She took his hand and brought in to her lips, kissing the palm as if it were a holy relic.

"Go on, Erik."

"When I let go of the rope, he gave an odd jerk and it was over. Then I looked up and saw a girl watching me. She had seen everything. I thought she would scream. But she didn't. She helped me run away…she hid me from the police here in this opera house."

He yanked at the ties of the cape and rose, leaving it draped around her. He strode to the edge of roof and looked back at her.

"That woman who bound your ankle…her name is Adele. She was the one who helped me. She was a ballet dancer here. She was just a child herself, only a few years my elder."

As he spoke, he climbed nimbly onto the scorched pedestal of an statue.

"At first, she found me a room above the chapel. Later, I found the lake and the caverns. I took refuge there…I felt safer there. Everything I knew came from this opera house. I learned to read from stealing books that I found in offices and dressing rooms. And I learned to love music. It was the only think that gave me happiness."

He sat down beneath the statue, hidden in the shadow of the angel's broken wings. She could not see him now, she heard only his voice.

"One day, I heard a little girl in the chapel. A tiny thing, not more than seven. With huge, sad eyes. She was all alone there, though it was quite late. She was praying out loud and I listened to her."

There was a long silence as he watched the first random flakes of snow falling. He turned and looked back at Helene. She was sitting quite still, staring up at the darkness where he sat.

How much more can I tell her…how much can she endure before she runs from me in disgust?

"Her father had just died. He was a violinist…a friend of Adele's late husband. Adele had taken her to live in the Opera Populaire as he has wished. I heard her voice in the chapel that night, reminding her father that he had promised to send her an angel. An Angel of Music."

He leaned back and felt the chill of the statue through his clothing.

"I felt sorry for her. For the first time in my life, I felt…pity. I remained hidden in the shadows above her. And I answered her. I thought the poor child would smile if she heard the voice of that promised angel. So I sang to her. And she thought I was real…that her father had sent me to her."

"I only meant to do it once. But I saw the hope and happiness in her eyes as she looked about to see if her Angel was really there with her. So I…I sang to her."

Why am I telling her this?

"That little girl was Christine Daae. And it went on like that every night until I left the opera house. She would come to the chapel and I would sing to her there. Every night…until I left the opera house."

Jumping down from the statue, he walked over to the parapet and looked out over Paris, looked beyond the city.

"All I had was this child who naively thought I was her Angel…and Adele who had concerns of her own. I needed more. So I ran away from this old theatre and, somehow, made my way to Russia. Along the way, I discovered that I had quite a few talents…languages, architecture, murder…yes, by the time I left Novgorod for Persia, murder had become an art for me."

He gripped the stone ledge to keep his hands for shaking with rage.

"Are you horrified yet, Comtessa," he said without turning.

Helene rose and, walking slowly because of the weight of the woolen cape, came to stand behind him.

"No, Erik. I am not."

Wrapping her arms around him, she leaned her face against his back, remembering the scars she'd touched there.

---------------

He didn't want to continue. He wanted to turn and take her into his arms again, to take her back across the lake, to make her forget his terrible story.

"You've heard enough, Helene."

"No," she said, not moving away from him, "I have not."

"I had entered the service of the Shah as an architect, but my skills were soon put to better use by the Khanum. I will spare you the details of the horrors I committed to please that woman. There were nights when I dreamed that I was drowning in an ocean of blood and tears. I would reach out for something to grasp, to save myself, but there were only bodies in that sea…the bodies of my victims."

He felt her shudder against his back, but she did not let him go.

"Only two things kept me from total madness in those days. The first was opium. It let me forget…for a few blissful, hazy hours. The second was Nadir. He was the Daroga of Mazandaran, the Shah's chief of police. Why that man decided to befriend me I will never know."

"Both the Shah and the Khanum tired of me. They were temperamental beings and I knew far too many of their secrets. I had created many of those secrets for them. They ordered my arrest and execution. But Nadir risked his own position…his life, in fact…to save mine."

"Then I am indebted to him," she said so quietly that he could pretend her didn't hear her.

"I don't know why I can back to Paris. Perhaps it was because this opera house was the only sanctuary I knew. Perhaps it was because I missed the music I'd laid aside in the hell of Persia. So I came home and slowly, I became a ghost…the Phantom of the Opera, they called me. It was much more agreeable than being the Shah's personal assassin."

I must stop this…I can't tell her about Christine…the obsession that was more addictive than the Khanum's opium and my own bloodlust combined…the obsession that turned to love.

"One night, I went down to the chapel. I don't know what brought me there. I stood there alone and hidden, watching the candles flickering in that gloomy little room. Then two young women entered. One was Adele's daughter, Meg. The other…the other was Christine."

He paused and took a shaky breath.

I'd rather throw myself from this roof than tell her these things…why am I torturing myself with this…why am I torturing her?

"Meg only stayed a few moments and then she left. Christine was alone in the chapel. Alone, but for me. I made no move, no sound. But I heard her crying…she was crying for her Angel of Music! I never imagined she would have taken my little game so seriously…that she would have remembered it all that time, that she'd hoped I would return."

He pushed himself from her hold and stepped up on the wide parapet. He turned to face her and threw out his arms."

"So I became her Angel again. What else could I do? All I ever wanted was to be human…not the Devil's Child, not an Angel, not a Ghost. I wanted a normal life, a wife who would love me…instead, I lived in the shadows and I watched her. She was just a chorus girl then…but I listened to her sing and I knew she could be so much more…if only she would try…I knew that she could outshine them all"