Thank you for your reviews. Keep them coming please. - Leesainthesky
Chapter 2 The Bat-cave.
Re-cap: Erik was rummaging around in the fifth cellar of the Paris Opera House when he discovered a strange woman — Gabrielle Thomassen, who has slipped through a portal in time…
"What in the hell are you doing here?" A masculine voice tinged in lilting French ordered.
My pulse accelerated at the sound. His anger boomed from somewhere in the shadows and this time I did hear myself scream. I must have resembled a B-grade horror movie actress with her too-wide-open eyes, nervously flitting back and forth searching for the fearsome being.
"Who's there?" I demanded, summing my nerve.
"I shall ask only one more time, what are you doing where you do not belong?"
The voice echoed through the cavern; yet I still could not see the body attached to it (or so I hoped it had a live body!).
Keeping my tone as sure and even as possible, I replied in halting French. "I'm Gabriel Thomassen, and I am incredibly lost. I haven't a clue as to how I got here or where this is for that matter. I think I blacked out under the marquis in front of the theatre."
An attempt to stand-up landed me on my bum. "Yeow!" I cried. "Hey, unless you're a murder or a rapist would you mind helping me up? This floor is not very comfy."
"Of course, my dear." The disembodied voice spoke again, this time in English, laced with that appealing French inflection.
I'd always been a sucker for European men.
From the shadows, a hand gloved in fine black leather reached for me. My fingers barely made contact when the hand yanked me to my feet.
"Here, let's have some illumination," said the voice of the hand.
An old fashioned oil lamp sparked to life spilling forth small shards of amber light. I had my first glimpse at the man behind the voice.
He was dressed much like the terrified fellow from Times Square; in Victorian period garb, including a long black cape, but he was definitely not the same fellow.
While the man in Times Square had been terrified, this man was terrifying. He was tall with a strong, trim, build. Phosphorus jade eyes gleamed between dark lashes and from what I could see of his face, he was attractive. The man's oddest feature was the sculptured white mask covering his right side.
My personal survival skills told me to take a hasty inventory of the situation. Presently the man wasn't molesting me, so I determined to collect my wits and survey any bodily damage. My knees and hands bled from scrapes earned by what must have been an abrupt fall.
Nothing life threatening, but what's up with the French guy in the period costume? I wondered. Could someone have knocked me unconscious, robbed me and tossed my limp body in the storage area of a nearby theatre? Lord knows Broadway was thick with theatres of all sizes. That's not it. Tony or somebody would have witnessed the incident—would have come to my rescue, right?
I focused my eyes on the dark stranger.
"Oh, you must be an actor at one of the theatres here ...right?" I asked, searching for a reason to explain his curious attire.
"Well, I suppose it is a skill that I have employed form time to time; however, I do not practice acting as a profession." He answered with slight hubris.
"I just thought because of your costume and the mask—"
An ominous frown formed on his features.
"Well, you could be. Only the most accomplished stage actors and singers have such marvelous voices."
Blatant flattery was not working on the man, but at least he didn't look pissed off at me anymore.
"I do pride myself on having some talent Mademoiselle, but enough of your flagrant flattery. We must discuss the matter of your unwelcome appearance on my property. Have you been accosted or are you simply hoping to steal something of value?"
"Yeah, I put on this evening dress and four inch heels then beat myself to appear inconspicuous if discovered by the likes of you," I snapped back.
The man's answer was a stoic and unreadable stare. Fear fluttered up my spine.
"Whoever you are, you cannot stay here. I don't know how in the devil you got in. All entrances are sealed with exception of the secret one from the street, and dressed as you are, it would be impossible to navigate that one successfully."
His appraising gaze made me self-conscious.
"Fine, I'd rather not be stuck in the bat cave anyway; it's cold and creepy in here."
"I assure you Madam, there are no flying rodents in my subterranean area," he sniffed.
Humorless too I see.
"Look, I'll be glad to vacate your little hideaway if you tell me where I am and how I can make a swift exit Mousier"
A menacing chuckle emerged from his lips, as if my idea of leaving was absurd.
He regarded me with restrained curiosity. "You Mademoiselle are in the fifth cellar of the Paris Opera house. There is only one accessible exit and it will be necessary for me to lead you there."
He didn't just say the Paris Opera house did he? I wondered if cobwebs had collected in my ears. "Paris as in, the Opera Garnier, Monet and Bordeaux?" I said, affecting an air of mock buoyancy.
"Of course dense woman, what other Paris is there?"
I held up my hands, "Hey now, relax, you don't have to be insulting. I don't doubt your link to France, but I'm merely trying to figure out what the name of Napoleon B. is up with this situation. Unless someone drugged me and stowed my limp body aboard a fast plane to Europe, you are lying."
He scowled, lowering his voice to a dangerous whisper. "I am not inclined to lie without reasons beneficial to me, my dear."
Gee, he seemed a tad annoyed.
Frightened as I was, fear was not the foremost emotion creeping into my consciousness; uncertainty had claimed that spot. I'm not sure why the particular question came to mind, but it insisted on being voiced. "What year is it?"
