared.

Still uneasy in his mind, he thought to himself:

"She told me that his eyes only showed in the dark. His eyes have disappeared in the light, but he may be there still."

And he rose, hunted about, went round the room. He looked under his bed, like a child. Then he thought himself absurd, got into bed again and blew out the candle. The eyes reappeared.

He sat up and stared back at them with all the courage he possessed. Then he cried:

"Is that you, Erik? Man, genius, or ghost, is it you?"

He reflected: "If it's he, he's on the balcony!"

Then he ran to the chest of drawers and groped for his revolver. He opened the balcony window, looked out, saw nothing and closed the window again. He went back to bed, shivering, for the night was cold, and put the revolver on the table within his reach.

The eyes were still there, at the foot of the bed. Were they between the bed and the windowpane or behind the pane, that is to say, on the balcony? That was what Raoul wanted to know. He also wanted to know if these eyes belonged to a human being… He wanted to know everything.

Then, patiently, calmly, he sized his revolver and took aim. He aimed a little above the two eyes. Surely, if there were eyes and if above those two eyes there was a forehead and if Raoul was not too clumsy…

The shot made a terrible din amid the silence of the slumbering house. And, while footsteps came hurrying along the passages, Raoul sat up with out-stretched arm, ready to fire again, if need be.

This time, the two eyes had disappeared. Servants appeared, carrying lights; Count Philippe, terribly anxious.

"What is it?"

"I think I have been dreaming," replied the young man. "I fired at two stars that kept me from sleeping."

"You're raving! Are you ill? For God's sake, tell me Raoul: what happened?"

And the count seized hold of the revolver.

"No, no, I'm not raving…Besides, we shall soon see…"

He got out of bed, put on a dressing gown and slippers, took a light from the hands of a servant and, opening the window, stepped out on the balcony.

The count saw that the window had been pierced by a bullet at a man's height. Raoul was leaning over the balcony with his candle:

"Aha!" he said, "Blood!...Blood!...Here, there, more blood!...That's a good thing! A ghost who bleeds is less dangerous!" he grinned.

-From the Hildebrandt edition, 1988, Phantom of the Opera.

The Persian manservant started up, at the sound. Something heavy struck the front door of the flat, sliding down against the door. Ever vigilant for threat, since their near-miraculous escape from Persia, he crept noiselessly to the door, listening intently. Again that sound reached his ears, a heavy, sliding thrust against the door, as though something wanted in. He retreated silently to his sleeping chamber and slid a hand under the pillow, removing a short, sharp curved knife, its wicked blade gleaming in the moonlight. Concealing this weapon in his massive hand, Darius returned again to the front room. No sound this time, but his senses, sharpened by years of watchful listening in the deserts and the narrow, twisting alleyways of Mazanderan, detected labored breathing. He wrenched open the door.

…and leapt back to land lightly on toes and crouched knees as the body of a man fell into the room. The darkly-clad man groaned faintly and Darius frowned, swiftly shutting the door. Whatever the trouble was here, his master had no need to become involved with it. Perhaps he could lift this body and dump it out in the streets below…

"What is the trouble, my friend?" came the quiet, measured voice behind him. Nadir Khan stepped into the room, belting the sash of his oriental robe about his lithe, deeply bronzed body. Jade-green eyes coolly assessed the situation, then he tucked his own knife into his sash and knelt at the victim's side, turning him over with the caution of years spent in the service of the Shah.

"He fell against the door, master," said Darius quietly. "I had little time to alert you."

But his master did not answer, staring down in shock at the masked face revealed in the unforgiving moonlight. "Erik!" he breathed and beside him, Darius stiffened.

"It is the devil, a djinn, master. Let me take him now, out away from this place, before more of his evil contaminates it…."

"No, no," Nadir replied absently, placing a hand on the emaciated ribs of the man on the floor. "He lives, Darius. Help me lift him to the couch."

Erik's head fell back limply as Nadir attempted to lift him, and his hands came away slick with blood. "Better yet," he grunted, with the effort of raising the man's dead weight, "let us place him on the table. He is injured, and is bleeding untidily all over my carpet."

Shrugging, Darius did as he was told, clearing the items from the dining table in a swift rake of his powerful arm.

"Erik, my old adversary, what have you done to yourself now," Nadir muttered, scarcely aware of what he was saying. "And how is it you came to fall in my doorway, after all these years?"

Darius lifted his shoulders irritably. "He is a demon, master, an afreet. He has the devil's own ways and the devil's knowledge. He could have come here at any time, to slit our throats in the night. Have you forgotten Persia so soon?"

Nadir gave his friend and servant an oblique look. "I do not think so, Darius," he replied quietly. "I rather think he has come here tonight for our assistance."

The bright light hurt his eyes. Voices, talking close by. Pain, retreating into red shadows, waiting until he stepped nearer that bright, harsh light. Shuddering with a lifetime's control, he turned toward that rippling brightness and waiting agony and stepped through…

"Master…"

"I see, Darius. Erik, you old devil. What brings you injured to my home this night?"

