OK, I'll admit it… I caved! I meant to keep the plotline for this completely Leroux and Kay based, but 'Music of the Night' snuck in there somehow. I can't help it! It's such an amazing song!

Thanks to winged-silhouette, Buchworm13, and PARTYB0Y for their reviews. :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Artemis Fowl, as Eoin Colfer owns Artemis Fowl. I do not own the Phantom of the Opera, as Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Susan Kay, etc. own Phantom of the Opera. What part of my non-ownership isn't clear here?

Chapter Three: Elf In The Opera House

The next day, Captain Holly Short briefed her commander on her activities for that day.

"I'm attending the Opera tonight, Commander," she dutifully reported. "There is significant evidence that the subject often goes there," she added, suddenly worried he thought she was frittering away her time. "I'm hoping that if I attend disguised as an opera goer I can case out the area, get a few indicators of his behaviour – "

"Have fun, Short," the commander barked, cutting her off. "What do you want, pony boy?" he snapped to someone jumping around outside the tiny communicator screen.

"Is it Holly? Is it Holly? Lemme talk, Julius!" the centaur exclaimed, grabbing the communicator from his boss.

"Don't call me Julius," the commander growled, but the centaur was too excited to care.

"Hey, Holly, how is it are you having fun did you go see the Eiffel Tower yet?" he said in one breath. Holly smiled, aware he had consumed far too much caffeine for one centaur. Someone had stolen his carrots, by the sounds of it, and he was forced to revert to caffeine. She pitied the commander. Putting up with Foaly when he was like this would try the patience of a saint, and Commander Root certainly didn't have that kind of patience. In fact, Holly sometimes doubted the commander had any kind of patience at all.

"Hello Foaly, its fine here, I am not having fun because this is work, not a social visit, and I haven't been to the Eiffel Tower." The centaur pouted. "Put the commander back on, Foaly, there's a good mule," she joked lightly.

"Hey!"

"Report back tomorrow, Short," the commander snapped crisply. "Root out." Holly sighed, missing home just a little bit, and went into the bathroom to shower and dress.

xx

The city of Paris was an interesting place to be for an elf with somewhat limited experience with Mud People. It was unnerving to be among so many Mud People, but she was discovering that they were a very self absorbed race, these humans, and rarely noticed anything outside of their own little world as they rushed to work or school or just around in general.

For a while she twitched at all the motion and the people, rushing around the streets of the city as though they all had to get somewhere faster than one another. She had thought Haven was busy, but this place made Haven seem like a tiny, idyllic village. She had still not accustomed herself to the pollution of so many primitive human vehicles, as she had confessed to the commander that morning when making her report. He had made a grunt which she assumed was a sound of sympathy for her plight, adding, "Sure you'll get used to it, Short," with customary gruffness. Holly sighed. She could almost see him as a father… but he was so different from her own. Oak Short had been faraway and pensive, but an excellent officer regardless. He had been capable of putting that aside whenever he went to work though not, Holly knew, at home. Root, though, was in a category of his own. Gruff and brusque, he cared for his officers in a fierce yet abrupt and almost curt manner.

Sometimes, she wished he had been her father. At least if he had been then she would have had a parent who didn't fill her head with fairytales and stories about angels that never appeared. At least he wouldn't have set her up for so much disappointment when those angels didn't arrive.

As she stepped into the Paris Opera House, she felt the old memories come rushing back to her. All those moments with her father that she had forgotten about, brought back by that glorious old memory of the night she had came here with her parents, that last wonderful occasion of childish ignorance of the cruelties of the world. She no longer wished that Root had been her father. She only wished that her own were still alive.

The Opera House was exquisite. For what seemed like the thousandth time Holly mentally thanked the commander for this assignment. It was even a thrill to be out from deep underneath the earth to the surface of the planet, even if she had to avoid the sunlight most of the time, and try to avoid the notice of people who might be curious at the sight of a tiny person wandering around.