"1876, June," he answered looking at me as if I were daft.
"1876? You wouldn't be messing with my mind would you, because if you are, it is no longer funny? I am tired and want only to peel of these clothes and crawl into a nice soft bed."
"M'excuser, messing with your mind Mademoiselle? I assure you, I have no intention to make a mess of you at all if you cooperate with me." The man in black countered with a fierce glare.
His gaze softened when he turned up the fire on his lamp. "Your hands and knees are bleeding and you appear to have a sizable bump emerging on your head."
I touched my right temple and promptly felt a stab of pain where a knot had formed.
Fabulous, that'll look terrific on camera. No amount of make-up could hide something the size of a small appendage.
A peculiar, yet not altogether foreign feeling began to nag me. A familiar cognition rose to the surface.
"No, it can't be."
I recalled my father detailing his findings on how the strange disappearances in the Bermuda triangle could be explained through the tear-in-the-cosmic-fabric theory. Matter would slip through these unusual tears in the universe and move about time unbound.
"Time-travel is already possible," he would enthuse. "It requires a total realization of quantum physics and space-time topology. Trial and error, risk taking and enormous patience are an essential part of the equation. I am so close to success that I can nearly see the future…or the past." He would smile at his egg-head joke.
My brother Michael and I listened, fascinated by the possibilities of our fathers scientific investigations, but we were never sure it was something he could prove unequivocally—at least in his lifetime.
At the moment, the only thing making sense to me was the nonsensical. I felt like that Olympic ice skater who Tonya Hardin once whacked on the knee. Why me?
Confused and disoriented, I began to do something that I am loath to do; I began sobbing.
"Oh god, what is happening? Where am I and how do I get out of this nightmare and back to Tony?" I sniffled. I was five years old again and lost in the Carson Pirie Scott department store in downtown Chicago.
"This is so Twilight Zone. I'm gonna ring my father's neck if he has anything to do with this." I turned my back on the masked man and continued to blubber into my hands.
"Please, Mademoiselle, do not be distressed, there is a logical reason behind this mystery. I will assist you in finding your way out of here and then you shall be free to return to wherever you came from."
I would later discover that women crying always had the power to distress Erik. It was the one emotion that would bleed forth compassion from his heart, he could easily kill a deserving man weeping for his life, but a helpless woman was a weakness for him. It was the tortured women crying for mercy that had finished off his soul in Persia.
He moved closer and tentatively placed an arm around my shoulders. The man smelled of spice and cedar. I felt immense strength in his arm. He may have been slim, but I would bet under all of those grand garments there was a solid, sensual body—all in all, a nice hunk of European man flesh (wonderful Gab, he could be a deviate, but you've got gothic romance on your mind…sheesh!).
I gave an unladylike sniffle as he fished a linen handkerchief from his waistcoat and handed it to me. He guided me toward what I'd previously appraised to be stage props, but in reality was a functioning, yet dusty, parlor. There was a chaise longue, two ornate chairs; one looked like a throne, and a massive pipe organ.
"Please, make yourself comfortable." He motioned to the velvet chaise. "I think I can find something to clean your cuts with."
He disappeared around the organ, returning about five minutes later with some clean cloths and a glass bottle that looked like iodine.
"Put out your hands so I may dress the wounds for you Mademoiselle, or is it Madam?"
"I'm single so I guess its Mademoiselle, or you can just call me Gabrielle, but never Gabby."
"Mademoiselle Gabriel, I am Erik," he offered in a businesslike manor as he dabbed the stuff on my wounds. It stung and I winced every time he touched the scrapes.
"Perhaps you would like to attend to your knees," he glanced shyly at my legs, and then looked away while handing me the cloth and bottle.
Maybe he's not a deviate after all, I thought. Most men I know would take every chance they could to gawk at a woman's body, and seeing legs is an every day occurrence where I come from.
Could this be the 19th century, I mussed un-comprehendingly to myself?
I cleaned my knees while working up the courage to tell him about the incredible journey I'd just traveled.
"Monsieur…Erik, what I am going to tell you will sound like strange fiction, but I assure you it isn't. My father, Jonathan Thomassen, is a physicist in the 21st century, 2005 to be precise."
"My father has been involved in time-travel research for the past 35 years of his life. Although he has yet to prove it to the scientific community at large, he presumes to have solved the puzzle. His belief is that time travel is a certainty. Michael, that's my younger brother, and I were never sure one-way or another, but I think I may have been caught in something called a time-tear. They're like invisible random trap door in the universe. People, ships, trains, animals, planes— anything gets sucked into them.
Pilots used to disappear in what's been named the Caribbean Ocean's Bermuda Triangle. These crafts would disappear without a trace. Some reappeared only to find that their watches had stopped or been moved forward or backwards in time. Oh, a plane is a flying machine, an American invention from your next century." I explained just in case it truly was 1876.
"Until a few hours ago, I was standing on a New York City sidewalk in the year 2005."
