A/N: This chapter was my previous Chapter 11. The lovemaking scene, originally in Chapter 10, is now in Chapter 13, although revised for more tenderness!
For some obscure reason, the reviews for Chapters 10, 11, and 12 were not removed when I deleted those chapters, replacing them with new ones. So if you have noticed in passing that the reviews for these chapters don't seem to match, it's because they don't, unless someone happened to review on 1/15, which is when I put in the new chapters. I fail to understand why such a thing would happen, but there it is...
I owe a debt to Susan Kay, for the genesis of this chapter. If you are familiar with her novel, Phantom, you will understand at once. To those of you who are not, I will briefly explain.
In a passage towards the end of the novel, Erik decides to throw in his lot with the devil himself, as he feels that God has abandoned him. He sees "a thousand little devils lighting black candles along the path which leads toward the edge" (Kay). Then he describes how these devils strip him of all emotion, leaving pure evil instead.
I did not copy any of Kay's material, as any of you can verify by looking up the passage I am referring to -- on page 410 of the newly re-published edition. What I did do is to use this passage as a springboard to imagine what the possible consequences of this decision of Erik's might have been, especially if he and Christine were to engage in intercourse. This is, after all, a story with supernatural elements in it. It would therefore not be implausible to assume that, in the very act of lovemaking, our two lovers became bonded through a "soul tie". A woman, especially, always bonds emotionally with a man she has made love with. There is a spiritual bond, as well. I simply took it one step further...Hope this clears up any confusion that might have arisen for any of you readers!
Chapter 14: And There Will Be Hell To Pay...
Christine shifted uneasily in her sleep, and her hand involuntarily moved higher onto Erik's chest. She did not awaken, however, although she had begun to cry...
She could not see anything before her, yet she felt an urgent need to continue walking, going nowhere, it seemed to her. She knew not the reason for this pressing urgency, as well as the growing fear that sat upon her shoulders like monstrous, dark wings, sorrowfully weighing her down instead of allowing her to fly away from whatever it was she had to get away from. She had tried to run, but, of course, the wings hampered her movements. She kept looking around uneasily, but there was nothing around, in front of, or behind her, nothing but a sickening dead black void. She did not even know what type of ground she trod. Her name...what was her name? As if in answer, a word came to her...was it her name? Remembrance...how curious...She had to accept that this might be her name, as there was no other that she could bring to mind...Remembrance...Her whole being was caught up in this word...
The air she breathed was thick, stifling. She was unable to discern any sort of airflow in the area. Indeed, she was not even able to ascertain whether she was indoors, or whether she walked out in the wild, although the surface her bare feet walked upon seemed to be smooth and cool. Perhaps, she mused, she was walking on a tiled floor. Then, perhaps, it was merely well-packed earth. Oh. What had she been thinking about? Remembrance...yes, that was her name...
Something slapped wetly against her, and she cried out in fear. Instinctively, she crouched into a fetal position, as if she were trying to somehow make herself invisible. Ludicrous, considering the fact that her gloomy surroundings already rendered her invisible...Again she felt something slap agaisnt her, and again that strange wetness. She felt a trail of sticky, thick liquid coursing down her arm. Awareness sharpened, she instantly realized what it was -- blood. Then she began to scream, although no sound came forth from her mouth. Undeterred, she continued to scream and scream, while the smothering darkness swallowed the sound...
The cloak-enshrouded man darted about, searching for her as his blood pumped fearfully through veins distended by unnaturally keen senses. He had to find her, pull her from that stifling darkness. She must not be swallowed up in it. No, the darkness must not touch her, must not corrupt her innocent soul. He began to curse himself most soundly, and was appalled to hear a callous, evil cackle in the near distance, mocking his words with horrifying disdain. His heart skipped a beat, and he knew sudden fear. He, who was so intimately acquainted with darkness, was now touched by fear!
"Yesssssss...Feed me, feed me with your fear...Yesssssssss!" His hair suddenly stood on end, and a shiver ran up his spine. He realized, then, that one of the Master's minions must have immediately registered the fact that he and his little ingenue had consorted carnally...Fool! He was the greatest fool! How could he have been deluded into believing that his darkness would never taint her purity, her goodness? He had truly corrupted her, sullied her innocent life! Now the Master would claim her as well! She would now serve Him...Rage rose in him. He was truly powerless! He could not protect her...
