AN: Thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews, and despite the fact that I don´t want to be disturbing sleep patterns or vacations, it makes me just a little happy to know that I am (at least for some of you.) I would love to message everyone who reviews personally but I have very little internet access here in Ecuador and I spent most of my ´net time talking to my family on Skype, so I´ll see what I can do. I am slowly posting revised chapters, and am hoping to revise the whole thing before the very last chapter is posted. We have three left after this!
-Maat
Chapter Thirty Five: Cultivated Omniscience
This time, it was the nausea that woke her.
Little fingers of sickness squeezed her tender stomach, prodding it so hard that she scrabbled out of blissful darkness just so she could tilt and wretch on the floor. Chest heaving, fingers gripping the silken sheets as she leaned off the side of the bed and gasped for air, all Christine could think was: 'I've done this before.'
Somehow, the second time around was even worse.
Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness Christine recognized the room—silver candlestick notably absent—and the confirmation of her surroundings did her little good. She struggled to sit up, still clutching the bed sheets to her as if to form a barrier, head whirling with half-forgotten memories that blurred and mixed with her dreams.
'I was in a car,' Christine thought, slowly, as if the words had a question mark attached to them. 'I was with Raoul. Raoul!' Suddenly fear shot through her but her battered mind couldn't deal with the emotion and roughly pushed it aside. 'Okay, I was with Raoul. Why were we in a car? We were going to…Texas? No, we were in Texas, we were going to Mexico…is that right? Why were we going to Mexico…there were police officers?' The facts splintered, fragmented across her brain, each puzzle piece making her more confused. Her head pounded, and she had to suppress another wave of nausea. 'I think they beat us. They beat Raoul.' Images of her dear friend's huddled figure shone starkly clear in Christine's mix of muddled memories. 'But why…I don't understand…this room, and…'
"Erik."
The last word was whispered aloud, the final piece that made all of the others fit together. Slowly the knots untangled themselves and the crashing in her head eased. Of course. For a few blessed moments she had been unable to recall him, been dropped into a scattered memory world that made no sense in his conspicuous absence.
Remembering helped Christine's mental state, but not by much; in fact, the claustrophobic, panicked feeling that swept through her made the cracks lurking behind her eyes a little wider, like an earthquake's rumblings shaking across dry ground.
'You are not out of control,' she told herself firmly, and then to make the belief more real she said it out loud: "I am not out of control."
The darkness of the room swallowed up Christine's words as soon as she said them, leaving only the silence that draped heavily over her ears. It was so quiet that beneath her shallow breaths she could nearly hear the blood pumping through her veins.
"I am not out of control," she whispered again. 'Why not?' asked a little voice in her head. 'Because he loves me,' Christine responded, the answer almost surprising in its simplicity.
'Of course. He is doing all of this, all of these horrible things, because he believes that he loves me, and he is frightened of losing me. Such a simple motivation for such drastic action,' she mused almost clinically, attempting detachment. 'That has to give me some leverage. If at least I can save Raoul…' Christine hesitated for a moment before doggedly finishing her thought. 'If at least I can save Raoul, and not myself, that will be enough. That will be enough for me.
'And there are other ways out.'
She didn't acknowledge that last thought, whispered slyly from the deepest confines of her mind, up through the cracks that were becoming ever wider. 'I will not lose my mind. I will not let him take that from me.'
First, she had to leave the room. Wasn't that always the first step? Heroically facing danger, going headfirst into the lion's den and hoping…
'…hoping that it doesn't eat you alive.'
Careful, careful; do things one at a time. Step by step and everything will turn out fine. Christine concentrated on lowering the sheets from her chest and releasing her white knuckles from around them. She pushed the covers off by layers, as if peeling an onion, and one, two, set her bare feet on the cool wooden floor. Next to her white toes were her shoes; she put them on, sockless, and knotted them calmly, looping the ends and tightening the bow. Then she stood up, straightened the wrinkles from her shirt, and pushed her heavy hair behind her ears. One foot in front of the other, there is the door, turning the handle, opening, opening, and…
"Hello, Erik."
