I spent a good hour today trying to decide whether I like Crawford or Butler better singing Erik's part. No definite conclusion, either… the original is better at parts like "Stranger than you Dreamt it" and "PotO", but the movie does "Point of No Return" and "Wandering Child" so excellently. Quandry! But, I have to say, in both cases "Music of the Night" is my favorite of them all.
Disclaimer: Point and cry "thief!" I know, I know. Thank you ALW, Leroux, et cetera.
Of Knights and Dragons
Chapter XIII: Inside My Mind
"I say it is to wage war … with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime."
(Winston Churchill)
Charles tried to conceal his nervousness in the gathering evening as he knocked hard on the oak doors of the d'Halier Manor. Waiting in the somewhat cool summer evening breeze, his feet shifted slightly and he purposely clenched his hands on his gloves to prevent them from fidgeting.
Presently the door swung open at the hand of a waiting servant. "I'm here for the PK," Charles said quickly, surreptitiously, trying to make his eagerness seem only a desire to get out of the chilling night. The doorman nodded and gestured in, and Charles ducked off his hat as he walked into the grand entryway. He handed it, his jacket, and his cane—not a necessity, more of an article—to the man. There was quite an array already hanging on pegs on the wall.
"The others are in the library—down that hall, second door on the left," the man offered.
"Thank you," Charles said, tucking his gloves into a pocket as he started across the stone floor. His footsteps weren't really that loud, they only seemed to be. There was nothing unusual. Nothing at all. He found his pace quickening, and deliberately slowed it.
There were near on twelve others already in the library when he walked in. "Evening, gentlemen," he said as lightly as he could, doing his best to keep his handshakes even and friendly. "Who else are we waiting for?"
"One or two others," Raphael said. He was so young, Charles realized, astonished at the revelation. Of course he was. He had only been fifteen at the time of the infamous fire, too young to attend. But the realization stunned the middle-aged Charles nonetheless. He was too young to be organizing something like this.
But not too young to be killed for it.
Charles took a seat halfway down the table, quietly greeting those around him. Eyes met and slid away, unwilling or unable to hold each other for more than a few moments. The air practically crackled with expectancy, though the superficial words and 'relaxed' exterior studiously denied it. They all knew what they were here for, what it meant—for themselves and for the man they hunted. If it even was a man.
Charles was irrevocably certain it wasn't. Just as he was certain that this little coalition would break up after a few deaths. They hadn't the stomach for this kind of work. He meant to make the best of this situation, both sides at once—it was, after all, how he had climbed to his station in just a few years.
Perhaps that was why he had so easily succumbed when Uriel "convinced" him to attend the first meeting of the Parisian Knights. How the Angel found out, Heaven only knew.
The last few members wandered into the library and found seats at the table. Charles, swirling a glass of water (he'd need his wits about him tonight of all nights) was privately surprised at many who had come. He let his eyes wander over the group, noting who was there and who was not. Uriel would not tolerate anything less than a complete list. One did not usually survive Uriel's intolerance.
Raphael stood, seeing that everyone was present. "Thank you, all of you, for attending," he said, never looking more like Pierre than at that moment. "We all know why we're here: to correct what is perhaps the greatest wrong in this nation since the trial of Joan d'Arc." A bold comparison, Raphael, but it seems to be working, Charles noted, taking a sip from his glass. You'll end up dead anyways. Raphael went on, oblivious to his thoughts. "The reign of terror will being its end tonight," he promised. "For three years the police have done nothing. It only proves their incompetence… and yesterday, Pierre too felt that failure. It is to us, now, to discover the identity of this Angel of Death…"
Some two hours later Charles walked out the front gate, bidding his farewells and accepting his hat and coat from the doorman. He declined the offer of carriage or escort and walked off down the road, whistling merrily and spinning his cane between his hands.
The night was cold and perfectly clear. Every breath stung his lungs, but he gloried in it—so few days ended thus! Even confined to the lit city, he could make out the bold glimmer of stars undaunted by human troubles, human fears, human failings, human ghosts…
"So they are adjourned?"
Charles stopped and leaned against the rough stone of a nearby building. "Would I be out otherwise?"
"Not openly," the voice sneered at him. Well no, not that, but there was a definite hint of contempt to it.
"As you say. Yes, they are concluded," he confirmed. "Do I get to deliver my report to a person, or do I recite it to phantoms in the airy night?"
His inquirer laughed softly. Charles willed away his shivers; it was a cold night was all. "So eager to meet death? Behind you, Monsieur," and Charles started when he felt the stone wall he had been leaning on shift beneath his shoulders.
He turned to find a perfect black rectangle behind him, a straight-edged hole into oblivion. Like any sane man Charles hesitated, until a mocking laugh from within stung his pride and prodded him forward. As the door ground shut behind him it was utterly dark, but then a match flared and touched to the wick of a small glass-shielded lamp. Its tiny flame at first seemed to do more to enhance the darkness than to banish it, but presently he found his sight adjusting.
He was standing in a small room, no more than ten feet square, with the only apparent door the one behind him. He turned to check if it was still there. Yes. Good.
The lamp rested on the surface of a small wooden table that separated him from his employer. Uriel was seated in a chair on the other side… and there was no doubt that it was indeed the infamous Angel. It was more than the pure black he wore, a midnight evening suit—the cruel parody of a priest. It was more than the black scarf that hung free about his neck, that served to cover the lower half of his face, or the gleaming leather mask that concealed the upper half; more than the ironic twist to the mouth or deadly gleam to the golden cats'-eyes… no, it was the way he held himself.
Charles's mind blindly groped for analogies, settling at last—and a bit tremulously, at that—on that immortal, dominating figure of many mythologies. Black, scaled, and deadly, a dragon crouched across the table from him… not coiled for sleep, but fully awake, jaws gleaming with teeth, wings extended, tail sweeping back and forth in rhythmic repetition. A dragon an instant from lazily extending one clawed hand and ending his life… nonchalantly.
The faintly gleaming candle burned its reflection in those gold eyes, only enhancing the aura of power… the air drew close, stifling him, until he could hardly breath, hypnotized by those eyes. In one bizarre, panicked moment, a far corner of his mind wondered how on Earth a knight killed something like this.
"Report," Uriel commanded, bringing one gloved hand up to his jaw in a carelessly powerful movement. Charles complied. Later he would not be able to remember a singe word of what he said in that quarter hour, would only find himself stumbling out of that doorway back into the night, turning towards his home with some difficulty. He could not make himself look at his payment, clenched in one hand, for fear that the light on those coins would recall him the Angel's eyes.
For his own part, the Angel of Death remained in the isolated room for a long time. "Not content with destroying Erik once, were you, Vicomte? Or do you not realize that Erik is still very much alive? But he remembers that night… yes, he does. He would not be pleased to encounter you again." Pause. "Nor would I," Uriel finished.
The twin Angels, Death and Music, smiled and as their hand curled slowly, inexorably, into a fist.