"As if you actually thought that you ever could..." The voice hissed all around him now, and he stopped what he now realized, too late, was simply endless, circular pacing, going nowhere...Terror struck at his heart, but he fought mightily to fend it off.
"Fool!" The voice thundered, echoes ricocheting all around him. He could not tell whether they were bouncing off enclosing walls. The darkness was simply too dense. "No one who belongs to Me can ever hope to escape my clutches in the end! I always claim my own!" Insane laughter followed, and he felt an overpowering, equally insane desire to mimic it. With a supreme effort, he was able to suppress it, but it cost him heavily. He sank to the ground wearily, trembling, his brow wet with perspiration.
"You are Mine!" The voice boomed again, louder this time, and he felt, all around him, the abrupt flapping of leathern wings. He ducked as the sound swooped down upon him. "And now, my dear fool, so is she!" The laughter started up again, louder and louder, all around him, and he could only cower in fear, effectively paralyzed. For how could he ever hope to stand up to...Him?
He could not give up, give in to Him...He had to find her, somehow free her from this horrible darkness...
"Christine!" His voice still had some power, after all. "Christine!" He was answered by stony silence, at first. Then, his incredibly sensitive ears picked up the very faint sound of her voice: "Erik!"
The darkness immediately bore down upon him, oppressing him with its inexorable weight. His forehead was now pressed down to the ground, his teeth began to chatter, and he squeezed his eyes shut. No...He must not take his Christine...
"Take me instead!" He pleaded with the uncaring darkness. "Take me! She is innocent of any wrongdoing! I will offer myself in her stead! Take me, take me!"
Mocking laughter answered him; then, the voice hissed, close by his elbow, "I have already taken you, my dear Phantom...You are, and will always be, Mine...But now you have brought me a rare gift indeed... a very tasty, tempting morsel that I may enjoy at leisure! Ah, you have done exceedingly well by your Master..." A roar, louder than the loudest roar a living lion would ever be capable of producing, assaulted his senses, and he had to cover his ears.
"Despair...Loneliness...Fear...Selfishness...Revenge...Those are our names, Brother Phantom...You are one of us, now and forever..."
"No! No! No!" He screamed, over and over. "I am not one of you! No!" He sank all the way to the ground, sobbing in deepest despair, while further mocking echoes arose: "This is your hell..."
She awoke with a start, to the same impenetrable darkness, all around her. The word came back to haunt her with its inane repetitiveness: remembrance. Now she heard her name in her mind. Christine. Yes, that was her name...
A long-ago plea directed toward the divine now floated into her awareness, and she clung to it, refusing to let it go: "Help me, oh Lord..." Over and over she whispered it, even as the black void threatened to snuff her out...
A sweet, melodic whisper miraculously made its way to her: "Christine..." It was his voice. It was the man who had somehow stolen her soul. She shook her head at herself. Not stolen. No. She had freely given it to him. It was he, Erik, calling out to her, in the middle of this dark desolation...
"No..." the voice murmured, soothing her with its peace-inducing timbre, "this is not Erik, little diva..."
She opened her eyes, mystified, wondering, and beheld...nothing, at first. Then, a luminous point, brilliantly white, appeared, hanging in midair before her, illuminating her rapt face. It began to grow, and somehow, incredibly, appeared to pull atoms from the fetid air around it, turning them into more luminous points that joined it. This process continued, until the luminous points started to coalesce and take on solidity, to finally become...the figure of a man, a man most fair to look upon, who radiated pure, brilliant white light, yet did not sear her pupils as she gaped at him in awe.
"Christine..." The incredibly beautiful voice called to her with a calmness that was not of Earth. "Fear not, for I am with you..."
He was clothed in something, but she could not discern what it was. Perhaps it was some sort of flowing robe. There was no telling where his figure began, and the darkness ended.
"Who...are you?" She mumbled, her voice barely audible.
He smiled down at her, a comforting, warm smile. "I am one of those Beings of Light whom you and your brethren know as Angels. I am called by a name unpronounceable by human tongues, but you may address me as Melethiel. I have come that you may be free, so that he whom you love may at last be free as well."
"Free? What do you mean? Where are we?"
Instead of answering, he reached out to her, and grasped her hand. "Come. We must find him, and quickly, before he is completely swallowed up in his despair."
They somehow rose on a wafting current of cool air that swept up from nowhere, and drifted off into the heavy gloom