Disclaimer: I am neither Andrew Lloyd Webber nor Gaston Leroux.
Author Note: Hi! Here is another update for you all, with this chapter introducing a new character fully...and of course the consequences of Erik's spontaneous angel act.
A big smiley thank you to my reviewers; Christine Stein, TMara and Dkk5! Reviews are always loved! And now, chapter nine...
Nine- Devil Take The Hindmost
(de Chagny Townhouse, Comte's Private Terrace)
The early morning sun was already warm, low in the skies over Paris. Concealed from the public eye and hidden from the rushing and bustling traffic of horse cabs and pedestrians stood the lush gardens backing the de Chagny house, overlooked by several balconies, the largest of which belonging to the Comte.
Claude le Montier sighed irritably and kicked at the railings of the balcony, shielding his eyes from the sudden glare of the sun. He began to pace again, his unnecessary black coat sweeping out like a cape as he spun on his heel and violently changed direction. The heat of the sun was sweltering on the balcony and he hated sweating. It was a horridly unclean habit that made others think you were nervous, and Claude could not afford to look nervous now. Not when he already felt so.
Suddenly, without a word, the Comte came striding out of the double French doors and onto the balcony, taking a seat on one of two chairs. His jaw was set and his face was expressionless, save the slightly maddening twitch of one eye.
Claude spun round and felt his stomach clench worryingly. He waited.
"Is my request for you to follow her to the South really that difficult then, Monsieur?" the Comte eventually asked, his voice so icy Claude imagined the roses that were creeping up the wall freezing and withering as his words touched them. "Or perhaps you have simply forgotten how much I am paying you?"
"N-no, Monsieur Comte de Chagny." Claude replied, desperately trying to keep the stammer from his voice. There were not many who could break through his calm aura and turn him to a gibbering wreck, but if anyone could it was the malicious Comte. "I only meant to point out that in Paris it would be far easier, as I could use the crowds and the unsuspecting inhabitants to my aid. Such things would be harder outside of Paris-"
The Comte snarled, eye ablaze and irritable as he stood up in a flash and batted the chair he had sat upon aside as if it were a child's toy. He truly did resemble a grouchy old bear to Claude; stubborn, fierce, lumbering and irritable; flying off the handle into fiery tempers with no apparent cause.
"Gods teeth le Montier!" he growled, now kicking the chair for good measure before setting of on his own angered pacing around the spacious balcony. Claude took a step back, flush against the railings. "How hard can it be? She is a dumb woman, not a Professor! Just break into her room one night and shoot, don't faff about! If you actually put what little brain you have to good use, you could even get it over with whilst she remains in Paris. I don't care when, I don't care how, I just want it done well!"
Claude listened to the Comte as his rant trailed off into a series of unintelligible mumblings and grunts, feeling his heart pound a little anxiously. This arrangement was very odd; it had never been like this before. Normally it was just the task of chasing up debts for the Comte, usually using violence to get the various indebted to give them the money required. A few times the job had been to cause some trouble for rival land owners, or perhaps aiding the Comte in blackmail. But to be ordered to kill the Vicomtes wife, the Comte's own daughter in law?
The idea was unsettling. The Vicomtess always looked so little and innocent to Claude, not to mention a little lost in a world she barely knew. Christine de Chagny had a place in the heart of every Parisian for her kindness, for her past as a singer but most of all for her vulnerability. The working class saw her as their equal, thrust into a world she did not understand, and so supported her fully whilst loathing the de Chagnys for making her so weak.
Claude remembered Pierre's face as they had opened the letter. Pierre had said that this job was going to change things for them, make their lives so much easier with the rewards they were bound to reap. Claude had tried to feel the same, but couldn't.
He wanted with all his heart to march over to the sadistic Comte right now and tell him to find someone else to do his dirty work, to leave right then and go straight to the police and warn the poor girl of the horror that was about to befall. But the Comte held all Claude cared about in his tight grip; his farm, his rent, his wages. The entire le Montier family lived on de Chagny land, and to disobey the Comte would be signing their death warrant.