Even to her own ears her voice sounded curiously detached. He was standing with his back to her, familiar in his dark suit that was perhaps a little more wrinkled than usual, his long white hands wrapped around a book. He seemed calm, but the large black and red rug showed signs of repeated pacing, and there was a trembling air about him as he carefully marked his page and placed the book back on its shelf.
"What are you reading?" Christine asked in that curiously hollow, flat voice, as he turned to face her. The black mask, as usual, revealed nothing, but the eyes behind it were bright and almost fevered.
Erik spread his hands almost calmly. "It does not matter." The voice was as lovely as ever but distant, as if he was speaking from a great height. "You are not afraid," he said, after a beat.
Christine looked at her hands. "I have been afraid for so long," she said. "I think I used up all I have inside of me. There's nothing left."
'Just take it step by step and everything will be alright.'
"Hn," he said, a small noise that gave no insight to the rioting emotions behind his eyes. His next words, however, nearly startled Christine out of her carefully crafted apathy. "Let's see if we can't change that."
She glanced at him, her brow furrowed, suddenly tense. He was staring at her, as he always did, with his head slightly cocked, like it always was, but there was something different in his straight-backed stance, something quietly dangerous laced through his words. "What?" she asked, a thread of nervousness entering her previously unfettered voice.
"Come," he said, and without waiting turned and left the room.
After a second's hesitation Christine decided that following him was probably less dangerous than defying him and staying planted where she was, demanding to be let go or some other nonsense. Whatever he wanted to show her would only clarify the disturbingly ambiguous situation, and if he wanted her to follow…
She followed.
He led her from the sitting room, through the music room and into his darkened bedroom; without pause and without looking back he passed the six-sided bed, stepped up to a flat stretch of grey wall, made some motion with his hands, and vanished.
Christine paused, hovering by the coffin ('where you tried to kill him,' a voice whispered traitorously in her head, 'so maybe you deserve all of this, stupid girl') and stared at the wall. It seemed whole, but when she stepped up to it and stretched out her hands she realized that it was an open space, that the shadows and the identical grey wall in the adjoining room had created only the illusion of unity.
'Like stepping through a mirror,' she thought as she tentatively stuck her head through. 'My own rabbit hole, complete with Mad Hatter.'
The urge to giggle bubbled up inside of her, and she shoved it down. No good going to pieces now.
It was then that Christine saw the screens.
The wall straight ahead of her was grey and simple, but the wall to her left was nothing but televisions, small square flat screens covering every surface inch.
Some were tuned to local and national news stations, but most were the black-and-white images of security cameras. Inside of the screens she could see strange sites—the richly carpeted hallway of an opulent hotel; a dimly lit hole where swarthy men were playing poker; a futuristic-looking office where four well-dressed men were having some kind of argument—and familiar places as well—the halls of her university; the interior of its library; the outside of the restaurant where she used to work; and, her mind registered with a sickening feeling, the bedroom of her old apartment, where she could currently see Meg making out with a dark-haired boy on her old bed. And there were more stories on display, many more; too many images to register. All of it was silent, little pieces of the outside world, a moving collage.
And in front of it all was Erik, hands clasped behind his back, surveying his kingdom with a calm that was almost preternatural.
'Dear God,' Christine thought, her eyes scanning the screens, her palms sweaty. 'He really is everywhere.'
"It is rather difficult," he said blandly, as if picking up from a previous conversation. "Cultivating omniscience. It takes so much time, and patience. Before, I could eat and breathe my work; this room was my world. It was all I had, and really I just kept building and building my empire, my beautiful silent empire, as a way to keep myself occupied. All of this, a whole continent mastered, just to pass the time. But now I grow bored with this world. I am ready to leave this room. I am ready to have a normal life, to walk in the sunlight with a wife by my side, a wife who will still the frantic thoughts in my head and allow me to live. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done."
