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A/N: Reviews are the grist that runs this authoress' creative mill. That said, I want to thank each of you that have offered a review. Your kind words and words of encouragement touch my heart!

DGM

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Part VIII: From the Jowls of Hell

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Erik was not a religious man.

He was not; he was not.

But he found himself on his knees before Christine's sickbed, praying to her God, to Nadir's, to the gods and goddesses of old, entreating—begging anything Divine to save her, spare her life!

All of his extensive medical knowledge had been used. All of the medicines, poultices, and elixirs of which he knew, now useless.

Science had failed him.

He prayed that faith would not.

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Christine was in Heaven. She had to be. For that was the only explanation for why she felt so clean and feather-light.

She smiled, seeing her Papa and Mama holding their hands out to her, walking towards her.

She tried to quicken her stride, get to them more quickly, but she found she couldn't.

The lightness of her steps precluded her ability to run. She was literally floating, gliding toward them. Her Papa was smiling; her mother, her beautiful mother! had tears of joy in her eyes.

On she soared, ever closer to them.

And in amazement, she heard her father's violin begin to play.

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Erik was not a religious man.

He had ceased praying three hours after midnight realizing the futility of it all. No God had ever answered his prayers. No God had ever heard his cries, his pleas.

He had never been one to wax superstitious, preferring, in point of fact, to capitalize on those that were. His mother had, after all, been one such person, and he learned at mother's knee, learned from her just how dangerous believing in superstition could be.

But he remembered a tale she told him long ago; a tale meant to keep him afraid of the dark, every bit as much as he was of the light. A tale meant to frighten him into compliance and obeisance when he was old enough to realize that daytime meant cruelty and nighttime meant freedom.

The Witching Hour she had called it.

The time just after three in the morning when the veil separating the living from the dead was at its weakest, its most permeable. It was when the spirits of the dead walked the Earth, visiting, calling out and entreating their loved ones to join them.

Erik was not superstitious. He was not.

He was a man of science.

And yet…

He knew her time was drawing near; her lungs, her precious, inflamed, oxygen-starved lungs were slowly drowning her with their vile, infectious fluid. Yet, he instinctively knew somehow that if he could get her through this hour! This Witching Hour! If she could stay with him that long, then she would live.

The God he worshipped had been Music—how could he have forgotten this? His altar Sweet Music's Throne.

Sweet Music's Throne had been destroyed…and yet…

And yet, the music still remained.

Deliberately, Erik rosined his bow and for her he began to play.

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The violin played on and Christine recognized its tune.

The Resurrection of Lazarus.

Her father stopped walking, looking surprised. On the music played, never ceasing. And still she drifted ever closer towards them, her hands outstretched.

How she wanted to be with them so!

The music changed tempo slightly, and Christine realized this was not her father's playing at all. It was another, another who added much more variation and quirky phrasing to the melodic line. It was something she never heard before, an improvisation that kept distracting her, somehow stealing her joy at being reunited with her parents.

Shaking her head to clear the fogged trance she was under, she watched her father do likewise; his expression altering from happiness at seeing her to one of profound sadness. Quickly, he glided to her mother—her mother who had never stopped walking towards her with hands outstretched, and placing a hand gently on her shoulder, he shook his head.

The music altered again, transitioning seamlessly to a familiar melody; a melody written for a little girl who had been scared of death.

A melody making light of death in the face of all that was good and light.

Her mother looked at her father in confusion, but her father shook his head. And both turned and with hands upheld in farewell, began to draw back away from their daughter who was crying out for them, reaching, reaching!

Their daughter who was slowing in her momentum towards them.

Frantically, she tried to push herself to run, to escape the phantom thrall that held her captive and apart from them.

She could not.

Her fate was not her own.

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"Come back to me." A familiar Voice whispered. "Oh, Christine. Come back to your Erik!"

Christine drew breath and coughed violently, spitting up some of the fluid that sought to drown her. She ached! She burned! Her lungs were heavy and on fire!

And then she was being hoisted on her side and firm, almost violent, hands were beating on her back, inducing her to more and more fits of the aching coughing.

She coughed for what felt like days!

And then the beating of her back began to lessen, and gentle, massaging motions began to take its place.

Exhausted, she returned to unconsciousness once more.

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