Laughing, Erik reached down and opened the door, guiding Christine through before him with a gentle hand on her elbow. Two steps outside the door, she froze with a horrified gasp. Her stop was so sudden that Erik nearly bumped into her. He looked her over, trying to figure out what the trouble could be – she looked as though she had seen a ghost.
"Raoul…" her voice was low, tremulous, and terribly frightened. "Raoul, how…?"
Raoul had the haggard appearance of a man who had survived Hell, barely. Blood and lake-water slicked his hair flat against his skull. Every exposed inch of skin was bruised or scraped from his encounter with the sandbag and his subsequent encounter with the stone wall. His clothes were torn and drenched; his shirt bulged over his weirdly swollen abdomen. One arm gripped his ribcage in an attempt to stabilize the fractured rib. The other hand held the still-dry revolver out and away from his wet body. His eyes were wild and wide with pain and fear from his ordeal in the tunnels. When he saw Christine step down from the Mirror-room, he took a step forward. She saw that he was barely able to stand. Something dreadful must have happened to him. If he'd navigated the secret passageways on his own, something dreadful likely had happened to him.
"Christine…I've come…you're sav-," His eyes moved to look past her. The fear in them exploded into panicky terror. His mind struggled to translate what his eyes were seeing. His worst imaginings regarding Christine's captor were coming true. The thing standing behind her was surely a demon straight from the lowest circles of Hell.
"My God, Christine. What is that creature behind you!"
Erik cared little about the insult or for the grievous injuries the sopping wet young man may have sustained in his passageways. The alarm had not sounded; this boy must have disabled it. Had the alarm worked, Erik would have intercepted the foppish aristocrat before his delicate feet ever found the first traps. The whole of Erik's attention was focused on the cocked and ready weapon in the lily-white hand. That hand trembled wildly. What if the boy tried to shoot Erik and missed? Again, the nightmare from the previous night superimposed itself on reality – Christine lying still and cold, blood caked on her unmoving chest.
Without a second thought, Erik roughly laid hold of Christine and thrust her behind him, shielding her with his body. The sudden movement spooked Raoul. His fingers twitched on the trigger. Christine's scream, "Raoul! No!" was lost as the gun's report echoed through the cavernous foundation.
The bullet ricocheted off the stone flagging and sent shards of stone flying. Several sliced Erik's exposed skin, several more lodged in Christine's skirts. She gave a soft hiss of pain as one sliced a fine sizzle of fire along her neck. Raoul stared in shock at the sudden appearance of red against the china-white of Christine's throat. I could have killed her, he thought. I would never have shot the gun at all were it not for that monster. Steeling his nerves, Raoul raised the gun and supported his shaking hand with his opposing wrist.
"Move away from her, demon. Christine, come to me and let's get away from here." Raoul tried to make his voice sound commanding and controlled, but the growing pain in his belly made it difficult to speak loudly.
"Raoul…please. He is no demon. He's just a man, like any other." Christine's voice was jagged with nerves. Only Erik's danger kept her from fleeing.
"Christine, this thing has bewitched you. You aren't seeing clearly! Trust me when I say that you are in the presence of a monstrosity." Raoul could not tear his eyes from Erik's face. He had seen smallpox victims and burn victims, but he had never seen anything to match this freak - or demon or whatever it might be.
Under his breath, Erik muttered, "That's true, but I am not it." He watched as the boy's face slowly drained of color. Something was wrong with Raoul that could not be explained by fear or anger.
"No, Raoul. Erik is not what he appears to be. He has not harmed me, though he has had ample opportunity to do so. I have been here all night." Christine got the distinct impression that Raoul would not respond to reason, but she had to try. The need to defend Erik's character overwhelmed her better judgment that commanded her to run.
"I know. I saw you go through the mirror with him. I saw you embrace him." Raoul's stomach turned at the thought. He felt extremely nauseated, as though he might vomit at any moment. He desperately did not want to be sick in front of Christine.
"You were spying?" Anger put flaming color back into Christine's cheeks and stole the tremor from her voice. "I'll have you know that I embraced him because I love him. I'm not coming back with you, Raoul."
"You will! You will come back with me, and you will love me…"
"She will not." Erik's voice was full of pity, as kind as Christine's was cutting. He could feel sympathy for this poor boy who had earned Christine's scorn. "Christine speaks the language of music. She loves me because I can hear her and speak to her in kind. I've watched you in the opera house. Do you even like music, monsieur?"
Raoul did not reply. He only spun the chamber and cocked the hammer. Erik gestured to Christine. Run, Christine. Please run… Instead, Christine stepped forward.
