AUTHOR'S NOTE: Listen folks, I know exactly there's a great lot of you lurking. After all, I've got a hit counter. You know, you can accelerate me a great deal by dropping a line. Need any more hints?
Pertie: Sorry. I like teasing people. ;) You want to know about the translation? Well, Bea translated most of KotC into Italian, and it's a really good translation, I'm reading it regularly. If you want to take a look, check out (well, this is supposed to be an URL, but the site edits them out, so I'll try my best to trick it…) gerrybutler dot forumfree dot net, then check the sub-forum called Racconti (which means stories) and look for a thread entitled The King of the Catacombs. On that note, thanks for that one review, too.
The Musician of the Night: No, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving. I never did, so I don't miss it. ;)
Bea: "Seething Shadows" is taking from Masquerade: Masquerade / Seething shadows breathing lies / Masquerade / You can fool any friend who ever knew you… Got it:) And for the compliment about the title you can have some more fun with my Erik. g
I. This Fate which condemns me
Blood for blood. Nought for nought.
He did not know the true meaning of this, but it seemed to fit. Vengeance. Retaliation. Blood! Baring his teeth, he snarled at the darkness beyond the water.
Blood for blood. Nought for nought.
They had brought the man away just now. He had worked with the carpenters, a quiet, decent fellow who had never drawn anyone's attention. Until yesterday, when he had dared to declare openly that the reign of the Commune was a reign of terror. A few hours later, he had been dead.
May Hell consume Michel Delannay! May Satan hang him by his entrails! There was only one who terrorized this Opera House, and this was the Phantom! Never, not as long as he lived, would he suffer anyone to do anything of that kind in his own Opera House.
It was quite easy, really: Delannay had had one of his men killed, so he would kill one of Delannay's. No, more than one. After all, there was enough of that filth around, skulking in the upper corridors where Delannay now resided, sometimes sneaking up to where the girls lived. Until now, that dirty rabble had always been chased away, but they would come again, no doubt of it. And they did not dare to go anywhere at night, for fear of the Opera Ghost, but that did not mean that they would fear him forever. Not if he didn't reveal himself to remind them.
At least they were brighter than Delannay in that aspect. The man apparently still thought he was nothing but a fable to scare ballet rats.
But, damn him, he had a stubborn mind, a strong will. The Phantom had been able to manipulate his vision, and he had even been able to pull off that little trick with Claire reaching right through his stomach, but the foul intruder had been resisting. It had not been as easy as he had thought.
But it would become easier. Once Delannay was frightened enough, it surely would.
Reaching out with his mental feelers, the Phantom quickly checked whether the others were asleep already. Yes, Meg was sleeping quietly, Raoul was a little restless still, but pretty drowsy, and Christine, his beloved Christine… widely awake. Damn. How could he do what he intended to do when she was practically witnessing it? She would feel it. She would feel every bit of it. Every accursed drop of blood.
Dropping the length of rope he had just picked up onto the carpet carelessly, he sat down at the organ again. Maybe a little music would calm her? Gently he picked a few notes, keeping his mind open for any changes of feeling coming through the bond. Yes, she was listening. She was indeed listening, and probably smiling while she wrapped herself in his robe he had spread over her… and while she huddled closer against Raoul. The music became dissonant all by itself, and the Phantom almost winced at it, as well as at the image in his head. He willed himself to continue, as calmingly as he had played before. Otherwise she would get up and see what was wrong with him, and he could not let her. Not now. Usually he appreciated her company more than anyone else's, especially at those moments when she slipped onto the bench beside him, but not this time. Or else she would realize what he was going to do. After all, he was dressed all in black and girded with a set of three daggers, his trophies of past deadly hunts, and he already wore his archer's gloves, the fingerless one made of soft leather on the right hand and the rougher, padded one almost up to the elbow which covered the whole hand on the left one. Christine knew them, and she would see him right through. Why would he wear them to play the organ? Especially the left one was not exactly practical for that purpose. It was obvious, totally obvious.
