Chapter 6-Audrey

"So what's your decision on the lessons?" Christine asked hopefully.

"Christine I've decided to.."

"Oh come one it's my dream Erik, and you sing so well and I've always wanted to be the star here it's my dream.."

"Christine.."

"Please Erik, pretty please with sugar on top and candy coated marshmallows.."

"Christine!" Erik yelled getting impatient with her blabbering.

"Was I blabbering?" she asked feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Yes," he answered.

"Sorry," she said blushing a little.

"Well as I was saying, I've decided to give you the singing lessons," Erik announced wondering if he should have plugged his ears because of her reaction.

"REALLY! Oh my gosh thank you Erik!" she yelled happily.

Erik smiled at her reaction even though his ears were hurting a little bit from the scream. "You're welcome. Just don't wake the opera house up because of it," he joked.

"Deal," she agreed. "So when do we start?" she asked.

"Right now," he answered, "that is if you want to."

"Sure!" she exclaimed thoroughly overjoyed.

"Come onto the stage so your closer to the piano," he ordered.

Christine's excitement faded. She didn't even know what the man looked like, and after the first night when he had displayed such anger she wasn't sure if she wanted to get so close. "Erik?"

"Are you coming Christine?" Erik asked.

"Not tell you show me what you look like," she said waiting for his temper to be released

"Christine I thought we had already had this talk," Erik said quite harshly.

"I know, but if you're going to give me singing lessons then I want to know what you look like," she explained. She was now slowly backing toward the light switch in the back of the auditorium.

"Then I won't give you singing lessons!" he replied angrily.

"No I want you to give me the lessons!" she pleaded getting closer and closer to the switch.

"Then get on the stage now! And don't concern yourself with what I look like!" he demanded.

"Please Erik," she begged. The light switch was just behind her now.

"Christine what are you doing?" Erik asked noticing her suspicious behavior. She kept on walking further and further away from the stage.

"Oh nothing," she said before quickly flipping on the light switch.

"CHRISTINE!" Erik yelled infuriated. Christine pinned herself against the wall in terror at the sight of the man. Erik was a tall man perhaps 6.5, his skin was deathly pale, and he wore all black. His hair was tied back, but Christine could tell it probably went a little below his chin, and his hair was black. He was big too; he had muscle, you could see that even though he had a long black jacket on. The most interesting thing about him though was a black mask that covered his whole face. He looked very frightening and Christine shook with fear as he began to pace around the stage angrily. She could only wonder what he'd do to her.

"I'm so sorry," she pleaded as she began to cry.

"Why in the hell do you have to be so stubborn? Didn't I tell you I didn't want you to see my face!" he yelled.

"But I didn't see your face," Christine remarked as she shivered with fear. Erik's temper was terrifying. Erik stopped pacing around the stage and looked Christine straight in the eye. They were far apart but his eyes still entranced Christine even more so then his wondrous voice. She couldn't think, she couldn't move, and barely even breathe as he looked at her with those fiery eyes. The room was silent; all she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding with fear.

Even though Christine didn't see it happen, suddenly Erik appeared right before her, facing her with his gleaming and terrible eyes. Christine was so entranced by him that she didn't even move back to avoid his destroying glare. His nose was now almost touching hers and yet she didn't move. She didn't even notice his sharper then normal teeth or the fact that his eyes had slight tent of red amongst the green.

Christine began to feel her world fading in around her. Things were beginning to get blurry, and she was beginning to get dizzy. "Christine! What are you doing!" she heard Madame Giry scream before she passed out in fear.

"Christine wake up honey," Madame Giry urged. Sleepily, Christine opened her eyes to see the terribly worried faces of Madame Giry and Meg.

"WhereamI?" she asked sleepily.

"You're in my apartment Christine," Madame Giry explained, "you passed out last night," she continued.

"Where's Erik?" Christine questioned forgetting that they didn't know who she was talking about. An even more worried look illuminated the ballet mistress's face.

"Meg I think you ought to leave," Madame Giry suggested to Christine's best friend.

"I think it's better if I stay here with Chris-,"

"Now Meg!" Madame Giry ordered.

"Ok mother, I'll see you later Christine," Meg said as she left the room. Christine nodded as she sat up in the bed.

"Christine, so you've met Erik?" Madame Giry inquired. She looked positively worried about Christine.

"Yeah, he agreed to give me singing lessons. We've talked to each other every night for nearly a month now. That's why I haven't been getting much sleep," Christine explained.

"Well that would surely explain it. Erik has always had a voice to attract women and others. It's absolutely mesmerizing isn't it?"

