AN - I know it's been awhile. Life's been... well... life. My baby keeps me busy, plus we sold our house and moved... and then we moved again. And now we're in a brand new state and looking for a job and, well, this story just sort of fell by the wayside with all my other hobbies. Anyway, I know this chapter is kind of short, but it's just the way they broke up.
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Erik
Any other day… any other hour… I simply would have killed them and considered another nuisance dispatched. Like exterminating house pests, only…
Actually, no. It was exactly like that. Back then I made no distinction between mice and trespassers. Insignificant differences, at any rate. Absence of tails and whatnot.
But at that moment…
At that moment, I wanted to play. I was hurt and burning and I wanted the world to feel the same way I was. Starting with Christine's rescue party.
For surely, that is what it was. What else could it have been? I am not certain how my angel got message to her shining knight - if I had not been so arrogant, I might have searched the house more thoroughly before spiriting Christine away - but I had no doubt that it was he.
And, with all probability, he had probably brought along whichever of the Khan grandsons was currently acting as my governess. Self-sacrificing idiocy like that cannot possibly be a natural trait (logic dictates the gene would die out eventually); they probably beat it into them in the cradle.
Point being, there is usually a Khan buzzing around whenever I am doing something I am not supposed to be doing. And I suspect that breaking out of an asylum and kidnapping a pretty summer-hire in the process falls within the realm of things I am not supposed to be doing.
Surely enough, my security cameras detected two intruders bumbling around my catacombs. One of them was busy feeling up every inch of the wall beside the stairs (likely Khan, searching for trapdoors) while the other - Chagny - trailed behind, looking rather foolish with his hand up at the level of his eyes.
Honestly, I do not know why Nadir insists upon that. It may protect one from the Punjab lasso, but not from the thousand other ways I can kill a person. Hell, I could make a man kill himself with my voice alone! Just because I like using my lasso, does not mean I need to. He knows this, yet he still offers the advice. I suspect he is just being a spoilsport.
Trivialities. Anyway, secure in the knowledge that Christine was safely locked up inside my house, I took an evening stroll. Give my guests time to entangle themselves a little more thoroughly while I let my head clear enough for me to enjoy whatever it was I would decide to do to them.
Should I destroy them myself? Feel their bones snap under the pressure of my Punjab lasso? You can feel it, you know. Like little 'pops' vibrating up your arm. Tickles, really, unless you remember that they are emanating from someone hapless soul's delicate spinal column. Then it is a little sickening.
Or perhaps I could sing a pretty little song and drive them mad with hallucinations… convince them to fight to the death for my amusement. Then let the winner tear himself to tatters with his own teeth and nails until there is nothing recognizable left of either man.
I had been working on some experiments, long before my imprisonment, trying to overcome the amount of punishment a body could withstand before it succumbed. One can only withstand so much pain before the brain slips into unconsciousness. I had been working on ways to deactivate that trigger, so to speak, and allow the subject an more… unabridged torture experience.
I no longer had any real desire to continue my serious study on the subject, but I could be convinced to reopen my research… just this once.
Part of me ached at the idea of torturing Nadir. Silly, sentimental thoughts, I know. It was the one emotion that worked through the foggy wall of hurt that Christine had left behind - that bone deep feeling that I would mourn his death just as I had with each of his ancestors.
Perhaps I can spare him. Convince him to leave me the boy and return to the surface.
Yet, even as I thought it, I knew it would not be possible. Nadir would never walk away and leave me and my victims in peace. And, right now, that was what mattered. Nadir would ruin everything. He would not allow me to torture the Chagny boy, for one, but he would also try to take Christine away from me… and for that reason he could not be allowed to live.
I shook the maudlin thoughts out of my head. Khan made his choice. And he was hardly naïve to the consequences.
But… perhaps Death might be kinder to him…
Yes, there was a possibility. I knew it even as I could feel their approach. I could make it easy for him. Quick, painless.
I reached out with my mind and pictured Nadir. His body was not so different than the electrical system I disabled at the hospital - just a network of lines and connections. Touch here, interrupt this, pluck that, and I could cause an aneurism that would kill him instantly. So simple.
I went deeper. There. I found it. A weakness in his heart. Not blatantly noticeable, but it would surely kill him eventually. Not for awhile yet, but ten, twenty years before his time.
I could speed up nature. Quicken the inevitable and stop his heart now. It could never even be linked back to me.
But no. I sighed. Nadir would hate that. Ten generations of Khan's were probably rolling in their graves at the mere thought.
Well. The ones that had enough remains for me to bury, that is.
Fine, fine. Erik will just have to play fair.
I suddenly had such an exquisitely exciting idea that I had to stop myself from bouncing up and down like a child. Oh yes, this would be lovely. And plenty fair. It left their limbs unbound, their minds free, and they would not even have to face Erik head-on.
The would die - of course, everyone always did - but it would be entertaining to watch. The length of time and final cause of death was always anyone's guess, too, which I personally always thought added just a touch of whimsy to the game.
I found myself humming - relieved and slightly manic - as I started to flip the switches and levers that would alter the cellar paths and maneuver Khan and Chagny into my torture chamber.
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My Chamber is a curious room. A simple hall of mirrors, if you will. No devices at all, really, save for a hangman's noose, which I leave as a courtesy.
Oh… and a little light that grows very hot, indeed, when reflected by all those mirrors.
Erik loves illusions, you see. It is but a tiny room, but Erik can make it seem as vast and as hot as the Sahara.
But… not yet.
I heard a click as the trap door latched shut.
Almost…
Chagny's voice. "Where are we? I can't see a thing? I thought you said you knew where we were going?"
Not yet…
"Quiet! He'll hear us! I… he must have changed the path. He must know we're here."
Right in one, Khan. Now just…
"All the more reason to figure out where we are. Will you at least turn on that flashlight you brought?"
A click. A pause. Realization.
Wait for it…
"N-no. No… it can't be."
"What?"
A horror-filled voice. "I know where we are."
Now.
I flicked the switch and on popped the light.