"Raoul, leave him…leave us… alone."
"If you won't come with me, Christine, I have to assume you have sold your soul to this demon." Raoul took a faltering step forward. There was something wrong with his vision. It kept changing from clear to blurry; he couldn't focus consistently. His voice took on a sorrowing note. "And if you've done that, I'll have to kill you, too." Ponderously, he swiveled the gun in her direction.
"NO!" Erik exerted the full power of his well-trained voice. It echoed around them louder than the first gunshot had done. Raoul's hands reflexively jerked back towards him. Good, thought Erik. If the boy is mad, I can play off his madness. Maybe Christine can escape. "If the demon that possesses her is destroyed, then she will be free. You don't have to kill her, Raoul. Only me." He spread his arms, at once making himself an easier target and blocking Raoul's view of Christine. Throwing his voice so that only she could hear, Erik whispered, "Run, Christine. Hide."
The pain in his stomach made it difficult to understand the demon's words. He only had to kill…who? The demon. Right. Raoul blinked, aimed, and pulled the trigger just as his legs gave out beneath him.
Erik felt flaring heat followed by a peculiar numbness as the lead bullet dug a gaping trench in his thigh. The leg would no longer support him. As he crumpled to the ground, his only thought was, Christine is safe. Raoul lay perfectly still, face down, ten paces away; he was no longer a threat. Erik closed his eyes and drifted off into the gauzy grey cloud that had settled over him.
The still bodies of two men lay on the stone in front of her. At first, Christine was too horrified and shocked to move; then she saw that Erik was bleeding from the leg. Not the chest or the head – the leg. He was alive! As if in answer to her jubilant thought, he stirred and groaned. Shock. He's only in shock. She ran and knelt at his side, ripping the fabric away from the wound to inspect it. The bullet had flattened when it struck flesh, but the wound was external. It was deep, and the bleeding was heavy – but it was controllable. She tore her sash from her dress and quickly knotted a tourniquet over the wound, silently thanking Meg's obsession with war-time nurse stories.
Erik opened his eyes, roused by the pain of Christine's ministrations. He was surprised to find that he was still alive. The fire in his thigh quickly explained why he was not dead. He saw Christine kneeling beside him, bloody up to her elbows. That galvanized him. He sat up quickly, then sank back to his elbows as a wave of dizziness washed over him.
"Christine! Are you…"
"Hush, Erik. I'm fine. He shot you in the leg. You are bleeding, but I have put a tourniquet on it. I did not know what else to do…"
Living alone had forced Erik to learn much about medicine. If he could only sit up to see the injury, he could assess its severity. The dizziness and shock made this an impossibility without…help.
"Christine? Will you," he swallowed hard, hating having to ask her help when she had already done so much. "please help me to sit up. I need to see the bullet hole."
Once the wave of dizziness from a change of position had passed, a brief inspection told Erik that the wound was deep, but not at all life threatening as long as it was kept clean and bandaged. He talked Christine through pouring a little medicinal liquor over the wound and then bandaging it tightly. Once that was done, he had her help him to his feet and then to his bedroom door.
"Stay here. Only come in if….something…happens." He did not think Raoul would move again. There had been something very wrong with him throughout the harrowing exchange.
Christine nodded and stood quietly outside the door, listening for any hint of activity outside. In the church-like silence, the only thing she could hear were her racing thoughts. Raoul may have come with the intention of "saving" her, but he had ended up meaning to kill her. He almost had killed Erik.
As long as she and Erik were in the Opera Populaire, they would face such prejudice. Erik had known this from the very beginning; it had been so his entire life. Only Christine, in her naïve innocence, believed they might go on to live happily in the opera house, performing and composing together into blissful old age. He'd asked her to marry him and she'd promised her hand happily – but who would marry them? There would be no families, no guests to witness the wedding. Hers had always been a quiet life, but if she married Erik she would share in his complete solitude.
Sharing that solitude did not seem like such a terrible thing; were it not for the music. The compositions she had looked over the night before were stunning. If only M. Reyeurre could see his work, if the managers would allow it to be performed, they would have no choice but to acknowledge him and welcome him with open arms. They would have to overlook the mask. He could be free…
The bedroom door opened and Erik limped out, only to be wrapped in a tight hug by two bloody arms attached to a weeping Christine. Bewildered, he put his arms around her and held her for a moment, not in the least understanding why she should break down now. The danger was over. She was fine, he would heal.
"Come, Christine. Stop crying." His voice had regained its commanding surety. "We have to go see about our brave invader."