Swallowing back the words he so wished to give, Claude forced himself to look up from his booted feet and at the Comte.
"If you think such an action is wise, Comte." He watched the face of his cold-hearted employer, showing no emotion as usual. "And...might I just..."
"Spit it out, le Montier." The Comte snapped, like a disparaging school teacher.
"I just wanted to ensure that- that Pierre and I will not be apprehended and punished for this."
The old Comte was silent for a little moment, the sunlight glinting off of his silvery grey hair and making his papery skin look shiny and translucent. Then his sour mouth fell into a smile as he actually laughed, patting Claude's arm as if they were old school friends reunited. His blasé attitude was sickening.
"The only consequence for you and your brother will be the payment we discussed." He smiled, the hidden evil showing through in his cruel eyes, which glinted with malice. "Now. You must go at once, that same way in which you arrived. I have a meeting to attend in an hour or so and it would not do you any favours to be seen here."
"Good day, Monsieur." Claude nodded respectfully, the sweet relief of being able to at last leave the presence of this disgustingly heartless man only just hidden from his voice. He received no courteous reply from the Comte, who simply ignored him and strode back inside. The French doors slammed shut and the sound closed the meeting with undisputable finality.
As Claude climbed down from the balcony with practised ease he could only think that the Comte had disregarded a very major consequence of such dark matters. The consequence no one could evade; guilt. Claude hoped, with a bitterness that scared him, that the old Comte would suffer from guilt just as badly as he knew that he would after killing such an innocent woman.
At the Giry Residence...
As the rather melodious sound of rapid chatter rose in a swift crescendo, Antoinette couldn't fight back the smile that twitched onto her lips. She leaned back ever so slightly against the doorframe, feeling the bumps and irregularities of the wood dig into her straight back, and she watched the delightful scene unfold.
She wasn't quite sure of why her kitchen had been unceremoniously transformed into a conference room, with her kitchen table suffering many pounds from impassioned fists as the speaker made their point. She looked at them; Erik, Nadir and her daughter, discussing avidly and scribbling at a mile a minute on countless sheets of paper and she saw instead a group of children, perhaps arguing as to whom was the best at something, or playing a game. She knew though, that despite her whimsical ideas, the subject of this meeting was not light-hearted or indeed fun.
"I already explained a thousand times; there was nothing to discover regarding this mystery man." Nadir moaned, pinching the bridge of his nose in an extremely vexed manner. "I tried to find such a man, but after what I can only describe as hours of strenuous searching I found nothing. But even if I did see him, it's not as if I would have known it was him. So no; I did not see him."
"You're sure?" Erik probed yet again, causing Nadir to groan dramatically and slam his head down against the table. "Completely sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" Nadir whined, making Meg giggle. "Can we please move on before I lose my sanity?!"
Erik pulled a face and muttered under his breath, making Nadir shoot him a glare, but Meg simply reached for a new piece of paper and adjusted her posture, the look of determination still firmly set on her angelic face. Erik was amazed that her will to live was still intact after the last half hour.
"Well, let's truly move on then." She suggested, making Nadir cheer sarcastically. She threw a scrunched up piece of paper at him with a sweet smile, and continued. "Your turn to be questioned to the point of insanity, Erik; what did you see at the de Chagny ball last night?"
Erik's fading will power froze, shattered and was replaced by a sickening dread that built up in his stomach in a fairly nauseating fashion. He tried to take shallow breaths; his mind was reeling as he fought to decide what he should and should not tell them. In truth, he had been so occupied with watching Christine at the dratted ball he had seen little else. The meeting between himself and Christine had been intimate and probably against Nadir's unspoken rules, which he liked to pretend didn't really exist.