He paused for a brief moment, cocking his head slightly in her direction but not facing her. "You see? You were harder to control than businessmen across the world, than a multi-billion dollar empire. Men, normal, small minded men are driven by greed; they dance so easily for me. I still can't figure out what drives you, and until I do I will never get into your soul, will I? But I have so much patience, and much practice.
"Perhaps it is the suffering of others that moves you? That is an angle I have not tried, and I have tried so many. I have been powerful and submissive, I have ordered and I have begged, but never did I reach your heart, my Christine. Nothing I did was enough."
He took a deep breath, his thin shoulder blades whispering against the dark fabric of his suit, but still he did not face her, and when he spoke again it was as if to himself, as if during his carefully-controlled rant he had forgotten that she was standing there, horrified and mesmerized.
"Perhaps this, then," he said, in a voice so soft it was nearly indecipherable. "Perhaps this will work. I will try. And if not this…"
"Erik," Christine whispered, unable to help herself, and his long white hands curled tightly into fists at the sound of her voice. She felt as if she could see him breaking before her very eyes, layers peeling off to reveal the stark and frightening truth underneath. This calm seemed a tightly controlled façade to guard the inner self, but the shell was cracking, and like the hatching of some dark, writhing animal, Christine dreaded seeing what was inside.
"Of course, I am boring you," he said, and the words were a little harsher, a little more malicious. "I should show you something that will cheer you up, shouldn't I? It is hard to fathom, but I believe I know just the thing."
He reached to the vast control panel in front of him and with one elegant finger flicked a small switch. The pictures flickered, and then changed, like a stack of cards being flipped, merging together into one large image that filled the entire wall with one full-color face.
Raoul.
"Oh," she gasped, unintentionally, the little breathy sound breaking the silence. Erik's hands flexed again as he shot her one sidelong glance before staring at the screens with eyes narrowed in loathing.
Even beaten and unconscious Raoul was handsome, the smear of blood across his left cheek almost picturesque, red paint on a sleeping prince. He was lying on the dirty floor of a darkened room, his hands bound behind his back, but the image was too close to see anything of his surroundings. The dim light around him flickered and guttered, making Christine think of an old, bare bulb swinging at the end of a wire.
"He is alive," Erik said, unnecessarily; Christine could easily see the steady but pained rise and fall of his chest. "I had wanted him to be conscious, for the sheer emotionality of it, but the pain was so intense that a sedative had to be administered. To save him from himself, you see, and his own frantic thrashings. Frankly, I am surprised one of those broken ribs hasn't pierced the lung wall yet and filled it with fluid. Perhaps it has. Painful death, choking on ones own blood. Let us hope it does not come to that. Even so, the sooner he receives medical attention, the better."
Christine could say nothing; she had forgotten how to breathe, how to think. All she could see was her dear friend's gasping breaths, how the whites of his eyes were fluttering spasmodically behind half-closed lids. Tears dripped down her cheeks with shuddering slowness, and she realized that Erik was finally looking at her, eyes hooded and predatory.
"You cry for him," he said, and the words carried a chill that trembled down her spine. "You cry for that boy. He is not worthy of your tears."
"He is worthy," Christine choked out, unable to help the words. She forced herself to meet those yellow eyes. "He is worthy of my tears," she repeated, steadily. "He is worthy. He is a good person. He is my friend. He is in pain. I can cry for him!"
With that she broke down, burying her face in her hands, shoulders shaking. When she could finally breathe again she looked up with reddened eyes, but his gaze was impassive.
"Please, let him go. He's done nothing to you. You don't have to do this."
"He did do something to me," Erik snarled, taking a step closer to her, his posture coiled and tight. "He stole from me. He had everything in the world and still he stole from me. He stole your affection. He tried to steal you. And you would have me save his life?"
"Yes," she sobbed, barely able to speak. "Yes, please, save him. Everything that happened, it was all my fault, all my idea. He is blameless. Save him. For me, Erik, please, save his life."
