Until the Curtain Falls

Chapter Two

Think of Me

Dean burst into the wings in time to hear the snap as the rope reached its extension and bounced, causing the body of Joseph Buquet to flail and sway disconcertingly as his soul took its leave. He jerked backwards involuntarily in shock as the lilting music died and was replaced by wails of horror from the cast and audience. Chaos reigned as some of the dancers froze, staring at the swinging man with wide, numb eyes, while others fled in panic, and others trembled, and clung together, shrieking.

Dean stood behind the threadbare curtain, watching, until a small hand seized his upper arm with determined fingers, and yanked him away. He stumbled after the figure, and it took him a moment to realise that it was Christine, now dressed in the flowing white dress which had been the base for Carlotta's 'Countess' costume. Without all the frills and jewels, it was a simple dress, and Christine seemed almost like a vision, fleeing before him, but pulling him along with her with her tense grip on his arm.

'Whoa, where are we going? Won't they need us down there? Did you see what just happened…?' he demanded, reaching out with his free arm to stop her, but she wouldn't be deterred.

'It's not safe there,' she replied softly, though a slight tremble betrayed the fear in her voice.

'I know! I saw…'

'My God!' she exclaimed. 'I don't believe he's dead… Buquet was a warning,' she muttered agitatedly. Her voice revealed little remorse for the death of the lighting engineer. 'He's angry.'

'Who? The ghost… Christine slow down, what do you know?'

'Just move,' she replied. 'We'll talk when it's safe…'

'Can't we talk here?'

'He'll find us,' she replied, without stopping, dragging him up a flight of stairs in the labyrinthine backstage area.

'Where are we going…?'

She led him further and further up, until he wondered how it was that the opera house stretched up so much further on the inside than it seemed to externally. She didn't slow or pause, but pushed on upwards, beyond the open entrance leading to Buquet's realm without stopping and pressing immediately onward. Eventually, gasping for breath, they stumbled out onto a square of roof enclosed by grotesque winged gargoyles. Leaning against a bizarre statue, Christine tilted her head back and drew cold air thirstily into her lungs, then finally met Dean's confused eyes.

'You going to tell me what we're running from?' he asked. 'And why? What exactly is this…'

'Phantom,' she supplied breathlessly, and her husky voice made shivers run down his spine. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for opera, it occurred to him that he would like to hear her sing. 'He's… I don't know. But you're not safe here. Maybe it would be better if you just... if you took your brother and left…'

'What? Why… me?' he spluttered.

'Because he knows,' she answered.

Dean glared at her. 'You're not in a goddamn opera now! Just tell me why…'

'Because I like you!' she yelled, in a tone of such fierce anger that it seemed to belie her words. She took a shaky breath, and lowered her voice, withdrawing her gaze and studying her hands, which were white and shaking in the bitter night. 'Because I like you. And he knows, and he's…' she sighed, running out of eloquence. 'He'll target you, now.'

Dean gaped stupidly. 'I…' he began, and then gave up. He felt inexplicably guilty for the way he had forced her to make the admission. He searched her down turned eyes in dismay. 'Look, I…'

She turned her back on him, raising a hand to her face and fidgeting awkwardly. Silence extended between them.

'I just met you,' he offered lamely. She glared at him, and he lapsed back into silence.

'How… how d'you know?' Dean asked, his voice sounding discordant in the cold air. She rounded on him. Her incredible eyes were flashing, with anger, or fear.

'What?'

He sighed, and shook his head dumbly. 'Look, I can handle a ghost. Sam and I have done this sort of thing before. If we knew where he was buried it would be easier… but, Christine, we can deal with this ghost.'

'He's not like… Dean, I don't know… I don't think you've met anything like him before. The theatre… it's like it expands everything. Makes it more dramatic. Life's not the same, in here, as it is outside.'

'I've noticed,' Dean replied wryly, half raising an eyebrow. 'But you don't need to worry about me.'

'Dean, I've seen him. I'll never forget… He lives in the catacombs beneath the theatre. He hung Buquet because the damn opera wasn't cast to his taste. He's in love with me, Dean. We've seen what he does, when he doesn't get his own way…'

Dean wanted to tell her it would be ok, but the words sounded hollow, even in his head. He pulled her close to him and clutched her against his chest. 'We can beat him,' he murmured into her hair.