But he was the one who had demanded they help him in this search for the stranger and it was he who had already told both Meg and Nadir that if they did not tell him something he would personally destroy all the furniture in the house. It would not be fair to conceal something so drastic from them both.
With a feeling that he might be sick all over their notes, which were spread out on the vast expanse of wooden table, he decided to say it all.
"I searched a little, but the very nature of the ball made it hard to determine what was real and what was costume. You've seen these masquerade balls, when people go to ridiculous lengths to dress up like buffoons- never mind." He stopped and licked his lips, well aware of the fact that his breathing was ragged and that he sounded panicked. "I was distracted then by- I came across Christine sobbing. The truth of the matter is that I went to- to comfort her and we talked for a short while. That is everything."
Meg was beaming before the words were even forced out of his mouth, her bright blue eyes dancing with triumph but Nadir looked deeply concerned, his brow furrowed and his eyes clouded with concern and disapproval. Erik immediately felt the impulse to leap up and slap the Persian for being such an old woman, but he calmed himself as it struck him that poor old Nadir only wanted the best for him, like some demented father figure.
"And did your talk dredge up anything vaguely significant?" Nadir asked flatly, his eyes staring resolutely at the table. Erik, despite his determination to remain calm, felt his fists clench involuntarily. If Nadir wanted to behave like child, then Erik would let him get on with it.
Meg, however, had other ideas. She squealed like a happy little piglet, leaning forward with exaggerated excitement and begging Erik for details regarding the conversation. She thought up the oddest of questions that Erik did not even know how to answer, becoming rather flustered, until Antoinette tactfully cut in and dragged Meg out shopping. Erik turned to Nadir as the sounds of Megs whining and Antoinette's stern replies faded out, expecting to see humour in his friends eyes, but he was still staring at the table.
"Well, I suppose that we had better-"
But Erik never got a chance to finish that harmless little sentence, as in the next moment Nadir stood up and brought his clenched fist down on the table with a colossal crash that reverberated around the room. It took a second or so for Erik to actually comprehend that it was Nadir, the infamously calm Nadir, who had just caused that ear-splitting crash. His eyes darted first to the table, expecting a huge hole from where Nadirs fist had smashed into it, and then to the face of his friend.
Nadir looked like he might explode.
"Why are you so- so stupid, Erik?!" he demanded, anger and yet also hurt filling his glinting eyes. "You cannot leave Christine alone, can you? You're incapable! How many times have you gone to her now?! And it's no use telling me that last night was your first meeting with her, I can see it in your eyes, Erik! Why didn't you TELL me?"
Erik instantly flared up at the fiery accusations, standing up with such force that his chair fell backwards. He was trembling, wound tight like a spring, and his face slowly began to turn a deep and dangerous red. The half concealed by a mask stood out against the mass of seething red; a look that would have been comical if it were not for the look of insanity in his wild eyes.
"This is NONE of your concern!" he hissed, an angry snake provoked and ready to strike. "What does it even matter, Khan? It is not as if you know what will help me, what will help to end this maddening feeling that can only be insanity-"
"YOU ARE NOT HELPING YOURSELF!" Nadir bellowed; his own face a red that could easily challenge Erik's. "Can you not see, Erik? If you just left her alone you would not even be thinking about her! She is perfectly safe, perfectly happy, completely recovered from the hell you dragged her through so you must leave her alone and get on with your life!"
"But she is NOT safe!" Erik yelled back, forgetting all his past intentions to keep a lid on his temper and to attempt to hide his midnight visit to Christine from Nadir. It was no use now; the Persian was fully aware of how weak he was. "She is potentially at risk from this unknown man we seek and then there is the matter of her evil, monstrous, vile husband! How can I not care, Nadir, when she is suffering every waking moment?!"
"Whether Christine de Chagny is beaten by her husband or not is none of your concern." Nadir snapped, his lips pursed as if he had just tasted the sour juice of a lemon.
