Author's note:

Okay, so the emotional rollercoaster of this chapter about killed me, and it's going on my list of the hardest things I've ever written. I think its worth it though, if it's crap, and I'm kidding myself, just don't tell me. Many thanks going out to my sissy Agon Dy for helping with the mob scene in this one, because I don't usually write them, and it was rather foreign to me. I'm really proud of the way it came out though. Also sissy, to credit you for the one quote in here that is word for word what you said. You know which one I'm talking about.

The song quote at the top of the chapter is from Josh Groban's Bells of New York City, which if you like having soundtracks for your reading, is the soundtrack for this chapter. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to getting reviews and feedback.

Aminta

Disclaimer:

Nothing in the chapter belongs to me. It's all the property of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gaston le Roux. Though, as I've said in other stories, Erik, and now Gustav, can own me anytime they see fit.

Chapter three:

Song of Redemption

"Sing to me one song for joy, and one for redemption, and for whatever's in between that I call mine. With the street lamp lights to illuminate the grey, and the bells of New York City calling me to stay."

Ma chere amour,

They tell me the winter months are cold here, and in mid November, I suppose cold may very well be a gross understatement. I miss the feeling of that cold, the feeling of the ice's bite as it burned through my leather clad fingers, but it seems your last letter has brought back to me a sort of cold that I do not miss, the cold of a lover unhappy and perhaps a bit scorned because her love has left her. Do not deny it to me amante du moi, for what sort of assassin would I be if I could not sense, nearly smell deception? You think to tell me only what I wish to hear in hopes that I will not pass my hours in an eternal state of worriment, but I can assure you that, so long as I am away from both you and Corin, it will be the case.

While we are on the subject of Corin, there are things we need to discuss. I understand that I am the one you imprinted upon, not she, but I do not appreciate the coldness with which you spoke of her. She is but a timid child, still learning to serve my own needs, let alone those of another, and the fact that she was bold enough to even fetch help for you, when she still fears my father so strongly, says much for how she feels toward you. You will not speak thusly of her again.

There is another matter that is of some concern to me before I hope to continue our attempts at getting to know and learn each other better. When you mentioned to me that things were terrible at home, you said that your father had compelled you to write and that he had said it might help to calm your inner wolf. Forgive me for speaking harshly, and correct me if I am wrong, but I thought your father to be dead? Thus, I am a bit confused, please attempt to explain to me what you meant by the things you said.

Matters of a harsher nature now aside, your friend Jason was a lucky boy and is now a lucky man to have you and your pack looking after him. I must confess that I envy him. I had no one but mother and father when my change occurred, and even they fought amongst themselves about it when they thought I wasn't listening. I think there are times, even now, that mother blames father for making the change without my even being awake enough to know what was happening around me. You see, my change was not a matter of choice but a matter of necessity.

…..

The first snows of a Parisian winter are always the coldest, perhaps because we have often been lulled into a sense of comfort by the mildness of spring, and the winter in question was colder than any I had seen thus far in my seventeen winters. My father's estate was a constant state of activity and hush whispers spoken behind closed doors, and in spite of every interrogatory I put the staff through, no one would speak. You see, fear of the Phantom had been brought upon them all, and they knew that to speak his secrets may very well have gotten them fired, or worse…

It was nearly a month later, in early December, when I found out what the true nature of his plans had been. It was time, he had decided, that mother should be brought back to the stage.

"Scandal be damned," I remember hearing him tell her amidst the chords of dark music swirling forth from his organ, "I will not keep you as a caged bird forever. You were born… created to sing, and you shall sing, if it is the last thing I do upon this earth."

"And you Maestro," she asked him trembling a little, "What of you? What will happen to us if they find you? You are among the most wanted men in Paris for the scandal, and if you were to ever be caught in the theater…" Her words trailed away as the first tears fell from her eyes.

He softened considerably, and from my hiding place in the rafters, I saw him place a leather clad finger upon her lips.

"Hush ma voix, hush. Do you trust me?" He asked her gravely.

Her expression changed to one of total surrender at the question, and she smiled softly up at him.

"Oui Maestro, with my life," she assured.

"Then know this," he began, and I saw the old flame's of a phantom's passion rise up in him, "The Angel guards, the Angel hears and sees, and only upon his own blade shall he ever parish."

A silent understanding passed between them, and I had the distinct feeling I had missed an entire conversation. Of course, I know now that I had missed far more than a single discussion, but an undisclosed part of my father's life… a code, part of which he found it necessary to recite to her to ease her fears. He reached for her, and before I turned away, having no wish to see my mother and father in the throws of passion, I saw his hands fist into her hair, drawing her head back hard and forcing her to her knees. This was not a degree of control I had ever seen him possess, and I had no idea how to feel about it. At the time, I simply filed it away for later contemplation.

The voice, dark and lethal, drew me from that contemplation and caused me to nearly slip from the slender beam on which I was perched.

"Come down Gustav. It is time, at least, some of my secrets become yours."

