XVIII
Buckle up.
The truest test of her strength came during that long, horrible day. Christine knew the role she must play: smile, entertain and seduce while her heart ached with longing and beat swift with fear. Madame seemed in a jovial mood now that Bruno had returned from his mysterious business. While Christine lounged in parlor, she felt his malignant black gaze on her, the flat, remorseless regard of some soulless creature from her Papa's stories. Fear escalated quickly to sickly cold panic at the thought of Erik meeting Bruno in the inky darkness. Christine stifled this dangerous train of thought, discreetly worrying the scar on her thumb.
The day wore on in a grey haze, matched only by the dreary cold. Raoul lurked on the fringes of the brothel's workings, bringing in wood with snow dusting his golden hair, fetching and carrying for Cook. Their eyes met only once, when he stepped past her to stoke the fire in the parlor stove. In his troubled blue gaze she found the same fear she knew lurked in hers. Perversely, it was comforting that they shared the same burden.
The brothel's business was slower than usual for a Saturday afternoon, and as the night approached, Christine hoped against hope that Madame would see fit to retire Christine to her cell. It would be a simple matter for Raoul to filch the keys and release her. It was another matter entirely if they must interrupt a customer's allotted hour. Bruno was bound to become involved in that case and Christine did not care to contemplate the horrors that awaited them if caught.
"Christine, come and introduce yourself to this gentleman," Madame's voice held tones of cloying seduction and the steel of a command. Her heart gave a sick lurch. Maybe there was time to be free of him before . . . Christine glanced at the parlor clock as she stood and adjusted the bustle of her green gown.
Her prayers had gone unanswered.
XXX
Méchant's men were nowhere to be seen. Crouched atop a ruined roof across from Madame d'Avrigny's brothel, he waited and watched. Misted breath wreathed his face in ghostly smoke, snow falling lush and quiet. Clouds danced over the swollen moon's scarred face, painting the yard in wayward beams of light. It would be harder to conceal his tracks with fresh snowfall, but with luck, they would win free before anyone was the wiser. Erik's mouth twisted. His father always said a man made his own luck. It was one of the rare occurrences where he agreed with the old man. He patted his pocket, where a cartridge of spare bullets rested, heavy and cold.
Silent as a shadow, Erik leapt down into the inky darkness of the house. As a cloud passed over the moon, he darted toward the stable, springing into the empty loft. He consulted his timepiece in a slice of moonlight shining through a gap in the wall. Three minutes past two. His task was to disable any man who appeared in the yard, kill Bruno if given the chance—and Erik would find the chance, since the brute had hurt Christine—and escape when Raoul retrieved his love. It was a poor semblance of a plan, with holes wide enough to drive a fucking stagecoach through, but there had been little time to prepare. Three fat riding horses were stabled; their quiet snuffles and rustlings brought Erik a small domestic comfort. Erik felt a moment's fierce longing for César, but while spirited and tenacious, any ensuing firefight would spook him and spell the end of their escape. He knew the area well enough to disappear with relative ease.
Hopefully.
The heavy crunch of boots on gravel seized Erik's attention and he sought the butt of his revolver. He tracked the crunch around the corner toward the alleyway behind the stable and brothel. A grunt and a faint thud and scrape.
"That's the last of it," wheezed a man. Erik waited, trying to gauge the number of assailants.
"Should be enough to please those anarchist bastards, don't you think?"
"Who gives a fuck? As long as we get the gold. Not francs that ain't good enough to wipe your arse with, but gold," the voice was harsh, the scrape of metal on stone.
"Where's Raoul? The little shit had better hurry. It's freezing out." A third voice complained. Erik cursed inwardly. How had his troublesome little brother gotten mixed up with the fucking Commune? Last Erik had heard, the emperor had fled the city.
"Speak of the devil!" the first man snorted, braying like an asthmatic donkey.
