Cassandra caught herself on the big chair and looked back at the angry man standing over her. Her face hurt and some where in the back of her mind she knew she wanted to cry, but she could not---would not---allow this man to see her cry. He towered over her as she tried to right herself and move away; his arm rose for a second blow.
"Stop!" Cassandra and the Phantom looked over to the gate where Ryan stood with Mark on the other side. "Don't you dare touch her!" They were both soaked and Mark was working furiously to raise the gate with the old fashioned winch outside.
"How did you…?" Villefort's face paled as he realized his outer defenses had been breeched.
"We swam….the police are preparing divers to come in here." Ryan said easily as the gate slowly came up and he ducked underneath it. Mark followed just as the gate lowered back behind them. Ryan started to come forward but Villefort made a quick move and suddenly drew a gun from the table next to him.
"So! You think you will win so easily? You think you can defeat me?" Ryan and Mark froze as Villefort marched up the steps to the second level of the lair and looked down at them, only emphasizing that he had the upper hand. "You'll never win….you're merely children." He sneered.
"We're a hell of a lot smarter than you." Mark said. "We broke through your security system…it sucks by the way."
"A minor technicality." Villefort said distractedly. "Something I'll remedy after you're dead."
"Are you OK Cassie?" Ryan asked wading towards her. Cassie was going to answer when the gun went off. Ryan froze.
"Don't move, whelp." Villefort had fired it into the murky water at Ryan's feet halting him.
"There's help coming….you won't get away with this." Mark said.
"I already have. And for you to think I don't have a contingency plan is foolish." The Phantom hissed.
"You don't have a contingency plan!" Mark said moving closer to the dry ground of the lair. "You're scared, I can see it in your eyes…you won't shoot us, you're too afraid…you're…" The gun went off again and Mark was knocked back. Cassandra screamed.
"Mark!"
Ryan rushed to the other boy's side and helped him stand. Mark's sleeve had a blossom of blood forming at the shoulder.
"That son of a bitch shot me!" Mark said shocked. "That bastard." Ryan made a move for the beach again but Villefort leveled the pistol at him as well.
"Don't be so foolish as to try my patience again, boy." Ryan froze. Cassandra looked from where Mark stood, leaning against the cave wall to where Ryan stood glaring at Villefort above them all on the second tier of the lair. Cassandra followed his gaze up to see Villefort smiling maliciously down at the boys.
"So, you came to rescue the girl did you? Thought you'd be heroes?" When he got no response he laughed. "You can not defeat the Phantom of the Opera!" His voice bounced off the walls of the cave and seemed to come from everywhere at once. "You'll never be any match for me."
"Who are you and why have you done all this?" Ryan stormed at the man above him. "This is madness!"
"I shall tell you a story…would you like that?" He asked laughing. "You would? Well, let's start out right then shall we? Once upon a time, there was a man who was hideously ugly, deformed. The fates dealt him a cruel blow indeed for with making him so wretchedly hideous they made him wickedly brilliant. A man of magic, math and music he traveled the world show casing his talents from beneath a mask. But he was cursed, as all men are by the wretched touch of age. Terrified of succumbing to the low of mere mortals, he sold his soul to the devil to keep age from touching him. He traveled the world, making wonderful friends and having many adventures. But his home and his best love was the opera. And so that is where he returned, only to find that the muse had dropped a wonderful gift into his lap; a lovely young girl with the voice of an Angel."
A whimsical look came over the madman's features, but Cassandra was drawn deeper into the crazy tale. "He did not age as she did and had only to wait for the day she came of age to make his move. Unfortunately when he did, it was ill timed, for her childhood lover had returned to her life and entered it with such pomp and grandeur that she could not resist the handsome whelp. The girl, blinded by this infatuation ignored the pleadings of the man who had tutored her and poured his blood, sweat and tears into her voice. Bitter, he destroyed the opera house, seldom leaving the wreck it became. But people, hearing of him came and sought him out, and occasionally persuaded him to tell his tale. On one of the few occasions he ventured out of the hulk of the opera house, he told a part of it to a man at a tavern who wrote it down and came to the opera house to get the rest of it. The fool sold it for a few shillings thinking it only the ramblings of a deranged man."
"You're telling us naught but the story of Leroux's 'Phantom'." Cassie said flatly.