After a few moments, she pulled away from him and perched on the edge of a dais, at the foot of a statue. 'Have you got a plan?' she asked candidly, looking directly into his eyes.

'I…uh. Do you know who he was when he was alive?'

'What?'

'He's a ghost; that means he's the spirit of a person who died. Usually someone who died violently.'

'I don't know. I'm not sure if he is… a ghost. He was… solid.'

Dean blinked in surprise. Some kind of creature, perhaps? For some reason, foremost in his mind was an indignant exclamation, you touched him?

'What does he look like?'

'I don't know.'

'I thought you said you'd seen him?' Dean asked in confusion.

'He wears a mask over half his face.'

Dean frowned. 'That's weird.'

'I… I tried to take it off. I didn't see clearly, but… it looked like he was deformed in some way.'

Could be a creature…

There was another pause. Dean reached out and gently took her hand. She looked up and met his eyes. 'We'll work something out. I promise… You don't have to worry about me.'

She nodded without detaching her gaze from his eyes, and stepped forwards into his arms.

After a short while they pulled apart. Christine blinked. It was the same expression he had seen her wear when he had first met her: a moment of coming back to reality.

'I must go,' she said. 'They'll wonder where I am.'

Dean nodded, and followed her back down the stairs. As they made their way down the dark and grimy staircases, Dean could have sworn he heard an inhuman – but oddly tuneful – wail of anguish, coming from the roof they had just left behind.

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Bravo, Monsieur

At the following night's performance, it seemed that the inhabitants of the opera house had been cowed into obedience by the ghost's warning. The opera was cast according to his requirements, and box five was left empty, while Dean stood watching in the wings, trying not to get in the way, and Sam hovered behind a curtain in box six, looking out for the ghost's arrival. As demanded, Christine was singing the part of the Countess, while the outraged Carlotta Giudicelli took on the role of the silent pageboy.

Dean's position behind the curtain placed him close enough to see the nervousness on Christine's face through the mask of makeup. When she began to sing, he stopped watching for the ghost. There was something incredibly intimate about observing her from this hiding place, listening to her baring her soul with the music. Her voice was throbbing, intense and pure, rippling over the notes like water. Dean had been thoroughly unimpressed by opera the previous night, but still: he couldn't take his eyes off her.

Dean couldn't have said how long her song lasted for; he was too caught up in the sound. But Sam later claimed that the performance had only been in progress for a few short minutes when disaster struck. Firmin and André were outraged, after the event: they had done everything that the spirit had asked, so he had no reason to be angry. Christine and Dean knew different.

As Christine's voice rose into a crescendo, some members of the audience seemed to become distracted: a creaking sound was undercutting the music, coming from far overhead. The sound followed her voice up the scale, and then burst into a shattering crash as something came loose. In box six, Sam turned his face up to the painted heavens, and to the 'Sun' – the glittering crystal chandelier which swung precariously on its golden chain. It seemed to be growing.

The chandelier moved with increasing speed, its chain ripping through the painted woodwork of the ceiling as it fell. Christine stopped singing and stared at it in horror. The orchestra died away as the musicians leapt from their seats and dove away, hiding under the stage. Dean blinked out of his stupor and saw a ton of crystal and gold swinging towards him, beautiful and terrible. He sped out onto the stage and seized Christine by the upper arm, exactly as she had him the day before. Together they fled the stage. The cast scattered.

The chandelier hit the stage with a shattering crash. The metal rings distorted on impact, and most of the tiny light bulbs splintered. Shards of hot glass filled the air; Dean felt one sink into his back as he sprinted away. Tiny crystals, cut into polygons to give off many-faceted sparkle, broke loose and flowed across the stage. The chain whipped down from the ceiling, following its loosed burden, and coiled itself noisily onto the broken light in several aftershocks. When the last echo had died away, a deafening silence filled the auditorium: a silence which is almost impossible between such multitudes of people. For the second time in just two nights, it seemed that the show would not go on.

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Entr'acte

The following morning, a despairing André came into work, and was horrified to see that it was still not over: there was a note on his desk from the opera ghost. A note – and a score.

