Hello again, everyone!

I'm so sorry I haven't updated in ages – life caught up with me and I completely lost track of time. Thank you to everyone who reviewed and put me on their author alert.

Disclaimer: I don't own either of the fandoms I am quite happily mutilating. Artemis Fowl belongs to Eoin Colfer and the Phantom of the Opera belongs to… well, quite a few people, actually… oh, never mind.

Chapter Seven: Means To An End

"Tomorrow you will perform in front of all of Paris," the Voice announced as Holly put on her coat after her lesson several days later. She stopped dead in her tracks.

"What?" she stammered. "Tomorrow… night?" The Angel sighed, and she was positive that if he had a head, he would be shaking it in disbelief. She sighed. Sometimes she wished the Angel was a little more understanding and a hell of a lot less condescending.

"Yes, my child," he said. "Tomorrow night, you will give to men a little of the music of heaven." Holly frowned. It all sounded very vague and rather airy to her. Music of heaven? Wasn't that his job?

And how on earth would she explain this to the commander?

For the life of her, Holly could not remember how she had got into this situation. It had been such a simple operation; apprehend the suspect, maybe have a little fun, and come home. But everything had changed; she had been catapulted into an unreality she neither fully understood nor wanted to understand. And in this world she no longer recognized the Opera House had become something of a prison to her. The place she had once loved had become imbued with the Angel's presence, and no corner of it was safe from the mighty power of his all-seeing eyes. She was becoming aware that something was very wrong with the Angel; he was not as she had imagined he would be. He at times almost seemed to possess the characteristics and emotions of a mortal man, not a divine being; he was jealous of anyone else she mentioned, let alone expressed emotional interest in.

She knew she was free to leave, free to fly home and the Angel would never trouble her again, for he would not find her deep beneath the concealing earth. Too close to hell for an angel, she found herself thinking with grim humour. But she was too deep in his web now. She would never live with herself if she did not learn her own limits; if she did not stand on that stage and sing to the heavens, distilling every black emotion in her heart out through her voice. She would never live without that ethereal splendour of his Voice haunting her, echoing through the hollow chamber of her heart if she escaped now. The only option was to do as he asked, sing for him, giving him her soul on the stage like a sacrificial lamb before the flames.

She was so very afraid of him now. She was afraid of his immense power and skill but most of all, she was terrified of the changes he wrought upon her. When she was in his presence she trembled, entire body shaking as though her bones were pushing against one another like magnets repelling similar forces. She did not want to be near him, for the hideous beauty of his Voice sent shivers down into all the places that calm, rational Captain Short had had to forget about in order to reach her station in the LEP. And yet the dreams possessed and tormented her, nightmares of exquisite pain where his control over her was absolute and undiminished, and gods help her, she liked it. Every time she woke up with her heart pounding, the Angel's Voice in her ears, she loathed herself and loathed her own weakness. She feared she was going insane, because although she knew the dreams were just imaginary spectres of the night, this knowledge did not stop her pulse from beating a terrible and inexcusable rhythm in all the places she had never felt it before.

She wanted to see him, wanted to be in his presence… wanted to feel him with her. He already possessed her soul. What more could he take but her body?

She knew the Angel was waiting for her to respond, knew just as well that his patience was not without limit. She was once again grateful that he could not read her mind, her cheeks flushing at the thought of him knowing what she was thinking of.

"But… the prima donna," she protested weakly, striving for some kind of excuse as to why she should not sing. It's all too fast, it's happening too quickly! She was aware that she was hurtling through life towards this inevitable climax, and she was afraid. "I'm sure La Carlotta will not fall ill over the next twenty-four hours, Angel." The Angel laughed, and Holly shivered.

"You'd be surprised, my dear, what can happen in such a brief period of time." The Angel's Voice was heavy with menace, and Holly wondered what he would do to the poor woman. Surely he wouldn't hurt her too terribly? "In fact, Holly, something already may have happened to her, and perhaps she is lying somewhere alone, trapped, injured…" The Voice's tone was one of malevolent glee at his own malicious genius.

Holly's blood turned to ice. She had no doubts that the Angel could easily carry out his threats if he so chose.

She no longer considered refusing to sing as an option.

xx

"… in other news, the diva of the Paris Opera House was found in her apartment this evening, trapped underneath her grand piano. Carlotta Guidicelli has been the Opera's prima donna for the last six years, and this freak attack comes as a shock to all who knew her. Preliminary reports say that Ms. Guidicelli has broken both legs and has a severe concussion, and will be in hospital for the next few weeks…"

Holly turned off the television, stricken. This was the Angel's work; she had no doubts about that. Her pointed ears were tingling, her instincts shrieking for her to listen. She had been blinded by old faiths and ancient hopes, and now her moments of childish belief had come back to haunt her. The Angel was not who he pretended to be, for this was not the work of an angel. This violent, agonising attack on an innocent woman was little more than the work of a madman.

