a/n: Hey, guys! Sorry our Erik isn't in his robes for this DJT corollary; that would have been cool, but it just wasn't working out that way. As always, thanks everyone for your reviews. Even though I've finished writing the story, I edit each chapter before I publish it, and in doing so I apply all of your constructive criticism. So, your reviews make this story even more awesome!

Chapter 16: Self-Incrimination

When Christine followed Rosenbaum into a seedy conference room, the first thing she saw was Erik standing behind one of the ugly, turd-colored chairs. He lifted his hollow eyes to hers like a thirsty castaway gazing at the rolling surf. The haunting spirits had taken their toll: he was thinner than she'd ever seen him, emaciated even, and his eyes were hollower, darker, and more sunken. His dark lips twisted in a terrible scowl on his left side, while the right wrenched in its chronic sneer. His hair was disheveled; his shoulders stooped like a man tired of living.

Only then did she remember that tonight was Halloween. The anniversary of his first summoning. His deadline to dismiss the spirits. In her distress over her pending testimony, she hadn't realized the date's significance.

Clearly, his attempts to vanquish the lost souls had failed.

Rosenbaum pulled a limp handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead. "Please be seated, and let's go back on record."

They took their places. She sat across from Erik, with Rosenbaum and the stenographer at the head of their tableaux.

A howling wind rattled the tall windowpanes, sending the miniblinds swaying softly. In the corners of the room, shadows flickered as if alive. Erik watched it all without expression, his hand over his heart.

"Miss Dale, please raise your right hand," Rosenbaum said.

She was so nervous, she feared her arm wouldn't work. But her body moved as if on autopilot, and she took her oath as solemnly as though she were exchanging vows.

"The Deputy Administrator of the CJC is allowing a joint inquest, on the condition that there are no breaks during which the subpoenaed persons can discuss testimony, and today's proceedings are strictly confidential. Either of the subpoenaed persons may ask questions of the other. As I explained to you in the waiting room, Miss Dale, you are not obligated to submit to a joint interview. Do you understand and agree to these terms?"

"Yes." Though she didn't understand why Erik had requested this in the first place. Did he have some clever plan?

"Judge Delgado, you're still under oath. Do you understand and agree to these terms?"

"Yes. May I inquire, Mr. Rosenbaum?"

Rosenbaum stifled a smile. "Go ahead."

"Thank you. First of all, Miss Dale, I want to direct your attention to my face. Look at me, please…"

She had been looking directly at him since the moment she first saw him, but she narrowed her eyes and studied him more closely. Here was his impassive poker face, the opposite of his demonstrative expression their last time in court. His eyes, so frightfully hollow, were even more sepulchral without their fire. Above these, his thick eyebrows arched patiently. The jagged mess of his scars stood out more starkly in the florescent lights of the conference room, and his irregular lips were pressed together.

Put me out of my misery, he seemed to plead, tell them how badly I behaved with you. Tell them what you found in my house. Tell them everything.

Hester Prynne's confessor could not have been more formidable, more determined—or more beloved.

"When you're finished looking, please tell us the truth: Am I handsome?"

"Yes."

A murmur from Rosenbaum. Not the answer he'd been expecting, and it was so surprising and so incriminating that he could not have doubted her honesty. She even surprised herself.

Erik maintained his composure; only his voice betrayed his incredulity: "Excuse me? Y-You think I'm handsome?"

"Yes, I do."

Color flared on his face; his pale deformities grew more distinct, the way invisible ink manifests when the paper is held to a flame. "Don't most people find me ugly?"

"I know."

"You disagree with them, then?"

"Yes."

Thunder crashed and rumbled almost directly over the building. She thought the floor shook, but she might have trembled.

Erik didn't even flinch. He narrowed his eyes at her as though she were a puzzle. "Why?"

Good question. "Um… I don't know."

He opened his mouth to continue that line of questioning—and paused. His eyes rolled, his eyelids blinked then squeezed shut. He groaned and massaged his temples as though agitated by a sudden noise. It looked like he was falling into a seizure, but before she could think of what to do, he shook himself and opened his eyes.

"And were you also aware that I'm fifty-five years old?" he continued, as though nothing had happened.

The spirits will drive him mad, or worse, Khan had warned her. How could Erik be so calm! "I knew you were around that age. I didn't know how old you were exactly, though."

The wind rattled the panes again, like someone shook them in fury at being left out in the cold. Christine would have shaken them herself in her fury at being trapped inside.

"Isn't it true that if your father had lived, he and I would be the same age?"

"…Yes."

"Did you love him very much?"

Her fingers searched her throat for her missing locket. "Yes."

Anticipating triumph from his next question, he settled into his conference chair like a king about to issue an important edict. "Isn't it also true, then, that your feelings for me—whatever they are—are influenced by your feelings for your father?"

"No! No. Not at all." Was that what he thought?

