Chapter 7: The Book of Shakespeare

Philippe took his leave of the opera when drinking with the stagehands became intolerably odorous and blurred. He had drunk twice as much as any of them, but he wasn't drunk yet…only tipsy and a little clumsier than usual.

His carriage had left hours ago on his insistence. His footman knew never to put anything past his master, least of all coming home after a night of alcohol. There was something abnormal in the way the duke seemed resistant to even self-inflicted ills.

The noble set off at a brisk pace, not wanting to miss his nightly rounds at the warehouse. His feet carried him towards the outskirts of the rich neighborhood, which was full of large buildings other than mansions- factories, storage, and black market outlets.

After about two miles, he stopped and looked up at the flat roof of one of the many cold buildings he owned, and slipped inside. His prisoners needed visiting, since the guard he'd hired was mute. And that's a good thing, too. I cannot have that man spilling secrets if I fire him.

There were many halls and rooms in this structure, all well-lit; he had made sure of that. In some of the rooms were prisoners of various sorts: debtors, criminals, madmen, public enemies, black market dealers who had tried to cheat him…the list went on and on, but now, tagged onto the end of his mental roll call he had added one more item: opera workers.

It was through these passages he walked, boots clicking on the concrete and silencing those within the cells. The newest guests, as he preferred to call them, resided in the very back of the complex. He knew that just a little while ago, his servants had brought in two younglings from the opera, but he would wait until he had dealt with the old man. They had yet to be broken, yet to be begging for death at his feet. And what sweet success that will be…

He stopped at the second-to-last, heavily reinforced door on the left, which held an old man. The slip of paper on the door served as a nametag: Gustave Daae. Philippe grasped at his hip for the master key and unlocked the door, but did not open it. A soft shuffling could be heard inside. Yes, he will be easy…

At last he swung the door open. A look of surprise sagged over the wrinkles in Gustave's face, and he stumbled back. Ah, he was expecting the guard, and his evening meal… The younger man's lip curled in disgust as the stench diffused out into the otherwise sterile hall. Now M. Daae's eyes watered and he scrubbed at them with hands almost caked in filth.

"Were you expecting someone else, Gustave Daae? Perhaps your lenient guard and a feast?" he asked, drawing out the words as if speaking with a small child. The man, kneeling, at last cleared his eyes and stared boldly into his captor's face and scowled. He remained silent.

"You must answer if we are to get anywhere, M. Daae." Philippe could see the confusion in Gustave's eyes as he tried to process the rapid change from patronization to respect. "I simply need you to answer a few questions, but you must answer a few questions for me. Then you can go back to whatever slum or poorhouse you came from," he reasoned, voice turning harsh and cold. Gustave coughed, proud shoulders slumping for a moment.

"I will never-" he hacked again, "-submit to some bullying, lying- agck!" His head snapped back and he fell backwards, struggling to breathe. His ragged sighs revealed the accumulation of fluids in his lungs. The thin beard on his hollow cheeks was crooked and ruffled, like that of a goat. In a last act of defiance, he flung his overflowing pot of excrement at his tormentor. The load of feces, vomit, blood, and urine spattered the duc d'Orleans' clean white shirt and smooth face.

Gustave stood and slammed the door in Philippe's face, not caring whether or not he would receive another depository for his wastes. The next few minutes were filled with loud curses, gagging, and a royal family member who stormed about, quite literally 'talking shit.'

…

Erik scaled the frosty walls of the Castelot house, gripping the old, thick ivy hard and keeping his breath muffled. He could have gone in through the front door, but the bastard child, Castelot-Barbezac, had a room in the third floor, and the effect was more dramatic when he could 'disappear' in a moment. It made for a more effective scare.

His target's balcony was slightly rusted, but stable, and the expensive sliding door had been left open, despite the cold, and a crimson and white veil of a curtain drifted in the breeze. Perhaps the wealthy grow stifled by their stuffy attitudes, Erik thought, smirking like a drugged cat. At any rate, they probably have enough blubber each to warm a whale.

With a soft grunt, he pulled himself up using only his arms, and flipped over the railing to and just before the glass door. It seems these aristocrats value looks more than their lives.

At that moment, Salim Castelot-Barbezac, the baby and favorite of his family despite his sketchy birth, was turning restlessly in his soft bed, dark hair ruffled about his thin, sickly neck. He had always been ill and weak, and tonight he was down with a fever, hence the open window/door. Back and forth he shifted, exhausted, but not sleepy. It was in this manner that he saw a dark shape rise up over the edge of his balcony and began scrambling wildly for a pistol.

