Chapter Ten: What He Would Never Do

She knew it was no use calling after him. Where he had gone, there was no following— if there was returning, she would be grateful for small mercies...

Erik's tale was long in the telling. He began at the beginning.

"You may have heard," he said hesitantly, breath barely pushing out over the enclosure of his lips, voice soft and whispery, "the sad, sad tale of the Phantom of the Opera."

"Yes. It's a musical, isn't it?"

A faint smile crossed his face. "It is, these days, I hear tell. But first, it was a book. And I was the— well, I am not sure if I could be called a protagonist. But I was the title character— the Phantom of the Opera."

Sarah was very quiet for a bit. Then she said, "I've been meaning to read that book for years."

"Yes, well. Perhaps after you get home."

"Perhaps."

"Allow me to tell you the whole story."

Christine Daae was a beautiful young woman, not thirteen when she came to the Opera Populaire. Erik was a darkness to her light, a cold and bent figure of a ruined man, who transformed in her presence to a gentleman— cold still, a creature of shadow, but impossibly beautiful in a way she did not understand. He did not understand it himself— it was not love at first, not for a long time. But he wanted her as he had wanted no one— wanted to possess her, own her, know her every thought and feeling, control her.

She couldn't give him that.

Much as she gave him, she could not pass over ownership of her body and soul.

He kept her for himself, jealously guarding her from the advances of a string of young men. She listened to him, as he clearly, she thought to herself, only had her best interests at heart— and it was flattering, indeed, that Erik should have chosen her out of all the girls at the Opera Populaire, to teach her how to sing. He watched over her like a father, like a guardian angel; that was all she knew.

There was a lot more to the story, which Erik did not bring up. He avoided referencing the instances where Christine seemed to have chosen another man over him, where she left him down there in the Lair, left him to die as he saw fit. He skipped instead to a most extraordinary occurrence some months after, when Christine came back to him.

He was quite sure it was a dream, when she first came.

There was a peculiar, fuzzy quality to the light, as though he were viewing it through pale water. He drew in deep breaths to reassure himself that it was air, indeed, that he breathed— to try and bring himself back to reality, whatever reality was.

Reality appeared to be the presence of Christine, wrapped in a shawl, a nightgown underneath that— it was late, he had been sleeping. She should not have been awake, and certainly not been underneath the Opera Populaire in the singular presence of an Opera Ghost.

She was to be married the next day.

And she was frightened.

He held her as she murmured into the warmth of his rough shirt.

"You always comforted me before, when I had need of you. Well, I have need of you now—"

"I am here, Christine."

Her eyes were faraway, and it was all he could do not to kiss the lids as they drooped sleepily.

"Are you?" she said quietly. "Are you really here, Erik— are either of us here— and if so—"

Her eyes slid open and she looked directly up at him.

Ever before she had looked at him with at least some fear; there was no being sure, with a personality as volatile and mercurial as Erik's. But now as their eyes met the fear was gone, overridden, and replaced with the greatest emotion Christine felt in her whole life.

Curiosity.

She was to be married the next day, but she wanted to know what it felt like now.

She kissed him first, and he could not help but respond. Erik had a very strong, if somewhat warped, sense of right and wrong— the devilish voice inside him danced a wild, euphoric jig, screaming to his mind that this was right, this was how it should be, because Christine belonged to him.

Erik was innocent, but by no means pure.

Naive, but by no means unworldly.

He drew Christine hard against him, his fingers digging into her back, leaving bruises. This she bore with no complaint. It was as several minutes went by, and her hair came down, and her heart raced, and her fear returned, that she freed her mouth and gasped breathlessly, "I can't! I can't!"

Erik went utterly, utterly still.

In a quiet voice, he cursed her name.

Christine sobbed, turned, and ran.

There was something magic in the air that night, something shifting and shivery and unsettling. Something that defied logic and explanation, poked fun at reasons-for-being. Something that resulted in downfall for both Erik and Christine.

Jareth the Goblin King had an unerring sense of the spectacular, and spectacular was what it was when Christine disappeared in front of Erik's eyes.

He didn't think, or pause, or breathe, just ran.

Two seconds later he, too, was in the Labyrinth. More specifically, he was in the castle beyond the Goblin City, in an empty room.