He'd found me again, damn him. I still had yet to figure out how he did it, but there was no place in the house where I could safely hide from those eyes. With an exaggerated slowness I crept down, making my way to the chair across the room from him. If I had any wish to be honest with myself, the man still frightened me, and the closer I could remain to the door of the music room, the safer I felt.

"Oui mon pere?" I asked quietly.

"She is right Gustav," he admitted with sadness in his eyes, "While nearly twenty years have passed since the scandal, that theater may never be safe for me again, but for you…"

My incredulous look was enough to tell him that I understood and did not agree to this, but the unflinching gaze of those tawny golden eyes was enough to tell me that I had no choice, and consent was not required for whatever it was he had just seen fit to do with me. Share the Phantom's domain, obey his dictates. As you are well aware, this has not changed.

For three long months, he trained me endlessly, and my time was never my own. Mother, however, remained in the peaceful oblivion their rehearsals together created, and I had the distinct feeling that was the way he wanted it.

During those months, the shadows became like old friends to me, and quickly I learned their shelter would serve me better than the indistinctness or safety any cloak or trench coat was able to provide me. I learned too the skills of observation and listening, and the nature of the illusions that fueled his world of mirrors that never showed the same thing twice and strange voices heard in the night. In essence, the Phantom had been reborn, but it was no longer obsession and passion that gave him life, only the most simple and primal of needs… the need to protect.

"Ma mere," I called from the bottom of the stairs one Friday night in early February, "You must come now, or we will be late. Father will never forgive me if we are."

She scampered down the staircase, the staccato clicking of her heals a perfect punctuation to her nervousness and my stress.

"Je suis dessole mon fils," she apologized "I am simply not certain I can do this, not again, not there and after all that happened."

"Father would not have prepared you for this and told you it was time if he had not thought you ready ma mere. Come now, it will be all right"

And all right it was for most of the night. Her disguise held perfectly, she sang like the angel she was, I was never seen, and no one became the wiser for it. That was, until the carriage ride home.

Time after time, I have told you that I will never kill an innocent, but if I had had the skills to kill that night, the child who loosed hell upon mother and I would have been at the top of my long list of contracts to be called in. He couldn't have been more than five or six, raised on tales of the Opera Ghost and his bride as stories and threats to disobedient children, 'If you do that again, the Opera Ghost will come get you in your sleep and take you away to his cellars,' that sort of thing, but that night, I had never wanted to kill someone so much.

"Mama," the boy cried out, grabbing at his mother's skirts, "It's the Ghost's bride mama. The ghost is here mama! Please, don't let him take me away! I didn't mean to put worms in Emmy's hair! I won't do it again! P… please, don't let him take me!"

For the briefest of moments, I stopped where I was, frozen and terrified, but to my mother's credit, she kept walking with her head held high and proud as the accusations and insults were leveled relentlessly at her. Having seen this, I was able to move, the ever watchful shadow at her back, while reminding myself that all we had to do was make it to the closed carriage father had taught me to drive, and we would be safely on the way home.

"Phantom's whore! Monster's slave!" I heard them chorus, and though I could feel the heat of my anger rising, I simply stepped from the shadows, took her hand in mine, and led her onward.

The lone gunman came out of the dark so quickly that if I had not been trained in my father's skills I never would have seen him. My thoughts became desperate… frenzied. I had been taught nothing but basic defense with a blade, and this man clearly had intension to kill. I practically threw mother behind me, diving forward to shelter her as best I could. That was when I saw his face, and I knew I was dead.

"Raoul," mother breathed like some ancient curse, "Raoul, no!"

His eyes, strange and haunted, searched for her, but when they settled on me he no longer had a need to search.

"I will have what is mine bastard!" he growled, his hands shaking as he raised the gun.

I contemplated trying to convince him that I was not my father and that I had no quarrel with him. In fact, I contemplated saying just about anything that would keep that gun from being fired, but at the moment I attempted to speak, I felt the gaping wound in my chest, heard my mother's scream, and saw the world around me fade to what I thought would surely be eternal darkness.

...

Father tells me it was three days later when I awoke, but for my own part, I have no idea. Three days, he says, that was what it took to complete the transformation, and that I should be thankful that I was able to remain asleep for it all, because the pain would have been unlike anything I had ever known and would ever know again.

I remember the feeling of awakening, heady, alive, hollow, and filled with a wild and insistent hunger that simply did not believe in the word no, and though I do not think it necessary to tell you what you have most likely already discerned, Raoul, compt de Chagny, died alone and begging a newly born vampire for his life on a cold night in early February as the bells called the faithful to evening mass.

…

With shaking hand and shallow breath I finish this letter, knowing that you, my huntress, are the only one who possesses its secrets. I suppose, my redemption, in some twisted way, but I fear that, if the church thinks of my kind and profession in the sort of light that it does, there is never true redemption for me. Not that I seek it.

Be at ease my love. Do not worry for me. I seek the piece of my own music for a few short hours of focus and bliss before my work claims me again. Give all my love to Rin and the rest of the house, mon amour.

Je t'aime,

Gustav

Note: edited 10/16/11 Agon