Have you missed me, good Monsieur? I have written you an opera: Don Juan Triumphant. I advise you to comply, my instructions should be clear: remember there are worse things than a shattered chandelier.

A few instructions just before rehearsal starts:

Carlotta must be taught to act, not her normal trick of strutting round the stage. Our Don Juan must lose some weight, its not healthy in a man of Signor Piangi's age. And as for our star, Miss Christine Daaé: no doubt she'll do her best; it's true her voice is good – she knows. Though should she wish to excel, she has much still to learn, if pride will let her return to me - her teacher.

Sighing in resignation, he called a cast meeting to discuss what seemed the next in a never ending stream of problems. He was beginning to regret buying into the opera house: he had optimistically hoped that being a patron of the arts would be relaxing and rewarding; positively stress free compared to his earlier career in the scrap metal business. It was proving to be a nightmare.

So far, he had managed to avoid being told how much it would cost to repair the damage caused by last night's disaster, but he was dreading the moment when he saw the figure written down. Opera never made any money, anyway: the extortionate price of the tickets barely covered the cost of costumes, setting, lighting… not to mention the pittance he paid to a small army of ballerinas, singers, costume designers, cleaners… He reminded himself that he needed to employ a replacement for Buquet, and groaned aloud. He told himself that it was almost certainly time to retire.

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All I Ask of You

For want of any conference rooms, meeting places, or just normal rooms in the entire opera house, André and Firmin called the cast, crew, administrative staff and the Winchesters to gather in the auditorium, where they slumped into the plush chairs, making sure to remove any lingering shards of glass from those in the first rows. The wreckage of the chandelier had been cleared away, but the scratches on the polished boards, the break in the edge of the stage, and the dents left in the gold plating were still clearly visible. Clearly, in just two performances, the opera Il Muto had run its course and the theatre was unlikely to reopen until the ghost's composition was ready for the public's entertainment.

The mood was one of shock among the chorus girls and backstage workers, but both Carlotta Giudicelli and her husband Paolo Piangi, the leading baritone had arrived, sporting notes and red with fury.

'Have you seen the size of my part?' demanded Carlotta of anyone who would listen. Her conversation, and that of Piangi, was peppered with high pitched repetition of the words 'outrage' and 'insult'. When Christine entered the auditorium, white and shaky, drained of her powerful dramatic presence, Carlotta glowered at her. It had become apparent – not surprisingly, that the Phantom's Don Juan Triumphant would rely largely on a star turn from Miss Daaé. 'This is all her doing,' Carlotta whispered into her husband's ear.

André, somewhat deflated from the portly gentleman who had met Sam and Dean on their arrival, but still not without theatrical flair, climbed onto the stage in order to address the assembly.

'Ladies and gentlemen. As you have no doubt noticed, the opera ghost is becoming a real problem. This morning, he delivered to me the score for a new opera. The way I see it, we have no choice but to comply: I cannot afford another disaster, ladies and gentlemen. I know one should not give in to terrorist demands, but… I feel we must play his game, until such a time as we can be rid of him.' He glanced sternly at Sam and Dean, whom, he evidently felt, had so far done little to help with the situation.

'But Monsieur,' objected Carlotta vociferously, 'the Phantom, he attacked us even when we complied with 'is demands.'

Christine glanced guiltily at Dean, chewing her lip. She was pale this morning, and had barely said a word since arriving. 'I can't sing it,' she said quietly, almost as though she was hoping they wouldn't hear. Her voice, however, fell into a brief moment of quiet amidst the hubbub, and upon hearing it, the group fell silent and stared at her. She shuffled back, away from them, until she stood directly in front of Dean. She seemed to want him there as support.

'But… Mademoiselle…' André faltered, horrified. 'You have a duty.'

Dean stepped forward and spoke softly into Christine's dark hair. 'If you sing it, he's gonna come watch. We can catch him, and then you won't have to worry about him again.'

She turned imploring eyes onto him. 'I'm frightened,' she admitted. Unshed tears shone in her eyes. 'Don't make me do this…' He shook his head.

'It's your decision,' he assured her.

'But why not?' demanded André, unable to contain himself any longer. Christine ignored him, staring at Dean.