She had returned from the Opera shaking, frightened for some unknown reason of the shadows around the corners. And now she knew. Now she knew the black depths of which the Angel was capable. He was no angelic guardian, no gift from God, no being sent from the heavens to draw her to exquisite heights with the sound of his Voice. He could not be an angel. No one who wreaked such remorseless havoc could be a being of beauty and light, and her pride burnt at the knowledge of his deception. How could she have been so deceived? He was a twisted monster who was giving her the voice of an angel for some unfathomable reason and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted.

She did not know how she knew this, but she did. She knew that she was in danger, that the Angel, in his possessive rage and jealousy, would destroy the world to have exactly what he wanted. And what he wanted was her; he was consuming her soul bit by bit, drawing her into the cage of his maddened genius, and she knew her mind and body would follow, as inevitably as the day follows the sun below the horizon. Lurking beneath the calm, polite, well-mannered Voice of the Angel was a demon, a monster whose unpredictable temper lurched out of him at random moments. He could not help it, he could not control it, but that was no excuse. They were moving towards a moment in time in which she could not anticipate, could not control, and only the Angel knew how the next act in his dread opera would play out.

Holly was strangely certain that she would not escape him alive.

xx

"Miss Short!" the managers greeted her jubilantly the next day. "Our new leading lady!" Holly was no fool. She saw the clamminess of their skin, the faint tremble to Andre's hands, the dark anger at the back of Firmin's eyes. Despite the forced joviality of their voices, the managers were as afraid and as trapped in the Angel's web as she was. Here were two more puppets of the Angel; he played them all like just another instrument he wished to conquer. Twitching a string here, tangling a cord there… he was a demon puppet master of the finest calibre, playing each and every one of them to perfection in his grand design. Holly felt the hackles stand up on the back of her neck.

He was watching. She could feel the Angel's eyes on her.

Over the course of that day, they went over and over paperwork together, the managers of the Opera and the diminutive woman who fixed them with a hazel glare that seemed occasionally tempered with pity. At long last they were all satisfied, the arrangements made, and the managers temporarily assuaged that this woman would not ruin them through a substandard voice. Holly herself was numb to all proceedings, and though she kept a blank and calm façade on show for the world, inside her mind was spinning. She would perform on the stage of the Opera tonight, and if the LEP caught her, all would be lost.

"One more thing," she said, leaning over the conference table to look the managers firmly in the eye. "I would prefer to remain unnamed." The two men traded glances. She suppressed a smile. Over the course of that day, she and the managers had reached something of an understanding, people forced together because of fate and the will of the Angel. She pitied them, because although she knew that at least she had some semblance of physical freedom from the demented Angel controlling the Opera, they had none. Their livelihoods and businesses were tied up in the Opera, and therein lay the Angel's control: they were desperate men, desperate puppets on the string of an even more desperate master.

"You don't want anyone know?" Firmin questioned, as though no one could possibly not desire enormous amounts of fame and wealth. Holly shook her head.

"It's kind of complicated," she sighed, aware of the managers' half-curious, half-contemptuous eyes on her.

"Complicated?" Firmin repeated, raising a sardonic eyebrow. Holly nearly snarled at him. "Is there something you're afraid of that we can help you with, Miss Short? Ghosts of your past, perhaps?" Holly glared at him, sympathy disappearing.

"Rest assured that it would be easier for all involved if I did not perform under my own name," she snapped.

"What would you prefer we bill you as?" Andre asked. "The public needs to be able to call you something."

Holly let her eyes close, thinking. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks moved through her brain at an astonishing speed, and she distilled all the knowledge of that time down to the valuable pieces of information. It was a trick the LEP academy taught, to dissemble everything down to the bare facts of a situation.

I am the psuedo-prisoner of a demented madman. I am about to expose the People to the entire world by performing on stage. Commander Root is going to kill me, then revive me just to kill me all over again. I am doomed.

"La Christine." The sound of her own voice startled her, but when she opened her eyes, the managers were looking at one another in grim understanding, as though the name she had chosen meant something bleak and terrible to them. She did not know why, but eventually they nodded, albeit a trifle reluctantly.

"La Christine it is, Ms. Short," one finally said.

She left soon after that, shaking their hands with her own tiny palm, and the knowledge of what was to occur that evening zoomed through her.

She was going to sing.

Please review.