She had dressed for her first night at the Opera House like she had never dressed before. There was little she could do with her auburn hair other than keep it clean, since she had had it cropped again before leaving Haven. Her dress, on the other hand, was a sheath of black silk that highlighted every curve of her very small body. Her heels were stilettos, and as she strapped them on in her hotel room rented by the LEP she thanked the gods that she had practised with these before it came time to put the damned medieval torture devices on. Still, she needed to fit the part of an operagoer, even if she was frighteningly small. The stilettos went towards fixing that, though. She wore a little black hat down over her ears, despite the odd looks it got her occasionally for wearing her hat inside.

Her first night at the Opera was like coming home after years of travelling. When the familiar beginning notes of La Traviata swelled, Holly's eyes welled. It was as though the pressure that had been building within her all her life suddenly burst and she was lost, caught in the inevitable flow of music that swept all the difficulties in her life out of her.

The prima donna was… interesting. Oh, she supposed she was not too terrible, vocally, but it was obvious even from Holly's seat (which was not very close to the stage; she had great difficulty seeing) that the woman had a great deal of concealing makeup squashed onto her face, and her voice left much to be desired. But Holly supposed she was no critic, as she couldn't sing at all. Her father had thought her little voice lovely when she was younger, but like many things he had said, Holly took this with a grain of salt. Or a handful of it.

About three quarters of the way through the performance, though, something strange occurred. Holly had made a mental note to check whether it was the fault of the criminal she was pursuing, but soon gave up that idea. There was no way the petty thief she was tracing could have made that kind of sound. A maniacal laughter had spread throughout the Opera House, making it impossible to hear the singing as the laughter reverberated off of the walls. The chandelier had shaken and the lights had flickered.

It was all over as quickly as it began, but Holly appeared to be the only one unshaken by this. The audience was unsettled, the manager furious, and the performers and stagehands downright terrified. Raising her opera glasses demurely, she noted the sweating forehead and panicky expression of the prima donna and the terrified, pale faces of the little ballet girls. Interesting.

No one in the whole theatre really enjoyed the performance after that. There was an aura of fear hanging over the Opera House; everyone was too aware of what had just occurred. Holly was unable to recapture the feeling of joy she had felt before when experiencing the music; despite her unruffled countenance, the hackles were up on the back of her neck. The instincts the LEP had drummed into her were shrieking.

Something was watching.

Not only just watching her, but watching the entire Opera House, something that saw everything and saw it all with merciless, pitiless eyes.

xx

After the performance she had quickly tried to get out of there, aware of the looks she was getting. So this was what it was like, to be different among the humans? she thought bitterly. But there were a group of men who headed her off, blocked her with their bodies. She looked very far up, craning her neck to look the leader of them in the eye. "How can I help you, gentlemen?" she inquired. He smiled disarmingly at her.

"Please, won't you join me for a drink?" he asked. Holly feigned embarrassment, while all her instincts were shouting: never drink alcohol with a Mud Man, never drink alcohol with a Mud Man!

"Unfortunately, I have a prior engagement," she said gracefully. She turned to go, but a hand came down on her shoulder.

"Not so fast, little lady," he said, and suddenly his smile wasn't so disarming. It was more like that of a predator. Holly reacted without thinking. She punched him, painfully, in an area of the body she knew (from prior experience with male idiots) knocked men flat on their ass. She ran, running from the man and his friends who were chasing her. She ducked into the first room she came to, locking the door behind her, and listening to the rhythm of her heartbeat as it echoed the thump of their footsteps as they ran past.

"Damn," she cursed, taking a good look at her surroundings. She was in a dusty, disused dressing room. At least, that was what she thought it was. Walking over to the dressing table, she brushed the dust away with a yellowed cloth that had been flung over a chair. The dust revealed rich, dark wood, flawless save for the lingering dust and tiny letters carved towards the top left hand corner.

C.D. 1880.

"C.D.," she said aloud. I wonder who he was? Or she, I suppose. Probably a she, if she had a dressing room like this. She picked up a scrap of sheet music that the dust had uncovered. "Music… of… the Night…" she said, straining to read the old script in the darkness. "From… Erik… for Christine."

Holly was suddenly struck by her own silliness. She was standing, in the dark, attempting to sing a no doubt complicated piece of music that looked to be a century old. Still, why not? she asked herself with a hint of impatience. It wasn't like anyone would hear her…

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