CHAPTER SIX:

Christine POV

My Angel, or I suppose now kidnapper, led me down the seemingly endless hallway lined with moving candelabras on the walls. I didn't look around at scenery however. I was far too focused with him.

He led me down the hall with his masked side to me, occasionally glancing around to stare mysteriously into my eyes. The black cape he wore brushed against my feet, and I hoped my clumsiness wouldn't be triggered tonight. To look like an idiot in front of him would be utterly mortifying!

The left side of his face was not masked, to my delight. Raoul was handsome, but this man simply outmatched him though he was not the regular Adonis, with his deathly pale skin and ebony black hair. But his eyes were the thing that really caught my attention.

They were a deep emerald green with golden brown flecks like a candle in a dark window beckoning me in an almost eerie way. If he meant to enrapture me, he did his job well for I could not remove my gaze from his eyes.

He had sung to me in my sleep, he was the voice that was always in dreams but I could never have conjured such an alluring man. Was I dreaming again, for he was certainly there within my mind?

He took a torch from a bracket on the wall as we approached a winding staircase. He acknowledged my persistent gaze, glancing over at me with his glittering eyes, pulling me along side him, before looking away.

The stairway led to a damp corridor where a sable horse stood obediently, with a saddle, bridle and all.

I smiled with surprise. I had always liked riding horses, my father had taught me in the summer instead of ice-skating.

He slid the torch into the wall, as he neared the horse, which I was glad of. I had seen many a man, supposed "expert horsemen", who had received a hoof in the face because they were too careless to put out their torches.

He, obviously, was careful of these details, and seemed to pay much more attention to the horse's state of mind, patting its long nose to assure calmness.

I took his hand as I placed my foot into the stirrup, lifting myself over the saddle. I could mount a horse by myself, but the feel of the leather glove against my clammy palm was more pleasurable to me than proving my own ability. He took the reins, slowly leading the horse, and me, down the hall.

His power over my sub-conscious mind was growing stronger by the second, and even though I turned for a moment to glance behind me, he remained constantly in my mind.

The horse slowed as we reached a long underground river with a gondola waiting at the bank, which explained why the walls had been growing increasingly wetter as we descended. He came around to my right side, taking me by the waist gently, but firmly. I swung my legs over the saddle, and put one arm around his shoulders to steady myself. I jumped off the horse in almost a slide, and landed quite close to him.

It unnerved me, to be nearly nose-to-nose, but he hardly even changed his expression. Stepping about an arm's length away from me, he steadied the boat with his foot, and helped me into it.

I sat near the front, and he took a long black pole and gently pushed off from the shore.

We slowly entered a stony tunnel that had indignantly ugly faces leering out from the walls. A small patch of moss, almost like a mask, covered one of these faces, and it was then I first thought of the reason for his mask.

It came to me that, like the carvings, he might be hiding something. Maybe, just maybe, he wasn't as perfect as he appeared to be.

That gave me a good idea for lyrics to a song, which was surprising. Normally, I was terrible at thinking up lyrics. I began to sing these in my head, consider whether I could sing them to him.

Those who have seen your face, draw back in fear. I am the mask you wear~

"It's me, they hear," he sung softly in response, startling me. Maybe in this twisting labyrinth where even the dark of night was blind, The Phantom was really there, inside my mind, controlling every thought that passed through it.

"Sing, my Angel. Sing for me!" he hissed in a more controlling tone than ever in my childhood, but still I obeyed.

Opening my mouth, I sang as loudly and as purely as possible as we neared an iron gate that opened automatically. Curtains swung open revealing a massive lair with literally thousands of candles lining the walls and even candelabras rising up from the water itself that lit in the open air. An organ, piled with sheet music and grotesque sculptures, loomed at the very back of the lair and I felt humbled by its size.

The boat rocked a little as it hit the shore, but the Phantom jumped out so nimbly that there was hardly a ripple in the water. I looked back to him, and caught him swirling his cape off his shoulders more impressively than a Spanish matador.

Throwing it to the floor, he returned his gaze to me. There wasn't a smirk on his face, no look of "I just did something spectacular, want to praise me?" in his eyes like Raoul's would. Instead, he seemed to think very little of this show, fully absorbed in me. I wasn't sure why he would want to be.

He opened his mouth and began to sing to me, so sweetly, I was forced to believe once more that he really was an angel.

"I have brought you, to the seat of sweet music's throne, to this kingdom where all must pay homage to music… music," he sung powerfully as he ascended the stairs in a couple of bounds. I looked back, not wanting to miss a single aspect of this shrine dedicated, by what he had told me, to music itself.

He caught my attention again as his topic turned away from his sanctuary and back to me.

"You have come here, for one purpose and one alone." He faced away from me, but I could still hear him as well as if he had been facing me. He slowly turned to gaze at me, something different in his eyes now. I couldn't tell what was there, and I leaned closer to where he stood to try to look.

"Since the moment I first heard you sing, I have needed you with me, to serve me to sing, for my music… my music."

The mood of the song changed as he gradually began to walk down the stairs towards me.