Moreover, his quiver lay right on top of the organ, bristling with arrows, and if that was not evidence enough, a spare bowstring was lying across a pile of notepaper beside it.
So much for secrecy.
The Phantom forced himself to concentrate on what he was playing. He was improvising on a melody from Chalumeau's Hannibal currently, the very same opera in which Christine had given her celebrated debut last year. It was a simple melody, utterly unoriginal, to say it a bit nastily, as was all of Chalumeau's work really – just like Auber's and Meyerbeer's and all that – and carrying it on while altering it was easy enough, it did not need much attention… yet if he did not take care, it changed. If he did not concentrate, it grew dark, dark and menacing, like a shadow slowly creeping over the land, swallowing all light, slowly, steadily creeping ahead… the shadow of war… Night was falling swiftly, and the shadows crept… and darkness reigned, darkness and death… darkness…
Trying hard to imagine a wide meadow under the sun, he changed the tune, and there was light again… rays of sunlight… a tender breath of wind, caressing the high grass… a lake in some distance, glittering in the sun… a sailboat on the lake, a silver boat with sails of white…
But there were clouds, too, grey clouds in the west, and the sun sank into them, bathing them in brilliant red… red as blood they were in the glory of the sun's fiery death…
Death and glory. Glory and death.
The music had long ceased to resemble anything of Chalumeau's at the slightest.
And the storm was coming… the storm… and the night…
Oh, curse it all! He just could not concentrate. Whatever he played, he got carried away. Whatever he played, it all led to darkness.
Whatever he did, it all led to darkness.
The night was above him and around him and inside him.
But at least Christine was asleep now. She did not sleep as quietly as the others, but sleep she did, and for now, this would have to do. Ending the music with a last low, gentle note, the Phantom rose to his feet quietly and snatched up the quiver from the organ, hooking it onto one of the dagger belts. Then he tucked the spare bowstring into another one, picked up the length of rope from the floor and his unstrung bow with another bowstring dangling from it from the table holding the stage model. Then, with a last glance back at his quiet home, he headed out through the side entrance, off into the darkness.
His eyes got used to the gloom soon enough; he could see where others were practically blind. Moreover, he felt what was ahead, too, he felt the gentle pulsing of life above him, the presence of many, many men and women at the Opera House. And closer to him, like tiny pinpoints of light, rats flitted about in the corners, ducking into their holes as he came.
Darkness was all around him, but he did not fear it. For the deepest darkness was inside his heart.
And this sounded so perfectly good… in a morbid, morbid way. The Phantom smirked to himself.
Christine was restless, he felt, and maybe it would have helped her if he had stayed nearby, but he had to finish this. He had to do it as long as the night was still young. It just was the best time for hunting, so early that there was not only Delannay's night watch around, but also a handful of others, and most of them pretty drunk, too. They would be easy prey.
As he ascended the broad, winding staircase which led up to the inhabited part of the Opera House, he was careful to avoid certain landings. After all, he knew only too well where his own traps were hidden, and ever since Delannay had come here – a week ago it was now, a nasty, foul week with filthy louts poking their noses into the opera people's business – they were set, awaiting unwary feet. Until now, nobody had come, but they were going to. He knew they were. He expected them any day now.
And they would not find him unprepared.
Silently he made his way through deserted corridors at the ground floor, taking a turn into the public area, past the entrances to the now dark auditorium and out into the shadowy hall, the marble staircases gleaming eerily in the moonlight. Leaning against a pillar, he readied his bow. Above him, the fleck of light in his head was so clear that he did not need to see the man standing guard with his own eyes. He could feel him well enough. Picking an arrow from the quiver, he first tested the shaft and tip with his thumb, then nocked it with deft fingers. He had made them well enough, he knew it, from the fire-hardened head to the pigeon-feather fletchings, but he could not afford to make any mistakes.
Too bad he had not yet found a way to get metal tips for his arrows. Yet all the same, they served their purpose, and they had proven their deadliness before.
