A/N: Lines that are both in quotes and italics are indications that the characters are speaking French (Paris, remember?). The only one speaking English in this chapter is Ang.
He was an idiot.
An absolute idiot.
An angel had dropped into his life and he'd let his guard down, allowed her to get the upper hand. Now Erik was alone again, and he felt it even more acutely than before; once one had a taste of heaven, earth was unbearable, and he felt every inch a demon sentenced to hell.
He remained in the same place he'd landed after the woman felled him with his own tray, the symbol of his generosity used violently against him. He sobbed and screamed and railed against the cruelty of reality, bemoaning his eternal fate of desolation and anguish to the unfeeling walls of his kingdom, his prison. Once he dragged himself to his feet, he fell into his composing, the heartbreak fueling his passion and creative genius.
The sad truth was that torment was his muse. Without it, he feared he would be unable to write a single note worth listening to or playing. From the time he could remember holding a pen, he had known the opposite to be true of life: his was an existence filled with loathing, not love; with regret, not hope; with darkness, not light; with ugliness, not beauty. As a child, he poured over fairy tales with the hopes that someday, somehow, some princess or fairy would come and rescue him, folding him into her loving arms and showing him the affection and acceptance he long for with every fiber of his being.
Decades later, the dreams were dead, nothing but mere skeletons in the closet of his past.
Erik inhaled the crisp, night air, holding it in his lungs until he thought they would burst before exhaling again. Part of him wished his domain reached to these heights, up here on the roof. A man could breathe here, could leave the dirt and ugliness of the catacombs behind, and pretend that he was a normal man who lived a life of luxury and leisure. Perhaps he could be a wealthy viscount with a patio terrace off one of the many suites of his mansion. Servants would run to and fro, doing his bidding, while he enjoyed his morning paper and coffee al fresco. Perhaps his little wife was within, meeting with the nurse about their children. Two boys and two girls, he decided. She would play the piano, or the harp perhaps – naturally she would have to be musically inclined – and the sweet notes would drift outside through the open double doors that joined their rooms to the outdoor balcony that was theirs alone. Yes, that was the scene. In his mind's eye, the scenery shifted from morning to evening, the silvery moon and blanket of stars the only light needed. He awaited his wife with a single, long stemmed rose. Erik, could you come help me, please? Perhaps she needed assistance in doing up the hooks of her gown before coming out to him. Help me.
"Help! Help me!"
His imaginary world shattered as a very real scream pierced the tranquility of his night. He growled to himself, annoyed at the interruption. With almost morbid curiosity, he snapped up his walking cane, went to the edge, and swept himself over the side, leaping to the balcony one story below. One gloved hand braced against the stone ledge and leaned far over, peering below at whomever was making such an awful racket. A scuffle had broken out on the sidewalk against the back of his opera house, three men against a pale-haired woman. It rankled that they defiled his beloved theater so. But then his attention was, once again, drawn back to the cause of his initial curiosity, and his focus sharpened.
"Stop it! Get off me!" a woman's voice screamed in the night.
The wheels of his mind spun. English!
Erik saw red and he was dropping down to the next balcony, down to the ledge, and onward, making a rapid descent before an actual, solid thought commanded him to do so. By the time he landed, somewhat winded, on the cobblestone of the street, one man was stooped over and moaning while the other two were at the woman. THE woman. One was grabbing at her breast and scrambling to undo the front of his trousers while the other had himself already free and was tugging a pair of very short, black undergarments down the woman's legs, yanking the shoe off her foot along with tiny garment. They were unaware of him, and he was able to jog closer before one stopped briefly enough to look in the direction of the oncoming footsteps.
"You'll get your turn when we're finished with her, Mask Man," the second muttered, tossing the skimpy material away to his partner.
Erik stared for a moment, a deadly calm settling over him as his hand tightened on the silver handle of the walking stick. "It would be in your best interests to leave immediately."
Both men laughed, the third incapacitated enough not to care about anything but his abused manhood. "It's actually in our best interests to keep doing what we're doing, and you can leave."
"Very well," Erik quipped shortly. His left hand deftly tugged at the end of his cane, a swordstick to be exact, and the handle slipped free, revealing the long, hidden blade couched within. With practiced precision, the rapier sliced across the kneeling man's throat, one side to the other. A wet gurgle attempted its way between bloodied lips before the man grabbed at his neck and promptly keeled over, landing across one of the woman's legs. The second was dispatched with equal rapidity, the blade entering and leaving his side before he even realized what had happened. He, too, fell in a pool of his own blood.
The third unfortunate soul, he who was already pained due to the woman's attack on his genitals, was attempting to escape the carnage by crawling away, one hand still cupping his injured groin.
"Well, cannot leave any witnesses, can we?" Erik took five leaping strides and thrust the sword into the man's back between his ribs. Yanking it free from the body, Erik wiped the blade on the back of the man's coat as the dying man doubled over, then moved to retrieve the rest of his cane.
As he knelt and put away the sword, he eyed the woman's face through the dark. As he had suspected, it was exactly whom he'd thought: the strange, English-speaking woman he had kept below not so long ago. Taking hold of the nearest man's collar, he wrenched backward so the body's weight fell off the her leg. Erik's eyes gogged at what he witnessed.