A stream of profanity chanted in Erik's mind. Their skeleton of a plan was nothing but a heap of useless bones now. Time to improvise. A snap of leather and he heard the creak of a wagon on the move. Soft-footed, Erik slithered down from the loft and slipped around the rough outer wall of the stable. Two of the three men were seated on the wagon's seat, the bed stacked with barrels. A third man lumbered alongside, immensely fat, but with equally fat revolvers in each hand. Raoul balked at the brothel's side door, Erik watched as the fat man seized him by the scruff of the neck and struck him with the thick butt of his pistol. He could hear the dull thud of impact from his place at the stable. Christine was nowhere to be seen and Erik was unsure if what he felt was relief or fear.
Who are these bastards and what are you doing with them? Erik thought, And more importantly, why the fuck didn't you tell me about them? Introducing another player when the game was already afoot was stupid at best and potentially lethal at worst.
Erik kept a prudent distance as the wagon wended its way toward the river. From this distance, he couldn't hear their conversation, save for the repetitive bleated pleas from his brother. Erik crept from slum to slum, keeping abreast of the lumbering wagon's progress. A wagon laden with what? Supplies designated for anarchist Commune men? Bruno and his 'business' for the Madame fit into this. Questions whirled through his mind like a demented carousel while the sharply analytic part noticed that they were moving through back alleys to . . . to the Opera? True, the Opera Populaire wasn't far from either the Madame's brothel or the river, but to what end? Gendarmes often patrolled such areas . . .
"Which way is it, little cocksucker?" The driver growled at Raoul. When all he received was sullen silence, the fat man struck Raoul with the butt of his pistol. Enough of this. Erik had to intercept them before they met their contacts at the Opera, and anger had stoked to a slow roiling boil with each abuse heaped on his brother.
"Tell us where it is!" demanded the fat man, striking again and again. The fat man dies slow.
He waited for a thick fold of cloud to conceal the moon before melting from his hiding place. Blade and gun in hand, Erik sprinted for the wagon. In one clean leap, he landed in the bed. Erik fisted his hand in greasy black hair, the dark steel of his blade scraping bone as he opened the driver's throat from ear to ear. A spray of black-red blood soaked his arm. The fat man howled abuse, swiveling his weapons toward Erik. But Erik was quicker, shoving the second man into the path of his pistol.
"No, wa-!" the second man howled, hands curled in supplication. Too late. Light, sound and the thick white stink of gun smoke. Blood and brain matter spattered on Erik's chest. The donkey hawed and tried to bolt, save for Erik's quick grab at the reins. An almost lazy straightening of his arm and Erik had his revolver leveled between the fat man's eyes. At pointblank range, he couldn't miss. Only the pistol barrel pressed against Raoul's temple stopped him from pulling the trigger.
"I've heard of you, Monsieur. The misshaped aristocrat with a silver spoon up his arse who can afford all the pretty whores he wants. 'Cept this whore is your little brother, no?" The moonlight broke through the clouds, casting shadows over the man's eye sockets and mouth, lending a leering, corpse-like air to the mass of corrupted flesh holding Erik's brother hostage.
"Erik, I'm so sorry. They said they'd kill me if I told-" Raoul's anguished voice threatened to shatter the icy calm steadying his nerves.
"Shut up!" rasped the fat man. The hot barrel dug deeper, until Raoul cried out. Blood trickled from the wound, black and slick as oil in the moonlight. Erik's grip tightened on his revolver.
"Let him go." The fat man's thick lips parted to reveal tobacco stained teeth. The fat man kept a brutal grip on his brother's slender, obviously broken arm, twisted painfully behind his back. A faint whimper escaped Raoul's lips.
"Now why would I do that, Monsieur? Seems to me, I let him go, you'll kill me like you did me compatriots. Jacques and Marco were good tough men both, and you slaughtered them in a trice. What will become of poor Alexandre if I let your golden-haired whore go?" Erik tightened his grip on the reins, never taking his eyes or aim from his brother's captor.
"You'd be right. I'd kill you as quickly as I did your friends. But if any harm comes to my brother, I'll kill you slow. Poor Alexandre would be begging for death by the end," Erik drawled, malice heaped thick on his words.
"Aren't you rich cunts always going on about honor? Where's the honor in killing poor Alexandre?"
