Welcome to all the new reviewers.Only two more chapters to go after this one! (Though whether or not I'll be alive to post them after you read this one is debatable).

The Final Threshold

Angel moved toward the pair, flowing over the rooftop like a great cat. "Christine wears my ring," he repeated, every muscle quivering with the effort to keep himself in check. "Get your hands off my wife!"

The boy's eyes widened at the word "wife" and he thrust Christine behind him, drawing his sword. "This time I'll make sure you're dead!" he growled. He lunged toward Angel, who easily stepped to the side, ignoring the opportunity to grab the boy round the neck as he slid past him on the right. Instead he hooked his arm over the boy's sword arm and brought his knee up hard into the younger man's stomach. The boy gasped for air, staggering away from Angel as he released his hold on him.

They faced each other again, the boy panting, his left arm curled over his abdomen. The ghost of a smile lifted the corners of Angel's mouth as he waited patiently, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. The boy advanced with a rush, slashing with the rapier this time instead of thrusting. Angel whirled away to the left, feeling the puff of displaced air on his cheek as the weapon just missed slicing the top of his shoulder. His turn brought him inside the other man's defense for the second time and Angel drove his elbow into his opponent's kidney.

The boy went to one knee, but was up in an instant, charging Angel, his eyes dark with frustration and fury, his teeth bared in a snarl.

Angel dodged again, whipping his cape round like a Spanish matador. The end of it caught the boy across the face, momentarily blinding him. When he blinked his watering eyes open, Christine stood at Angel's side. "Enough, both of you!" she cried. Angel tried to tug her behind him, but she would have none of it, pulling her arm free and moving to stand in front of him.

The boy stared at the two of them, disgust in his eyes. "Release her, monster, or I shall run you through a second time!"

A smirk twisted Angel's lips. "I have no hold on Christine. She goes where she chooses. And as for running me through, assuming you could, that would make you the same as me, a murderer, as I am unarmed, monsieur." He spread his arms wide, showing he bore no weapons.

The boy's brow furrowed at this revelation. So he still had some shred of honor about him, Angel mused.

The boy turned his gaze on Christine. "He said you are free. Prove it by coming with me, Christine. I know you do not wish to spend the rest of your life hiding in the cellars with him! I will take you away from all this, surround you with the beautiful things you deserve, give you a life in the sun."

"And I will be what? Your mistress? I am married, Raoul!" Christine spat. Angel could see her shoulders shaking in her anger.

"The Church will certainly annul your marriage once they know the truth, that your husband is a murderer. Please, Christine. I can give you everything he can't. I'll spare his life, I'll let him go free, if only you will come with me." He stretched out his left hand toward her. "Make your choice, Christine."

Angel held his breath, a tiny part of him wishing she would go, knowing that whatever life they had together would not be the life of happy ease the boy offered. He loved her enough to want that for her, though it would destroy him should she accept it.

Christine stepped back, her hand finding Angel's, her fingers entwining with his. He exhaled loudly, feeling foolish. There was nothing to choose. Christine had made her decision bending over a dying man in a frozen cemetery, and again last night, when she had taken him for her husband.

"There is no choice, Raoul. There never has been. I am my Angel's, heart and soul, body and mind, and he is mine."

The boy's face took on a purplish color at her words. "If that is what you wish, Christine, very well." He took a step toward them, wielding his sword menacingly. "But I will have justice for your angel's victims. We shall all go inside and I shall call for the gendarmes."

"So you would condemn me to the guillotine, Raoul?" Christine asked quietly.

He paled. "What?"

"Angel is my husband. I have hid and aided him this past month. His crimes are my crimes now in the eyes of the law." She flicked her tongue over her lips, her chin coming up stubbornly.

The tip of the boy's sword quivered, then held steady at the level of Angel's heart. "I will tell them you were under a spell, that you did not know what you were doing. Who will believe the word of a murderer and a 16-year-old chorus girl over a member of the nobility?"

Christine turned to look up at Angel, and he could see her mind working furiously behind her dark eyes. He immediately saw what she could not. The only solution was to kill the boy; they would never be free otherwise. A few days ago, he would have choked the life out of the whelp without a second thought. The Phantom killed as easily as he breathed. But Christine's love had changed him. He was truly Angel now, and Angel would not kill so freely.

Her gaze met his, a question in her eyes, and he shook his head. For once, Angel had no answers for her.

Christine turned her face toward the boy. "Will you give us a moment, Raoul? I would like to say a few words to my husband before we are separated forever."

Not waiting for his reply, Christine reached up and removed her Angel's mask. His fists clenched at the boy's gasp of horror, but he didn't move, didn't shift his gaze from Christine's. She touched his face with her fingertips, starting at his forehead. She gently traced the ridges of red, twisted flesh, the missing eyebrow, the drooping eyelid, the gnarled side of his nose. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he fought to hold them back, unwilling to give the boy any further reason to pity him.

She laid her palm against his right cheek, the gold of her wedding ring cold on his skin. The hand still holding his mask she wrapped round his waist then she raised up on her toes and touched her lips to his. He closed his eyes and slipped his arms around her, deepening the kiss. When they finally broke apart, Angel buried his face in her hair, wanting to imprint everything about her into his memory, the silk of her curls, the warmth of her skin, the faint scent of roses that seemed to always cling to her.

Some how he had known it would come to this, that their plans of a life together would never happen. People like him didn't deserve happiness. Christine had been a fluke, an aberration in Fate's grand design. She had never been meant to love him, and now the universe was rectifying that error. He searched futilely for a way out, a way to thwart their miserable destiny. He couldn't kill the boy but perhaps he could knock him out, and they could escape. But Angel knew that would be condemning them to a life on the run, as the boy would never rest until he had rescued Christine from the monster.

He moved back a bit and looked down into Christine's beautiful, trusting eyes. Angel could not bear to think of her facing the guillotine, but neither could he stand thinking of her cold and hungry and ill, hiding with him in the catacombs underneath the city. He took her face in his hands and gently kissed her forehead. "Christine," he said softly, "take the boy's offer. I would not have you die for my sins."

Her tears were two glistening tracks down her cheeks. "I would not live without you," she replied in a steely whisper. She glanced at the boy, who stood several feet away, sword still at the ready. His expression was that of one who had just smelled something unpleasant.

Laying her hand on Angel's chest over his heart, Christine whispered, "Are you still willing to follow me into the depths of hell?"

The words stuck in his throat and he had to swallow past the lump they formed before he said, "Always, my love."

She smiled at him and kissed him once more, taking his hand and locking her fingers with his. Then turning around, Christine raced toward the edge of the roof, her Angel right beside her.