Warning: will contain incestual themes, sex, horror and violence. So yeah, don't say I didn't warn you.
Prologue
Perros France, December 1875
Christine stared at the tall man from around the edge of the doorway, peering at the man curiously as he quietly played the violin. She closed her eyes happily as he launched into the girl's favourite piece of his "The Resurrection of Lazarus" the lilting melodies lulling the young girl into a dreamlike state.
Leaning back against the wall, Christine hardly noticed Mama Valerius pass her in the corridor, her eyes closed as she bit her lip, the ecstasy of the music running throughout her, bubbling within her veins and hastening her heartbeat. Pleasure ripped through her, thinking of him, his music, his tall handsome stature, weathered by the cold and poverty they had suffered in past years.
The music began to build, from a lilting light pretty melody drifting dreamily across the house to harsher jarring tones, sudden flashes of rapid runs and screeching harmonics. As the climax drew nearer, Christine felt her face flush with the excitement of the music and she slid down the wall to sit upon the floor.
The violin screeched loudly, forcefully as it lowered to deeper darker tones and Christine gasped as it quickly began its descent as it finished on that final cadence.
Gustave began to cough and Christine was jolted back to reality, looking around with her large blue eyes and recollecting herself. She stood and peeked about the doorway, watching her father put down the violin as a coughing fit shook his body. He glanced with her and started.
"Darling" he coughed, pulling out his handkerchief and coughed into it again "please don't sneak up on daddy like that, you scared me"
"Sorry papa" she grinned as he embraced her tenderly. Coughing again he turned to the window and watching the snowflakes slowly falling upon the ground.
"It's your fourteenth birthday in a fortnight's time; what is it that you want?" he said indulgingly and Christine giggled. "Oh!" he said mockingly as she began to blush and laugh harder "perhaps a certain...Vicomte? I'll see if I can arrange that particular present"
"Papa!"
"I saw the way you acted when he visited last week my dear, I know that look-" but suddenly his raucous laughing turned into a coughing fit and he held the handkerchief to his mouth as he gagged and coughed.
"Papa? Father? Are you okay?" Christine said worriedly as he paused in between coughs, looking up at her, his thin face red. He nodded before coughing once more.
"I'm fine" he choked out "It's just a head cold I'm coming down with, don't worry"
"Christina!" came the call of Mamma Valerius "I'm in the kitchen! Christina darling!"
"Farewell papa" Christine kissed her father upon the cheek quickly as she left the room to her foster mother's calls.
Gustave watched the doorway longingly and glanced at the handkerchief; it was flecked with blood red splatters. He sighed, remembering his wife Astrid, dying slowly from consumption those years ago, when Christine was only six.
"Poor child" he whispered "soon she'll lose a father"
And he picked up his violin once more.