"No need for that, honorable Baron. You cannot shoot a ghost." Salim finally retrieved the gun from underneath his nightstand and pointed it at the shape, which was now looming closer and closer. Now, as he breached the barriers and approached the trembling boy, Erik reconsidered his original plan of frightening a spoiled noble out of his wits. He was already afraid; any more, and the baron would shoot, miss, and be silenced…by force. And that would draw unnecessary attention to the noble family. He decided on a more appealing technique.

Salim's hands shook, and the sweat on his back began to feel cold rather than hot. "I have come for information," Erik intoned, using his best impression of a respectable businessman. "A certain young female was abducted from the opera four days ago, along with her male companion. I have need of their whereabouts." He almost grinned as the young baron's fingers lost their grip on the gun, but noticed the overly bright eyes and excessive sheen of sweat. "You are sick. If you give me the information, I have something that will make you well… You will never be weak again."

Salim's heart leapt as he spied the chance, but he grabbed at reality again and forced himself to think past the joy prematurely bubbling in his chest. "Who are you? Wh-… Why do you want to know about- about that girl?" The figure's voice hissed, turning from frank to blistering with venom.

"Fool! Because she happens to be the girl you will be engaged to!" The youth suddenly began hacking and coughing, his brain's shock translating into his lungs' malfunction. At last he croaked out a simple, frightened word.

"Meg?"

…

Salim cringed as the loud sound effect of a false gun cracked through his skull. As of yet, the opera had been violent, heartrending, and painful to watch. The only brief respite had been an aria by a rather mediocre alto, and even then, knowing Italian, it had been quite the opposite of uplifting; it had instead been a song about the way people disappeared off the coast, into the jungles of a mysterious island.

At last a dance began, a scene consisting of brightly dressed tropical 'birds' and a slender, young thing with gold hair who obviously had talent. In all his fifteen years, Salim had never seen anything more beautiful.

After the show was over, he had greeted her in the foyer, and was about to kiss her fingertips as was proper… "Salim, bastard child, get your sluggish little body over here and try not to embarrass the family!" His half-brother, the true heir to the title 'Baron de Castelot,' waved him over.

The ballerina gripped his hand in surprise, earning a blush from the scrawny boy. Then he released her hand with not a little reluctance and turned to leave. "Wait!"

"P-perdonatemi?" he stuttered, and wheeled himself about again to face the girl with a pout on her made-up face. He cursed his near-instinctive Italian. Of course she would not quite understand and be upset with his bilingual ability…

"Whoever that creature is, he is the bastard, not you. Always remember that." Then she pecked him on the cheek and skipped away to the dorms, leaving him wondering if girls were human at all.

From that day on, he had worked to the best of his ability to find out everything about the young beauty, and finally persuaded his father to arrange his marriage with her once he was well enough. All would end well, provided that Meg Giry did not intend to instead marry one of her theatre-boy sweethearts.

…

It had been quite easy to extract the information. In fact, Salim, as Erik had learned his name was, gave a detailed description of the place where the duc d'Orleans kept his victims once he knew that Meg might be currently imprisoned there. It was probably not quite as satisfying as it would have been to see the fat Baron Castelot shaking and hiding under his pillow, but now a different matter weighed on his mind.

The image rendered from Salim's words was not at all convenient. This warehouse on the edge of Paris was crawling with guards and full of people who were more likely to kill anyone in their way rather than cry for thankfulness once released. In addition, every door was chained, and the walls were solid- there would be no weakness in the fortress.

"There was a damp dirtiness to the air there, last I visited," the boy had explained, "as if the insides of the cells were never cleaned, and the prisoners were forced to live in their own bodily fluids." At this point in the sentence, the young baron-to-be had shuddered. "When Philippe, my cousin, was there with me, he behaved as if he were going to the carnival instead of a dungeon. I think he is mad for building such a place. That place is black hole of death!"

And he was not lying. Erik stole through the dark alleys and crushed rats and muck with his quick steps. I suppose I must call in a favor, then. Nadir will know all the right friends in all the right places. Mme. Giry must know about this. She must not have a nervous breakdown at the start of her career as the manager of my opera.

A false dawn flitted across the horizon as M. Erik took the quickest way down to his abode, where the ballet mistress had been staying since the acceptance of her new job. This fast way down happened to be through a basement window and a dusty secret panel, ending in a cloud of dust all over his memory-filled Persian rug. "Curses upon dusty street traffic…"

"Erik?" 'Antoinette' was already awake. "Back already?" Her dry sarcasm did not cover her genuine surprise. "I thought the earliest you returned was at least three o'clock."

