A thousand apologies for the late late late update; I can only plead uni assignments and exams and lectures and sheer bloody laziness. I won't take up any more of your time; here it is!

Disclaimer: Artemis is Artemis. Phantom is Phantom. They belong to other people. I try not to remember this because it makes me sad inside.

Chapter Eleven - Secret And Strange Angel

She had not set out to lie.

When she had awoken, in the strange underground bedroom with no memory of how she had arrived there, she had been afraid. Terrified, even. But it was as though the blanket of sweet, cloud-soft ignorance that had covered her for the last several weeks had been ripped away and now she had to face the cold. There was no Angel, just a man - a manipulative viper of a man, with a lunatic's eyes.

And then he had come to her and it had all gone straight to hell. Even now, hours later, knowing he had retired to his own rooms and was nowhere near her, Holly still trembled at the thought of that face. She had seen fairies ripped apart by troll attacks, seen dwarves crushed by landslides. She had known of so many bad things in the world but they were shredded to pieces by the memory of that monstrous death's head. That face on a man's body... what horrors he must have suffered, what a torture it would be to merely look in the mirror...

She was only an elf, after all, and elves are by nature creatures of emotion. She could not imagine that even after a lifetime on earth - how old was he, anyway? - she could have borne the terrible weight of that horror on her shoulders. And now she had seen, it had been her own rage and curiosity that had done it, and there was no turning back.

The Angel - the Voice - Artemis was a corpse. A living corpse of a man animated by anger and misery and that bright, manic love she saw glinting in his eyes when he looked at her. Yes, love. he loved her and he had manipulated her, and for the life of her she could not see how the two could harmoniously coexist. Yet he had not a face, only the semblance of one, and so perhaps he could only feel a semblance of real emotions...

It was cruel, she knew, and she was not accustomed to being a cruel elf by nature. And he was pitiful, and for all the lies and secrets Holly was forced to face some harsh truths. There was no such thing as angels - there never had been any such thing as angels, only madmen and monsters. And now she was imprisoned by him, trapped in a gilded cage like a songbird to perform on demand. The tight little ball of anger in her chest intensified into a white heat suffusing her whole body; it was the only way to fight the fear that crept along her spine and whispered terrors in her ear.

Fairies were creatures of freedom and flight; she could feel every nerve in her body twitch at the reality of her captivity. Her heart was heavy with anger and dislike for the fiend that had done this to her; she let her fury build until it permeated every inch of her, stoking the flames of her anger into a righteous bonfire that threatened to consume her. And in doing so she hardened her heart to him, and to her own pity. She would survive his torturous love, his maddened affections. She would drive out her sympathy with hate.

xx

After the unmasking he did not come to her for days. He left her things while she slept; fruit and vegetables, fresh water, books and flowers, always fresh flowers. She did not see him leave them so she assumed it was while she slept and attempted to stay awake, but the restless monotony of the bedroom he had penned her in left little else to do but close her eyes and pretend she was home.

She was flicking through one of the books when he finally deigned to return. Artemis - the Phantom, she reminded herself - strode into the room, mask in place with only his thin lips and unholy blue eyes to be seen. He was almost bouncing with glee, she noted dispassionately, and loathed him for it. "Holly, my love!" he nearly sang, halting in front of her and bringing his hands together with a clap of joy. "It is time for us to sing!"

She was really getting sick of this, she reflected. He had forced her fingers to gouge at his face, to maim him, to touch the stark reality of his deformity. He had wept inconsolably afterwards, as though overcome by the knowledge of what he had done and that she now knew his secret. He had then ignored her for days. And now he wanted to pretend nothing had happened, that his mask and her captivity were merely trifles they could forget about in exchange for a pleasant afternoon. She was beginning to think he did not know her, that he could underestimate her so thoroughly.

Deep in her reverie, she followed him from the bedroom into what she presumed was the main room. She could remember nothing of his home from the night she had been abducted; she assumed she was underground, from the lack of windows and the colour of the stone. The main room was a wild mish-mash of art, music, and countless other bits and pieces she did not recognise. Statues with costumes and wigs, canvases hung up next to architecture plans, and along the far wall amongst the craggy stone a large pipe organ stood, bestrewn with sheets of music and pens and ink.

Pen and ink! In the 21st century! She'd already known he was mad, but this went beyond what she had believed possible. It was as though he wanted to act out a former time as thoroughly as he could; the furnishings were all antique, and she could see no telephones or televisions or any of the other silly little devices the Mud People used for their amusement.

The front door was open, she noted with amusement, as she peered through a small room to see the lake ebbing and flowing against its banks outside. There were numerous other doors leading from the main room to Frond knows where, but as she looked around she realised Artemis had been watching her, with a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

"See something you like?" he asked cautiously, as though unsure as to her reaction. She glared at him in response, and was pleased to see him flinch. "Right. Well, if you come with me..." He nearly ran over to his organ, sitting and flicking through the multitudes of music scattered haphazardly on top of it.