Slinking along the wall as swiftly as possible, he was careful to remain in the shadows. Although he was dressed in black from his mask down to his boots, the man on the gallery above him might still catch a hint of movement.
It seemed that he did, for as the Phantom slipped into the cover of another pillar's shadow, right opposite the one where he had first paused to get ready, he could see the man leaning down over the parapet, scanning the darkness beneath him critically, one hand reaching for his belt, no doubt to draw a weapon…
But the Phantom did not need any more time. After all, his night vision was much better than that nameless Communard guard's, and he was a trained archer. Many nights of secret practice now served their purpose. Drawing the string to his cheek swiftly, he waited just a tiny moment before he loosed the arrow.
There was a dry, thudding sound as the arrow met its target, and then a half-strangled gurgle from above as the fleck of light in the Phantom's head trembled. The man swayed, a pistol falling from his hand uselessly and clattering onto the stone floor, his rough, crude features twisted into a grimace of shock as well as pain, and then he keeled forward and fell down over the balustrade, landing on the ground below with a dull, heavy sound as the fleck of light exploded, shattered into tiny splashes. At first he twitched slightly, then he lay still, stretched out on his back, but with one arm bent at a strange angle. And there was darkness.
Dead, then. The fall had killed him. A broken neck, probably, or something similar. Of course, the arrow, still sticking out of the man's chest, would have been lethal enough in itself, but the Phantom knew from experience that even a shot directly through the heart did not kill a man immediately. From what Maurice de Bracy had told him, and from what he had read himself, sending an arrow through a man's eye was the best way to ascertain instant death, yet the arrow had to penetrate a layer of bone for that before it entered the brain, and this just would not work without metal arrowheads.
Raoul's revolver would make things easier, too, but it was such a crude weapon.
However, there were other methods of killing quickly, and very efficient ones…
There were voices upstairs now, coming from where the managers' office had once been. So Delannay's men were warier than he had expected them to be. They must have heard either the pistol dropping or their comrade's fall, or perhaps both. Whatever it was, they were coming now. Up on the side of the gallery where the guard had stood until a moment ago, there was light suddenly, and the Phantom receded deeper into the shadows, already reaching for another arrow, tense like a predator ready to pounce.
They thought they were hunting him, but they were the prey…
There they were. He could not see them directly, because he was hidden behind a pillar again, but he could feel them, three men up at the balustrades, and he could hear their excited whispers. His sharp ears caught enough words to know that they had interpreted the situation correctly, though one of the men seemed to favour the theory of a simple accident. Had that one not seen the feathered shaft sticking out of his companion's chest?
Then they retreated, which was a clever decision. After all, they did not know where the one they were looking for lurked. And then… Yes, exactly. Just as it was to be expected, they split up. One came down one side of the staircase, the other hastened towards the other, while the third, no doubt with a rifle ready, remained a little behind the balustrade to cover their backs.
Yet there was a fourth, and he was coming closer silently and swiftly, and from the main entrance. It seemed that they were a lot more watchful than the Phantom had expected. Four of them, and certainly all of them armed… Careful now.
As he raised his bow once again, his heart was pumping tongues of fire through his body. The thrill of the hunt… And deep down inside him, there was an ancient, a feral voice calling for blood. The monster inside him had woken once again, its nostrils quivering, its flanks vibrating with harsh, fast breathing, its fangs bared…
He moved automatically, as if replaying something he had done so often that it did not require any conscious thought anymore. Stepping out and dropping onto one knee in the very same motion, he loosed the arrow as soon as he caught sight of the shape in the twilight of the entrance, then twisted around without shifting his feet, so that he found himself facing the opposite direction, and already his fingers were nocking the next arrow, already he was bending the bow, already the arrow was speeding towards its next target, the men's screams mingling into one cry of terror and pain, as he leapt up into a standing position again lightly and sought cover behind the next pillar with a swift stride. Behind him, a bullet whistled past and beat its way into the marble wall.
Damn the man! He had no right to damage his Opera House!
