His Eyes Will Find Us There
"Love is a symbol of eternity. It wipes out all sense of time, destroying all memory of a beginning and all fear of an end."
-Author Unknown
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The night was not a total disaster, Erik reflected. Sure, he had lost the love of his bloody life to that blond fop, but he had gained a friend from beyond the grave. It was so good to speak to the Daroga again, to find his wry humor and firm moral compass untarnished by time and hardship. Good company and very good brandy—copious amounts of the latter—had made him almost forget her.
Almost.
Near dawn, they had drained the second decanter and Erik rambled bitterly until the Daroga pried the snifter from his fingers and shooed him back to the Populaire with a firm promise that he should visit again once he'd sobered up. The Daroga was scarcely one to lecture, Erik mused, remembering his teetering steps and slurred speech. Bless César, he seemed to sense Erik's impairment and picked his way slowly back to the Populaire. By the time they entered the stables, the sun had well risen. Erik slid boneless from César's wide back, grateful to at last be still. He felt no need to quicken his pace to avoid detection. If previous opening nights were any compass to guide him, it would be after noon before anyone dragged themselves from their celebratory orgies to return to work.
The mechanism of the revolving door required more coordination than he could summon: he had designed it so that no one who happened upon it by accident could open it. He forced clumsy fingers to twist and pull the separate devices simultaneously. It took three tries, but eventually the seam popped and Erik led César to his comfortable stall. The next hour was spent in quiet labor: grooming César until his sable coat shone, buffing his tack to a mirror shine, even preparing a warm bran mash to ease the effort of his aging horse's chewing. The world had ceased spinning crazily whenever he closed his eyes, so Erik made his way down the five cellars to the wreckage of his home.
And found Minette armed with a broom, sweeping up the shards of glass from the destroyed mirrors.
"If your talents extend into the realm of a maid, remind me to increase your pension," he said sharply. Were it anyone else—except the Daroga—his sudden appearance would have caused an amusing jump, or at least a flinch. Minette had known him too long, and become acquainted with his sudden and soundless comings and goings. Minette's hazel eyes met his with a curious conglomeration of sympathy, irritation and vague amusement.
"Hardly a talent, Monsieur. I've simply had a great deal of practice at it with you," she shot back. Erik winced as he surveyed the remains of his organ bench. At least in a blind rage he hadn't destroyed anything priceless. Even in extremis, he loved beauty more than his own selfish emotional excesses.
Bitterness boiled in molten waves inside him, hardening to steely words. The time for simple banter had passed.
"Are you happy, Minette? Surely anyone whole would be preferable to a deformed monster, but a Vicomte, now that it is a fine catch indeed for a penniless opera singer. You must be proud."
Minette rose with careful dignity, brushing dust from her hands.
"I am quite certain that I have no idea what you are talking about, Monsieur Opera Ghost."
"Allow me to elucidate," Erik snapped, shucking off his coat, peeling off his gloves. Deliberately casual, he removed his mask and tossed it aside. She paled, the hazel irises swallowed by the widening black of her pupils.
"My feelings for Christine deepened several years ago, and as a courtesy to her foster mother, I shared them with you. And the look of horror upon your face! I might have easily admitted that I often sup with brothel madams and roast children for my breakfast!"
"That isn't fair-" she began. Erik ignored her.
"Then you goad me to reveal myself to her, and I reluctantly accede. And within my own mind, I imagine the day, however distant and uncertain, that I would ask her to be my wife." Dimly, he heard her saying his name.
"I buy a ring. And you curse and shout as if I had said I would ravish her on the chapel steps!"
"Erik!"
"But now, now that it is a golden-haired fop with a fat wallet; now that the Populaire's new patron shows an iota of attention to our sad, Swedish orphan, you send them off with your merry blessing to-"
"Erik, shut up!"
