VII. Child of the Wilderness
His bow over his shoulder, the Phantom led the way, flanked by Gaston, who was carrying a torch and was probably close to dying with the honour of it, and Xavier, who was grinning merrily into the gloom. He did not exactly like the idea of so much light, but apart from him, everybody needed it, and besides, he would feel any gypsies' proximity before they ever saw them.
It was true, Créon's presence had much diminished. The threads of darkness were still there, but weaker. Much weaker.
Weak enough for him to sense Niobe clearly now.
The realization had come as a surprise to him, but he would not wonder about it any more now. There would be time enough for him to wonder when Niobe was dead and gone.
Behind him followed Marie, who wanted to stay close to Xavier obviously, and Serge, who wanted to stay close to him in case a gypsy turned up, then Leclair and Hulot – an astonishing pair of sleepwalkers, indeed – and finally his Christine, and Meg, who was proudly carrying another torch, the sweet little thing, and Christine's silly fop boy, bringing up the rear.
That Xavier was another silly fop. Why did he have to be surrounded by silly fops?
And Leclair. He wondered how that fool had ever gotten a place in the orchestra. Maybe he had still practised then.
They were useless, all of them. He had no need for any of them, except use them as a distraction, which they would hardly be up to, probably. But they had been eager to do it. They had not shied away from him.
Still, it had not been a good idea to accept the whole lot. Gaston could grovel as much as he liked, and Xavier could giggle as much as he liked and beam at him, but still they were of no real use to him. And since he had accepted them, he was even responsible for them now.
Curse them. Curse them all. He would be busy enough with Christine and Meg.
And all the same, he was glad to have a handful of followers.
And if he was not too much mistaken, that girl Marie was more than just curious about him. Another one he might try to get into his bed. Unlike with Claire and Meg, he had no interest in her otherwise, but if it didn't work out with one of the Girys, it might work out with that other girl. Hell, it just had to work with one of them!
But he would finish Niobe first. There was no time to think about girls now.
In his head, trumpets sang of the excitement of battle.
Reaching the end of the ramp down which he had once guided his black horse with Christine on its back – so long ago it seemed, and in a happier age – they had now come to the place where he usually kept his boat when he was going up. Well, not always, because there were other ways, but often enough, anyway. Now, it was not there, and the Phantom briefly wondered where it was at the moment. Meg had last used it, hadn't she? Yes, she had. But it was supposed to be here, wasn't it? Had those dirty Lost Ones perhaps –
No, it did not matter now. He would go looking for it later on, when he was done with those accursed Lost Ones for good. Eventually he would, and the sooner the better, because he was rather fond of his boat, but later on. Not now.
As he led the way through the shallow water and then into the dry passage running alongside the flooded corridor, he did not turn around to see if the others were following. He knew they were, even had they not splashed through the water, because he could feel them. Clearest of all was Christine; to him, she shone bright as a beacon, her closeness practically blinding. The others were nothing but small points of light in the gloom, some of them easily recognizable, like Meg and Raoul, others much the same – he hardly knew the others yet. Serge was the clearest among them, probably, a quiet, strong presence and right behind him, whereas the difference between Leclair and Hulot was not that obvious, as was Marie, whose presence had nothing special at all about it. And Gaston and Xavier were only easy to place because they were flanking him – though they were currently forced to fall behind slightly because the passage was a bit too narrow for three grown men to walk shoulder to shoulder.
And there was yet another presence he was aware of, coming closer: Niobe. She was straight ahead, awaiting him as it seemed, though she could not possibly know he was coming. Or could she? He felt that he could not uphold his shield very much longer; it was beginning to tire him. Sooner or later, she would know. Or would she recognize that strange hole he formed in Créon's threads of darkness? That was, if he formed a hole at all. It was what Christine's awareness reported back, an odd sense, like a hole where he should be. Probably it was what Christine alone felt, but he could not be sure.
Hell consume itself, there was so much he did not know!
But once she was close enough, she would feel the others, and Christine would be the first she would recognize, after trying to take over her mind, two nights ago. He bared his teeth at the memory, his anger welling up like a furious, swirling flood, ready to devastate and consume everything. Niobe had harmed his beloved. She had hurt her. That in its own right made her deserve to die ten, no, a hundred times over, let alone how she had humiliated him in front of all those other Lost Ones.
