Hello, all!

This is a crossover with the Phantom of the Opera and Artemis Fowl. A few notes before we kick this opera off to a start: this is an AU, so please no emails as to why the story is all screwed up. Also, unfortunately there will be no Erik, so I sincerely apologize to all of those Phantom phans who love him as much as I do, but this will loosely follow the POTO plotline. The characters will be OOC by normal Artemis Fowl standards, but this is a crossover. Obviously in the books Artemis was never a disfigured madman. Oh, and this will be M.

For those of you not familiar with the Phantom of the Opera, a brief summary is that Erik, aka the Phantom of the Opera, is a hideously disfigured musical genius than lives beneath the Paris Opera House. He falls in love with a chorus girl, Christine Daae, and masquerades as an Angel of Music to gain her trust. However, when he reveals himself as his true, disfigured self, Christine becomes terrified of him and flees into the arms of her childhood 'sweetheart', the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. Erik becomes increasingly more desperate to win her love, but succeeds in only frightening her more. The whole affair culminates in Erik dropping the Opera House chandelier and abducting Christine from the stage during her final performance before she is set to run away with Raoul. Christine eventually forgives Erik and promises to stay with him after he threatens Raoul's life, but he sets her free to live her life with Raoul as she wants to.

Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

Now that my babbling is over… enjoy!

(For Michal, because I miss you.)

The man swirled the amber liquid in the glass.

Around him the night was a shifting presence, a being of its own that existed but was as fragile as a butterfly's wing. He dared not turn the light on. He could not face the light. The light was accusing him with its illuminating glow, blasting him with its fiery condemnation. No, he dared not turn the light on.

The moonlight streamed through the windows, basking everything it touched in an unearthly glow. The sky was clear and cloudless, an ironic backdrop to the chaos that had defined his evening. It was morning, really, the darkest hour before dawn, and all the sane people of the world were asleep, but the man was still awake, slumped at a desk in the shadows, heart open and raw in the dark.

It had happened again.

One hand rose numbly in the darkness, finding his face and slipping off the covering that it found there. Still in shadow, the hand seemed to emerge from the dark, dropping a black full-face mask onto the desk. The man looked down at the mask that seemed to glower up at him, and with a swish of his arm knocked it to the floor. His eyes closed in shame as he lifted the glass to his lips and drank it down the contents.

Clunk. The glass slipped through his fingers to the desk. It did not break, but he wished it had. The pain would have been a relief to the emotional agony searing his soul, creating this atrocious and unbearable disorder in his heart that would not go away.

It had happened again. Against his better judgement he had brought a prostitute again to this haven, to this safe world he had created among the skyscrapers of Dublin. In his mind he heard again her screams, saw again her expression of pure horror as his mask dropped from her trembling hand… His eyes shot open and he took to his feet, pacing, striding up and down the room with legs still unsteady.

He stood before the windows, all of Dublin spread out before him, and he was reviled. Disgusted. Appalled. The thrum of humanity still existed even this late at night, taxis winding their way through the streets and pedestrians stumbling down the footpath, drunk on alcohol and the misery of existence… much like he himself. But those humans down there were a seething, hypocritical mass of human existence, and even if his own claim to humanity was tenuous at best, he could not stand to be among them.

I must leave this place. And as this astonishing, amazing thought occurred to him, he heard footsteps.

"Master Artemis?"

The deep voice cut through the air, but the man kept his back to the other even as he voiced a reply.

"Yes, Butler?" His soft voice reverberated around the room, and the bodyguard shivered at the resonance of the beautiful tones. It was the only beautiful thing about his master, the bodyguard knew, the music he produced. His master's face was as hideous as his heart.

"I have… disposed of the… woman, sir." The man could feel the bodyguard's disapproval stinging his back, but like always, he ignored it. His bodyguard was just another replaceable human being, albeit a loyal, well-armed one, and one that he trusted with his life to keep him from harm. Still, he harboured no illusions. Butler was in it for the money, just as he was. Just as they all were. But Butler was worth his exorbitant fee. Had not Butler kept him safe through all the years when his dealings with the criminals of the world had ended in someone aiming a gun at his head, particularly when they found out what lay behind the mask?

Butler wasn't there at the carnival, a nasty little voice in his head whispered. Butler wasn't there with you in the cage, when you were screaming for them to stop…

He shuddered.

"That will be all, Butler." Again, the bodyguard was struck by the ethereal tones that ordered him from the room without a qualm. His master was a terrifying and unpredictable, a far more lethal killer than Butler would ever be for the simple reason that he did not care if he killed members of the human race, and for that reason the bodyguard hurried from the room.

His master waited to hear the footsteps sink into the distance, the door close behind his well-meaning bodyguard, and sank back into his desk chair. But as he did, the moonlight shifted, sharpened, and it fell upon his face.

He recoiled like a snake as he returned to the shadows, picking up the black mask from the floor and holding it as though it gave him strength. But the light had illuminated his features and he saw, as others would have seen, his own face in his mind's eye. Shuddering, he dropped back into his chair, head in his hands, painfully exploring the monstrous flesh of his face. Between the gaps in his fingers, a pair of overbright electric blue lights glowed in the darkness. It was with a surge of horror that any one viewing the sight of him would have realized that those blazing lights with their unnatural sheen were in fact the man's eyes…

The desires that had caused the whole miserable evening had not waned, had not ceased, and he burned in shame as his hand moved lower, touching skin where no other had touched before. This was the only release allowed to him, he thought as his rage burned brighter. No woman would touch such a hideous monster; no whore would ever be hungry enough or desperate enough for drugs or alcohol to sleep with him.

He would always be alone.

In a shuddering rush that was frightening in its intensity, ecstasy came upon him, and his mind went blissfully blank. For all of a heartbeat of time, the wretched thoughts that plagued his mind and wrenched his heart were obliterated. Crimson, he fell forward onto the desk, head against the cold wood, still shaking. The old thought returned: I must leave this place.

He knew exactly where he would go.

Please review! I'd love to hear what you think.

Smidgie