"Wait- WHAT?" Erik froze, Nadir's words registering in his brain with sickening clarity. He felt- oh he could not even begin to describe the anger he felt! "How did you know that she- DEAR GOD KHAN I AM GOING TO THROTTLE YOU!"
As Nadirs face bloomed with panic Erik lunged for him, a crazed animal driven wild by what he had just realised. Nadirs secret, the secret that had made him jumpy and nervous the other day- he had known that Christine was being beaten and yet hadn't even told him!
"How could you not tell me, HOW COULD YOU?!" he bellowed, remembering the anguish that had filled his body when he had gazed in upon her and seen the foul bruise emblazoned on her creamy skin. He recalled the gagging, the choking, the feeling that he was about to hunt down Raoul de Chagny and beat him to death...it could have all been avoided. "How could you not have told me; ME?!"
"For fear of this reaction!" Nadir yelled, diving out of the way of Erik's lethal grip and running round to the opposite side of the table, shielding himself with a chair. He felt a little bubble of fear burst inside him, but the adrenaline was coursing through his veins at such a high rate he was not hindered by it. "I was scared you would kill Raoul!"
"I WILL!" Erik cried, anguish in every pained syllable as he stopped dead in his tracks, his mission to throttle Nadir collapsing alongside his anger. His face was that of a distraught child. "How could he have done that, Nadir? I gave her up to him, I gave up my Christine and let him have her and now he makes her his punch bag? To raise a hand to an innocent woman-! Khan, he seems more evil- more evil than me!"
Nadir gasped as Erik suddenly collapsed to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been dropped. He leapt forward, thrown into a blinding panic that his friend was having a heart attack or some other destructive collapse. But Erik moved; curling himself into a little ball and pressing his face into his knees. He wasn't crying, Nadir knew this because Erik's shoulders were still, but when he did lift his face it was contorted with horrible pain that Nadir instantly knew was ripping him apart.
"Erik-" he uttered the word softly, already regretting his own anger and he knelt down beside his friend. But as he reached out to touch Erik's shoulder, he held up one hand as if to stop him.
"No, Nadir." Came the quiet and surprisingly calm reply. It was a polar opposite of how Erik looked, all curled up and at his wits end. Nadir sat down heavily, facing him. "Look at all I've caused. It is...it is horrendous, isn't it? I scared her, I forced her with my evil to hastily marry in order to escape me, I've damned her to a marriage she cannot ever escape- but you know the cruel thing, Khan? She looked me in the eyes, and she forgave me. She forgave every last act of evil by simply bearing my presence, she knows I am a changed man- and yet she still suffers."
"You cannot-" Nadir began to argue, but still Erik refused to let him cut into his speech, imploring him with his eyes to remain quiet. Nadir was shocked when he looked into Erik's eyes then. For in those eyes he saw complete sanity; he saw the eyes of a perfectly normal and decent human being. It made him lapse into silence.
"But that is not even the worst part of this whole mess. The worst part, Nadir, is that she still prefers her fop to me; she still sees him as a good man compared to me. She looked and me and in her eyes saw a poor lost soul that she should pity and- and tolerate." A few stricken tears did roll down his cheeks then, his eyes closing in order to stop the flow. "I love her, Nadir. I love Christine more than I ever imagined loving anyone- I love her more than life. God, it kills me to think her name, let alone to say it aloud...I have destroyed the very person I would gladly die for! No-one can ever understand- you will never know how horrifying this feels!"
Erik began to rock himself to and fro, his face buried back into his knees. He looked like a small child then more than ever, crying and lost without anyone to comfort him.
"I should have known. I should have kept watch, stopped him from beating her-" he began to whisper over and over in an agonised mantra. To watch such a scene unfold felt like someone had just jabbed a red hot poker straight into Nadir's still beating heart and so he decided enough was enough.