"Well, everything except the thing about the Phantom selling his soul to the Devil." Ryan added.
"How do you think Leroux got that tale?" Villefort said smiling down to where she was still grasping the arm of the chair, as if it were the only thing holding her to the earth. "And it's called artistic licensing my dear." He turned back to Ryan. "That sot wrote it down night after night in the bar. Paid me 50 francs for it and thought it would be enough. When it became a success, and I came to collect, he didn't want to give so willingly of his newly filled pockets. He only refused to pay once…."
"You can not be…."
"Why not? Don't believe in immortality little Cassandra?" The man stood and laughed maniacally. "You wouldn't though, being just a child. More and more came…all wanting something from the genius of the shadows….all wanting something of me. I gave what I could….a design for a statue….a great tower for some idiot named Eiffel….those idiots couldn't work details out themselves to save them. Modern times made it more difficult for me to hide and I went into exile during the wars. Horrible things those…." His eyes glazed over briefly before he plowed on with his strange tale. "Anyway, after centuries of living with deformity, modern medicine made it possible to eradicate it." He touched his face where the latex still hung. "Oh, I'd completely forgotten this…" He grabbed the latex and ripped it off flinging the gruesome monstrosity away. "Modern medicine! Plastic surgery!" he said touching his face. "They took away the scars and the exile and I was able to move about the world relishing in that which I never could before."
"You're lying…" Cassandra breathed.
"You're not so sure though." He said as he brushed the dark hair away from his face. It made sense though…the scarring on his face…it was from reconstructive surgery. "But I could not forget that girl from so long ago--the girl with the voice of an angel. I had to have her again."
"People don't live forever." Mark said flatly as he leaned against the wall of the cavern.
"Oh, she didn't." The man above them said. "She died quite penniless and unhappy with her lover, the Whelp. At any rate, I had to find someone to match her. I could forego her beauty, that could be easily fixed with modern medicine you see…but her voice. That could not be bottled or remedied." He smiled. "And so I traveled to schools listening to maidens sing their hearts out for me, singing out their souls to me and me alone." Cassie took the moment while he was absorbed with Ryan and Mark to move silently up the stairs to the level where the Phantom stood. "Cassandra just happened to be her exact look-a-like….in voice and physical beauty. Now, she is mine and neither you, nor your little friend, nor the police are going to keep her from me. She's mine, now and forever! I will have her forever. I'm the one that sabotaged the production, the monster who haunted her dreams….your rival! She's quite passionate…if she kisses you with half the passion she does me, well then, I can see why you took such a fancy in her." He laughed at the shocked look on Ryan's face but misunderstood it. "Oh, didn't you know that she harbored feelings of love and devotion to me? That she was going to betray you for me?"
"I think not!" Cassie said as she rushed from her position at the top of the stairs and pushed Villefort forcefully off the edge of the level of the lair. He caught her wrist as he toppled backwards and the two of them fell from the edge into the murky, bottle green waters thirty feet below.
Cassandra hit the water with such a force that the air was knocked from her lungs. She was trapped in a swirl of fabric and wedding gown lace sure that she was going to die. She'd heard a shot go off when she'd tackled the Phantom, but couldn't feel anything in the cold of the water and the panic that had engulfed her. She calmed for a moment and watched as the bubbles forced from the air trapped beneath the layers of her dress moved to her right. She fought to right herself and followed the bubbles, forcing her way up. The world began to go black around her; she was not going to make it! The dress tangled around her knees and pulled her back, back where the green water turned black. Suddenly her hand was grabbed and she was pulled up to the surface of the water and took a grateful breath.
"Cassie! Cassie are you OK?" Ryan asked as he treaded water beside her and held her to the surface of the water. "Are you hurt?"
"I don't know…I don't know…" Cassie repeated. She was finding it difficult to swim with the fabric weighing her down and Ryan quickly pulled her to shallower waters lest they both be pulled under and drown. He half dragged her up onto the beach where Mark lay, his shoulder still bleeding. Cassandra sat heavily and looked around her. She looked down her body but could see no blood.
"I think I'm OK…..I'm not hurt." She laughed dryly. Ryan folded her into his arms and hugged her tightly and pressed a quick kiss to her temple. They sat for a long moment before Cassandra remembered Villefort. "I was never going to betray you for him, ever. I never loved him….I don't know where he got that, but he's crazy, he thinks he's the Phantom and that Christine Daaé was real and that I'm her reincarnation and he was the one behind all the crazy stuff!" Ryan rocked her back and forth as she continued to rant hysterically.