And what, he suddenly thought as he gulped down a mouthful of air into his empty-seeming lungs, what in the name of Satan had he just done there? Where had that come from? From what he felt nearby, the trick had worked, because two of the remaining four points shining inside his head were dimming, liquid light pouring out into consuming blackness. But how, Hell devour him forever, how?
He could hear their gasps and yells and curses, and two more sharp barks of either pistols or rifles, he was not sure. This was not over yet! Already one was coming towards him, towards his hideout…
As he reached out with his mind, the twilight around him seemed to fill him and to drown out the lanterns and the dim sheen from the gas lamp above as it surged through his veins. The night was his time, his time alone.
It was a simple mind, utterly defenceless. Effortlessly he reached through its outlying layers, passing through thoughts and feelings like through clouds of thin mist, and down past the chasm of recollections, down to the very core of the man's mind, where life itself pulsed like a stream, a stream of molten light. Imagining to grasp the shining cord firmly, he pictured a rope hooked onto something, something that would give way if he pulled hard enough… and then he yanked it out, and the light faded to blackness.
Life was such a tender thing, and so unprotected. Humans were so very vulnerable.
Maybe this was what made them precious things, he suddenly thought. Well, some of them. Only some of them. The rest could burn in Hell for all he cared.
Four down. One to go. It was so incredibly easy. They just were no worthy adversaries. Stepping out from behind the pillar lazily, he made sure to take hold of the remaining man's conscious thoughts before he confronted him fully. As he stood facing him, the rifle dropped from the guard's limp hand. So easy, so incredibly easy… The Phantom could not truly have explained how he controlled a mind, yet it seemed simple to him, a natural thing. He located his target, and then he just reached out and manipulated it as much as he wanted. Now, eye to eye with the man in question, it was even easier. The most direct access to the soul was through the eyes, it was said.
Yes, but who said it? Where had he heard that? He never had, or had he? Was he imagining things?
To Hell with it, if I weren't mad already, I'd think I'd surely be heading in that direction.
It almost made him laugh out loud.
"So you're real," the man said. He spoke flatly, surprisingly calmly, though the Phantom could feel his fear, and his victim's racing heartbeat that made a vein at his temple throb thrilled him.
Of course, the white mask. Everybody knew the white mask, it seemed. "I guess I am." Any memorable last words, perhaps? Curse it all, currently the world was so oddly amusing.
"And you're going to kill me." It was not a question.
"Yes." The answer was quite unnecessary.
"Why?"
"They say that in death all questions are answered."
The man swallowed visibly, and his fear was like an avalanche threatening to carry him away into oblivion, but still he stood his ground. "If there is anything after death."
So this was what he truly feared, the Phantom realized. What everybody feared, probably. This one was a mercenary and unafraid of pain. He feared the unknown. "There is," the Phantom said gently, although he had not intended to speak any more unnecessary words. "There is light beyond the shadow. As your light goes out, you find yourself in darkness, but there is another light, just out of sight, so much brighter than your own, and you are carried towards it, the brightest of fires…" At once his voice failed at the power of the memory overwhelming him. He had seen it himself, the moment Jean Hulot had died. The moment he had failed to safe his follower. He had seen him die, and he had followed him out into the starless vastness, and towards a fire so bright it was beyond words to describe – And then Christine had called him back into the world of the living… His beloved. She was the sole reason why he lived.
The man was staring at him, he noticed, and it did not surprise him. Such a common face, such unintelligent eyes… Why was he talking to a nobody like that? Why not just kill him and be done with it? "You're going to see for yourself," he said, already searching his way downwards into that utterly unremarkable mind…
"Why?" The man's voice was still flat, but now it sounded pressed, too. "Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies?"
"Who gave it to Delannay?" the Phantom replied coldly. This was not about giving power. This was about taking it. And in the end, it belonged to the strongest.
In the end, the Phantom would outlast this whole accursed world, with the night's shadows seething in his veins.
"Well, then. Make it swift."