He shifted a little closer to his friend, sliding along Antoinette's kitchen floor on his knees, at last reaching his crumpled friend and grasping his cold hand to console him. Erik did not even acknowledge Nadir's presence beside him, continuing his mumblings relentlessly.
"Erik." Nadir whispered softly, unsure as to whether his friend would hear the soft words over his own maddened chanting. "This is hard for me to say, as it goes against every instinct inside me, but perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps for you the only closure you will ever receive is to help Christine de Chagny. If- if this is the case, and you wish to attempt such a task...I am with you all the way."
Erik stopped and his words came to a juddering halt. His breathing was heavy and laboured and the exposed half of his face was bone white. Nadir could not fail to notice how Erik was clenching his fists so tightly that he had obviously cut himself with his own nails; there was blood. He opened his tired eyes and stared straight at Nadir, looking both amazed and doubtful at once.
"Could you...could you perhaps repeat yourself?" he asked softly and Nadir would have rolled his eyes normally.
"I said, Erik, that if you really think that the only way you can live a normal life is to help Christine de Chagny first, I will help you." Nadir repeated, managing to keep the irritation out of his tone.
"I thought you said it, but I could not be sure." He said, dazed. "You would really do such a thing? You would help me undo these tormented years and all the pain I caused my poor Christine?"
Nadir did roll his eyes this time, sighing as he nodded.
"You are such a glutton for punishment." Nadir added in a murmur, trying not to smile at the inexplicable level of happiness that was now plastered over Erik's drawn face. "In the end, whilst I do not like others to suffer needlessly, I only truly care about you and your well-being. If you really do love the wretched girl as you say you do, and if you really think that to help her in whatever strange way you have probably already devised will be of benefit to you, I will do nothing except aid you."
Nadir shifted a little awkwardly on the kitchen floor, wriggling uncomfortably as he steeled himself to say the next words.
"I am sorry that I shouted, too...I suppose I was a little surprised to not know everything for once." He offered sheepishly, feeling much better when Erik laughed at him.
Erik, too, was feeling amazingly happy for once. His laugh echoed around the room, unable to be contained. It was a rare moment when he found himself so full of happiness he had to laugh to somehow let it out, but today was one of those sweet, blissful times. After all the feelings of terrible helplessness and suffering, to go to such a promise from Nadir to be able to put right all the wrongs he had done to Christine- the feeling was marvellous.
Erik knew, deep inside his stubborn heart, that his love for Christine would always be unrequited. Yet right now he did not dwell on the pain of such a thing; all he could feel was the joy of the prospect that he could possibly be her true friend. He wanted with all his heart to be all his Angel of Music 'title' had required; to care for her, to talk to her, to be there for her and to become a real friend she could trust entirely. He could hardly want for more.
"Erik." Nadir cautioned as Erik's laughter rose to a whole new level, bordering on hysterical. "We had better talk this through...this is still a delicate matter, and to go storming ahead without a second thought would most likely be detrimental to your heart."
"I am open to discussion." Erik managed to say calmly, his laughter fading as he tried to adopt a professional approach, and Nadir swatted him about the head with a grin.
"I think that first on the agenda must be to involve Christine. No offense meant to you, Erik, but if she was only being polite and is truthfully scared to death about ever seeing you again then the idea of your helping her is out of the question." Nadir began, his eyes a little wary as he suddenly thought of something. "Meg and Antoinette should also be included, as they care for Christine and will be glad to help her. They may prove useful for the...er...female things you do not understand."
Erik nodded eagerly, pleased that Nadir was taking it all so seriously. He seemed to actually want to help him to put his wrongs right, and his enthusiasm to find the mysterious man had not wavered once.
"Only...Erik?" Nadir looked very concerned.
"Yes?" Erik quickly replied, not wanting to let any shadow of doubt remain in Nadirs mind, as it might make him reconsider this whole idea.
"Just...just promise me that you will not murder Raoul de Chagny?" Nadir sounded unsure.
All Erik could do was throw back his head and laugh.