'We're not safe until he's gone,' she murmured. 'But if we play his game… he'll have something planned. He'll take me, I know. When he's near me… I can't think straight.'

'Christine… as far as we know… he might be no more than just a man.'

She almost nodded, then stopped and bit her lip. She shrugged. Anguish and confusion shone out of her eyes. 'I just want it over,' she whispered.

Dean wondered for a moment whether this signified acceptance. She nodded, against his chest. 'Don't let him take me, Dean,' she whispered. He was conscious of the assembled group's eyes on her back, and his arms, encircling her. He looked up at André and nodded. André sighed visibly in relief: one less for his list of problems.

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The next few days saw the theatre flung into a burst of activity. Workmen were brought in to smooth over the dents in the stage, but they had to dodge around dancers and chorus members as they worked. The managers were eager to lose no time in the rehearsal of Don Juan Triumphant. A new, smaller and less extravagant, chandelier was hung on the painted ceiling, which was now patched but still looked less pristine than it had at first.

Reyer, the conductor of the theatre's resident orchestra, was baffled by the score André gave him. It flaunted all the laws and conventions of classical music, using rhythms and keys which had never occurred to him. The orchestra struggled with it, and the classically trained Piangi grappled with the unfamiliar notes of his part, that of Don Juan.

Meanwhile, the Winchesters scoured the areas both above and below the stage for signs which might reveal to them the identity of the Phantom. Christine remembered visiting his domain only vaguely: as she described it, she had travelled in a kind of trance, but she believed that he lived below the theatre, and that it had somehow been accessed by a tunnel which led directly from her dressing room.

Sam and Dean searched the room with their EMF meter, although Dean was becoming increasingly suspicious that the so-called Phantom of the opera was no ghost at all, but some psycho human. As Christine put it, 'he sang like an angel, but he had a very physical presence, like a man, and with a man's preoccupations.' As Dean put it, 'the son of a bitch is too crazy to be a spirit; at least they follow some sort of pattern.'

All Sam could think of as a response was, 'if you say so.'

Neither brother was particularly surprised when the EMF readings produced nothing. However, as Dean reasoned, 'the bastard can't sing through the goddamn walls unless there's a space behind the walls.' André refused to let them at the walls of Christine's dressing room with a sledgehammer ('Are you mad? Do you think I enjoy paying damages?') so they found themselves on hands and knees, studying every inch of the walls, skirting boards and doorframes.

Through almost a week, the Phantom put in no appearance. He seemed to be waiting, with everyone else, for the opening night. Despite his apparent absence, Christine's anxious eyes sought him in every shadow. The night before the opera was due to open, he found her.

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Wandering Child

Sam and Dean had taken rooms in the theatre, for the sake of convenience and to save money. The room was small, dark and cell-like, but they had stayed in worse and paid for it, too, so it didn't seem too bad a deal. The theatre was filled with disconcerting noises in the dark: creaks and moans which they put down to its being an old building, but occasional murmurs which sounded disturbingly tuneful. The last night before the new opera was due to open, Dean woke in the small hours without really knowing what had startled him from his dream.

He sat up in the narrow bed, glancing over to see that Sam was still sprawled out and snoring softly on the other side of the cell. He strained his ears, and caught drifts of what could have been wind, but sounded too mellow, too deep, and too melodic. A second later, he was trying to convince his doubting mind that he had imagined the sound, that he was paranoid from living for too long in this crazy place. He sat unnaturally still for a full minute, listening to the silence.

He was about to go back to sleep when he heard a creak, like a floorboard under a furtive foot, directly outside his door. He jerked upright again and listened for a second as the footsteps receded. Silently, he stood up, slipped into his jeans and crept to the doorway in time to see a slender back disappear around the corner at the end of the hall. He hurried after the figure, unsure what had aroused his interest, but following instincts which had served him well in the past.

When he reached the corner, the figure was only a short distance in front of him, and he recognised it instantly.

'Christine?' he hissed. She didn't turn. 'Christine!' he repeated, louder. Nothing. She kept walking – sleepwalking? He had heard that it was dangerous to wake a sleepwalker, so he was reluctant to touch her. He followed her.