"Well, I would have let you alone for longer, except that someone has stolen my gold pocket watch and several bottles of my best wine. I believe I know now who that person is, and I intend to receive my full reimbursement…once I can relate what I have found concerning your daughter." The lady gasped.

"What has happened? Where is she?" Another proof of the scarring effects of loss… The rapid questions were launched about his ears, tinged with desperation. "I want my daughter back."

…

Christine emerged from her room feeling adequately presentable and yawned, stretching to her full height and pulling all her joints into their proper, fluid place. A minute's walk took her out to the stage, where Mme. Giry (back from her family business, it seemed) was pointing up at the flies and directing the replacement of a broken hydrogen lamp.

Her eyes flickered to the orchestra pit, where M. Erik was handing an envelope to the delivery boy. They widened when she saw a flash of gold change hands. Is he rich or simply generous? The composer waved the child away and faced Christine as if he'd known she was there all along. I wonder what he was sending…

All thought exited her mind as Erik picked up a violin and tested the strings. It was a smooth C, unbroken by any roughness that might have sounded from an ordinary musician. When he began to play, she had to close her eyes. The piece was too sweet to resist, too strong to avoid. She must've heard the tempo, pitch, key, technique, and volume, but the melody took all memory of mechanics and theory away. She was drowning and she loved it.

Finally, the last note kissed her ears and she opened her eyes, at first unable to focus on anything. Suddenly, a deep, vicious growl ripped from the wooden floor beneath her feet, causing her to flee with a yelp of terror…

…And straight into the arms of an extremely smug-looking M. Erik. "Ah, it seems that a certain Swedish woman simply cannot stay away from me," he purred, pulling her tight against his chest. Christine blushed and turned her eyes away, casting about for something, anyone to pull her out of the situation…but did she truly wish to be released? "Are you comfortable, Mlle. Daae?"

His voice!It was everywhere at once, enveloping her senses and overwhelming any conscious functions, including her will to escape. "I…"

"I suppose that is interpreted as 'yes' in your language?" The flustered girl in his arms never got the chance to answer (though she wouldn't have been able to anyway).

Anna entered from backstage with a martini glass full of something undoubtedly alcoholic, shared a shocked glance with the masked man, and froze. Erik stared back, absorbing the fact that the Irishwoman had not only stolen another bottle of wine (a fine white wine from Italy), but had filched with it one of his best pieces of glassware. Then Anna Iseal gulped down the glass in one shot, placed the cup on a prop stool, and ran for dear life back down the hall, yelling, "I didn' take th'watch! I want m'lawyer!"

Erik cleared his head and didn't miss a beat as he pulled himself away from Christine with a mixture of anger and indignation pulsing through him. "Excuse me mademoiselle, but I have a pickpocket to catch."

…

Ten minutes, three throwing knives and five fat banknotes later, Erik lounged on a house seat with a flute of champagne in his hand. On the chair to his left were bottles of vodka, tawny wine, and white wine, as well as two glasses (one regular and one martini), and a brand new, perfectly gauged, solid gold pocket watch with a silver face and a crystal covering. Onstage, four of his students tried their best not to snort with laughter as Mlle. Anna Iseal balanced a book on her head.

Eter was the first one to giggle and Artur kept smiling his scarred, crooked smile. Marcus was looking, for the first time during his days at the theatre, quite satisfied and even a little mischievous. Even Christine, who would normally have been sympathetic and rather shocked about Erik's punitive measures, was stifling her laughter so that Anna would not turn and drop the tome: Shakespeare: The Complete Works.

"Sing the phrase again, Mlle. Iseal." Erik popped the cork on the bottle of white wine and poured himself about half a cup; they would all be here for quite a while. Anna huffed, holding onto the book so that it would not fall as she yelled at her tutor.

"But I've bloody sung th'thin' twenty times! And I'm no' goin' to be able t'hold this-"

"Again! Do not argue with me, mademoiselle, or you will find yourself balancing another large book atop your head," Erik threatened, eyes narrowing at the redhead. At stage left, Christine lost control and started having a muffled laughing fit. Erik caught her eye and sent her a rather flirtatious look.

Anna opened her mouth, red lips thin with indignation, and proceeded to sing "Mary had a Little Lamb" for the twenty-first time that day, while standing atop an ersatz tree, holding a shepherd's crook in one arm and a fat, squirming rabbit in the other, and balancing Shakespeare on her crown.