Startled by the vehement sharpness of her tone, Erik gaped. Minette stood ablaze with anger, nearly shaking with it. Erik had always been puzzled by the cane she often carried. The lithe way she moved did not require the slightest aid, nor did she use it to intimidate recalcitrant ballet rats. Now, its silver tip rapped against the stone with a metallic ring and Erik appreciated its use for emphasis.
"I will not stand here and allow you to malign my intentions to suit your temper tantrum. Now sit!" she gesticulated with that infernal cane to the velvet chair beside the scale model of the Populaire's theater. Erik mutely obeyed.
"Despite what you may believe, despite whatever flaw there is to your face, I know you to be a good and honorable man. Whatever horror you perceived upon revealing your feelings for Christine, or later upon my seeing the ring, was simple shock, a concern for her tender age and an unwillingness to let a girl who is so dear to my heart grow up. As to the Vicomte . . . I did not give my blessing. In fact, I was under the impression that you had finally plucked up the courage to reveal your love to her when she returned. She said-"
Erik jumped to his feet, cutting off the end of her sentence with a sharp gesture.
"No more, you infernal woman. You have made your point. 'Good and honorable.' Tch!" Erik made a derisive sound in his throat, "Biased is what you are."
Madame heard the humor in his tone and smiled.
"Perhaps."
By tactful agreement, they spoke no more of the previous night, Christine, or the reason why his home looked like the scene of a hurricane. He and Minette simply cleaned up the mess. Then she insisted on making him breakfast in his tiny kitchen. Erik devoured the simple omelet and toasted bread with atypical relish. The food helped to anchor the alcohol. Minette rested her hand over his in passing, offering a faint squeeze. Erik's throat closed as the reality of what had occurred came thundering down on him. His eyes burned.
He would not cry.
"Thank you." Minette offered a small smile, and finished tidying the dishes she'd dirtied.
"Off to bed with you, Monsieur Opera Ghost. Get some rest. And bathe. You smell like a distillery."
When Erik woke next, he felt substantially better, in body at least. His mind flinched away from contemplation of the ugly wound streaking across the soft, pulpy mass of his heart. He attended to the mundane needs of hygiene and hunger, and even bestirred himself enough to climb the five levels to the upper world. Something was wrong. He could feel it, a subtle crawling under his skin, and a faint clenching of his gut. Erik loosened the Punjab lasso from his sleeve and held it ready. The Opera Populaire was his realm, after all, and he was its guardian.
The cold, dark stillness told him it was in the small hours of the morning, well past time for every self-respecting denizen of the Opera to be safely immured in bed. Erik crept through the main foyer, the new managers' offices, and the theater, seeking what had disturbed him. He padded catlike backstage, concealed by the heavy crimson folds of the curtain. A muffled sound, a growled curse, and a scuffle reached his keen ears from above in the flies. His lip curled in disgust. As a young boy of thirteen, he had found a certain mischievous delight in interrupting couples locked in fevered embraces with ventriloquism, a smothered lamp, or a slamming door. Later, compelled by curiosity, he measured what knowledge could be gained by reading with what he observed. The lascivious nature of the shah's harem in Persia had long since quenched that particular curiosity.
Erik turned to leave, but another whimper caught his attention and held it. That sounded like pain. He peered up into the darkness, and from the light of a flickering lamp recognized Josef Buquet, one of the scene-shifters. A voyeuristic lecher and drunkard, but harmless. Or so Erik had previously thought. For beneath Buquet's brutish shadow, he glimpsed a nimbus of dark curly hair . . .
White-hot rage exploded to vivid life in him along with a terrible, gut-wrenching fear, and Erik scaled a nearby rope with grim swiftness. So intent was he on his perverse labor, Buquet didn't even hear him coming, or see the lasso until Erik yanked it taut around his fat throat. A swift jerk would have killed him, but a dark, hungry desire wanted it to be slow and painful. His prey uttered an inarticulate sound of pain, one hand swinging wide and knocking the lamp to the floor. The wet, choking sounds he made were music to Erik's ears, as was the swift weakening of his muscles. Buquet toppled to the floor with a tree's ponderous grace and Erik kicked him onto his back so he could see the face of his killer and know true terror. Erik sank over him, his cape flaring like the wings of a vulture, bracing one knee on Buquet's flabby chest.
