AUTHOR'S NOTE: No, there was no Raoul in the last chapter. I didn't expect anyone would come up with that; it was quite surprising. But well, it's all my wicked Erik's fault, I guess. ;)

The Musician of the Night: Yes, you can pat Erik a little. There he is, looking slightly drowsy, it's a good occasion when he's still half asleep. g Pronunciation of Créon's name… well, the crayon with more "eh" than "ay" is a good start, actually. ;) The stress is very slightly on the second syllable (but only very slightly, this is French, after all gg), and you don't hear the n. The last o shouldn't sound like your typical English "oh" (that would sound so odd lol), but just a straight o sound, and with a hint of nasality, if that is a proper word. g Only a hint, mind you. Got it? ;-) ULT Unidentified Leaning Tenor? lol! You won't find him on the cast list, so the conclusion that Erik has something to do with it is correct. No, I never thought of Raoul. lol

Hotaru: devours muffins together with Erik belches happily is hit around the head by Erik Ouch:-)

Pertie: Yes, you're yet going to find out. ;)

Bea: Sorry, couldn't resist. I thought, one more review and I'm doing it, and you were that one. ;) Yes, there's a new trick employed in this. And driving Delannay mad is the point precisely. gg Funny how some at first thought it was Raoul; I never thought of that possibility. lol Why deny the Ghost's existence when it's a good method of driving Delannay mad? Now the managers are believers, it's time for another unbeliever to be irritated (and maybe some more…) by all the Ghost stories…

Nugrey: Thanks, I was afraid the style was no good. Altogether I get the feeling I'm messing this up, compared to the first part. Yes, you are quite correct in assuming what you assume. ;)

…

…

…

III. Pity comes too late

"See you in a moment, Erik!" Meg cried, racing past the Phantom as he turned to ascend the stairs. "No, wait!" And back she came, laughing merrily, her blond hair flying behind her as she cannoned into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Nice Ghostie. Ickle Ghostie."

"Don't strain my patience, piglet." Yet how could he be angry with her? She was such a sweet little thing, and he knew she loved him dearly.

"Ickle Ghostie. Icky Ghostie." And she tried to bite his ear.

"What is it you want?" he asked, nudging her chin away gently. "Oh, and don't run around like bitten by a tarantula in the Comte de Chateaupers's house."

"Why shouldn't I? He doesn't mind."

"Think of Raoul's mother."

"Oh." Meg giggled. "Right you are." Then she swatted him around the head playfully. "Why do you always have to be right?"

"Because you're always wrong. Now run along and play."

"Bad Ghostie! I'm going to tell my mother."

"Not if Bad Ghostie eats you first."

Squealing in exaggerated panic, but a moment later already breaking into giggles once more, Meg fled down the corridor, after Raoul and Senta, and the Phantom could hear her thundering down the stairs into the storeroom in the cellars where Chateaupers's billiard-table stood. She and Raoul would soon be engaged in a fierce tournament, no doubt, with Christine providing them with advice while keeping Senta from leaping onto the table, as they usually did when they came here.

Smiling, he climbed the stairs to Chateaupers's study on the first floor. His host was expecting him up there, after all, just as always after lunch, like on all the previous occasions when he had been here. They would have a word in private once Chateaupers had finished his preparations. Why he needed preparations, the Phantom had no idea, yet he suspected that the chief of police took precise notes of all their encounters and spent the ten minutes after lunch jotting down all his interesting observations from during mealtimes. Well, if it fascinated him so much… As long as he did not start taking photographs, the Phantom did not care.

Chateaupers would want to hear about his encounter with Delannay, no doubt. Remembering his little adventure from the previous afternoon, the Phantom grinned to himself. However, this was not all, if he was any judge. Chateaupers had acted rather strangely during lunch, as far as the chief of police could be said to do so. The Phantom had noticed a certain air of suppressed excitement about him, of great curiosity perhaps. No doubt, there was something on his mind, and something he deemed important. Something that interested him greatly.

Well, the Phantom thought, still grinning, let's see about that…

He knocked, then entered without waiting for an affirmative answer. Of course, he would have hated that kind of behaviour had the places been exchanged, but Chateaupers could do with a bit of bothering from time to time. He bothered him just as well, after all, always asking questions about things which were none of his business.

As he stepped over the threshold and pulled the heavy oak door shut behind him, Gérard de Chateaupers rose from his chair, taking off his glasses and placing them on the desk before him. "Ah, Erik. Punctual as usual. It's half past one precisely."