"None. Deformed wretches such as myself have no need of honor to keep us warm."
"Heh. You're a clever one, too. Let's see how clever." Fat lips split in a hideous grin, Alexandre fired his pistol. Erik fired in almost the same instant, but the wagon lurched under his feet. Erik's shot went wide, his feet knocked from under him by the wagon's violent heave. Sucking in air for his pummeled lungs, he hauled on the reins and belated realized Alexandre had shot near the poor beast's ears. He leapt free of the slowing wagon and gave chase.
The fat man was dragging a struggling Raoul back towards the looming Opera. Blood coursed hot through his veins, and inwardly, Erik cursed his inattention. Several men appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and formed a ragged perimeter around Alexandre and Raoul. One lifted a revolver toward Erik. He reacted, lightning quick. The other man's head burst like an overripe melon.
Four bullets left.
As their companion fell, two more of Alexandre's reinforcements found their weapons. A small, absurdly calm corner of his mind thanked God that the fools were unprepared, it bought him and Raoul the slimmest chance of survival. A sharp crack split the air, a thin angry buzz flying past Erik's ear. Another grazed his shoulder, burning pain caught in its wake. Erik rolled and pivoted on snow-blanketed gravel. He dropped to his knee behind the wholly inadequate shelter of one of the corpses he'd made, the dead man having fallen from the wagon as the donkey bolted.
He sucked in a breath, took his aim, and squeezed the trigger. In these moments, he craved that cold calm that wrapped around him. The piece of steel and machinery felt alive in his hand, hot and eager to do his will. A blade sang in his hand while a firearm roared. A dark stain appeared around the smoking hole in another assailant's chest. The third met the same poor fate.
Two bullets left.
Erik pivoted toward the final man and fired—
Miss. The man had tripped over a stone as he tried to take a step forward.
One bullet left.
Another squeeze. The impotent click of misfire. Erik groped for the spare cartridge . . . gone! What the fuck had happened to his fucking bullets?
He snarled and chanced a mad dash for cover beneath the wagon. Bullets from the remaining two men buzzed like mad, lethal bees. The donkey had wandered into the crossfire and brayed piteously, his hot animal stink adding to the miasma of gunsmoke, fear, blood and shit. Erik hunched against the wheel, breathing down the terror rising in his gullet. Outnumbered, pinned down by spates of gunfire, and armed only with his dagger, Erik's slim chance was disappearing as quickly as a wisp of cloud in the wind.
Clenching his jaw, he swiped at the harness with his dagger, cutting the donkey free. The poor beast limped toward the promising haven of an abandoned tenement. If he could just upend the wagon somehow, create a stronger barrier to make them waste their ammunition . . . Deafening silence interrupted his scheming. Why weren't they firing at him? A quick glance found them conferring in harsh voices. Ears ringing from gunfire and the mad pounding of his blood, Erik couldn't make out the words. That inconstant moon made a fugitive appearance from behind the clouds and Erik could make out the crude military stamp on the side of one barrel: GUNPOWDER
His face felt numb as he absorbed the impact of the words which carved themselves in burning letters in his brain. Méchant's men selling gunpowder to anarchist fanatics? Potentially disastrous. A wicked grin spread on his lips. An entirely selfish silver lining was that they daren't fire upon him. Erik hauled himself up into the bed of the wagon, curled around his dangerous salvation. The gore and sweat soaking his shirt met the cold air and Erik shivered in the wagon bed, teeth chattering. As uneasy, snow-hushed peace fell over the yard, Erik risked a narrow glimpse of his enemies between barrels.
The nameless anarchist knelt beside one of the men Erik had killed, clutching handfuls of his hair and keening. The fat Alexandre loomed over a huddled form. A stab of fear pierced Erik's heart. Raoul? Christ, had the boy been hurt? Erik dared not contemplate the alternative.
Instead, he bellowed with all the considerable power in his voice: "If my brother is harmed, I will personally shove you into one of these barrels and set it alight! What will poor, pox-faced Alexandre do then? My guess would be cry for his mother!"
