Disclaimer: Now when was the last time you saw necromancers running around Paris? I don't own it okay.
A/N: A huge thanks to all my reviewers. You guys are awesome, and make me just really happy. You all get cake.
Christine awoke from an uneasy few hours of sleep. True to his word, Erik was almost completely ignoring the fact that she was there. The almost coming him allowing her to see where he kept food. Other than that, Christine was mainly left to her own devices.
This usually meant batting away the dead that coming to nearly scare the life out of her. After a while she noticed a few things. While in the air, the souls looked like shadowy comets, but when on the ground, they took on a favored form that ranged from the horrific: A half mauled human torso above a bloated spider's body, to the ones that were much more human. Christine assumed the forms they used on the ground were what they really looked like.
One in particular mystified her the most, and she'd only just seen it. At first it was a shadow comet that was floating in front of her face. "You look worse than me, and I'm dead." Christine looked around wildly searching for the speaker
"Who said that?" The dead soul drifted down to the ground, where it took its ground shape: From the torso up, it was human, but below the waist there was only a whirling column of shadow. The whole shape was night black, and the torso was narrow waisted with two slight bulges around the chest that indicted the soul had been female in life. There was an outline of hair, and a slight bump where the nose would be. But, there was no mouth and two vaguely triangular chips of white fire served as eyes.
"That would be me" the soul replied.
"Who are you?" Christine inquired, sounding shocked beyond all reason
"That's an idiotic question, I'm dead. How can I be anyone?" Christine caught on
"All right then, who were you?' If the soul had a mouth, it definitely would have been smirking right then.
"That's more like it. In life I was named Alyth, and I was a thief." That comment about being a thief threw Christine off. She looked surprised about it. "You know what?" Alyth mused "You're too innocent for your own good. Somebody needs to teach you how to lie, or you'll get ripped to shreds. Metaphorically speaking. Or least it was metaphorical last time I checked." Alyth cupped a hand to her nonexistent mouth "Hikari, get your butt down here!"
Another shadow drifted down to stand next to Alyth. This one was almost exactly the same, but looked male, with broader shoulders and a flat chest. It was also slightly taller. Other than that, it was identical to Alyth in appearance. "Yes? What is it Alyth? And it had better be important, or I will terrorize you within an inch of your afterlife." Alyth turned to Christine
"Allow me to present Hikari DaMurdamos, in life my partner in crime" Alyth's tone of voice was amused and the former thief seemed completely unfazed by the threat. However, Christine was still a bit confused.
"That's an odd name. I've never heard anything like it." Erik had apparently overhead part of the conversation, because he rolled his eyes at the comment Bout Hikari's name. The action clearly implied 'If you've never heard a name like that, then you're so naïve it's wonder you're still alive.' Christine noticed the gesture, and it set her mind to "fuming" while she glared at him
'It's not fair! Just because I don't everything that he does, he practically shouts that I'm overly naïve. And it also isn't fair, that he can make rolling his look seductive.' That last thought sent her brain reeling again 'What? Where did that come from? Bad Christine! You have a fiancé and you love him. You're not supposed to think that a person who's all but holding you hostage is seductive.' 'But you do,' a treacherous part her mind said 'Why deny it? Some of the ladies at the ball probably thought it too.'
Christine shook her head vigorously in an attempt to clear it of such thoughts. Through out the few moments of Christine's inner conflict, Hikari and Alyth had been trading equally amused glances. Hikari was the first to break the silence "In answer to your Question, My name isn't very odd where I was born. In life, I was a drow. Now then, Alyth what do you want".
Christine had heard of the drow, who were also called dark elves. Unlike their fair skinned elven cousins, the drow had ebony black skin and silver hair. They lived in vast under-ground cities and rarely left, apart from the occasional merchant or ambassador. Alyth spoke next, as Erik turned back to his work. "Hikari, this poor lady is too innocent…" Christine cut Alyth off
"My name is Christine" she said. Alyth looked her a bit irritatedly, the continued
"Hikari, teach Christine how to lie properly." Hikari bowed theatrically
"It would be my pleasure." Alyth laughed.