And still, he felt, like a painful knot in his chest, that he was no better than her. Had he ever asked Christine's permission for anything? No, he never had, because all he had ever thought of was himself, and nobody else.
He was such a monster.
How he longed to beat his head against the wall until he was senseless, until the pain would blind him completely and the blood running down his face would calm him down, cool the screaming, agonizing guilt inside him!
His pace quickened as he became aware of something – someone – ahead. No, more than someone. There was just one presence who was stronger than the others. One of the Lost Ones, then, accompanied by a handful of servants. Which one? Not Niobe, that much he knew; that one was closer than Niobe was currently. And not Créon, either, of course. That only left Adhemar, Bertrand, or Aeternus.
There was some chance of Aeternus not being bothersome, as long as he continued playing into his hands, in whatever way he might be doing so. Aeternus remained obscure to him, and he had no idea what to expect of the man once he encountered him. The others, however… he was not sure about Bertrand; the old man with the horribly disfigured face was a complete stranger to him. But Adhemar… he could certainly deal with Adhemar.
He hoped it was Adhemar awaiting him. That one still had something to pay for.
Whoever it was, he was in his lair, he realized, and that infuriated him even more. His lair was his only refuge, the only place where he could hide from the world, and Créon's men had taken even that from him.
But, Satan damn him, he would have it back.
The madly dancing shadows created by Gaston's torch suited his mood very well. He might have tried to be human, up there in the light of day, but down here, in his own eternal night, he was a raging, murdering beast.
Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla…
Revenge had never seemed so sweet.
Before they reached the last corner, he stopped, and so did his companions. He could not send them into this unprepared. After all, they were his responsibility now. "Listen", he told them softly, so softly that they huddled together closely to understand him, "there are a handful of enemies just ahead. I cannot give you their numbers with certainty, or otherwise I would reveal myself too early. But you must expect five or six of them, and additionally one of the Lost Ones, who you will leave to me. Advance only when I tell you to; until then, stay close behind me." He considered it for a moment, regarding all those grim and eager young faces, lit by the torches' flickering light. "And take care", he added. "I don't intend to lose any of you."
Leclair laughed softly as he unsheathed a long knife. "You will not be rid of me too soon, my Lord Phantom."
"Of me neither." The grim look in Xavier's eyes did not suit the boy at all.
What would the young fool say, it suddenly occurred to the Phantom, if he knew what he had done with his favourite ballet tights?
"We will defend you, my Lord Phantom", Gaston promised, a zealot's fire burning in his normally so gentle dark eyes. "With our lives, if need be."
"If there are any women around", said Marie, a small, thin dagger appearing in her hand, "I will handle them."
"And don't you dare worry about us!" Meg added, brandishing his own sabre at him.
Serge said nothing, but weighed his wood-axe in his hands meaningfully.
Strange, the Phantom observed, how ready to kill they suddenly were. Many of them had surely accused him as a murderer not that long ago, and now they were quite ready to spill blood to free the Opera Populaire of its intruders. He could sense fear in them, but eagerness as well, and excitement, so much excitement coursing through their veins.
The trumpets in his head were still singing their march of war, so loud that it almost surprised him that he was the only one who could hear them.
Tuba mirum spargens sonum…
The time of battle had come.
He met Christine's eyes, large and scared as they seemed, but still full of trust, and of the knowledge that he was here to protect her. Yes, he would do it. He would protect them all. At that moment, when meeting her gaze, he made that silent promise to all of his companions: They would come out of this alive. He would leave none behind.
Taking his strung bow from his shoulder, he nocked an arrow before he advanced anew. As soon as he came into sight of his enemies, he would take one out to make it easier for the others. Or even two, maybe. Then Raoul – curse the silly fop! – would lead the assault on the gypsies, employing his revolver only in the worst case of need not to alarm any others maybe lurking nearby, while he himself would deal with the Lost One awaiting him, hiding in his own lair.
Leaping down into the knee-deep cold water lightly, he swiftly turned around the corner, already taking aim, and loosed the arrow at one of the looming shadows in his again brightly lit lair ahead. The fools! They might at least have lowered the portcullis, that might have bought them a little more time! This way, the first of them was already dead before he truly realized what was going on.
He felt the others close in behind him in a semi-circle as he advanced, already snatching the next arrow from the quiver hooked to his dagger belt. Ahead, the gypsy henchmen huddled together around a tall figure cloaked in black, who now threw back his hood.
