Chapter Eight: Possession

Eric

I had the harassing urge to slowly choke the life out of him.

That man, that fool, had tossed the precious portfolio into his wastebasket without anything more than a flip through its lovingly written pages.

Now three years of my sweat and blood lay disregarded like so much scrap paper at the bottom of a trash receptacle.

I felt my blood warm like the relentless desert sun. The muscles in my chest began to clench.

He had tossed away my music!

My life.

My music had been the one friend who had never left me. When my mother lay locked in her room, when Mitra had escaped me, when I made my first kill…the music had been there. It had comforted me, expressed the emotions I was incapable of giving voice to, given me a reason to live.

It had given me inspiration for countless pieces. Finally, I had decided that it was tantamount to a crime to hide my work away in the dusty recesses of the cellars. I had left the finished copy of my newest opera on Poligany's desk.

And that cretin had discarded it without a thought.

Images of M Poligany gasping and writhing in my vice like grip flashed before my eyes, further exciting the rage that was germinating in the hot, humid darkness of my heaving chest. I had had to force myself to flee the scene I had witnessed in the manager's office for fear of giving in to my desires.

A low growl escaped my throat.

How I longed to feel a rope slither around his throat!

I fingered the lasso in my pocket without thinking, taking a small measure of comfort from one of my few physical companions. My punjab was a reminder of a past I wished I could forget, but an old friend too.

It was a grisly reminder of just how much a monster I was.

The years I spent under the shah, back when Azadeh had still needed me, those were some of my darkest hours. The sheer number of human lives that had ended at my hands weighed down on my soul even more heavily than my harsh excuse for a face.

They still haunted my dreams, each and every one of them. Their eyes gleamed back at me from the dim crevices of my mind. Though I had long ago become used to their presence, I knew I would never be free of their clutches.

What I had done, the man I had been in Mazenderan would never leave me. The part of me that always watched his back, that looked at every shadow with suspicion. The nagging voice that had been my only friend in the palaces of India and Persia had become my tormentor in France, always whispering in my ear to be on guard. To protect myself from everything and everyone. And to be perfectly honest, I found that I agreed with it more and more often.

Perhaps that was the reason I had not discarded the harmless looking little instrument of death.

Indeed, being with out it now would have been much akin to amputating my own arm. In truth, I kept it for another reason as well. I relished in the memories of my history. I had so few tokens of all the torturous twenty seven years of my life. So little was left over from the ages of agony that I cherished the few that I still had.

There were so few things that I owned, so little that was mine.

Perhaps that was why the memories and urges of Persia still clung so close to the surface of my heart.

In the mirror room of Mazenderan, I had known what it was to truly possess something. To own it exclusively, completely. I had owned the whole world. The power was intoxicating. It was the sweetest, most tempting fruit I had ever been offered.

And once I'd had my first mouthwatering bite, I couldn't stop.

The dargoa had once called it blood lust.

The hot, impulsive way that I had stopped caring about right and wrong had been seductive. In some twisted way, it had filled the gapping hole left in my heart by the absence of a woman. Standing in the execution room, holding the windpipe of my victim in my hands, I knew them. That complete understanding, full comprehension of the essence of the prisoner's soul was oddly similar to what I imagined it would be like to know a woman. I had read widely on the subjects of love in the Shah's vast libraries, desiring to be well versed should I ever ensnare an unsuspecting bride.

I was a fool for ever entertaining even the slightest hope of a woman coming willingly into my embrace. God had far too heartless a sense of humor too ever allow that. He had the good grace to grant me the voice to seduce a woman and the mind to understand how to love her, but a visage that had wiped away any expectation of that love ever being reciprocated.

No matter how I tried, I would never be able to do anything more than beat my frustrated head against the wall of my creator's doing.

But in killing, I had found the ultimate expression of defiance against the God who had so cruelly cursed my miserable reality.

It had felt so right. I had been strong, for the first time in my life. And for the first time, I was the one who laughed at another's pain, the one with the power to do what I wished with the precious, fragile blossom of another human life.

I had held the keys to the gates of life and death.

I had been God.

Now I was reduced to a ghost who haunted damp basements and the wild imaginations of little girls.

My mind wandered to the silly ideas of the young mademoiselle Giry. The ballet rat had only caught one glimpse of me and decided that I was some demonic shade straight out of the mouth of Hades.

I chuckled quietly at the irony of the idea. She had never seen what lay behind my ebony mask, but her description of me had been frighteningly accurate. My body belonged to something dead for a hundred years.

Despite the mildly morbid nature of my reflections, I felt my mood lift ever so slightly.

Besides taking my mind off of my murderous impulses, the thought of the little dancer herself was one of the few bright spots in this dreary Parisian dungeon. I often longed to feel the warm sun of the desert on my face again, heating my chilled flesh, but I had learned in the past two years to substitute other joys for the climate of my old home.

The Opera had proved to be a nearly ideal dwelling, despite its temperatures. I was constantly surrounded by music, glorious music.

The cast and crew of the Populaire had proved to be an unexpected bonus.

Having escaped Persia, I found that I had grown accustomed to the presence of people in the royal court while I was there. Few were comfortable in my presence, and no one could have been said to have enjoyed my company, but at least they were there. I could hear their voices and smell their warm blooded bodies.

Though I hated to admit it, I had found that I needed the occasional companionship that only other people could give me. I needed to sense that I was just a little less alone, even if the people here didn't know that I was near them.

I slowly discovered a simple kind of pleasure in simply observing the daily lives of real people, people who lived in the world of the light. I felt mildly attached to them, learning who they were. Their hopes, fears, desires. I saw them laugh, cry, sing, dance, love, and hope. I knew each person in the building, most likely better than they knew themselves. Of course, some of them were more interesting than others.

Especially the ballet corps.

At first, I had hungered to hold them, caress them. They were so heart breakingly beautiful. I spent months of ravenous days and longing nights desiring to lovingly embrace one of them as she slept.

It was an amazing dream, but reality glared me starkly in the face.

I knew better than to hold out hope again for love in my twisted, monstrous life.

So I forced my pinings to lay dormant, adopting a more fatherly affection for the ballet rats. I even found my own way of 'playing' with them, just as any father would.

A grin lazily curled on my pale lips.

Slowing in my mad rush through the Opera House's winding tunnels, I decided to change course.

Right now I could use a little amusement.