The stone beneath her and the hem of her skirt were dripping in blood, as well as what was left of one leg! "What the devil did they do to you?" He knelt quickly and assessed. In the low light, all he could tell was that the bastards had cut off the lower half of the poor woman's right leg, and rage fumed within him. Without the time constraint, he would have gladly taken his sweet time ensuring each man's death was more painful than the agony of a slow exsanguination. Yanking the gloves from one hand, he almost desperately pressed his fingers to her throat, and there found the steady, fast heartbeat he'd prayed for. She was still alive, and her life was more important than the vengeance upon her three attackers. They were as good as dead already, but there was still hope for her.
Tearing a length of fabric free from the bottom of his own cloak, he wound the black fabric about her thigh, tied it as tightly as humanly possible, and scooped her almost lifeless form into his arms. Practically running, he pressed his shoulder against a particular brick in the wall, and the hidden door popped open for its master, closing a moment after he passed through it.
Why did I intervene in the first place? he pondered as he hurried. As a rule, he avoided contact with the other people, all people. Any other time, he wouldn't have paid any heed to the sounds of the scuffle when he was on the roof; he likely would not have even noticed. He wondered if his brain had immediately latched on to the differing language, and that it had been guilt that lured him to involve himself. If he had remained sharper in her presence she never would have escaped, and thus never would have been attacked so viciously. Her injuries were in some twisted way, his fault.
Down into the catacombs Erik raced, speaking softly into her hair as he hurried her to the safety of his kingdom. Her eyes fluttered open once, briefly, but seeing nothing but shadows and a featureless face, she fell back into unconsciousness.
It was a record descent into his domain, he was sure. He settled her on his own bed and went directly about unwinding the makeshift bandage from her leg. He'd noted a pool of blood against his breast where her head had lain, but that was obviously secondary to the danger of bleeding out. Much as he dreaded assessing the damage, he steeled his stomach and turned his gaze to the mangled leg.
But it wasn't mangled. At all. He blinked and even brought one of the larger candlesticks closer, holding it near the amputation site. "It's not her blood," he whispered to himself in realization, processing. Just to be sure, he took the edge of his cloak, dipped it in the bowl of water that sat on the bedside table, and wiped at the blood on the stump. Sure enough, while the skin around and just below her knee was raw, no bone or muscle was visible; it was an old wound, long since healed. Another scar, this one peeking out from beneath her tattered skirts a hand's breadth above her knee, caught his attention. His heart threatened to pound a hole through his chest as he slid the fabric further up her leg, careful not to go any higher than the apex of one thigh. A multitude of criss-crossing scars came into view, each thin and precise, as if done with the fine edge of a slender blade, many of which disappeared into the valley between her legs. Dread and concern had him gently removing the folds of silk from her other bared leg, disclosing another set of nearly identical scars and marks.
"What horrors have you endured?" he breathed.
The woman moaned, and he was forced to push the puzzle aside for the moment. She may not be in danger of bleeding out, but other damage had been done, and it was up to him to gauge just how much. Rolling up his sleeves in neat folds to his elbows, he gathered a small pile of clean towels and blankets, filled the kettle to boil, and set to work, the mystery of the strawberry-blonde woman tugging at the back of his mind all the while.
Erik had forced his attention to remain on the head wound. Fortunately, despite the amount it bled, the gash itself was really quite shallow. She would have a horrid headache for some time, as well as a decent amount of swelling and bruising, but he doubted she was in any danger. Once her head injury was as clean as he could make it, he carefully cradled her skull in one arm and wrapped a clean bandage around it, tucking the tail beneath the wraps. Just as gently, he settled her back against the mound of pillows. Another, clean bit of cloth was dipped in a cool stream of water from the bedside pitcher and he gingerly wiped at the dried blood on her face, around her mouth, across her cheeks. He could see subtle differences in her face since last he'd looked upon her while she had remained his captive. Her cheeks weren't as full and the bruises that come from a lack of sleep bled purple beneath her eyes. Her lips were cracked and looked like they'd bled at some point, as well. Another set of bruises caught his attention, these around the slender column of her neck. Carefully tipping her head back, he took a better look in the candlelight. The bruises were older, the unmistakable marks of a large hand.
...His expression twisted from curiosity to fury and he lunged at the bars, arm shooting through the cage, seizing her by the throat and yanking her forward until her chest and face were pressed against the hard metal rods...
Beneath his mask, Erik blanched, if such a thing was possible, and his breath left his lungs with a whoosh. Disbelief propelled him in a stumble backwards.
"It was me," he spat, exhaling in disgust.
He had caused those bruises on her neck! Him! In his blind rage, he had been responsible for marring her perfect, fair skin with badges of ugliness and wrath. And what had she done to deserve it? He thought back and couldn't even remember. A self-loathing frown tugged at his thin lips.
"Help me... Help me... Please..." The woman whimpered quietly in her sleep, tears gathering beneath her eyes as her memory did battle against the monsters from the street.
His cold heart cracked, just the tiniest bit, and he moved to perch on the edge of the bed. Both his gloves were donned before he took up one of her small, feminine hands in his. His thumbs traced light circles across her skin, and he watched her as she slept, a flawed guardian keeping silent vigil over a broken angel.
A/N: We all knew who was going to save her; no one's surprised. See, he's a (sort of) good guy! Give him time to grow; he'll get there.
The italicized excerpt of his choking her was from the end of Chapter 3. No singing in this chapter, but I'm sure there will be more showtune references in the near future. Ang and I ARE both theater geeks, after all. Please drop a comment - the encouragement helps me keep writing!