Adhemar. The Phantom felt the corners of his mouth twist into a smirk all of their own accord. Among those he had expected here, Adhemar was his victim of choice. The man would live to regret his crude words about Christine! Yet he would not live long…
"What are you waiting for?" Adhemar snarled at his men. The Phantom counted six survivors, and among them Kalo. Today was a lucky day, it seemed. "They're not that many. Kill them."
The men hesitated, exchanging glances among themselves, their swarthy faces clearly showing uncertainty. Some were ducking, as if they thought they could avoid any more arrows that way. As another of them fell, pierced by a feathered shaft, two of the remaining five started scrambling backwards.
"I said kill them, you lousy sons of animals!" Adhemar bellowed, pushing one of the men forward roughly. That one was a tall man actually, and carrying a large, spiky club, but he cringed away from Créon's underling as if in fear of feeling a whip.
At last they came, in a shouting and snarling horde, waving clubs and long knives as they surged forward. The Phantom felt the tremor going through his own men as they saw them come, but they stood their ground, all of them, right under the arch which formed the entrance to his home, under the mighty statues seemingly supporting the ceiling.
So Adhemar was not going to attack himself? The fool! That left the Phantom free for now to indulge in another little personal revenge. Casting down his bow into the water quickly – shame, he would have to exchange the bowstring – he snatched up what he knew to be hidden there, awaiting him in case of need.
Suddenly beside him, Raoul gave a soft growl. The boy knew only too well which weapon he had hidden under the water's deceptive surface; after all, he had fallen victim to it himself not that long ago, when it had been hidden in precisely that place as well.
And then they were there, all five trying to avoid the Phantom and passing on to the outdrawn semi-circle behind him. He almost laughed as the clumsiest of their number tried to amble past him. Such an easy target, good old Kalo! With a lazy flick of his wrist, he let the lasso fly.
Kalo stumbled as the noose settled around his neck, his piggy little eyes widening with dread, and he turned this way and that, as if desperately hoping that would save him from his fate. There was no time to savour the filthy gypsy's fear now, though. "My fondest regards to your uncle when you meet him in Hell", the Phantom growled, then, turning sideways, kicked the struggling man squarely between the shoulder blades while at the same time yanking the rope tight. There was the sharp, cracking sound of Kalo's neck snapping, then his heavy body slumped into the water limply.
Letting go of the length of rope with a feeling of glee, the Phantom glanced at the struggle ensuing around him. Raoul was just withdrawing his sabre from the club-carrying coward's chest, already turning to take on another. The remaining three were all engaged into fierce struggles, Meg keeping one at sabre-point while Xavier and Marie were trying to wrestle him down from behind. Serge was fighting another, with a bleeding gash across his cheek, but still he wielded his axe with ferocity, and Leclair was aiding him. Gaston, Hulot and Christine were busy with the last, an agile little fellow carrying a long knife. For a moment the Phantom was tempted to stab the man from behind to ensure his beloved's safety, but then Raoul joined the group, engaging the man in a deadly duel, and the Phantom turned again to face Adhemar.
The bastard was trying to get away! Casting down the black cloak, Adhemar was trying to steal off towards the side. Swiftly the Phantom sprang after him, drawing his dagger in the course of pursuit, snarling with wrath and hatred as he went. At first it seemed Adhemar was about to run, but then he turned, drawing his own dagger, to face the Phantom. His face was contorted with anger, the scars across the right side of his face furthering that impression. "Ill met once more, Lord Keeper of the Gates", he growled, careful to avoid meeting the Phantom's eyes as he shifted into combat stance smoothly.
"I say well met", the Phantom answered grimly, ignoring what sounded like a most peculiar taunt.
"You will yet serve the Master."
"He will yet have to convince me of that."
Adhemar bared his teeth at him. "You cannot deny your own being a Fateless."
Despite the fury surging through him, the Phantom answered his snarling grimace with nothing but a cold stare. "My fate is none of your concern."
They began circling each other then, their daggers at the ready, and hatred in their eyes. Reaching out towards Adhemar's mind, the Phantom could feel it, a blind, burning hatred that was strong, very strong, but also… old? Old? He did not understand. It was a very present feeling, a feeling connected to a time only a few days past as well as the here and now. Why did it have the feeling of a distant memory to it, then, a memory older than the world?
And what exactly made him think that this memory, if there was any, was older than the world?