"Prepare your soul for the fires of hell," he rasped, his voice low and thick, distorted with fury. Buquet's bulging, wild eyes were fixed on his face in horror and revulsion. The dim, sputtering lamp illuminated his right side. It struck Erik that he was without his mask. His lips twisted in a cruel smile.
"Maybe you're in hell already. This is a face of a demon, no? Now suffer . . . and die!"
Erik jerked the Punjab, snapping his neck like a twig. Buquet's fat body undulated in obscene convulsions, and then went still. Appropriately, the lamp's flame died as well, casting the upper floor in darkness. He loosened the lasso from around Buquet's neck and tucked it up his sleeve.
Mostly composed, he steeled himself for what he might find. He turned and all breath left his lungs. Meg Giry sat huddled in a ball, a dark wig hanging half off her head, dress torn and staring up at him with wide, terrified eyes. He hoped she couldn't see him clearly. After the trauma she suffered, looking upon the wreckage of his face would do little to soothe her. Erik himself had no difficulty, but his eyesight was far keener than most.
"I—Is . . . is he . . . d—dead?" she stuttered, clutching the tattered halves of her dress over her budding breasts.
"Very dead. You have nothing more to fear from him," Erik crooned, crouching down in her direct line of sight, Buquet's corpse safely hidden behind him. While he felt a cruel relief that it was not Christine who was Buquet's victim, the fact that it was Minette's daughter struck him swift and hard, like a kick in the gut.
"You killed him," she whispered.
"Yes," he replied softly.
"S—So fast! It was so fast! One second he was there and . . . and then . . . and then you—you killed him!"
The faint accusing ring in her voice touched a raw nerve.
"Would you rather I had let him continue?" Erik snapped.
Every remaining drop of blood drained from her face, hazel eyes bleak, pleading holes and she shook her head jerkily, like a poorly constructed marionette. A faint, nagging sting of guilt reached him. Ten years and he had kept his promise to the Daroga, and now that the man had managed to resurrect some semblance of a life after Persia, Erik had broken his faith.
"Are you all right? Did he . . .?" he let the sentence hang, a grotesque world of possibilities hidden in it. She was very brave, Erik noted with pride, most would be in sobbing pieces on the floor, but she was upright and dry-eyed, the only betrayal a quivering lower lip. Meg shook her head.
"He . . . he was . . . t—trying. B—but . . ." Two tears defied the iron of Meg Giry's will and slipped down her cheeks, one bearing an ugly bruise where Buquet struck her.
"Why am I sh—shaking so badly?" she asked, showing him one quivering hand.
"You are going into shock," Erik stated, untying his cloak and sweeping it around her shoulders in one graceful motion, "Take a deep breath in through your nose. Count to five as you exhale." She did as she was told.
"Again," Erik said. He watched as she breathed four more times, and the tremors began to subside, some vestige of color returning to her face.
"Now tell me what happened."
A brittle smile touched her lips.
"I kicked him in the stones."
Erik grinned.
"Good girl."
He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and offered it to her. Meg accepted it, wiping away the tears and dabbing her swollen lip. Erik rose and offered her his hand.
"I would like more answers from you, Mademoiselle Giry, but they can wait. I must take you home to your mother."
Meg agreed with alacrity, and took three steps before collapsing in a dead faint. Erik's quick reflexes only narrowly saved the little Giry from a nasty bump on the head. Erik lifted the girl's slight form in his arms, hate for Buquet boiling up at the sight of the bruises on her face, her torn dress, and yet more bruises on her arms. Abstractly, Erik could appreciate the lithe beauty of her form, and acknowledged the sweet innocence of her face that was so succulent to predators like Buquet.
