Chapter 10—Passion, Music, and Revenge

Erik awoke less than an hour after he had gone to sleep. He sat up and put his feet on the floor, listening intently to the sounds outside his room. He heard organ music, and his Angel singing sweetly.

"Child of the wilderness, born into emptiness,

Learn to be lonely! Learn to find your way in darkness!

Who will be there for you, comfort and care for you?

Learn to be lonely! Learn to be your one companion!

Never dreamed, out in the wild, there are arms to hold you!

You've always known your heart was on its own!

So, laugh in your loneliness, child of the wilderness!

Learn to be lonely! Learn how to love life that is lived alone!

Learn to be lonely! Life can be lived, life can be loved, alone!"

He had made his way out of the bedroom slowly. The sweet music carried him all the way, and he found himself barely a yard behind her before she spoke to him.

"Couldn't sleep, my love?" she said, turning to look at him. He noticed that she had donned her mask again. He wondered if she would ever leave it off.

"Don't you ever sleep?"

"I do," she replied, eyes twinkling. "Not lately, though. Night is the best time of day."

"I can see why you would say that. Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation…"

"Darkness stirs and wakes imagination…" She rose from her seat and held her arms out to him. He couldn't help himself—he enfolded her in his embrace, kissing the top of her head. He delighted in the way her fingers were splayed across his bare chest, and how her skirt swirled around his legs. He moved his lips over her forehead and down her face to her neck and bare shoulders. As she relaxed into him, he knew that he wanted her badly. He wanted to lie next to her in the swan-shaped bed, and kiss all the pains of her past away. He knew that she wanted him to, as well. There was one thing to do.

He took her hands and pulled her gently with him into the bedroom he'd just come from. Her eyes, as she looked at him, were full of a strange, sweet passion that told him she wanted him as terribly as he wanted her. As she moved, she sang, trancelike and haunting.

"Poor young master! For the thrill on your tongue of stolen sweets,

You will have to pay the bill, tangled in the winding sheets!"

They drew near the bed, and she pulled him down into a full kiss. He toyed with her corset string, and it dropped to the floor. All modesty followed, and they sank onto the bed, never breaking their kiss, until he hit her mask with his hand, knocking it onto the pillow.

She gave him a look of fear and confusion, and withdrew from him, groping for it again. He took it from her and let it slide to the floor. He kissed her chest, directly above her beating heart, then moved up to kiss her deformed face. She came back to him, more fervently than ever.

k

Meg was torn to shreds. She rode back to the Opera the next day, hollow and unfeeling. Her mind was locked on the single thought of revenge—on Erik for leaving her, on herself for letting him go, and on that whore…the Phantom, the Opera Ghost. The sexually aggressive slut who couldn't mind her own mood swings. The one who had stolen her handsome Prince Charming. Oh, yes, it was she that Meg wanted most of all. She wanted to strangle the bitch with her own fair hands, tear her apart, and scatter her remains to the vultures.

She secretly thanked the dead soul of Joseph Buquet. When he had been alive, he had courted her, and shown her some of the Opera's secrets. She had scoffed the information, doubting she'd ever need it, until his death, when Erik had begun to act terribly strangely.

To be honest, she thought, it wasn't really Erik himself that she wanted. Being a Vicomtess, she was used to getting her way. She had gone against her parents' rules and courted a low-ranking singer. She had been satisfied with her success—and then it had all been taken away from her. She knew she was selfish. She reveled in it. It meant she had permission to totally scoff every warning word that the Phantom had spat before Meg had gone from that horrid place. She wanted Erik back at her side, even if he hated her, just to show the world, and especially that devil's child, that she could get her way…no matter what.

Her driver pulled up before the destroyed House, and helped her out before going to wait for her return. She went straight up to where the managers stood just outside the ruined front door, talking in serious, low voices.

"Monsieurs," she announced as she approached them, "I may have a way for you and I to find the Opera Ghost, and lay this stupidity to rest once and for all."