"He drugged me! He drugged me and brought me down here and I thought it was just a dream…I never saw his face---if I had known it was him I never would have…never for a minute!" Cassie was sobbing now.
"Shhh….I know; it's over now." Ryan held her to him and rocked her gently as she bawled into his shoulder. Her crying slowly subsided and she let Ryan stroke her wet and tangled hair as she sat in his arms.
"Wait, where is he?" Cassandra pushed away from Ryan and looked to where Mark was staring. "I didn't…."
"It's OK Cass…he was going to kill us all." Ryan pulled her back to him and held her so she wouldn't have to look back at the monstrosity that was her instructor.
The body of Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, the man they all knew as Richard Villefort, lay face down in an expanding cloud of his own blood. He'd accidentally shot himself when Cassandra had knocked him into the water and had drowned beneath her wedding dress. The woman he loved, and the plan he had so meticulously thought out had backfired and killed him.
"He said he was immortal, that he'd sold his soul to Satan to get here….he said he was immortal…that he told Leroux the story and made him famous."
"I know, but I think it's just more craziness." Ryan said.
"We can't just leave him floating there Ryan…no matter how crazy he was we have to pull his body out of the water." Mark said trying to stand up.
"You stay where you are….you're in no condition to pull anyone anywhere." Ryan said rising reluctantly to his feet.
"Don't go near him…."
"Mark's right Cassie, we can't leave him floating in the water." Ryan swam out and pulled Villefort back to the beach and drug his body to a spot far from Cassandra and Mark. He dropped it unceremoniously on the floor.
"Is he…?" Cassie asked. Ryan rolled the man over with his foot and looked into a face that was pale and clammy with death.
"Yeah, he's dead." Ryan grabbed a piece of paper and dropped it over what had once been the handsome face of Rick Villefort. He went back to where Cassie continued to stare at the body of the man who had been her instructor, who had schooled her voice and given her the gift of confidence. The same man who had terrified her, drugged her, kidnapped her and had been intent on marrying her.
"Let's get out of here….let's just go…." Cassie said quickly tearing her gaze away from the grizzly sight.
"We can't get out….the water is rising fast in the lake and there's no way to get the boat out by now….." Ryan said. "you can't swim in that and Mark can't swim at all, not with him being shot…" Cassandra's hands shook as she grasped Ryan's hand as he looked at her. "Who is he? He can't really be the Phantom…can he?"
"I don't know…nothing he said made any sense to me….he admitted that he drugged me and Mark." Cassie answered. "He said he wanted to get into a position to get close to me…that Mark leaving was the best thing that ever happened because it put him on stage closer to me. He said he was the one stealing costumes and messing with things." Cassie looked up at Ryan. "He said that the man from the gala was really a descendant of the Rat catchers. That Mr. Giles is related to him."
"No way." Mark said.
"Yes….he said Mr. Giles didn't believe us when we told him about these things happening because he never believed the stories his father told him when he was little…his father was French born and was raised here, in the opera house." Cassandra relayed the rest of what she'd learned from the Question and Answer session she'd had with the Phantom.
"Explains a lot of why the Embassy and French couldn't figure out who he was." Mark said quietly. He lay back against the wall and closed his eyes.
"Mark!" Cassandra crawled towards him and touched his face with her hand. He felt hot but she wasn't sure if it was because he was running a fever or because she was icy cold. She stood with effort as Ryan tried to rouse Mark. She lifted the heavy, shredded skirts of the wedding dress. It was destroyed. Between the water damage and all her crawling and dragging around in it, the once beautiful gown was ruined; the winter white stained a smoky gritty gray color. She staggered towards the chair where the Phantom's knife was still embedded in the arm of the chair. She pulled it from the chair arm and slashed into the cumbersome material at her knees. The material fell from the dress and lifted a considerable amount of weight from Cassandra's body. She slashed a few more layers from what was left of the skirt and went back to where Mark and Ryan sat. Mark's eyes were open but he seemed groggy…the blood stain on his shirt broader.
"We've got to get him out of here." Cassandra said from the middle of the room. "We've got to get out of here, we can't wait for aide."
