Disclaimer: The characters of this story are based on Andrew Lloyd Webber' s Phantom of the Opera show and the new movie. The setting is one week after Christine and Raoul has escaped to... wherever...and the mob has thoroughly trashed the Phantom's lair...

Your Chains are still Mine

Carlotta looked at the ring. Then she inspected her ten fingers--- none of her own rings were missing (although one of her diamonds seemed to have gotten dented from rebounding off the Ghost's skull). The logical deduction was, therefore, that the ring belonged to the Phantom.

The broken silver chain was another giveaway: Carlotta herself never wore anything on a chain if it fitted on her fingers nor anything on her fingers if it fitted on her ears. When it came to good taste, Carlotta believed it was other people's duty to tell her she had it.

She scanned the lake again, and made up her mind--- if the Phantom was taking a breather, it's only fair that she should have one, as well.

"Monsieur Ghost?" She said, with the tone of a general who has decided to make a strategic advance to the rear, but with dignity of course. "Just to let you know, I'm not going to wait here catching my death while you hide and sulk, non! If you want to continue where we left off, you shall have to come find me after my bath..." She did some rapid mental organization. "Or better still, does tomorrow noon work for you?"

Her offer was met with an apathetic silence. Carlotta fumed inwardly--- It's the first time she made way in her schedule for someone else. She had expected a more enthusiastic response.

"I take that as a yes," She muttered, half to herself. "And it had better be--- or I'm going to pawn your little trinket tomorrow night, you hear?"

Erik dragged himself onto the island that had been his home. He was secretly grateful for the darkness, as he did not have to witness the carnage strewed before him--- for example, the shattered remains of his organ, the only faithful friend he had that did everything he wanted it to do…

Pity could wait, however, as currently he felt somewhat worse off than it himself. "Once I get these damned stars cleared out of my head..." He muttered darkly. "... She will have Hell to pay... "

He clutched his head with a groan: it felt as if someone had crashed a busload of butterflies inside it. Bandaging his leg as best as he could, he cursed himself for his momentary weakness: after all, he had done more strenuous things in worse shape than this. Christine must have made him soft. Either that, or he suspected it was that horrible singing...

The thought of Christine brought another wave of dizziness through his brain. Why blame her for this? He thought. She has made the right choice. There is nothing she want from me, least of all the ring...

He started, suddenlyaware ofthe absence of the silver chain's pressure on his neck.

Panic whipped up another galaxy's worth of stars before his eyes--- had it gotten lost in the lake? As much as he loathed the ring, it also held the memory of the greatest and only triumph in his life: she had put it on--- if only for a little while, hadn't she? For a brief moment, the elation had carried him so high that he almost felt like an angel soaring among the clouds...

... even though the next second had cast him down into the deepest pit of Hell.

Nevertheless, the ring was a taste of paradise itself to him. If it had ended up on the bottom of the lake, then that was where Erik would be going, too.

He stood up shakily, dimly aware of Carlotta making a din about meeting him some time or other. Then something caught his ear:

"... I'm going to pawn your little trinket tomorrow night, you hear?"

He was assaulted by another dizzy spell. Can it be... The very thought shook him to the core. That SHE has gotten my ring... Christine's ring? His mind inadvertently flashed back to the time when this evil woman had stolen Christine's role in Il Muto--- and, as if that wasn't enough, this time she had stolen her ring! His mind, as he would later admit, wasn't at its most stable self (as anyone's mind wouldn't be if s/he had just been knifed, drowned and clubbed to near-death), and somehow he reached the following conclusion by joining the dots:

Carlotta was the one who got into the way of his plans concerning Christine.

This time, she had stolen Christine's ring, which had the same meaning to him as Christine herself.

Conclusion: It must have been Carlotta's doing that he couldn't have Christine with him. Therefore, if he could defeat Carlotta, Christine would by default return to him.

It wasn't the soundest reasoning in the world, but the more he thought about it, the more his blood boiled. "Carlotta..." His voice started as a growl and strengthened into an almost feral cry. "Come back here this instant!"

However,the sopranowas already beyond earshot range. Even if she had heard it, she would have automatically ignored it anyway after generations of opera managers had yelled the same thing after her. Some of them might point out helpfully that grovelling worked better. But the Phantom was too heated to think about that right now. He immediately plunged back into the lake and pulled himself through it with powerful, determined strokes…

The only person in Carlotta's dressing room was Mme. Giry, who was on her knees picking up dressmaking pins from the floor when a boot, dripping wet, strode into her visual horizon. Her gaze traveled up--- and her eyes bulged out in shock. If her mouth wasn't full of pins, she looked as if she would have screamed...Nevertheless, her face turned a crimson shade with the effort of not swallowing the pins. The Phantom suddenly remembered that he hadn't bothered to wear a mask. He was basically still in what he was wearing when Christine left him.