The Phantom shrugged. "You wanted me to be here at that time. Finished your preparations?"

"Yes, thank you. Do take a seat."

"I'll remain standing, thank you."

"As you wish." Chateaupers sat down again, as always giving his dark waistcoat a little tug as he did so. He was dressed correctly, just like every time the Phantom saw him, but still, he missed the elegance. It was strange, really, but although the Comte de Chateaupers was clearly a gentleman, and although he dressed and behaved like one, and even though he was in an excellent physical condition, as it seemed, he lacked the grace that might have been expected. There was authority about him, as well as an air of strength, but no, no true elegance. He did not have a nobleman's face, too; his features were rough and hard, like hewn from crude stone. But there was intelligence in his dark eyes.

"I have interesting news for you, Erik. And for myself as well, I must admit." There it was again, that clear curiosity. "My inquiries have been successful at last."

"I congratulate you," the Phantom replied, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Be civil with a policeman, Raoul had said, months ago already. Especially with a high-ranking one. It can save you lots of trouble.

"My men have at last located your mother."

The Phantom groaned. "I told you not to pursue that any further!"

"Oh, but it's essential." Chateaupers threw him one of those looks the Phantom knew so well, his eyebrows slightly raised while frowning, so that they formed two straight lines leading upwards towards the base of his nose. "I want to know who you really are."

"But I don't care who I really am." What did it interest Chateaupers, anyway? "I'm just me, and that's bad enough already."

"I don't think you're taking this seriously."

"No," the Phantom said frankly. No need to be civil when the policeman in question was poking his nose into things which were none of his business.

"But you realize you're not entirely human?"

"No," the Phantom growled, "I'm part animal. If you truly found my mother, did she tell you she had a liaison with an ape or something?" Yes, of course, Chateaupers meant well actually, and he made sure nobody bothered the Phantom if he could help it, but that did not mean that he could bother him himself as much as he liked!

"You're not entirely human," Chateaupers repeated woodenly, ignoring that last remark. "You're more."

"Oh, not Nietzsche again." Nothing wrong with Nietzsche, actually; that the man seemed to detest humanity in general was reason enough to like him. But all the times Chateaupers had already lectured him on the possibility that he might be the superhuman Nietzsche had written about…

"You may deny it, but there might be some truth in what Créon told you."

The Phantom felt his features contort before he brought them under his control again. Créon was a filthy liar, nothing more! Luckily he had not yet mentioned those recurring nightmares to Chateaupers. Still they came practically every night, and as intense as ever, maybe even more intense, if that was possible. There had been a few blessed nights when he had slept without being haunted by them, but once they came back, they seemed worse than ever to him.

And by now, everybody knew. Christine knew, of course, and so did Raoul, and Meg did, and Claire because Meg had told her, and Gaston because Christine had told him, and Serge because Gaston had told him, and who knew who else.

"You ought to see her."

"I'll be damned if I do."

"You're being stubborn."

"No," the Phantom snarled. "I just don't want to." To Hell with it, that had sounded quite worthy of Raoul! Or of that foolish Roger, even.

Chateaupers was turning his glasses between his fingers thoughtlessly. "I have not yet spoken to her, because I'd like you to be present."

"Well, small chance of that." The Phantom snorted. "Anyway, the last time I saw her, she lived somewhere near Rouen. How do you intend to get there, with an entire army camping around the city?"

"She's here. In the city."

"Tell that to somebody else. Nobody moves around in times like these."

Chateaupers sighed. "Did I just say stubborn? However, she's here. And my men found her name registered in a village near Rouen, as well as the name of her son. The time of birth might be about correct, and it says you disappeared at the age of five and a half, gone missing, presumably dead."

The Phantom snarled, hot, boiling fury building up in his insides. First calling him stubborn repeatedly, then that! "She sold me, that's what she did! And I bet I never was registered anywhere! I had no name at all, Hell consume you!"

"Now, now, my friend." Chateaupers sat quietly through this outburst; one almost had to admire the man. After all, he knew what the Phantom was capable of. "It might just fit. Do you really think a woman would tell anyone she sold her child? And as for a name… The entry speaks of one Marcel Renard."

"Not me." The name meant nothing to him; he had never heard it before. Until he had come to the Opéra Populaire, he had had no name at all, except the one those loathsome gypsies had given him: the Devil's Child.

Hell consume him, he did not even know his mother's name!

"Moreover," Chateaupers continued, "one of those accompanying your mother, a woman about her age, confirmed that you existed, or at least that you had once existed. She gave a description, too."