It was the shadow lying over his opponent, he realized. Créon's touch, Créon's shadow, Créon's taint was on Adhemar, a sense of an evil born in the dawn of days, so ancient that it had been there before the sun had ever risen for the first morning on earth, and it would still be there when the sun had set for the last time.
He almost snarled when he felt it, and his gloved hand gripped the dagger more tightly. Compared to Créon's, his own darkness was just a gentle shadow cast by an old tree on a warm noon day.
The threads of darkness, weak but still there, vibrated in tune with Adhemar's shadowed aura, whispering of darkness and death.
Death and damnation, an eternity of damnation.
An eternity of darkness for a lifetime of evil.
A dark eternity, and an evil older than the world…
It clung to Adhemar like a foul stench, like a revolting disease, encompassing him completely. The man lived with and in it, and his very breath was that of evil.
Hell be damned, who was Créon? Who was he really? And what had he done? What was this ancient, nameless evil all around him?
"Your memories will yet return to you." Adhemar spoke harshly, through bared teeth. "And when they do, you will weep."
"I have no such memories." They were all mad! Mad! Créon was, and they all were!
"Do you know what comes first?" Backing away up towards the organ, Adhemar still kept his eyes on the Phantom without meeting his gaze, and he did not misstep one single time. "It's the dreams. The nightmares. They will torment you, night after night, endlessly, until you'll only wish you could claw them out of your head. Whenever you'll close your eyes, the images will be there." Was there a slight tremor in his voice? He almost brushed against the organ bench as he backed away further, making the Phantom follow him. "The time will come when you'll dread falling asleep, because you will see it over and over again."
"What?" the Phantom hissed, feeling something in his chest constrict with a sudden, strange fear he had no reason to feel. "What will I see?"
Adhemar's eyes gleamed strangely in the candlelight. "What gave you those scars."
For a moment, the Phantom's breath caught, and when he sucked in a mouthful of air again, it seemed that his throat was on fire. The contagious disease, the breath of evil… What gave you those scars. He felt how his fingers were slick with sweat inside his gloves. What had given him those scars? What had given them all those scars? Who were they all, the Lost Ones, the Fateless, and, Satan fry him in Hell, what were they?
As he drove Adhemar back down on the other side of the organ, Claire Giry's voice echoed hollowly in his skull: A fallen angel, and far from Heaven…
"I'm no angel", he snarled, launching himself at Adhemar with sudden fury.
Adhemar laughed huskily, mirthlessly, as he sidestepped his attack. "That's what I said, years ago. Over and over again." He blocked another stab the Phantom directed at him, their blades meeting with the cold, sharp clanging of metal. "What will it feel like, Lord Keeper of the Gates, feeling the Ever-Burning Flame devour you? Pain beyond pain, surely? What torment did you feel when earth and sky burned, first of our kind to die?"
"Hold your tongue!" the Phantom snarled, stabbing at him again in blind fury. "Hold your goddamn tongue!"
Dodging his new assault easily, Adhemar smirked. "Yes, God did indeed damn us, if you want to put it like that, though all those legends of Christianity are nothing but foolhardy lies." His scarred features twitched in disdain. "Yet at the bottom of every lie, truth can be found. Is that not so, Lord Keeper of the Gates? Are you not a rebel against the sacred order of the world, and a man too evil for an eternity in Hell?"
Once again the Phantom attacked, slashing at that hateful face, meaning to add a sixth gauge to the five the man already possessed, whatever creature had given him those. This time, Adhemar only parried very barely, and he stumbled slightly from the force of the attack as he did so. "I'm nothing of that kind!" the Phantom snarled. "Do you hear? Nothing of that kind!" In his mind, flames leapt up, roaring, consuming flames, engulfing his every thought.
Quite unexpectedly, Adhemar performed a swift counterattack. The Phantom sidestepped just in time, yet Adhemar's blade slit his sleeve open at the left upper arm and skimmed across his skin, leaving a line of burning pain in its wake. "What are you, then?"
Yes, what was he? Satan hang Adhemar by his own entrails, what was he?
Nothing but a creature of the wilderness, he thought. A lonely, twisted creature of the wilderness. Nothing more.
"I'll tell you what you are, then!" Again Adhemar stabbed at him, but this time he was prepared and countered the attack with one of his own, the two blades sliding along each other with an ugly hiss, almost drowned out by the hiss of wrath Adhemar gave. "You're a bastard and a traitor, that's what you are, and all you ever cared about is yourself! While we others were all sworn to the Shadow, you only saw yourself, and you broke a thousand oaths to get at that girl of yours, and for no other reason! And now you're trying to steal Niobe's affection from me!"