"What in God's name were you doing out alone this late . . . and wearing a wig?" he whispered.
His arms laden with unconscious female, Erik encountered a problem at Minette's door.
Stymied by a doorknob, he thought dryly. Erik took a deep breath and insinuated a tendril of his voice through the panels of wood that separated him from Minette.
"Minette," he half sang, half whispered, "Minette . . . open the door."
He heard the soft patter of footfalls, then the key turning in the lock. Then Minette appeared in the doorway, holding a lit candle.
"Erik, what is the meaning of—Mon Dieu, Meg!" she cried, reached for her daughter. An inarticulate sound, half stifled by her hand, left Minette's lips at the sight of the bruises on Meg's sleeping face.
"What has happened?"
"Where may I lay her, Minette? She needs rest," Erik said, using a low, hypnotic tone. But the power of his voice was nothing compared to a distressed mother. Erik's eyes flickered over Minette's long white nightgown and her waist-length blond hair loose and free in crimped blond waves down her back. He had never seen her in such a state of dishabille.
"In here," Minette whispered, not taking her eyes from her daughter's battered face. Once Meg was tucked into her own bed and the door securely closed, Minette rounded on him, drilling her pointer finger into his chest.
"Speak, Monsieur, if you value your life! What happened to my daughter?"
"Josef Buquet. You are familiar with the man?" Erik drawled. Hazel eyes narrowed into flashing slits of suspicion.
"Yes. He's one of the scene shifters. Why?" A muscle fired in Erik's jaw. There were more tactful ways to phrase it, but Minette deserved—needed—blunt truth tonight.
"Because I narrowly stopped him from raping Meg tonight."
He watched the words pierce her like a blade to the heart. She gasped and staggered back, tears welling up and overflowing as she stared without blinking into his face. Erik grasped her arms and guided her to a chair.
"Wha—what did you do?" she asked.
"I heard some commotion. When I saw what was happening, I . . . intervened."
"Did you kill him?"
Minette was merciless, with the stern visage of some warrior goddess, unmoved by softer emotions. Erik held her gaze unwaveringly. His talent for killing had long lurked unspoken between them. Erik couldn't bear to tell her of Persia and relive the nightmarish years spent as the khanum's Angel of Doom. To have her eyes opened to the truth—the fact that she had fostered and trusted a monster with the ones she loved most—would assuredly put a damper on their friendship.
"Yes," he admitted at last.
Minette processed this.
"Good," she whispered finally, her fingernails digging into his wrists, "Good." Her eyes blazed with a mother's justified rage. Of all the reactions, he never expected thanks, or gratification. Unnerved, Erik cleared his throat.
"She is unhurt, as far as I can assess, bruised, shaken, but unhurt." Minette's lips trembled, containing a sob, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, one hand fisted in the lapel of his coat.
"Thank you. Thank you!" A knot of emotion tightened around his vocal chords, and he cleared his throat again.
"You are welcome," he choked. He uttered a breathless laugh.
"When she wakes, you must ask her about the wig!"
"What?" Minette asked, swiping tears from her cheeks.
"Meg was wearing a wig tonight, a dark wig of curls. I have no inkling of her intentions, but as to Buquet, it is my belief that Christine was his intended victim and Meg was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"I will speak to Meg in the morning," Minette said. Fresh tears welled in her eyes and Erik offered his damp, rumpled handkerchief. Minette snorted a little and dabbed her eyes.
"I'm sorry. It's just . . . she's all I have. Meg is my whole world."
"That is not entirely true, Minette," Erik said gently, "You have Christine. You have me. However many times I make you regret it, you do have me, whenever you have a need." Minette smiled.
"Thank you."
XXX
Christine sat up straight in her narrow dormitory cot, gulping in huge, panting breaths, a sour, metallic taste filling her mouth, like blood. Something cold and ugly had slithered into her dreams, raising gooseflesh on her skin and filling her with a nameless fear. By habit, she strained her ears for the hypnotic purr of her Angel's voice. He had soothed her nightmares as a child . . . but she had spurned her Angel, abandoned her Maestro in their triumph.