He watched the anarchist surge to his feet, brandishing his weapon. Abandoning the huddled form, Alexandre lumbered over and yanked on the upraised arm.
"Are all you political men as stupid as inbred pigs? What do you think will happen if you shoot at the smart-mouthed Vicomte?" Alexandre snarled. Erik's eyes were riveted on the heap of tangled limbs. Was his chest moving?
"He slaughtered my brother, you fat whoreson! I'll kill him!" the Commune thug growled.
Alexandre uttered a wheezing, pig-like snort and shot back: "And kill us all in a fiery blaze of glory? Not until I get my gold, you shitting cunt! Then you're welcome to blow yourself to hell! I got people to answer to, same as you!"
"Here's your bloody money, Méchant!" Erik's exhaled breath rose in a dense white cloud. The fat Alexandre was Méchant? The fat man gave a mocking bow, pocketing the heavy sack.
"A pleasure doing business with you. Get up, you worthless brat!" the last Méchant addressed to Raoul, in a fetal position on the snowy ground. Thank God, still alive!
Every muscle in Erik's body tensed as he watched the anarchist approach with his pistol, cautiously at first, then swaggering.
"The aristocratic pig is out of silver bullets, isn't he?" he drawled, unholy glee animating crude features and broken teeth. Closer, Erik willed him, closer now. Close enough for the reach of his dagger . . .
"The Commune dog should watch his mouth, lest he die with his brother's poor grace," Erik quipped. It was a volatile brew he coaxed. Rage could make the other man irrational and make a mistake . . . or kill Erik quickly. The Commune man snarled in rage, bracing a foot on the wagon's wheel, reaching over to shoot Erik pointblank—
Erik's slice was quick and vicious, taking the man across the arm and chest. He squealed like a stuck pig, reeling back. Erik swung down from the wagon, knocked the revolver from his limp hand and snatched the man close in a parody of an embrace.
"Tell your brother hello for me," Erik whispered, plunging the dagger up below the lowest rib, deep into the kidney and the thick vessels there busily pumping blood. The man sucked in a ragged, hiccupping breath, hands clawing weakly at Erik's chest, snagging on something . . .
Erik freed his blade from the dying man's body and watched him fall. His hands were shaking, he noted dispassionately. He had killed more men in one night than he had in the previous two decades. Something in him was screaming, and he knew he soon must scream with it, but not now. Not until Raoul was safe and Christine was free. Christine. Erik exhaled a sharp breath, latching onto the thought of her like a drowning man to a raft.
"Erik!" Raoul's shriek was high and sharp, heard in the same moment as the clear, sharp rapport of a pistol. Red-black pain burst through him, centering in his chest. Snarling like an animal, he turned and found Méchant's leering, corpse's smile. Weakness stole through his limbs like a marauding ghost. It hurt to breathe. Warm . . . what was warm? Erik looked down and found warm red blood bubbling between his fingers, fingers that twitched and spasmed like a spider pinned to a board. He found his brother's eyes in disbelief, in bewildered pain, and fell into darkness, Christine's face floating in his mind.
XXX
Her hands trembled, sloshing the expensive brandy all over her lace-trimmed runner draped over her desk. Lace and silk, brandy and cognac, she had always been one for the finer things in life. Bringing the crystal tumbler to her lips, she threw back the liquor, which burned a sweet path of heat down her throat. That sweet heat did not melt the rising tide of cold, sick fear rising from deep in her belly. A single candle wavered on her desktop and she watched it, mesmerized.
"You're sure he's dead?" she said, spacing the words with careful precision as she did whenever the brandy swam too thickly in her veins.
"Yes, Madame. The little shit is dead. Shot him in the chest and then tossed him in the river for good measure." Méchant was a crude hulking fool, but he had his uses. Or so she had thought, before he fucked up a supposedly simple operation by killing one of her best customers who also happened to be a very rich and influential Vicomte.