"And you're a raving madman!" As Adhemar wanted to launch into another attack, the Phantom turned and kicked him with all the force his burning rage gave him, catching him squarely in the chest and making him stagger. He was fighting dirty, he knew, but this was what he had always done. And Adhemar should not expect him to be fair, especially not after those insane accusations he had thrown at him. They were all mad, all of them!
Best if he finished that man for good, then, and if he did it right now. Without giving Adhemar a chance to resume his stance, he threw his dagger at him, aiming at his heart –
With a motion as swift as a striking serpent, Adhemar's left hand shot through the air and snatched the weapon before it struck him, holding it up into the light. His hand was bleeding, but he ignored the wound he had inflicted upon himself. As the Phantom stood transfixed, unable to believe what he had just seen, slowly, very slowly a smile stole onto Adhemar's features, the smile of a predator knowing that he had his prey at last. "This", Adhemar said, "was a grave mistake, my friend."
Regaining his balance, the Phantom bit his lips. While he was unarmed, Adhemar now held two daggers. He would have to be very careful now, or –
He was being a fool. What did he need his dagger for, except for questions of style? Hooking the right thumb into his dagger belt and cocking his head to one side, he threw his opponent the most unsettling look he managed, with his eyebrows raised expectantly – though Adhemar would not see much of that because of the mask – and his lips twisted into a lopsided little grin. The short moment of surprise was all he needed, the moment when Adhemar stared at him – and their eyes met at last. When he took the other's mind over, Adhemar was too surprised to put up a struggle, and before his enemy had regained his composure, the Phantom was already delving deep into it, down to where the source of life pulsed in its immortal rhythm.
So Créon could kill just with his thoughts, now could he? If Créon could, the Phantom thought grimly, then he could as well. And Créon should see that he could. They all should.
Adhemar was struggling by now, but the Phantom was so deep down in his mind already that it was completely useless. He did not even trouble himself with smothering Adhemar's attempts to free himself. Reaching out to that pulsing stream of life, he imagined clenching his fist around it, blocking its flow…
Adhemar staggered, dropping both daggers with a metallic clatter as he made a choking noise deep in his throat. His features seemed even more distorted by the claw marks now than before, somehow.
Bending the thick, vibrating cord, the Phantom set his mind on tying it into a knot, yanking it tight…
With what was nothing but a gentle sigh, Adhemar slumped down to the floor, lying face-down on the carpet motionless.
So much for that one. The Phantom bent to pick up both daggers, wiping Adhemar's clean of his own blood on the fallen man's jacket. Re-sheathing his own, he gave his new trophy a critical scan, passing a thumb over its edge, then over the entwining pair of winged serpents worked into the cross-guard, their maws open in a hiss, as it seemed, baring needle-sharp teeth –
Just in his moment of triumph, Raoul came up beside him, breathless and splashed with water, his hair in such disarray that the Phantom almost grinned. "It's Hulot", he muttered, a strange look of urgency in his eyes, of hope as well as of despair. "We need your help."
Only now the Phantom realized what he must have been feeling earlier on already, only he had been too busy with Adhemar to notice: that Christine was upset over something. Very upset.
Turning on his heel swiftly, he hurried over to where the others – his companions, his responsibility – were huddling together around a limp shape, held half upright by Serge and Gaston, hardly noticing the water he was wading through. Hulot was pale as death, a thin trickle of blood running down his chin from one corner of his mouth in sharp contrast to the sallow colour of his skin. His eyes were half closed, but his eyelids fluttered, and his breath came ragged and strained, making his blood-stained chest rise and fall irregularly. Meg was kneeling beside him, clutching his limp hand, but the Phantom doubted Hulot still noticed she was. As she raised her head, he saw tears glistening in her eyes.
"Can you help him, my Lord?" Gaston's eyes had just the same moist glitter as Meg's, and his voice was thin and reedy, on the point of breaking.
Bending over Hulot's limp form, the Phantom sought for any remainder of a conscious awareness. There were hardly any; there only was pain, great pain. As he went further down, he could feel just what he had dreaded: floods of liquid light streaming out of him, his mind growing dimmer with every passing moment.
There was nothing he could do for him, the Phantom realized. Nothing at all. This man was dying, and he could not save him. He had come too late.
