Disclaimer: If you haven't done your best to get a hold of and read the
original book, written by Gaston Leroux, (and which you can even find
online) I am VERY disappointed with you! But I still hope you enjoy my
humble story here, which I try my best to base on Leroux story. His book is
like my bible. I always have it with me, I always have Erik by my side. =)
~ Chapter six ~
As Erik walked back up towards the house again he thought of the fact that he might have a small conscience after all.
Not like any normal man, of course, but something that stopped his actions sometimes.
Like when the small ballet-girls got dressed, or when La Sorelli met men privately in her room. Those were some of the moments when his 'conscience', or whatever it was, stepped in and stopped him from listening and watching them any further, and he then disappeared like the ghost he was into the shadows of the opera again.
It was really strange how he didn't have any problems when it came to killing another creature, but how he yet respected people's privacy.
When it came to killing somebody, he preferred it if it went quick, that's why he loved his Punjab lassos. He had several of them, and they served him very well. With just a flick of his wrist he could send someone to death with it, quick and rather painless. It was also a clean killing, no unnecessary bloodshed.
It made him feel powerful, that split second when he knew the snare was around the neck of his victim, and before he with a swift movement ended that person's life. That moment he was God. He decided over life and death- And the feeling of being God, ending the life of someone else's divine creation, was both intoxicating and addictive.
It scared him sometimes.
He also had things like the torture chamber, and he knew of the horrible ways of killing others also. He had learned and seen more than any person should ever have to see and learn about the horrors you might do to a person's body and mind before his or her time is up.
The little sultana had known what she wanted, and he had provided her with it. She had taught him a lot.
In Persia it was either to kill for her or to be killed by her. There was no middle way.
He knew how to make men beg for their lives, and some of them (most actually) didn't deserve to live anyway, so he had learned long ago to ignore those calls for mercy. If he hadn't he surely would have been more insane now than he already was.
But some of the tricks he had learned along the way had been quite useful. Yes, Erik knew of a lot of tricks. Tricks that could make little vicious sultana laugh.
When she had killed off all her enemies, she started killing all her friends. Sure, not all of them were innocent, but some were, but they all died just like the others. Murder was the little sultana's private hobby. And the torture chamber he had built for her and later for himself was something she really enjoyed in the beginning. Before she grew tired of it, like a child that grows tired of a toy after a while. And she wanted more, something more horrifying, more disgusting to clench her everlasting thirst for blood.
He didn't know why he had build the exact copy of it in the Opera House, and in the beginning he didn't think he would ever have to use it here. He thought that perhaps his years in Persia had made him become more paranoid than he was aware of himself, but then one day Joseph Buquet had literary stepped straight into it. And by doing so he had come closer to Erik's house than anyone from above ever had before.
Close to Erik's secrets.
He had to die for what he knew. He had already seen Erik once, and since then everybody seemed to know what he looked like without his mask.
So even though Erik knew he was there, he hadn't let him out, he had just let the torture chamber do it's trick to the man, who within a couple of hours he had hung himself in the iron tree to end his suffering. The iron tree had been like a salvation after the long hours in the hot African desert.
Afraid of being discovered, Erik was since that day glad that he had his torture chamber between his own realm and the world above. It made him feel safer, and he now knew that building it was the right choice to make.
To scare of anyone else that might pry around where they shouldn't, he had hung up Buquet's body between a farm-house and a scene from Roi de Lahore, just over the entrance to the torture chamber, to be found. It was a statement saying: "This is what happen if you talk about the Opera Ghost, and this is what happens if you walk too far in my kingdom."
He then thought of the fact that his Punjab lasso made of catgut might raise some suspicion. So he quickly took the man down, and retrieved his lasso, before anyone had had the time to examine it.
It had been a close call. He didn't like to think what might have happened if the torture chamber hadn't been built there, and what might have happened if Buquet had found the entrance to his home instead. If he had left the door open to the Louis-Philippe room, or something.
So he made it a rule to always have the invisible door to the torture chamber closed, and that week he made more safety signals that should go off if anyone from above should dare to go that far down again. He refused to get uninvited guests again!