She followed, but stopped just far enough away for him to know she was not going to cooperate. "When are you going to let me go?" she asked, her voice steady and her eyes on him.

His chipper attitude flickered for a moment, long enough to confirm to her that his ebullience was a facade. "Now, what do you feel like today? I thought perhaps Otello, or - "

"You cannot cage me here forever," she enunciated clearly, watching him closely for any sign of weakness.

He continued as though he had not heard. " - we could go on with Faust, you have been doing so well with it - " Her blood boiled; how dare he act as though she was so trivial as to be ignored in favour of his grand schemes for her voice?

"Did you hear me? I said, I'm not staying here!"

" - yes, I think Faust is best for today, so if you'd like to start from - "

"I will never sing for you again!"

That gave him pause. "What?" he breathed, and she was perversely pleased to see his jaw slacken, his bright eyes dim. "You will not sing?"

"No," she confirmed. "You can cage me and you can lie to me and you can do whatever you want, but I will not sing for you."

"Your voice is mine!" he bellowed, and she shrank back a step against her own will. He himself was not so terrifying as the sheer presence of his voice, both smooth and jagged at once and so very, very angry. "Mine! I have created your voice and you will not deny me it!"

"I will!" she flung back at him, and was pleased to see him flinch. "My People will come for me, and when they do they will destroy you." A lie, to be sure, but she wanted him to be afraid. She just wanted him to stop.

"Will they?" he fired back, turning in his seat to regard her with his blazing eyes. Even seated, they were on eye level. "Do you think so, Holly? Where are they then?" He swept one elegant hand in a gesture that encompassed his entire house. "You've been here a while, Holly Short, and they have not come for you. You are alone." His eyes softened, the anger leaving him as quickly as it had came. It was the most frightening aspect of him, she thought, that quick change from murderous to merciful. "You are with me now. You don't need anyone else."

She wanted to stamp her feet and scream, but controlled herself. She was not a child, she was an grown elf and she would master him. Eventually she managed to control her anger to the point where she could hiss, "I will never belong with you. And I could never be happy down here, in the dark."

A terrible sadness came into his eyes and he rose, forcing her to crick her neck all the way up to look at his face - well, mask. "I am sorry for that," he said. "I truly am. Because that means you will unhappy for a very long time."

And as he walked away, she caught the defeated droop to his shoulders, the way his entire body seemed to curl in on itself. He looked over his shoulder, only once, as though by having a parting glance of her could he leave. "I love you, Holly," he said, as though that would change something with her. Seeing no response in her hazel eyes, he continued on, out through the front door and into the world outside.

She did not need to hear the click of the lock to know she was trapped.

Sinking onto the organ bench, she let out a sigh and tried to process what had happened. Her encounters with him were beginning to run along a similar track; confusing and confrontational, and without outcome. They were in a stalemate.

As she gently touched the keys, creating a soft melody in the silence, she saw her name, written in untidy red scrawl, atop a nearby table. Tugging the sheet of paper free of the many others with it, she stared into it for a long time. It was her, perfectly replicated, the curve of her cheek and short buzz cut delicately and lovingly reproduced. And yet the elf in the portrait was lit up with beauty, and more importantly with femininity. Holly knew objectively that the woman in the picture was her, but she had never seen herself so... well... girly.

Was this how Artemis always saw her? Beautiful?

And in that moment she knew. Knew what she had to do and how she needed to act to free herself from the bonds he had placed upon her. Knew that there was only one way to soothe this savage beast in the guise of a man - albeit a hideous one - and that it was tenderness, not anger. She would have to pretend to love him - or at least to tolerate him, even if her stomach roiled in protest at the thought of his fury and his face.

She hated him, so it should not matter that she intended to lie to him to gain her freedom. But against her own will she was drawn to him, and in the very heart of that hate was a small nugget of pity and kindness. She regretted it, but she was desperate.

And this was the way it had to be.

He appeared the next day with a bouquet of flowers, his head low, looking at his feet when he spoke to her rather than her eyes. He was reminiscent of nothing so much as a scolded schoolboy. And in her heart she did feel a little pity for him, this haunted, disfigured lunatic with the voice of the heavens, who could be innocently gentle like a child or mad with wrath like an avenging angel, all in the space of a few minutes. But he had abducted her and lied to her, manipulated her and deceived her, and above all trapped her and caged her like an animal, just like she'd always expected of the Mud People.

But she knew he didn't see her like that. He loved her, and it was his weakness.

So she placed her hand on his arm - the highest point of him she could reach - and said, "Would you like to sing now?"

The tentative smile he gave her from beneath the mask made her heart ache. And she knew it would not be as easy as she'd thought.