"Ah, so this miserable muddy orb still continues to spin hundreds of years from now," Erik brooded.
"I live in Chicago Illinois, USA and I am a reporter for a television show. TV, that's another questionable invention that I'll explain to you later; anyway, I am an arts and entertainment news reporter for the show. I interview celebrities, actor, singers and the like about their latest projects."
Erik nodded as if all I said held logic.
"I was reviewing a new Broadway production in New York City when a man dressed much like you appeared out of nowhere. The poor man was so distraught that he ran into the path of a taxi, which tossed him up into the air. He landed in the street with a dull thud followed by screeching tires. But before his unfortunate accident, our eyes locked briefly. It was then that I became dizzy, blacked out and ended up in this place," I motioned at the cave, or whatever it was. I am confident his appearance and my disappearance are somehow linked."
Erik sat mute and motionless, his chin resting on one hand. He seemed to be mulling over my incredible story.
"Mademoiselle, I have experienced many peculiarities and mysteries of this world. I too am one of nature's most abhorrent abnormalities. I would never rule out the possibility of trap doors in space and time. I myself am a master of such physical egress."
After a brief silence, he glanced toward the lake's edge where Tony's luggage and mine lay. "I see that you have quite a bit of baggage with you. Perhaps your bags hold items that may convince me you are indeed a visitor from the future."
"A Brilliant suggestion Monsieur!" I jumped up, hobbled over to fetch my carry on, hurried back to where the masked man sat impassively, and crouched at his feet. Fumbling in my pack, I withdrew a laser pointer.
"Check this out." I clicked on the scarlet beam and handed it to him. He moved it around as if it were a mini light saber.
"Interesting, yes, but what does it do Mademoiselle?"
"It's a laser, you point it at stuff and it …well, okay, not a great example. Let me find something else for you to examine." I fished around for my cell phone.
"Volià!" I wagged my little Motorola at him.
"I know you will soon have telephones, but nothing like this one will be available until the end of the twentieth century. By pressing a series of numbers, you can speak with anyone nearly anywhere in the world, providing they also have one of these mobile devices. I can't call anyone on this now because there are no satellites in the nineteenth century."
He appeared to be mildly interested, and moved nearer to scrutinize the hand-sized object.
I flipped the phone open. "Here, look Erik, there are numbers and you can compose music on this little keyboard, it has a calculator and in my time you can call almost anyone else in the world that has another one of these and talk to them! Ooooh let me take your picture," I aimed the eye at him and he scowled at me.
"Say cheese." I keyed in the entry and moved to his side.
"Check it out, here is a picture of you looking really ticked off at me," I eagerly turned the phone's screen toward him to see.
"Amusing, but there are already ways to capture images my dear; it could be a simple bit of trickery or clever magic. Given the time, I am sure I could discover its secrets. I am highly intelligent and hard to fool. I warn you Mademoiselle; do not to try my patience," Erik warned.
Nothing arrogant about this guy.
I sighed in frustration, fumbled around some more, and then pulled out my laptop plugging it into its battery pack. "Alrighty then, Mr. cynical; get a load of this."
He lit several candles and crouched next to me for a better view of my silicon marvel.
The lesson began.
"This is a portable computer, a sort of mechanical brain. It offers a variety of functions. You can compose anything from letters to music on it, draw or paint, listen to music, keep lists and access the internet if you have a phone line—that's another lesson for another time."
Erik folded his hands and eyed me inquisitively.
"Here is a snippet of yesterday's Chicago Tonight show that I appear on. I am doing a piece on the singer Brittany Spears."
I opened the file and the player popped up. After a few seconds the media played. In the segment, I was interviewing Spears latest tour coming to Chicago. There was a clip of her signing her version of My Prerogative, complete with lots of writhing and whining.
I peeked at my masked man expecting to see pure astonishment on his face. Instead, a grimace formed as he studied the screen intently.
"You call this music?" He bellowed at the screen. "What manor of putrid trash are you people permitting to pass for music in the future? For once I have a reason to thank the gods who breathed life into my pitiful lungs for allowing me birth in a time when music is an expression of true beauty, not that—that turgid drivel!"
I couldn't help but to laugh out loud. "I'm in total agreement with you. She's awful, but the kids love her. The good news is that in the twenty first century, there are many ways to express ones self musically. And the old masters still hold their own through live orchestral concert performances—their masterpieces have even been captured on something called recordings. Anytime you wish, you can hear a selection from any of the great composers … Mozart, Verdi, Beethoven and DuPuis."
Was it possible that the man's flesh could equal the paleness of the white mask he wore?
He snapped his head toward me, urgently grasped my arm and drew me up to his face. "DuPuis, the French composer of the nineteenth century?" He growled in a husky low voice.
"Uh—why yes, Erik DuPuis is a favorite composer of mine. His work is remarkable. Do you know of him?"
"I am him," he hissed.
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Please read and review. I am not a true writer like many of you, but I enjoy my feeble attempts. I welcome all of your feedback. Thanks. - Leesainthesky