Erik would not come for her.
Christine lay back, snuggling deep into the pocket of sleep-warmth under her blankets. Sleep did not find her again; instead she stared at the ceiling until grey dawn light streaked through the windows listening to the small moans, snores and tossing of the other ballet rats. When minutes ticked by and Madame Giry had yet to roust the sluggish ballet rats out of bed for another early morning rehearsal—a favorite punishment of hers for the notorious excesses of opening nights—the ethereal anxiety sharpened into true fear. She hurriedly dressed as well as she was able and hastened to Madame's chamber. She knocked and waited . . . and waited. Panic clawed at her heart like a wild thing.
"Madame? Meg? Are you there?" Christine shouted, slamming her fist against the door. The key screeched in the lock and Madame appeared, still clad in her nightgown. The miasma of panic thickened. If it was horrible enough for the disciplined Madame Giry's clothing standards to slip, then . . .
"M—Meg? Is she . . .?" Christine's voice broke, and she blinked away a film of tears. She couldn't imagine a world without Meg's joy and humor to buoy her. Madame waved her hands in a welcoming gesture and Christine fell into her embrace gratefully, breathing deep of Madame's familiar scent of starch and the faint flowery notes of her perfume.
"She is fine, my dear. She has had . . . a difficult night."
"May I see her?" Christine whispered, transported instantly to the small room where her Papa lay dying, his wide body wasted with long sickness and his chest rising and falling in a cruel mockery of health, his booming voice degraded to a hoarse whisper. Madame squeezed her shoulders, dropping a kiss into her hair.
"Of course."
Despite Christine's attempts to steel herself for whatever lay beyond Meg's door, the sight of bruises marring Meg's dear face was a hard blow. Meg opened her eyes at the sound of the opening door, and mustered a brave, sunny smile that wrenched Christine's heart.
"Oh God! Meg!" Christine cried, catching her in a delicate embrace, as if she was a china doll.
"I will prepare your tonic, ma petit cherie," Madame murmured, stroking her daughter's hair and closing the door behind her with a soft click.
"Oh Meg! What happened?" Christine wept, petting Meg's warm hand. Meg's hazel eyes slipped closed, her bruised visage set in an expression eloquent with sorrow.
"I . . . I only wanted to help. I saw how miserable you were without your Maestro—Monsieur le Fantome. I thought if he saw you, or someone who looked like you, he would reveal himself. And . . . and I wanted to meet him for myself. So I put on a wig."
Christine's heart rested in her throat.
Holy Virgin, had Erik . . .
Meg's hand tightened on Christine's and she forgot her own misery in the light of Meg's horrified face.
"Then . . . then he gr—grabbed me, and . . ."
"Who, Meg? Who did this to you?" Christine asked, one fingertip stroking the deep purple-black contusion on her cheek very gently. Whatever the state of his temper, Erik was too much of a gentleman to strike a woman, especially Madame's daughter.
"Buquet! He tried to rape me! I fought him, scratching and kicking. But he was so strong! I tried to scream," the words emerged in sharp bursts, as if to try and minimize the pain by using the least amount of words. Christine's squeezed her hand in dawning horror.
"He hit me. He covered my mouth. He pushed me down and ripped my dress."
"Oh Meg. You don't have to tell me any more if you don't want to," Christine murmured, stroking Meg's silken blond hair. Meg's eyes blazed and she seized Christine's hands with her own, the torn nails and bruised knuckles evidence of her struggle.
"No, Christine, listen! He rescued me—your Maestro, the Opera Ghost, he rescued me!" Christine gaped.
"What?"
"Erik," Meg whispered, "he saved my life."
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A/N: Whew. That scene with Erik and Meg was hard to write. To be in such a position, stripped of your dignity and peace of mind . . . I can't imagine it.
So? What do you think? Like it? Hate it?
R&R