"Sorry," he turned his face aside. "You can look now."

"Mmff!" Mme. Giry spat out the pins. "You know what?" She breathed. "You really ought to show those pectoral muscles more!"

"What?" The realization slowly came over Erik. "You mean... it wasn't my face?" He ventured, his voice trembling.

"What?" Said Mme. Giry vaguely, still absorbed in the objects of her interest. "Ooh my word!" She sucked in her breath sharply. "Tight trousers are soooo you!"

"Enough," Snapped Erik, fed up with Mme. Giry's hungry gaze. "Where is she?"

"Christine? I heard rumors that she has left the city with---"

"I know, I know." He said irritably. "I mean Carlotta. Where is she?"

Mme. Giry ventured a glance at the good side of Erik's face, and shook her head mentally. Mon Dieu! She thought. That was some mental blow he took back then... he must have become some kind of sexual masochist...

"It's not what you think!" Hissed Erik. "Not even I am that desperate… it's just that she has something that belongs to me..." He noticed an object sticking out of the ballet mistress's pocket. "... And so do you, I reckon." He added.

"Oh, sorry." Said the woman unabashedly, handing the white mask back to its owner. "Meg found this in the cellars--- said something about selling it in an auction or whatnot."

Erik suppressed a shudder. Clearly, that child was wasted in the chorus--- she should have gone to business school. He looked at the mask. He hadn't expected to wear it again--- The Phantom was supposed to be dead... but then again, he didn't like the idea of people auctioning his stuff off, dead or not.

"About Carlotta---" He began.

"La Carlotta? She just stormed out." Mme. Giry said matter-of-factly. "And so did the seamstress, 'cause Carlotta had a fit about the new red dress making her look inflated and threw it into a bathtub full of water. It's one month of work ruined, I tell you, ruined! The seamstress was in hysterics here half an hour ago--- threw all her pins into the air, she did! That's why I'm here picking them up..."

"Well, it'll be hard to imagine anything making our prima donna more inflated than she is already." Muttered the Phantom dryly. Actually, his memory pointed out. I have seen that dress--- she was wearing it when we... that must have been why she threw it into the bathtub, to make sure no one knows what happened...

Some part of his mind began to wonder if there was more to Carlotta's fits than what met the eye. The rest of his mind was already pondering on the dreadful things he would do to that insufferable woman should she really have the gall to pawn Christine's ring, the only thing of hers that still belonged to him...

"... anyway, I'm fed up with that horrible bitch... just walked off and left the rest of the cast standing there! Said she's got to have a 'spa' or something, whatever that is." Said Mme. Giry, finishing her rant.

"When will she be back?" Said Erik, with growing annoyance.

"We've no idea." She shrugged. "Is there any chance you can bump her off and do us a good turn?" She turned a beseeching eye towards the Phantom--- who was no longer there, although she could hear indistinct cursing fading into the distance behind the mirror.

She gave a last hopeful yell. "And no chance of terrorizing the managers to raise our wages 100 francs, I suppose?"

La Carlotta returned to the dressing room late that evening after her shop n' spa excursion. She wasn't surprised to find on the table a white envelop with a skull-shaped sealing wax, addressed to her. It read:

Madam,

You are not to venture beyond my Opera House again. Should you do, let me remind you that there are many worse ways to die in my cellars, and also that I am far more proficient at prolonging suffering than I am at killing.

I shall also express my intolerance of theft on my premises. Should you not return my ring to me by placing it on the dressing table by tomorrow noon, be prepared for a great misfortune at your performance in tomorrow night's "La Traviata". Do not try my patience.

Lastly, your days at the Opera Populaire are numbered. I wish you luck (which I am sure you will need) in finding a new job. If I do not hear of your resignation by next week, I shall remove you personally--- from life, if necessary.

O.G..

The prima donna snorted as she read thefinal paragraph. The last time she was told "Your days at the Opera Populaire are numbered" was a year ago. That warning's credibility had rubbed off somewhat between then and now. He might as well have said "Your years at the Opera Populaire are numbered". It just wouldn't sound as impressive, she supposed.

La Carlotta did not like to try people's patience. She rather preferred throwing it into a bonfire and blowing it up. "A great misfortune?" She laughed mirthlessly, casting a glance towards a large wooden box she had just picked up from a very special store. "By all means let it happen…"

She picked up the score of "La Traviata". Gods, that's going to be a night to remember... and for someone, posthumously...

To be Continued…