If he had come earlier, would he have still lived, then? Could he have saved Hulot at all?
Was there any way at all to save a dying man? He doubted there was.
Still, he had not been able to do what he had promised to do. He had failed. When he had promised those others his protection, renewing his vow only mere minutes before what had happened, he had not been able to.
It could have been Christine, bleeding in someone else's arms.
He almost shivered at the mere idea. Had it been Christine, he knew he could not have lived with himself, not ever again.
All the same, he had broken a promise given only a short time earlier, and it was of no importance whether he had spoken it aloud or not. What mattered was his failure.
A failure meaning death for someone else.
He cleared his throat, a simple thing which suddenly seemed strangely difficult. "Get him out of the water", he commanded huskily, motioning towards the shore with Adhemar's dagger he was still holding. The raspy sound of his own voice filled him with new anger, and he did not even know if it was directed at the gypsies and Adhemar or at himself.
The gypsies. They would have to remove the dead bodies from the water before they started decomposing, it briefly occurred to him, but this was not what was important now, merely a passing thought.
As careful as possible, Gaston, Serge and Leclair transported Hulot towards the shore, though it still looked like a mixture of carrying and dragging to the Phantom. They put him down beside the stair leading up to the bedroom, all huddling around him. This time, it was Marie who took up one of his hands, while Gaston took the other. "You'll be alright", Marie murmured to him endlessly. "You'll be alright…"
Hell devour him, was there nothing he could do? Nothing at all? His own helplessness at the state of Hulot's rapidly darkening mind filled him with helpless rage. That man was his responsibility, to Hell with it all! He could not just die on him! He could not! Knowing it was useless, he still tried to stop the flood, to build up a dam to keep in the light. But it flowed on ceaselessly, whatever he did.
Hulot gave a ragged, throaty sigh. He did not even have the strength to moan.
This was a fight he could not win. In the end, the victory belonged to Death alone.
"Erik!" Christine suddenly cried, her fingers digging into his upper arm with such force that he almost yelped with pain. Following her gaze, he saw what she was staring at so intently, with her beautiful dark eyes widened in terror: Adhemar was stirring. He was moving.
He was getting to his feet again, slowly, but more or less steadily.
Another aspect in which he had failed, the Phantom thought bitterly, reflexively pulling Christine's slender, trembling form towards him, never to let her go, never to let her die. "Don't be afraid", he muttered into her hair, feeling as foolish as he had rarely felt before. Adhemar should be dead, curse him! Dead!
As dead as Hulot soon would be. The Phantom bit his lower lip painfully, yet hardly noticed it. All he saw was Adhemar, and Christine, trembling in his arms.
Slowly, very slowly, Adhemar turned to face them all – and then the Phantom thought he shuddered too, though only Christine could notice it, because she could feel it. Those claw-marred features carried no expression at all, and those bright eyes, moments before so hateful, so blazing with wrath, were now… empty. There was no other word to describe it. They were a corpse's eyes, sightless, expressionless, like glass marbles fitted into a doll's head. Their unseeing, empty gaze seemingly travelled over the assembled, remained on them for a moment which seemed eternity –
"My God", Leclair gasped, covering his eyes with his bloodied hands.
And then he turned again, and slowly walked away, aimlessly, without a goal.
Indeed Adhemar was not dead. He was worse than dead.
Sobbing, Christine hid her face at the Phantom's shoulder. "Raoul…", she whimpered, shivering worse than ever.
Despite the circumstances, the Phantom still felt a small, but sharp twinge of pain at that. Pulling her closer towards him, he awkwardly held her in his embrace; he was still clutching the dagger in one hand, his grip on the hilt unnaturally tight. It took him some effort to will himself to loosen his own fingers.
Hesitantly, Raoul came up towards him, his bright, innocent eyes wide, though fixed on Christine, not on who had once been Adhemar. "Go", the Phantom told him roughly, nodding in the man's direction. "Keep an eye on him. He might still be dangerous." Then his gaze fell on Xavier, who was standing next, looking down at Hulot's fallen shape with his teeth chattering audibly. "You too."
Raoul's eyes were still wide with terror at what he was witnessing, but he pressed his lips together and nodded, pulling the unwilling Xavier along by his sleeve, towards the Phantom's worst victim ever. Despite their enmity, the Phantom almost pitied the boy.