"What do you suggest?" Ryan asked sitting back on his heels. "Is there another way out?"
"I don't know." Cassandra looked around and began looking behind curtains and under furniture for a way out. Her survival mode kicked in and she dashed around the lair frantically. She was in the bedroom tossing things out of her way when Ryan came in and hugged her to him.
"God, I thought I'd lost you." Ryan said as he held her in his arms. "I thought I'd never see you again, that that mad man had taken you from me."
"I was terrified…I didn't know what to do. And then you and Mark showed up and I was sure that he was going to kill you." She felt Ryan's arms tighten around her. "I just want to get out of here now."
"Uh…guys?" Mark's weak voice echoed against the dense walls of the cave. "We've got trouble." Ryan and Cassie rushed from the bed chamber and looked down the lair to where Mark still sat at the Beach. The water was lapping at his side.
"The water is rising." Ryan said softly, his voice echoing down to Mark.
"I didn't think I was totally losing it." Mark said. "Now what?" Cassie continued her mad hunt for a second way out with Ryan's help but they found nothing. She wracked her brain for everything and finally sat heavily at the top of the stairs. She stared blankly at the broken mirror across from her…the only broken mirror in the whole wretched place.
"That's it." Cassie said pointing at the broken mirror. "It has to be." Ryan knelt beside Mark and watched as Cassie went to the desk at the foot of the stairs and picked up a large rock that lay beside the blow gun that the phantom had discarded hours earlier. She hefted the rock in her hand and then pitched it at the mirror. The stone bounced off the mirror and rolled back to her. She picked it up and began bashing furiously at the glass which fell to her feet in ragged shards. There was a door behind it. Once she'd broken the glass completely away and pushed on it for several minutes with all the strength she could muster, she realized it was on a spring hinge.
"Ryan, help me look for the button!" Ryan and Cassie poured over the gilt framing on the mirror searching for the mechanism that would finally trigger the mirror.
"Found it!" Ryan shouted as he pushed down on a bump in the frame and the wood door jiggled and finally swung free revealing a long, dark, dusty passage way. "Let's go!"
"We can't leave him." Cassie said pointing at Villefort's body. "We have to take the body with us."
"No way." Ryan said lifting Mark to his feet.
"I'll support Mark, you wrap the body in one of the drapes….I'm not leaving that son of a bitch behind to come back to life or something." Mark staggered and went to Cassie as Ryan complied with her wishes.
"This is stupid." Ryan said as he wrapped the body in one of the heavy scarlet drapes. "This is real stupid."
"She's right, we can't risk his body just disappearing." Mark said. "Stranger things have happened. Let's just get out of here before it all floods." Mark, Cassie, and Ryan with the dead body wound their way through the dark subterranean passage ways for what seemed like hours. Eventually they came out onto the edge of the lake just as a group of police divers were making their way out of it.
"Hey! We're back!" Ryan shouted at the police. They turned, weapons drawn on the three teens coming through the darkness at them.
"Halt!" The officers shouted. Several American agents were there also, guns drawn and pointed.
"It's us!" Ryan shouted. Two of the French officers came forward and helped Cassie and Mark while two Americans took the body from Ryan.
"Who is this?" One of them asked.
"Villefort…."
"What? How?" One officer asked.
"He shot Mark and had the gun aimed at me. Cassie pushed him off the cliff into the water and when I pulled her out he was already dead." The agents looked down onto the dead body of the man and covered him with the heavy curtain.
"Where did you kids come from?" One of the Americans asked. "I know you two swam off but how did you get back without swimming back?"
"There's a way through there…." Cassie pointed. "This place is riddled with secret passages."
"You're the young lady he kidnapped?" Cassie nodded. "Do you know what he did to start this place to flooding? We've got plumbers on their way, but the ones we've consulted have no clue how he started this whole thing…." He waved his hand aimlessly at the lake. Cassie sloshed through the shallow water to the wall where the rusted fly wheel was and cranked it quickly. Slowly, the sound of water stopped and the lake turned still and glassy once again. The whole place descended into silence. "Oh….right."
"You're telling me you never tried the fly wheel?" Cassie asked.
"Well, no." The agent scratched his head sheepishly.
"He was right…you were clueless as to how to stop it…." She laughed to herself.