"For you?" he asked, with dangerous stillness. "Perhaps I could have…but unfortunately Erik is no longer your friend, and you are no longer under his protection."
'Did he just…?' Christine was shocked enough to stop crying; the tears dried up in her throat, and all she could manage to say was: "What did you just say?"
He stalked toward her until her nose was nearly touching his chest, then swooped down so that his flaming eyes were staring straight into hers. "Where is your ring, Christine?" he asked with quiet menace.
Christine's heart skipped a beat, then lurched painfully in her chest. "It was an accident," she whispered, her voice shaking so badly the words were barely understandable. "I'm so sorry, I swear, it was an accident…"
"Where is your ring?" he asked again. More tears welled in her eyes and clustered on her lashes.
"I don't know," she said in her trembling voice. "I lost it, I'm so sorry."
"No, you are not," he said, straightening and stepping away from her. "But you will be."
His next words were spoken with a dispassion of such studied carefulness that it was more frightening than screaming, as if it was taking every ounce of his willpower to form coherent words and keep his voice level; faked sanity. "I am going to give you a choice," he said, his lovely voice dead; it sounded wrong, like a note falling flat, and made Christine wince in agitated expectation. "You asked me once about your choices. I told you that they would come later, that there was a story that had yet to be played out. Do you remember? Now is that time. Our little story can come to an end tonight. Then again…"
He shifted slightly and Christine looked up to find those feral eyes locked on hers. The seconds ticked by in silence as he stared at her, hands jerking spasmodically as if there was a great energy inside of him that was aching for release.
"You can go tonight, if you wish, and never see me again. I know that is what you want. You can go and bury yourself in your schoolwork, in your own private hell; you can return to what you were before: weak, miserable, alone. You can walk out of that door tonight and spend the rest of your life playing at being alive…if that is what you truly desire. I give you that choice."
He fell silent, studying her reaction, but there was none. Christine knew better by now, knew that after all of this he would not just let her turn around and walk out of his life forever. There was a catch, of course there was; she just had to wait and see how damaging it would be.
"But know this," he finally said, with a strange note of madness and desperation, as if he had been searching for something in her face that he did not find. "I am only selfless enough to save one life, to grant one happy ending where there will be none for me. Only one of you will walk in the sunlight again." He turned to the projection of Raoul's unconscious face, the camera angle so close Christine could see the sweat in his pores. "That is your choice, Christine. You, or him. Marriage or funeral. One of you will stay tonight. Which one is up to you."
"I'll stay," Christine gasped immediately. "Erik, let him go and I'll stay forever. I promise."
Her response seemed to hover in the air for a moment before dissipating. "You promise?" he whispered, but instead of hopeful his voice sounded cruel and sarcastic. "My, how you must care for him, to sacrifice yourself so readily, after you fought so hard and planned for so long to be free of me." He was snarling the words with disgust, his calm façade melting off and that deep and pitiless anger seeping to the surface. "Mexico, an inspired choice; had you both been a bit cleverer you might of succeeded. But I still would have found you, and we still would have ended up in exactly the same place. It merely would have taken a bit longer. Really, isn't it convenient that it is happening now, instead of wasting everyone's time with silly chases?" When she was silent he turned again to her; the suppressed rage had moved from his hands into his shoulders, shaking them with a trembling, barely-controlled fury. "Well, isn't it?"
"I'll stay, Erik," Christine said again, quietly. "I will never run. If you let him go."
He grabbed her arm and steered her forcefully out of his strange surveillance room, back past the six-sided bed, and through the darkened house. "Now now, this is not a decision to be taken lightly," he hissed in her ear. "I want you to really think about it; there are many unforeseen ramifications to marrying a corpse, you see, and after some reflection you might not be able to deal with them. You must banish all doubt from your mind and waver not in the slightest. This is, after all, your choice. So take some time. Just not too long; we don't know how long his young body can hold out."
Then he threw her in her room and locked the door.