His knees bent in an alert crouch, he whirled about, searching for Christine— searching for anyone, really, as the unfamiliar surroundings unsettled him deeply. He could see no one, and yet suddenly a voice spoke.

"You are welcome, Monsieur Opera Ghost."

He stared wildly around him.

"Where are you?"

Slow laughter echoed.

"You are welcome, I say. I have been without entertainment for a while."

"Where is Christine!" cried Erik, for that is what he needed to know.

"Christine? Your Christine? Why, Erik, do you not know that you came two seconds after her? Fifty years have passed. I am afraid she died some months ago."

Erik lost his breath, his heart stuttered and he fell to his knees. Suddenly there appeared a man in front of him, holding out a black-gloved hand. Erik drew in a few deep, slow breaths, and took it.

The man helped him up. Standing, they were near the same height, the man just an inch or so taller. His eyes were cold, his mouth was cruel.

Jareth and the Phantom of the Opera stood and took each other in.

Erik spoke first.

"Tell me she is not dead."

Jareth had ceased to be amused with this line of attack, and merely shrugged.

"Alright, she is not dead."

"Thank you," breathed Erik, and closed his eyes as he felt his heart begin to come back into its own steady rhythm. "Where is she?"

"I have her," said Jareth. "Don't worry."

This was all it took for Erik to lunge at him, the punjab lasso, his usual weapon, held at the ready. He had actually gotten it around Jareth's neck when he felt something pressing on him, closing around his own neck, choking him.

He stared at Jareth.

Jareth stared back.

"I would advise you," said Jareth, face white with control as he forced his voice past constricted vocal cords, "to let me go before you kill yourself."

Erik tightened the punjab, and felt the pressure on his own neck tighten in tandem. He let go immediately.

"Very wise choice," said Jareth, removing the lasso from around his neck and handing it back to him. Though he showed no ill effects from having nearly been choked to death, there was nevertheless a red ring around his neck. He turned away from Erik and stalked forward a few paces, then turned back, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He stared at Erik curiously.

"I believe you could help me with something," he said.

"I will not," said Erik.

"It is not much. Merely entrapping a troublesome girl. It would mean nothing to you, who have killed and maimed— for pleasure. It would be enjoyable to one such as you."

Erik shook his head and drew breath raggedly.

"I do not do that any more," he said, his yellow eyes fixed on the ground.

Jareth tilted his head to one side.

"Don't you?" he said softly.

Jareth, with his uncanny instinct for what made people uncomfortable, enclosed him, not in a small, dark cell, but in a wide open room, full of bright lights, under which Erik whimpered and sobbed. Stripped naked of everything, he had only his voice, and for days all he said, all he repeated, endlessly, was—

"I won't! I won't!"

Sometimes he explained it, to reassure himself; or was he reassuring the blank white walls around him? He did not know.

"Its not that I can't— its that I won't— I would never do it— I refuse to be used in such a manner, refuse to be used, refuse— it will not happen, I cannot let it happen, I won't I can't I mustn't it mustn't."

Near the end, driven absolutely insane, he saw visions. They came to him and comforted him, and then some began to slap him and call him a fool. The latest of these turned out to be Jareth.

"In your madness, you try and fight with me!" he roared, true anger visible in his stone eyes.

Erik shook himself and realized he was on the ground, clothed once more. His left cheek was laid open, oozing blood down his face. He stood up, shakily, and confronted his tormentor. His only comfort was that Jareth as well had been wounded in this fight, this fight that Erik had not been aware that he was fighting— a gash had been opened on his shoulder, and blood was staining the pristine whiteness of his shirt.

He was breathing heavily.

"Very well done," he said. "Your noble spirit has been impressed on us all, you lunatic. Now I offer you something."

"A deal?" said Erik, quietly. "A truce?"

Jareth's cold eyes gleamed like steel. "A bribe," he said.

Erik stood still and listened as he spoke.

"You will mislead this girl. You will turn her upside down, do everything possible to keep her from getting to my castle. That is your task. Should you be successful, Christine will be returned to you and you will be free to go."

As he listened, Erik felt something rush into him— it took him a bit, but he eventually identified it as sanity; a cold, hard, absolute clarity of mind, such as he had never known. He did not know what had happened to the madness that had built up in his mind over his lifetime— he only knew that it was gone, every trace of it, and he felt like someone else entirely.

He looked up at Jareth and made his first rational decision.

"Agreed," he said.