Nausea roiled in her belly and she swallowed a retch, sinking heavily into her chair. Gendarmes and Commune men alike were easily paid off—unlikely to believe a poor bastard boy's wild tale. A bloated body in the river could be tidily passed off as some poor drifter, but if said Vicomte had actually lived . . . Personally, Sophia feared Erik de Chagny's wrath more than the brunt of the law. Maybe not even Bruno could stop him, not if the Vicomte had killed two of Méchant's and then four of the Commune men, who had demanded both gold and the gunpowder Bruno had tracked down for her as recompense for their dead.
Madame had nothing but six unquestionably dead bodies, a possible seventh, and a bastard groom that had slipped his leash. Méchant sucked in air nosily, helping himself to a tumbler of brandy, the groom having shattered his master's kneecap before fleeing. A crude cast of ash splints and bandages stiffened with starch made his thick leg jut unnaturally straight.
That little bitch Christine had her bony fingers in this, Sophia was certain of it. Both de Chagny men panted at her heels. The girl had been acting strangely twitchy, with that wild hair and yawning, soulful eyes. A smirk touched the Madame's rouged lips. She had given the girl to the customers she knew to have . . . rougher tastes. It was a savage and petty revenge, but satisfying in its own way. Something about the girl's dewy innocence made the Madame want to yank out handfuls of that curly hair. Méchant began to babble about how it wasn't his fault, how Raoul, the Commune men, or the arse-faced emperor were the ones she needed to blame.
"I warned you about this, Madame. I did. Remember when that Persian shit came sniffing around? You weren't above using my help then, were you?" the fat man wheedled, eyes glinting from their shiny folds of flesh.
"Christ, tell me you didn't kill him too?" Madame snapped, hands fisting in the lace runner. Beads of sweat popped on Méchant's broad, flat forehead.
"No, of course not! The lads just ah, just roughed him up a bit, is all. And then we-"
"Let me guess, threw him in the river?" Madame drawled. Méchant nodded. Madame cursed under her breath.
"Leave me," she snarled, watching with poorly concealed loathing as the immensely fat man laboriously rose and limped toward the door.
"Send in Bruno," she called after him.
It was only when the bouncer appeared that some of the wild tension ebbed. Her dark, wild stallion. She understood the dark, demonic passions that churned behind those cold black eyes. Whenever a whore had outlived her usefulness, Sophia gave her over to Bruno's tender ministrations to use as he wished. It was unbearably arousing when he came to her with blood red and hot and slick on his hands and fucked her against the wall. All of their deviant, twisted pieces matched. Bruno leaned his hip against her desk, arms folded over his broad chest.
"Erik de Chagny may still be alive," she said. He shrugged.
"If you send an incompetent fool like Méchant, you get sloppy results. You should have sent me." Madame whirled around in a flare of red silk, bracing her hands on the cold, varnished wood.
"I needed you here. Our Vicomte had something planned for that little Swedish bitch, I know it. I know it in my bones. Why else would he just leave after seeing her face smashed? The Vicomte is a proud, possessive man; he would never tolerate another man pawing his property." Bruno's thin mouth curled into a sneer. He pushed off the edge of the desk and sidled behind her, grasping her hips and digging his hard cock into her arse.
"What is it about him that frightens you so?" he rasped in her ear, "do you think I'd let some whining, puffed up peacock harm you?" He bit her neck, hard enough to draw blood. Madame gasped in pain, arousal making her breath come soft and fast. His tongue lapped up the drop, a lash of wet and rough. The bowl of her pelvis pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
"No . . . no you're . . . oh God, you're magnificent," she slurred, desire and alcohol blurring the edges of her world, making her fears irrelevant. Bruno's hands clawed at the clothing separating them. He shoved her face down onto the desk. Her arm knocked over the candle. It fell to the floor and sputtered out, leaving them in cold, solid darkness with only their mingled heat and rasping breathing. He shoved himself in and Sophia cried out at the exquisite pain and pleasure of it. His hand fisted in her hair and yanked her head back. God, she loved it when he dominated her like this.