Hulot. He was forgetting Hulot. Pulling Christine with him and keeping an arm around her slim shoulders, he knelt down beside the wounded man, and Meg, crying softly to herself, made room for him. Dropping the dagger onto the ground at last, he wrapped his other arm around her waist, and she gratefully rested her head on his shoulder.
There was still light in Hulot's mind, but there was not much left, and it was still fading rapidly. And pain, there was so much pain…
This was all he could do, the Phantom realized. He could take the pain from him. Concentrating on it, he imagined severing its connection to Hulot, taking it upon himself instead…
Its sudden intensity took his breath away, paralyzing him with its tormenting force. Clutching both girls to him, he squared his shoulders against it, clenched his teeth, fought it with all his defiance, but it blinded him, robbed him of his senses. Let go!, he thought to hear a voice cry in his head, Let it go! But at the same time, there was another, a stronger, more bitter one. You deserve to feel it. You deserve to suffer. You deserve it ten times over.
He had failed. He deserved the pain.
The world was spinning around him, growing darker. Very barely he was still aware that he was in Hulot's mind, that he was feeling what the wounded man was feeling, but it filled his entire awareness now. The light was pouring out of the world around him, streaming out and dissolving into nothingness.
Or did it truly dissolve? He did not know.
Come back! Damn you, come back!
He felt he could not remain upright any longer; the pain was throwing him down, dragging him down towards oblivion. Struggling, he withdrew from Hulot's mind, but only far enough to still know who he really was, and what he was doing, though about the latter he was not sure anymore. Something was sucking at him, he realized, pulling at him, trying to carry him out into the darkness…
Death. Death was reaching out for him.
All the light that remained now was a tiny spark, like a lone star in an empty sky, twinkling dauntingly, far, far away, beyond the reach of mortal men. It grew dimmer as it neared the brink of outer night, but somehow it grew no less radiant. Then it twinkled one last time before it went out, casting the world into blackness as it passed beyond its borders, away into… the light? The light? It was a fire, bright beyond enduring, an endless ocean of bright, living flame –
Someone was shaking him, he realized, shaking him forcefully, and at once he heard Christine's voice, her beloved voice, dim and distant, but he could understand it. She was calling him, again and again.
And he was going back, returning to her, to his own body, the light of the immortal fire fading before his inner eye. It was like swimming up towards the surface of a deep, dark lake, like waking from the deepest slumber, from the darkest dream.
"Don't go, Erik. Don't go."
He opened his eyes, and there was the light of candles, and Christine and Meg were both holding him, his head resting on Christine's shoulder, while Meg was shaking him as if to wake him. As she saw his eyes flutter open, she stopped, but he still felt her tight grip on his arm.
Christine was there. Earth had him again.
And at once he realized that the right half of his face seemed to be on fire. It was nothing compared to the torment he had experienced earlier, but still it was a sensation of burning pain.
"I thought you had gone with him", Christine whispered. "I thought I had lost you."
Yes, she must have felt it. She must have felt it all, the darkness, the pain. "I'm so sorry", he murmured.
Meg gently stroked his hair. "Hulot…", she began.
"He's dead." Now he had seen the fire, whatever it had meant, the thought was somehow easier to bear.
Gaston was sobbing to himself, cradling his friend's body in his arms, ignoring Marie's hand on his shoulder. In his grief, he probably did not even notice it.
"Where did he go?" Serge whispered, almost too softly to be heard.
The light beyond the darkness. The fire beyond the sky. He had watched men die before, but never had he seen that greatest of mysteries. He had watched a dying star pass from the sky to Heaven.
Could he have died as well, he wondered, had Christine not called him back? And Meg. Meg had helped her. But it had been Christine who had felt him passing away, and it had been Christine who had ultimately saved him.
His angel. His own Angel of Music.
The pain was still there, gnawing mercilessly at the scarred side of his face.
What was it Adhemar had said? Unbidden, his enemy's words resounded in his head. What will it feel like, Lord Keeper of the Gates, feeling the Ever-Burning Flame devour you? What torment did you feel when earth and sky burned, first of our kind to die?
I'm not what you deem me to be, he thought weakly. I'm no angel. I'm just a creature from the wilderness, a lone predator, nothing more.
At this moment, he felt like crying, but his eyes remained dry, so dry that they burned. Burying his face at Christine's shoulder, with Meg pulled towards him closely, he waited for the tears to come, but there were no tears. Not anymore.