"Nighttime sharpens, heightens each sensation. Darkness stirs and wakes imagination. Silently the senses abandon their defenses."

I saw what was in his eyes, and what was in his whisper of a voice. This was not simply the liking a teacher has for a student. In the Phantom's eyes, I could see he actually cared about me.

He offered his hand once more to me. I was so stunned he felt, at least a little fondness for me that I rose to my feet and took his hand. His calculating eyes swept over mine, reading every emotion that passed through me.

"Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendor. Grasp it, sense it, tremulous and tender." For whatever reason, I looked back for a moment, maybe surveying the beautiful work scattered all around us. His gloved hand cupped my chin, making me gasp as he tenderly turned my head back to gaze at him.

"Turn your face away from the garish light of day. Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light~" He looked down, causing me to automatically follow his gaze. I spotted the perfect replica of the stage I had sung on tonight, with a little figurine of me standing upon it. A rose lay before it, and I began to wonder just how many of those he had.

I looked up at him, as he slid his hand out of mine so he only held onto my fingers in such a way that I dared to think he might kiss them, but I was glad he didn't for I was sure I would have collapsed on the spot seeing as my resolve had decided to abandon me.

Smiling genuinely for the first time that night, he continued, "~and listen to the music of the night."

Letting go of my hand, he was up the stairs in a matter of seconds, faster than a panther stalking prey. His expression still featured a smile, but now it was more cunning than genteel as it had been a moment before.

"Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams; purge your thoughts of the life you knew before." I was far ahead of him. I was hardly aware of anything any more except for the man sing before me.

I obeyed his next command willingly, letting myself fall into the spell of his heavenly voice.

"Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar." The way he held that note sent shivers up and down my spine and I had to open my eyes to make sure it was really him, not some other divine spirit come to whisk me away to Heaven.

"And you'll live, as you've never lived before." His hand was out for the taking, and I was more than happy to step forward and claim it. Actually, he was claiming me, but it didn't matter.

His voice took on a more snake-like quality than it had possessed earlier, which would have alarmed me, had I not been deep under his control.

"Softly, deftly, music shall caress you. Hear it, fear it, secretly possess you." As he sang this, he pulled me close to him, so our foreheads were nearly touching and I had full view of his surprisingly soft and desirable looking lips. If he had asked, which I later realized he had been, I most certainly would have bridged the gap between our lips, but I feared it would unsettle him, and wanted him to continue singing.

"Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind in this darkness, which you know you cannot fight." He smiled again, in a daunting sort of way, but I enjoyed it all the same.

"The darkness of the music of the night." He circled behind the organ, looking at me between the various pipes and candles that rose up all around us, intent on keeping me transfixed.

"Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world, leave all thoughts of the life you knew before."

I couldn't even feel myself breathing. This world down here, that had stayed hidden for so long, had swallowed me up. I was part of it and it was a part of me.

"Let your soul take you where you long to be~" He came out from the barrier between us, slowly stepping towards me with an expression that I deciphered as part passionate adoration, part innocent amazement and part desolate longing, none of which I was sure the reason for.

"Only then… can you belong… to me," he whispered softly, his hands finding my neck and sliding to my shoulders. He turned me so my back was pressed against him, and my head lay back against his mask.

"Floating, falling, sweet intoxication." His hands slid just beneath my chest, and I closed my eyes. For years I had hoped he would be a simple sweetheart with me, like the kind I had read about in books, but this… this was beyond my expectations.

I felt the leather of his glove slide over my hip and to my left hand.

"Touch me, trust me," he whispered, pushing my hand against his smooth cheek, somewhere it would have wandered without his assistance.

"Savour each sensation." I turned to look at him, to reassure myself for the millionth time that night that this was real, he was real, and I was real.

As if he had read my mind, he squeezed my hand in an assuring way. He led me down a smaller flight of stairs.

"Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in to the power of the music that I write. The power of the music of the night."

His arm wrapped gently around my waist in a protective way, as if he was saying he would always be there with me, beside me. My father had once promised me that.

I had come out of my trance. I didn't feel dizzy or intoxicated. I felt safe and, for once, I felt wanted with him.

I smiled at him more brightly than ever. He had led me to an open curtain, but I didn't look for a moment, gazing up into those brilliant eyes of his.

He looked at whatever he was going to show me, some fantastic work of art that rivaled Da Vinci I assumed, and thought it best to look as well. When I did, I felt the smile slide away, a look of shock replacing it.

Behind the curtains stood an exact replica of myself, but instead of an overly tight corset, I wore a beautiful wedding gown and veil.

It was then, and only then, did my mind comprehend his passion for me. He had fallen in love, and was subtly asking me to be his bride.

I felt my chest heave, taking in air, but surely not enough. I hastily tried to gulp some down, but it was far too late.

If I had not been fighting to breathe in a way that would not embarrass myself, I would have turned and told him I accepted, and the whole rest of this tale wouldn't have happened. But fate has always been so kind to me, and I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. I felt myself fall backwards, and my world went black.

It was after that night that I vowed I would never wear another corset ever again.