"If by some miracle Erik de Chagny survives, I'll cut out his heart and fuck you on his corpse, but not before I make his little whore lick his blood off my knife," he punctuated the words with hard, ramming thrusts, reaching that unbearably sweet spot in her that was his alone. The dark promise of the words sent her tumbling to a climax, with him right behind her. Madame Sophia pressed her sweaty forehead against the cold, smooth surface. She could almost believe him.
XXX
Dawn found Christine pacing the length of her cell, the book of sonnets clutched to her chest. As after sunset fadeth in the west/which by and by black night doth take away/Death's second self, that seals up all in rest . . . She knew the Swedish and the French, and beneath that, the lyric pall of Death's shadow. There, she'd formed the thought that had haunted the hours since two in the morning, when Erik was supposed to come for her. What had gone wrong?
"No, he's fine," she whispered aloud, her prayers growing terse and frantic as hours stretched by.
"He's fine. He was held up, he will come another night." A part of her wished he had made love to her on his last visit. She hungered for the fresh memory of the taste and smell and feel of him, for the hope of his child. Improbable, with the teas and remedies Madame prescribed, but longed for all the same. Another quivering part of herself whispered that Erik had finally realized she wasn't worth all this trouble and decided to simply leave. Christine fiercely stomped on this thought, worrying the scar on her thumb. His blood mingled with hers. He was safe. He was safe.
"Where is Raoul?" she muttered. A key screeched in the lock and Christine stuffed Erik's book in her pillowcase. Madame nudged the door open and greeted her with a drawling catlike smile.
"Good morning, dearie. Did I hear you talking?"
"I was praying," Christine said, heart in her throat. Had she heard? Madame spread her arm, gathering Christine into an awkward embrace.
"There's a good little girl, still saying her prayers. Praying the Vicomte comes tonight?" Madame's heavily made up face did little to hide the deepening wrinkles or the yellowing of her eyes as alcohol ravaged her body. Even this early in the morning, Christine could smell brandy fumes on her breath.
"Allow me to let you in on a secret of the trade, Christine. You must remember above all that men are liars. They will say anything to get you into bed and promise anything to keep you there. Their cocks do half their thinking for them. Use that, hmm?" Christine nodded.
"Yes, Madame. I will," she said, hoping this was the correct answer. Madame grinned and swatted Christine's rump.
"We're slow this morning, go help Cook."
Cook greeted her with a smile, tossing her an apron and setting her to the task of kneading dough. It was mindless work, and as such, left Christine's mind far too much room to fret and worry. The warm, comfortable atmosphere was shattered by Raoul bursting through the back door.
"Raoul! Where have you been, lad? I needed the fires laid an hour ago!" Cook said in his sternest voice.
Christine stared at him, fear shredding her nerves at the sight of him. He didn't look like the same man she had seen last night. It was as if the life had been sucked out of him, leaving a grey shell. Snow-dusted blond hair hung in lank pieces, his face was disfigured by a black eye and a split lip. Blood caked his temple. His left arm hung awkwardly at his side. Bloodshot eyes moved listlessly from Cook and came to rest on her. Christine's heart was in her throat, she tried to force it down with a few dry swallows.
"Raoul? What happened?" she demanded. Raoul staggered across the room, seized Christine's arm and dragged her out the back door without slowing. His icy grip on her arm was painfully tight, but she followed. The tiny being in her soul moaned with fear and began to quiver. Christine quivered with it, or was that from cold? Snow fell in lush quiet, swaddling the ugly yard in smooth, downy white. Christine gripped Raoul's forearms, fingernails digging.
"Tell me. Where is Erik?" Raoul's face twisted, as if under torture.
"It's my fault!" his voice broke into jagged pieces, muffled as he buried his face in his hands.
"What happened?" Christine nearly screeched, peeling his hands from his face and shaking him. Raoul's hollow eyes had the look of a man sentenced to death.
"He's dead. Méchant shot him. Erik is gone."
A/N: Told ya.
To clarify on the Commune a la Wikipedia: The Paris Commune or Fourth French Revolution was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It was a conglomerate of Marxists and anarchists. The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. I liked the themes of class division and potential revolution.