"Which is just the description everybody who has spent a few months in the city would give to get the attention of the public." Well, not everybody, because not everybody knew what he looked like, but there had been enough reports in the papers, curse their editors forever, and all the journalists, too. And the public, just as well. Most of all.

"They arrived not that long ago."

"Then rumour travels fast." He did not believe that story. He would not believe it. His mother was gone from his life, and gone forever; he did not have any family. "Why would they come here, anyway?"

"Because one of that group – five they are, altogether, all from the same village – has relatives here. War stirred them up, and they thought they might be safer in the city, behind the walls."

"Safer?" What folly was this? "Rouen is a long way west of here! They would be safer where they came from!"

Suddenly Chateaupers smiled. "They're simple village folk, Erik. They don't know much about geography, just enough to find the road to Paris. Because it is said Paris has walls and ramparts and enough to eat."

"I wonder for how long," the Phantom remarked. Until now, there had been no real problems with supply goods, but it was only just October. The winter had not come yet, and who knew how long the siege would last?

"So do I," Chateaupers agreed. "But don't distract me. Listen, Erik, it's not only me. Your mother would like to see you just as well."

What? Never! "And you think I would ever believe that?"

"She told my men so. Apparently she is sorry for what she did earlier on."

"Too late," the Phantom said coldly. "She should have been sorry when I was still a child and needed her. I can stand on my own now. And I don't want to see her." No, he would never agree to meet that woman, his mother or not! It would stir too many painful memories. Of those first five years of his life, he remembered enough of pain, fear and loneliness to know that they had not been happy. How he had wished for her to love him! But she had hated him, and she had rejected him for what he was, for that masked face that made him an outcast. And then she had sold him to the gypsies, sold him like an animal.

Too late for pity. She would never see him again, even if that forced her to die a sinner or whatever it was she believed in. She must be old now, after all those years. Well, hopefully enough years remained to her to make her suffer in her fear for salvation not granted as he had suffered at her hands.

If she had only just raised him like a mother should… Everything could have been different, he thought bitterly. He would still have been a creature and nothing more, but at least there would have been someone who cared for him, someone to give him strength. Maybe he could have lived a more or less normal life, even, once those villagers had gotten used to his face. Well, small chance of that, but still, maybe it could have been possible, if his mother had just shown him the tiniest bit of love.

But no, it would not have been possible. Nobody loved him, and nobody ever would.

"Many years have passed. And it seems she truly regrets her deed."

"What do I care?" But he did, in truth he did. There was a tiny spark of grim satisfaction glowing in his chest.

"Don't you want to know who your father was?"

Hell swallow the man up whole, but he was right! One single question, thrown in quite calmly, and he had him trapped. Oh, curse him, curse him forever for being a damn sly policeman! "Why don't you go and ask her, then?" He did not have to meet her. Chateaupers could do it if he wanted to, but not him. Chateaupers could find out what kind of man his father had been – that was, if his mother knew anything about his father at all.

If that woman really was his mother, that was.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked quietly and steadily, and suddenly the Phantom felt like throwing something at it.

"She may have… memories." Looking up from his glasses he still was toying with, the chief of police cast him a meaningful look, improved a little by a strand of dark hair hanging over his left eye before Chateaupers shook it aside. He had a very characteristic way of shaking his hair out of his face, the Phantom noticed. It had caught his attention before this time already. Whenever he did it, Chateaupers lowered his head first, then tilted it back sharply. Idly wondering why anyone would do so, the Phantom tucked a strand of his own hair behind his ear. It wasn't quite long enough to be worn in a proper ponytail yet; it kept slipping out again at the sides, however diligently he brushed it back.

Only then he realized what Chateaupers had just implied. Apparently he had not been paying enough attention to the man. Memories. How clever. This was indeed tempting. After all, he was the only one who could look into people's minds and study their recollections, see what they had once seen through their own eyes.

No, not the only one. Créon had been able to do it just as well, and he had used it on the Phantom often enough. At this memory, the Phantom's teeth clenched. Never again would he allow anyone to catch him off guard like that! And Niobe had manipulated him, too. He was not even sure whom he hated more, Créon or Niobe.

But they were dead. They were all dead. They would not come back. All Lost Ones were gone forever.

Not all. That old man with the horribly distorted face, Bertrand, had fled and this way escaped the Phantom's vengeance. And Aeternus was still alive just as well.

Aeternus. He should have killed him when he had had the chance.