Guests that were uninvited deserved to die!
But he didn't want to think about that now. Now he had to prepare some breakfast for his dear Christine, she would surely wake up any minute now!
~ Chapter six ~
As Erik walked back up towards the house again he thought of the fact that he might have a small conscience after all.
Not like any normal man, of course, but something that stopped his actions sometimes.
Like when the small ballet-girls got dressed, or when La Sorelli met men privately in her room. Those were some of the moments when his 'conscience', or whatever it was, stepped in and stopped him from listening and watching them any further, and he then disappeared like the ghost he was into the shadows of the opera again.
It was really strange how he didn't have any problems when it came to killing another creature, but how he yet respected people's privacy.
When it came to killing somebody, he preferred it if it went quick, that's why he loved his Punjab lassos. He had several of them, and they served him very well. With just a flick of his wrist he could send someone to death with it, quick and rather painless. It was also a clean killing, no unnecessary bloodshed.
It made him feel powerful, that split second when he knew the snare was around the neck of his victim, and before he with a swift movement ended that person's life. That moment he was God. He decided over life and death- And the feeling of being God, ending the life of someone else's divine creation, was both intoxicating and addictive.
It scared him sometimes.
He also had things like the torture chamber, and he knew of the horrible ways of killing others also. He had learned and seen more than any person should ever have to see and learn about the horrors you might do to a person's body and mind before his or her time is up.
The little sultana had known what she wanted, and he had provided her with it. She had taught him a lot.
In Persia it was either to kill for her or to be killed by her. There was no middle way.
He knew how to make men beg for their lives, and some of them (most actually) didn't deserve to live anyway, so he had learned long ago to ignore those calls for mercy. If he hadn't he surely would have been more insane now than he already was.
But some of the tricks he had learned along the way had been quite useful. Yes, Erik knew of a lot of tricks. Tricks that could make little vicious sultana laugh.
When she had killed off all her enemies, she started killing all her friends. Sure, not all of them were innocent, but some were, but they all died just like the others. Murder was the little sultana's private hobby. And the torture chamber he had built for her and later for himself was something she really enjoyed in the beginning. Before she grew tired of it, like a child that grows tired of a toy after a while. And she wanted more, something more horrifying, more disgusting to clench her everlasting thirst for blood.
He didn't know why he had build the exact copy of it in the Opera House, and in the beginning he didn't think he would ever have to use it here. He thought that perhaps his years in Persia had made him become more paranoid than he was aware of himself, but then one day Joseph Buquet had literary stepped straight into it. And by doing so he had come closer to Erik's house than anyone from above ever had before.
Close to Erik's secrets.
He had to die for what he knew. He had already seen Erik once, and since then everybody seemed to know what he looked like without his mask.
So even though Erik knew he was there, he hadn't let him out, he had just let the torture chamber do it's trick to the man, who within a couple of hours he had hung himself in the iron tree to end his suffering. The iron tree had been like a salvation after the long hours in the hot African desert.
Afraid of being discovered, Erik was since that day glad that he had his torture chamber between his own realm and the world above. It made him feel safer, and he now knew that building it was the right choice to make.
To scare of anyone else that might pry around where they shouldn't, he had hung up Buquet's body between a farm-house and a scene from Roi de Lahore, just over the entrance to the torture chamber, to be found. It was a statement saying: "This is what happen if you talk about the Opera Ghost, and this is what happens if you walk too far in my kingdom."
He then thought of the fact that his Punjab lasso made of catgut might raise some suspicion. So he quickly took the man down, and retrieved his lasso, before anyone had had the time to examine it.
It had been a close call. He didn't like to think what might have happened if the torture chamber hadn't been built there, and what might have happened if Buquet had found the entrance to his home instead. If he had left the door open to the Louis-Philippe room, or something.
So he made it a rule to always have the invisible door to the torture chamber closed, and that week he made more safety signals that should go off if anyone from above should dare to go that far down again. He refused to get uninvited guests again!
Guests that were uninvited deserved to die!
But he didn't want to think about that now. Now he had to prepare some breakfast for his dear Christine, she would surely wake up any minute now!