"See? That's how you lie". The soul commented dryly. For the first time since she had arrived in Erik's lair, Christine laughed out loud. The Two souls had mysteriously worked in such a way that Christine's' optimism was beginning to be restored. Not by much, but every little bit counted. However, one question had worked its way into Christine's head, concerning Alyth and Hikari.
"How come you two still hang around with each other? You're dead, so how did you stay in contact?" Hikari and Alyth looked at each other. If non-living ghosts could look thoughtful, then that was what the expression the two souls would have been wearing.
"It's a bit complicated." Alyth began "See, in the realms of the dead, only people who died around the same time or at the same location have any contact at all". Hikari finished the statement
"Suffice to say that we died in the same place, at the same time." Christine nodded in understanding. But, the answer raised another question.
"How?" Alyth and Hikari took it turns to explain that the day after their greatest theft ever; they returned to the scene of the crime to reclaim some of their own possessions which they had been forced to leave behind. They had been caught, and sentenced to die for the numerous crimes they had committed. Alyth and Hikari were granted one last request, due to their tender age: 15 years old, only a year younger than Christine herself. The request carried the exclusions of freedom, pardon or a lightened sentence. They had asked to die at the same time; a final pledge of loyalty.
The poets wept and noble ladies swooned over what they called "true love", which was really friendship to point of being surrogate family. The sentimental people had demanded the right to bury them together, in grave marked as "Dusk and Daybreak". Apparently, a poet had compared their looks to that. Christine listened intently to the tale and the accounts of their many escapades that had preceded their death.
Erik half-listened to the account of their deaths; it was a useful thing for a necromancer to know. For the most part, he was busy spying on the Head Mage. True to their word, the dead he sent had plagued the old man with nightmares and were now haunting him as he rushed into an emergency council meeting that had been called by Raoul.
In the council meeting
The Head mage entered, looking pale and haggard as if he hadn't slept at all. Indeed he hadn't, he ah d been tormented with a dream of an event he thought to firmly in the past. The event in question was when a couple had brought in their son, a little boy of five years. The boy pale was pale as death, and one side of his face was grotesquely malformed. The parents didn't know what to do; the child terrified them and disgusted them. Apparently, the mid-wife who helped with birth had given the child the name Erik, as the boy's parents were too distraught. They wanted to kill the boy who they believed to be cursed. But, the murder of one's own child carried the death penalty so there was nothing they could do.
"Give the boy to me. I'll take care of it." He'd told them. And he did. The boy was sold to a troupe of entertainers, which five years later had died under questionable circumstances. Unfortunately for the Head Mage, that little boy had memorized his face, and had never forgotten the one who sentenced him to a cage. Now, twenty years later, the event was returning to haunt him.
"What's wrong? You look horrible" Raoul stated bluntly as the Head Mage entered the room.
"I had a troubled sleep last night. I'm sure that by tomorrow I'll be fine." Head Mage said, to reassure himself as much as everyone else in the room.
The meeting began. Like the last time, the mages council had met with Raoul; the young noble was once again demanding that they go to rescue Christine. And like last time, the council said that it was far too dangerous; suicide even. After hours of debate and heated arguments on both sides, it was decided to not go rescue Christine, but to send mage lighting after the Phantom.
They had the signature of his magic from his entrance and departure from the masquerade, and the mage lighting would incapacitate him for a short time. What the council didn't tell Raoul was that a "short time" meant about six hours at the most. The foppish aristocrat thought they Phantom would be out of action for few weeks and the council really didn't want to correct him. He was angry enough already.
So it was decided and aparticularly painful bolt of mage lighting was now winging its merry toward Erik. Back in his lair, Erik had stopped scrying before the meeting began, and was now plotting and laid the scrying glass he always used on the table beside him. Right then, the mage lighting leapt out of the scrying glass. Erik hissed in pain. The Head mage had mad the lighting as painful as possible, but Erik would not cry out. He knew that only they could have sent it, and he would not give them the satisfaction of hearing him scream. Christine however, did scream as the lighting engulfed Erik and knocked him unconscious.
And above them all, the destroyer saw his chance in the single moment of suffering, that was all it needed and it slipped into the reality of mankind.
Another cliffhanger! Now review or I'll send necromancer Erik to punish you. Wait a sec; you'd probably like that wouldn't you? Anyway, REVIEW!