Unthinkingly, the injured man answered in Persian as well. "My shoulder, obviously, Nadir." His voice was a barely audible hiss. "I have had the cursed stupidity to get myself shot. I cannot get home by myself, and I cannot remove this ball." He shifted and winced, going even more pale. "It is up against my shoulder blade. I have no desire to die of blood poisoning or blood loss. You will have to extract it." His eyes shut wearily and he drew another long, shallow breath. "Quickly, Nadir. My time here grows short."

Nodding once, Nadir turned and barked brisk orders to his manservant, who obeyed in his soundless way, bringing cloths, a bowl of hot water, and a worn leather case containing a knife, alcohol, forceps, catgut, and a set of short needles.

"It is fortunate for you, my friend, that I still retained these chirgeon's tools," Nadir said quietly, waving the knife blade through the flames until it grew red hot, then wiping it swiftly with alcohol. "I have nothing with which to keep you from feeling the pain, unless you would like to get stinking drunk first."

Erik's glittering eyes opened a tiny slit, black and sunken in his face. His lips twisted. "You know I do not drink, Nadir. Get this over with swiftly. You need not fear I will bring down the neighbors upon you."

He nodded once, absently ripping the already ruined shirt open even more, and cutting swiftly down into the hard bony shoulder of the suffering man lying below on the table. Erik gave one agonized gasp, a hand clawing at the air for a moment, before his hands locked themselves together, twisting hard upon themselves, until the bones and tendons stood white, outlined rigidly under the thin flesh.

It was completed swiftly; the hard lead ball dropping into the dish Darius silently provided. Through the operation he had stood, a silent disapproving statue, obeying his master's commands without question, holding down the shoulders of the writhing man on the table, assisting with the bandaging after the demon had finally passed out.

"I am too old for this, Darius," Nadir muttered afterward, washing his hands convulsively in the basin, to rid them of the blood congealing around his nails. He smiled wryly, feeling the weight of displeasure from his longtime friend. "What else would you have had me do, leave him to die?"

He read his answer in the flash of the other man's dark eyes, but Darius elected not to answer aloud. Nadir sighed. "Go back to bed, Darius. I will sit with him until morning, and we will decide then what to do."

Once again, he drifted cautiously toward the light and the pain. The two were almost always synonymous where he was concerned…

He opened his eyes against the glare of lights, and looked warily at his surroundings. Beside him, fast asleep in a chair, his hands folded across his chest, chin sunk on his breast, was Nadir Khan. Erik's lips twisted into a semblance of a smile. Obviously, he had stumbled here after last night, counting on the help of his one-time adversary against the help of any other. His shoulder ached, fire lancing up and down through his arm. Erik shifted uncomfortably on the hard couch, feeling the dim pulses of fever forming at the edges of his mind. At least he was not dead yet. Erik shut his eyes and surrendered once more the waiting blackness.

By morning he was delirious, alternately raving and crying, reliving nightmares of his past. The haunting beauty of his inhuman voice was gone; he spoke only in a harsh, metallic rasp. Nadir resolutely closed his ears and his mind to the inchoate mumblings of the fever-hot man on the couch. He sat by the hour with his former prisoner, bathing the man's face and chest with cool water, wishing he dared send Darius for a physician. In the end, Erik's fever broke midday, and he lay unconscious in broken sleep.

"I will stay here now, master," Darius rumbled at him. "You must rest."

Nadir Khan smiled tiredly and stiffly climbed to his feet. "I will. Wake me if he becomes conscious, Darius, and don't do anything foolish." Ignoring the other man's look of pure outrage, Nadir walked heavily back to his room, to wash and to sleep while he could.

Erik awoke toward nightfall, shivering and worn. Despising his own weakness, he forced himself upright on the couch, gritting his teeth against the raw red waves of pain that flowed down his arm and across his chest. He looked around, confirming that he was still in Nadir's flat, and noticed the metal loops just under the edge of the couch. Nadir chose that moment to walk in.

Erik gestured at the manacles and the former head of the Shah's intelligence and police force smiled dryly. "Yes, Darius would have me secure you. But I remember just how much use chains were against you in the old days, my friend," he added softly.

His unexpected visitor's eyes flashed. "I doubt I have the strength to remove them just now, but I thank you for your consideration," Erik sneered, and swung his feet off the cushions. He shut his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply, exerting his control over the lightheadedness and the nausea, then staggered to his feet.

Watching him narrowly, for Nadir bore no illusions where Erik was concerned, he found a chair and with seeming casualness sat down. Erik leaned against the wall, his grim face ashen, breathing shallowly. The flickering edges of fever and delirium pulled at his mind, threatening to overtake him, and he clenched his fists, forcing the dizziness to subside.