No. Aeternus had helped him.

For reasons of his own, yes. He still should have killed him.

However, too late for that now. He only hoped he would not have to see him again.

"Erik?" Chateaupers was watching him expectantly. Of course, he wanted an answer. And a specific answer. He wanted him to come with him and see that woman who claimed to be his mother.

No. Never.

But then again… he could find out about his father. Maybe his father had been different. Maybe his father had been… someone like him.

Maybe he did not want to know. Not if his father had been someone like Créon.

"Erik, please. For both our sakes."

The Phantom looked at Chateaupers in surprise. Had he just heard him ask for something politely? Normally Chateaupers made demands or gave orders. He never asked someone to do something in that way.

Hell, this must mean a lot to Chateaupers!

And to himself? He did not want to see his mother again. It would only tear open an old wound that had never truly healed, like so many others. By agreeing to accompany Chateaupers, he would make himself vulnerable.

And his mother had never given him a chance. So why should he give her a chance, then?

Because he had wanted her to, back then. Because he had begged her to. Because it would shame her even more if he did. And he wanted her to be ashamed, and how he did! How he hated her!

Just as much as he had loved her once. But she had never returned his affection.

There had been a few moments when she had been more or less kind, though. Unbidden, a few images swirled up in his head. How she had wrapped him in a blanket in the evening when he had curled up on his cot. How she had brushed his hair. It had been the only thing she liked about him, he had once overheard her saying to some friend of hers, his silky hair. How she had given him strangely shaped stones and pieces of bark to play with. How she had let him flick through the few books she had had in her tiny sitting room, as long as he was quiet. How she had placed him on the window seat sometimes in the evening so he could look at the stars…

Biting his lower lip, he recalled those few moments of happiness he remembered together with his mother. If he had been happy in those first years of his life, it had always been when he was alone, but there had been a few times, a few precious times when he had shared a feeling of joy with the one person that had then meant most to him. Well, probably not on her side, but at least on his.

Yes, maybe he would give her a chance. If not for his father's sake, then maybe for the blanket and the stones and the stars. "Agreed," he said.

"Excellent." Even without his talents at mind-reading, he could feel Chateaupers's relief clearly. It really must mean a lot to him…

"Oh, and Gérard…" He grinned again as he said it, because somehow it amused him. "You have completely forgotten about Delannay."

"Blimey, Erik, you're right." At once Chateaupers's features shifted into what might be called a grin as well, for lack of a better expression, yet they grew stony again swiftly enough. "It's essential I find out."

Usually Chateaupers's voice betrayed nothing, but now… had it just been a hint of strain? "Have you had any difficulties with him?"

Chateaupers's mouth went thin. "My days at the headquarters are numbered."

"So they're substituting you, after all?" They had expected it all along, of course; even though Chateaupers had never been interested in society and its conventions, he was a nobleman, after all, and he had served in the same post under the emperor already. That the men of the Commune did not trust him was clear enough, yet it was not easy to find another to do his work, especially since half the high-ranking officers would have to be replaced in this case. Chateaupers's men were known to be loyal.

"I don't know when, but they're going to." Chateaupers sighed. The way from losing his post to appearing on one of the Communards' death lists was not a far one, the Phantom knew. "I had a visitor yesterday evening, a man by the name of LaCroix."

"LaCroix?" Of course he remembered. He remembered who he was told to remember. "Say the word, and he's a dead man."

Chateaupers gave a curt, grim nod. "So the Marquis de Bracy has had a word with you about him, I presume?"

"Let's put it like that: He's holding me back as yet, but I've understood well enough."

Shaking his head sadly, Chateaupers suddenly appeared a lot less energetic than he normally did, and at once the grey strands at his temples seemed more obvious than ever. "What times are those we live in, where we have to call for murder to save ourselves?"

"That's what Maurice said. Well, something along that line, at least." The Phantom shrugged. "It's kill or be killed, and you know it as well as I do."

"I wish we had been born into happier times."

"We can't choose."

"I know."

"The world is changing."

Chateaupers looked at his hands on the tabletop gloomily, his fingers spread out. "Yes, I'm afraid it is."

Hooking his thumbs into his belt, the Phantom wondered why precisely he had said this. Somehow it had just come to him, just like that. And maybe it really was.

And what was a lot worse, this time he did not have just his own darkness to retreat into. This time, the world was at war, and the Opéra Populaire was part of it.

This time, the Phantom himself was part of it. The Phantom was at war with the world.