As if we're discussing business, the Phantom thought. As if losing his life were business to that man. Well, he was a mercenary, so it was, in a way. Yes, one might consider it so. But all the same… what kind of life was that?
And at once he felt a small twinge of pity for a man who seemed to be not so much better off than he was. "It's a more pleasant place than this one," he said harshly, unwilling to admit what he was feeling. "Trust me." And then he gripped the cord of light and severed it, and the figure before him folded up neatly as its light of life went out.
Darkness. Darkness all around him. There was nobody left alive here now.
And darkness inside him, too.
And far away, Christine was sleeping peacefully at last. At the moment, he felt as if there were worlds between them – and it was good that there were. How could he ever approach her with his blood-stained hands? Her, the purest of creatures? At once he wished he could sever their connection so the taint on him would never touch her.
He was nothing but a murderer, a murderer lurking in the shadows.
Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies? That mercenary had been right, curse him, so perfectly right! Why did the lowliest of creatures judge those who walked under the light?
Because he was more than them, he thought, glaring out into the shadows defiantly. He was more.
But all the same, he was nothing. Nothing at all.
But he had the power to decide. The power had been given to him, by whatever cruel stroke of fate. He had been condemned to have that power.
Fate, eh? You're no better than Créon.
Créon! Never Créon! When had he ever claimed the right to change and control another's fate, like Créon had?
All the time, really. All the time.
He had been condemned, yes. But with every new murder, he was condemning himself as well, over and over again.
Christine, forgive me, if you ever can. I'm doomed, and I can't escape.
And soon I will be dead, too. Soon I will join the legion of men I sent into the shadows before me.
How many were those, his victims? He did not know; he had not counted. The first, his keeper, a filthy gypsy. The second, a stagehand who had molested Claire Giry. The third, an uncouth drunkard who had tried to ambush him in the street at night. The fourth, a dirty, stinking homeless man who had been unlucky enough to cross his path on a particularly foul day. The fifth, a tavern brawler who had called an insult at him. The sixth… The list was long, far too long. True, all his early victims had been filthy drunkards, and criminals mostly, but all the same, sometimes he had not really had a reason to kill them. Sometimes he had just longed to see that wondrous stream of liquid light flowing out into the darkness. Sometimes they had fallen victim to his hatred of the entire world, and to the satisfaction another death offered.
Or seemed to offer. It had never truly satisfied him. Not even killing Créon and Niobe. Triumph there was, at times, pride perhaps, though most of those kills were nothing to be proud of, but never satisfaction.
But they had never troubled him, either. Claire was right, he valued a man's life for nothing. Or most men's lives, anyway.
Yes, until Hulot had died at his side. That petty little human life, how much it had at once meant to him! And he had not been able to save him. Hulot had died in his service, as the price for his faith in him.
Just like that other man had died today, that nameless carpenter the Communards had murdered.
Maybe it had been even those the Phantom had killed just now.
He hoped it had been them, because otherwise… it would not have been their fault. They would have been innocent.
Innocent? Now he was being ridiculous! For the blessing of Hell, they were Communards, filthy Commune followers, loyal to Delannay! They deserved to die ten times over!
Who gave you the power to decide whether a man lives or dies?
Oh, to Hell with you, Communard slime! The power is mine because I took it, and you have no right to question me!
Yet all the same, he felt like an usurper of something that was not his, and his hands felt sullied although there was no single drop of blood on them. Christine would not reproach him, but he would see it in her eyes, her disapproval, her disappointment, her grief.
He felt so lost on an ocean of darkness, with night all around him, and inside him, too, condemned to search a safe haven forever, and never to find it, not in all of eternity…
A fallen angel, and far from Heaven…
Because a fallen angel will never be redeemed, not in all of eternity.
No, damn it, he was no angel!
And there was no time for this. After all, he was not done here yet.
Crossing the room, he picked up the length of rope from where he had discarded it when he had first readied his bow. He would need four more of these…
Quietly and efficiently, the Phantom set to work.