"How are you so sure?"

"Because…" She'd never even considered it. "It's not the same at all!"

"How do you know? Come now, Miss Dale, you must be specific—if you're telling the truth!"

Rosenbaum scowled at her from the head of the table, his arms crossed over his chest.

She squirmed in her chair. Chewed her lip. "Because I—I'm… Well, it's…" Without her locket to hold, she clenched her fist. "My attraction and my feelings for you… They're not platonic."

Erik raised his eyebrows. Rosenbaum straightened in his seat and gave a low whistle.

She prayed neither of them would ask her to elaborate.

Lightning flashed against the windows, and the entire conference room went dark. The stenographer gasped. Deafening thunder reverberated off the building's granite façade and echoed in the streets outside.

"The generator should come online shortly," said Rosenbaum.

And it did, with a rather loud and dissonant electric hum from the florescent lights overhead as they flickered with weak, purplish light. The shadows in the corners no longer merely winked; now they writhed.

Erik had his hand over his heart again, over his breast pocket. "Hmm. Where were we? Ah, yes. Miss Dale, let's leave your feelings aside for the moment. Whatever those feelings are, we are not in a relationship, are we?"

It was a leading question, one that implied the correct answer. Rosenbaum didn't notice or didn't care.

"We're not."

"Can you tell us why?"

Both Rosenbaum and the stenographer gaped at her. Erik leaned forward in his seat. She knew that the answer he anticipated would exonerate her and implicate him. Which explained why he'd asked for this joint interview. Again she felt like Hester Prynne on the pillory.

Too bad the Fifth Amendment didn't apply in these situations.

She chewed her bottom lip as she thought up a valid reply, one that was still truthful but less incriminating. "Because… we had a misunderstanding."

"A what?" Erik's face was an amusing contortion of confusion. "What misunderstanding?"

"I didn't trust my feelings. Didn't believe they were real." The words tumbled from her tongue before she could think them through. "But now I'm sure."

Divine fire flared in his eyes, and high color in his cheeks. He struggled to keep his poker face—his mask—from slipping. He couldn't even summon wit to ask another question.

Finally, her judge was speechless.

Above their heads, the florescent lights still emitted zaps and hums and flickered as though from a short circuit.

"Judge Delgado," said Rosenbaum, "none of these questions are getting to the heart of the matter. Maybe you're not in a relationship at the moment, but you may have been before. I must make my examination."

Erik still stared at Christine. "As you wish."

"…Uh…" He flipped through his notes. Scratched his head. "… We've had so many interruptions, I forgot most of what was already asked and answered… Would the court reporter please read the testimony back to us? It's just a handful of questions."

The stenographer checked her computer monitor and frowned. She then checked the printed readout from her stenotype, and her jaw dropped.

"I… I'm sorry, I can't," she said. "I typed everything that was said, but the readouts just say 'RevengeRevengeRevengeRevengeRevenge' on and on and on."

Goosebumps broke out on Christine's arms. Erik eyed the shadows on the wall.

Actually, the light did reflect strangely on the walls, as though the beige paint had broken out in tiny blisters from floor to ceiling. Blisters as red as blood.

And they were growing.

"What… What's happening to the walls?" Christine asked.

The boils swelled until too heavy, and then thick, red fluid trickled down in countless streams.

"They're bleeding!" Rosenbaum shouted. "My God, the walls are bleeding!"

More lightning. More thunder. The banshee wind picked up again, shaking the windows for a full half-minute and making the miniblinds rattle like a pile of bones. The florescent light zapped and pulsed in a growing frenzy, as though the ancient bulbs were about to explode in a shower of sparks.

And as if this were a signal, shadows streamed from all sides and corners and gathered in the middle of the room above the conference table. In that black mass, Christine thought she saw the translucent, twisted faces of the long-dead; corpses whose eyes were dried out jelly, whose noses and ears were shrunken nubs on their dirty skulls. They turned collectively towards Erik, who hunched over the table cringing from noises that only he could hear.

"No!" she shouted.

But the phantoms had only one commander, and they flew to him now like metal shavings to a magnet. They flew straight through him one by one, with a force that pushed him off his chair and suspended him above the flags against the wall.

Rosenbaum and the stenographer fled the room.

Christine leapt from her chair and watched in helpless horror as Erik was dragged towards the ceiling, smearing the wallblood as if he were a rag, until his wingtip shoes dangled above the gold letters IN GOD WE TRUST. Then the last spirit flew through his body, and as though his wire had been cut, he fell to the floor.

"Erik!"

The florescent bulbs ceased flickering, and glowed silently with a steady, bright light.

She hurried to where he lay. Blood trickled from his nose and the grimacing side of his mouth. His hands and hair were streaked with gore.

"Erik! Erik, open your eyes!"

His ubiquitous red rose corsage was now a shock of white on his tattered suit.