"You will only make yourself more ill, my friend," said Nadir mildly. "You have lost a great deal of blood."

"You would have me remain here, that you might play nursemaid?" the Shah's former architect snarled, and cautiously stood upright, testing his balance. He walked across the room to look out at the evening streets of the city.

"Are you going to tell me what happened? And how you knew where to find me?"

Erik's arrogant, cool black gaze slid away from the calm jade-green eyes. "There are few enough Persians in Paris that I was able to hear of your arrival, Daroga. I troubled myself to find out where you lived, that is all. And as for what happened last night, that is none of your concern."

Nadir templed his hands, choosing not to answer this challenge, watching the other man's caged restlessness pace about the room. "You will find my brandy near the gazogene, Erik, should you wish it."

"I do not drink, Nadir, as I reminded you last night," he said in a harsh whisper, dropping the curtain and moving back into the room.

"It would dull your pain."

"That is precisely why I do not drink. I might like it. I might not even want to stop," he spat bitterly.

"You should take something. A powder, a tisane, perhaps?"

"No."

"Do not wear out my carpet, I beg you," Nadir said mildly, but he winced inwardly against the inadvertent hurt his words had caused. Allah knew Erik had every reason to retreat from the pain. Unwillingly, he was forced to remember their days in Persia, when in an effort to numb the horrors of his work and life there, the endless torment of his flesh and his mind, he had sought out the oblivion of dreams first through opium, then other stronger, more insidious drugs. Nadir also remembered the day he had come at Erik's request, finding the man had ordered himself tied tightly to a column in his lavishly appointed chambers, screaming and cursing as the narcotics sweated out of his system.

"I will not be beholden to anything!" he shouted, in an effort to impose his will on his shattered body. In a moment of lucidity he looked at the Daroga and gave him a ghastly smile. "I cannot bear this torment, Nadir. I crave this drug. I have no choice about my…appearance, and for little of my life I've had control of my fate, but I WILL NOT" his voice rose in another shriek as the agony hit him again, "surrender control of my future to this herb!" Panting and twisting, he strained against the ropes. "Release me, Nadir. Please. I will do anything you say, but release me."

"No, Erik," Nadir said, his voice weary and sad. "I promised you I would follow your instructions to the letter. I will stay with you, bring you water, but I will not release you. You would only go out to the streets and purchase more of the drug."

Reddened, glazed eyes glared at him, then rolled backwards as another wave of agonizing cramps wrenched his body, causing him to vomit again. Exhausted, he looked up at his nemesis. "Nadir, I beg you. One favor," he gasped.

"What, Erik?" he asked as gently as possible.

"My mask. Remove it. Please. It burns me."

Nadir stared at the writhing man in shock, hearing the torment revealed in the other's staccato voice. For Erik to ask for his mask to be removed, the pain must be unendurable. Carefully, he edged closer to where the wiry, skeletally thin man withstood his self-imposed torture, his head hanging limply against the bonds. "Certainly, if that is your wish."

Before he could carry out the request, Erik's body convulsed again, racked by agonized waves of bloody retching. Nadir held back, waiting until the spasm passed, and Erik's head jerked upright again.

The blazing eyes met his. "Not a word, Nadir. Say nothing. Or I swear if it takes me a lifetime I shall hunt you down and kill you."

He nodded, unperturbed, and unfastened the straps that secured the black mask, sliding them across the sweat-soaked hair, revealing the horrible flesh beneath…

Abruptly Erik turned and sat on the hassock, ripping the bandages from his shoulder, dispassionately surveying the crusted, red-rimmed wound. "It seems I shall not lose the arm after all, thanks to your skills as a surgeon," he murmured, his black eyes bright with malice. "And while I thank you for your hospitality, I rather think it is time for me to go." He raised his other hand in a commanding gesture. "No, don't argue with me, Nadir," Erik smiled tiredly. "I have interrupted your life badly enough again." He awkwardly refolded the bandages, replacing them as a pad under his soiled white shirt. "I have survived worse than this, and what is one more scar on my shoulders, anyway," he added bitterly as he turned to collect his discarded shoes and cloak.

Nadir gave up trying to argue, for Erik would ever follow his own solitary path. He watched in silence as the other man replaced his clothing, smoothing back his hair and tugging the cloak to cover the bloodstained garments. "Adieu, Nadir."

"It is 'adieu' then, and not 'au revoir,' Erik?" Nadir asked softly.

Brilliant, exhausted black eyes met his. "Goodbye, my friend," Erik repeated quietly, and slipped through the front door. Within seconds he was gone.

Darius came to stand beside him, and Nadir looked at the younger man.

"Follow him, Darius," he commanded softly, and in silence the Persian servant slipped out the door and down the hall. Yes, follow him. Bring me back word as to where he is living now.

This accidental meeting is to both our benefits, my old friend. You knew where we were living, and I would even that score. And someday, we will meet again.

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