"We have to get him to the 'ospital." One of the Frenchmen said. "He needs medical assistance."
"Yes….let's get these kids out of here." The man said. He directed two of the French officers to lead the way, two of his agents taking up the rear while two more carried the body of the dead man.
Everyone was packed into the backstage area wondering what was going on. American field agents had stormed the stage as Villefort and Cassandra had disappeared. Mark reappeared and then he and Ryan vanished down the back passageway followed by several members of the police force. Mr. and Mrs. Giles, not knowing what was going on gathered the actors in the cafeteria area and tried to keep them calm which was near to impossible. Mr. Le Besprit had cornered Mrs. Giles and explained that Mr. Davagé was present and wondering what was going on.
"Bring him in." She said. She and Mr. Giles relayed the news to a shocked Charles Davagé.
"What do you mean 'he took her'. Took her where? For what reason?"
"We don't know. We have no clue how he did it or why. We just know he disappeared with her."
Matt held Mia in his arms. She'd done nothing but cry since the disappearance of her best friend. She'd begged Ryan before he disappeared to rescue Cassandra. Ryan had hugged her quickly before promising to bring her back.
"What if he dies too?"
"He won't. Mia, he's gonna bring her back. He and Mark and the police are going to get him before he does anything to Cassie." Matt said stroking Mia's back. He stared at the door where the police went in and out of. "I can't wait here anymore though." He sat Mia down at a table and kissed her quickly before he went and whispered with a bunch of the tech crew boys.
"We've been waiting in here for more than two HOURS for word of what's going on down there." He said. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired of just waiting."
"Yeah…but what are we gonna do?" One of the boys asked.
"We're gonna get as many people as we can together, we're gonna rush that door and we're going to fan out in the secret passage ways."
"What secret passageways?" Matt quickly explained about the secret passageways running throughout the opera house. Christian walked up part way through the conversation as did Mia.
"There no secret passageways."
"Yes there are…we've been in them." Matt argued.
"Prove it, Andrews." Christian said crossing his arms over his chest.
"You and Colleen O'Malley were fucking in the dormitories upstairs the day the stage was closed to everyone." Matt said with a straight face.
"Let's get to these secret passageways." Christian said after a moment of stunned silence. They moved throughout the cafeteria quietly and then, when everyone was grouped together they made a mass rush for the door.
"Wait! Get back to your seats!" Mr. Giles shouted. Mia made a run for Cassie's dad.
"Mr. Davagé, I only know you from pictures and Cassie talking so much about you. I'm Mia…a friend of hers from school and we're going to go look for them." She said clasping the man's hand. "You can come too….we're going to search for them in the passageways."
"Let's go…lead the way." He said following the press of high school students up to the main backstage area. Matt was standing up on a chair to get everyone's attention and breaking them into teams.
"No one is going to go off by themselves!" He shouted. "Stay in groups of five. Explore as far as you can." He bent down and picked up a series of head sets worn by the tech crew to talk with each other during the performance. "Each group leader will have one of these and we'll talk with each other and figure out where everyone's at. Everyone get the flashlights we passed out during the power out. I know you all still have them." Several of the girls ran upstairs and collected all they could find while Matt broke everyone into teams. "Now keep in contact, be alert, and stay safe. If you find any sign of Ryan, Mark, Cassie or that Son of a Bitch, radio your position to us, and we'll all go together is that clear?"
"Look!" One of the girls cried as a French police officer came up the narrow passage way from the subterranean lake.
"Have you found them?"
The man stood aside as another man helped the bleeding Mark up the stairs. Someone screamed and everyone made room for the two men to work their way through the crowd. "We're OK." Mark said to Mia as she pressed close to him looking worried. "She's fine."
Cassie and Ryan were next through the door followed by several of the field agents and then the two men carrying Villefort's body.
"Get these kids back to that Cafeteria!" One of them shouted. Everyone moved as one back to the Cafeteria. Mia rushed Cassie and hugged her tightly.
"Are you OK? Are you sure?"
"Fine Mia….A little rattled, but I'm fine." Cassie saw her father pushing his way through the sea of High School students and ran to him. "Daddy!" She burst into tears and sobbed as he held onto his baby girl. "Oh, Daddy I thought I'd never see you again."
She felt her father sob against her as he kissed her head, unable to speak.