(Thank You again, so much for your support! Shaine)

Candles, candles...probably 300 candles lit the Vicmonte Home. There was no way a shadow could make it's way into the large mansion. Not a hint of darkness anywhere...
"Try to enter now, trap-door lover." The whispers of the night, still lingering intrigued Raoul. They captured him, taking his mind into a state of insanity that was lost 2 years ago..

"Oh, let's play games now. I yell and you run away and hide. You listen to every word I say and secretly in your own blood-thirsty cavern differing and twisting my words to get revenge on innocence. You sneak around, as a hungry predator but when you are finally found by a random stranger...you force them to pity you. Poor Erik, poor deformed Erik, I used to be a freak show, now the one I love, loathes me...no compassion anywhere? Ha! Might I laugh? I swear to you, Erik, composer of the night, I WILL NOT RUN from my fears I am not afraid of you, this time shall be different! And that is a promise!"

Erik flinched as he crept from brightly lit room to brightly lit room. Wax was everywhere, and Erik had no doubt that the Vicmonte had fallen off the deep end. He heard the man still bellowing away downstairs, blocking Erik's path to Christine who was still lying on the couch in a drugged slumber.

Tracking the Vicmonte by the sound of his voice, Erik began to snuff out the candles of the upstairs hallway. Raoul's bellowing quickly stopped, and Erik heard him move towards the stairs. Erik extinguished a final candle, leaving one still burning, and stood at the head of the stairway, his looming shape silhouetted by the single flame still burning.

"You wished to speak to me, Vicmonte?"

Oh my god, what have I said, what...have I done? His cold heart pounding, his hands shaking uncontrollably. His nightmares came true. There, with a single flame burning, stood the Vicmonte's only fear, nightmare, and enemy. Did he know? Foolish...how could I ponder that..of course he knows...he knows anything in occurrence with her...he'll kill me for sure... What can I do?
Erik took a step forward, his movement made the candle flicker. "Well dear sir? How may I be of service to you? I speak kindly on behalf on the angel, Christine. I have come back for one purpose and one alone. She may no longer belong to me, but her fate rests in my hands...it always did and it always will."
The black cape of the ghost of the now-burned Opera House returned. It swished with every anger, pain, and rejection of the trap-door lover. Vicmonte was still, ready to face the threat, but secretly praying in his mind for a miracle. Another step. The yellow eyes of death came in sight of the Vicmonte. He shrieked and fell to his knees. In a moment, a pause in heaven, the love and innocence of the two gentlemen appears.

"Erik?"

Erik's eyes moved from the Vicmonte's sweating face to Christine's. Her hair was mussy, her face still relaxed into the confused look of recent slumber. She looked like a goddess to Erik, and he almost fell to his knees at the sight of her.

Raoul glanced at Christine, but his eyes almost immediately returned to Erik. A sickly smile crept across the Vicmonte's handsome face, and in a flash he was up and grabbing Christine around the middle, drawing her close as a human shield. Erik started forward, but something glinted in the Vicmonte's hand, and Erik froze as Raoul's knife touched Christine's throat.

"You'll not have her, you monster," Raoul hissed. Erik dared not move as the cold steel pressed harder against Christine's skin. Christine's eyes were wide and frantic, still confused with the last of the laudanum. "Raoul, what are you doing?" She tried to twist in his grasp, but the blade stilled her movements.

Raoul's eyes met Erik's, and Erik inhaled sharply. Those blue eyes were burning with heat, smoldering with a madness that struck fear into Erik's soul. It was wild, uncontrolled and gruesome. And it was controlling the man who held a dagger at Christine's throat.

The Vicomte sneered at him. "If I cannot have her, then no one will."