She led him out of the opera house by a back door, into a narrow alleyway, and he followed her through the freezing streets in the grim, cold dawn light. He shivered: it was way too cold to be outside in just jeans and a t-shirt. Ahead of him, Christine seemed not to notice the cold despite her thin camisole. She kept walking, oblivious to all around her. The streets were all but deserted at this hour (especially in the theatre district, where the artists lived almost nocturnally), but a few early risers were out. A tall man, swathed in a dark coat to protect him from the cold, turned his head to stare at Christine, out in her nightwear on such a bitter morning.

Dean maintained a distance of maybe ten yards between himself and Christine, wondering if her sleepwalking would lead him to a clue which might help him unravel part of the story of the opera ghost.

The road continued out into a less densely inhabited area of the city, and Christine finally turned off through the ornate wrought-iron gate of a misty cemetery. Dean frowned, and followed without a sound.

She strode between the graves with an air of purpose, as though she had now decided exactly where she was going. Advancing within a few metres of his quarry, Dean realised that she was humming under her breath. It was the same tune he had heard in the sleeping theatre, but it hadn't been her voice before. She finally stopped, staring down blank-eyed at a grave. Circling round behind her, Dean read the name: Auguste Daaé – her father.

'Christine?' he muttered, quietly. It was getting seriously cold. She made no response, and didn't seem to even hear him.

Suddenly, as he watched, she looked up from the grave, like a rabbit startled by a noise in the distance. He strained his ears, and then he could hear it, too: far off, but coming closer, the same melody he had heard in the theatre and that she had been humming as she walked. He spun round, looking for the singer.

The graveyard was deserted, except for the two of them standing close together before Daaé's grave. Then, turning back to her, he saw it: a figure, swathed in a black coat, eyes shining in dark sockets through a pale mask. He was standing some distance away, his eyes locked with Christine's. His singing was growing in strength, and Dean could almost understand her state of entrancement. The 'Ghost' had a voice like no other, haunting, full but also hollow, sweet and bitter, gentle and shaking with intensity, all at once. Looking from one to the other, he could see that Christine and the singer were locked into private worlds in which they existed solely for one another.

Christine stepped forward and advanced slowly towards the man who had been haunting the opera house. His singing took on an insistent tone, and he beckoned her still closer. Obediently, she kept up her steady progress towards his waiting arms. Alarm bells rang in Dean's mind.

'Wait, Christine!' he implored her. She was deaf to his pleas. The ghost, who up until now had utterly ignored Dean's presence, looked up and grinned at him triumphantly. His mouth had a crooked cast, as though stretched at one end, and it gave his smile a sinister edge.

A sense of urgency took hold of Dean. He felt that it would be a grave mistake to let her sleepwalk into the Phantom's arms. He leapt towards her, uncomfortably close to the singing Phantom, and grabbed her by the arm. She shook his touch away, and kept moving without even glancing away from the Phantom's face. It seemed that she would respond to nothing but the masked man's singing.

In desperation, Dean attempted one final tack: if she responded to singing... maybe she would respond to his. Unable to think of a suitable song at such short notice, he simply sang her name, in two descending notes. 'Christine…'

She turned to him with a gasp, more like someone surfacing from underwater than waking from sleep. She glanced around her in surprise and leapt back against Dean with a small yelp of horror when she saw the Phantom standing over her. Dean stumbled backwards, holding her awkwardly against him.

When he lost his control over her, the Phantom abruptly stopped singing and let out a yell of frustration. He reached beneath his coat, and in one fluid motion drew out a long, elegant sword.

Wide eyed, Dean stumbled back further, pulling Christine with him and pushing her round behind him.

All he could think was Shit…

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I'm sorry that Sam was a bit redundant in this chapter. He will become more useful in the fianl installment.

Thank you very much to all those who reviewed the last chapter. There will be one more… as soon as I can manage, but not until after New Year, I'm afraid. I'd be really grateful to have feedback on this chapter.

I know this story's not everyone's ideal. I promise to write something more sensible next. :D

To those of you who are familiar with The Phantom of the Opera – I hope you don't mind that I missed out the masquerade. I couldn't really make it fit into this scenario. The writer who will tackle Sam and Dean at a masked ball is braver than I am: )

xxx