"Yeah it is. It's what attracted him to me in the first place," Christine told her. "Why do you look so worried about the fact that I've met him?" Christine asked.

"Christine there is something about Erik. I've heard he's got a lot of problems that can be dangerous. I don't know for sure, I mean all I know is only rumor, and all I can hope is that the rumors aren't true because some of them are absurd, but Christine do be careful around him. He's not like you and me, no he's very different," Madame Giry explained coldly.

"Thank you for your concern Ann. His temper concerns me too, but can a man that makes music that beautiful really be all that dangerous?" Christine asked.

"I don't know Christine, I honestly don't know," Madame Giry answered sadly.

"Tell me who you are!" the boy demanded in fear of the lovely woman, and a very lovely woman she was. Her hair was a light brown, her skin was quite pale but still quite beautiful, you could see veins in her pale skin, and her ocean blue eyes looked like glowing candles in the darkness. She was frightening yet irresistible and set upon her perfect lips was a devilish grin.

"Erik I told you I was a friend," she answered walking around the shaking boy to get a good look at the dead woman. She knelt down and examined the bloody corpse. "That was intelligent Erik. You tricked the woman into her own death," the beautiful woman remarked.

"Tell me who you are because you are no friend of mine!" Erik yelled angrily and fearfully holding the bloody shard of glass out.

The woman looked up at the bloody weapon, "You intend to kill me with this little weapon?" she asked smoothly.

"If I must!" Erik answered nearly preparing to strike.

"Oh my dear Erik that tiny piece of glass will not do the same damage to me as it did to your mother," the beautiful woman said.

"You still didn't answer my question!" Erik noticed.

"Fine then I'll tell you my name but on one condition," she told him.

"What?"

The woman stood straight up and crept toward the preparing to strike Erik. "Put the knife down Erik, and calm your heart beat my dear." She laid her hand on his shoulder and his tense muscles immediately calmed, and his breath began to get normal again. "Call me Audrey," she said.

"You remember the night so well and you act as if you never you never knew me," Audrey said.

Erik opened his eyes calmly. He knew that she had been there watching him nearly the whole night, and that she also knew his dreams. "I could never forget you," he replied staring her in her evil eyes. "How could you forget the devil in such a beautiful form?"

"You're so flattering Erik," she remarked.

"Go to hell," he said angrily.

She ignored his replied. "You know I like what you've become Erik, and I couldn't have hoped the better for you. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that you'd become perhaps the most feared vampire there is," she told him sounding very proud.

"Shut up," Erik ordered. "I remember you, I remember your lies."

"Oh Erik do you have to be so mean to the very person that made you what you are?" she asked with laughter in her voice.

"You hurt me possibly more then my terrible mother did!" Erik said. "Or do I need to refresh your memories?"

"Erik I remember what I did you, and I must admit I was wrong, but can't you forgive me?" she pleaded giving the ever-so-loved puppy dogface.

"Get out. Your lies and your tricks don't fool me anymore. I'm not the stupid vampire I used to be," Erik told her cruelly. He hated this woman. She had done unthinkable things to him and in his stupidity at the time he was too blind to see it. He was too stupid at the time he also didn't notice there was something different about her; something about Audrey that made Erik wonder if she was just an ordinary vampire. She was crueler then any other vampire he had ever encountered, and she was also stronger then any vampire. There was something very strange about Audrey that he sensed now and hadn't sensed before.

"Yet a young ballet girl at the Opera Populaire can?" she asked with a total change in tone. She knew now that Erik definitely wasn't the foolish boy that he was before.

"Don't bring Christine into this!" Erik demanded.

"Oh so you call her by her name now?"

"Don't you generally call people by their names?" Erik asked sarcastically.

"You really have changed Erik."

"And funny you're the same sarcastic, mean, seductive slut you were 200 years ago," Erik said very harshly

"Ah Erik you're so kind," Audrey said sounding actually kind of happy with his words.

"GET OUT!" he ordered angrily.

"You're going to put out a friend?" she protested.

"You're not my friend! Now get out!" he yelled. His anger was now hanging on a limb.

"Fine then, but you haven't seen the last of me!" she told him as she disappeared in the darkness leaving Erik in his anger.

"Christine?" Erik whispered.

Christine opened her sleepy eyes to see a blurry version Erik sitting before her. She shot up in her bed upon see the man who had scared her so much the previous night. "Erik, what are you doing here?" she asked a little scared.

"I ah wanted to say I'm sorry for my actions last night. As you can see I'm a little sensitive about my looks. Please forgive me," he explained sounding disgusted with himself. Christine stared at his terrifying figure in the darkness, but she did not answer him. "I guess you don't want to forgive me. I can understand that," he said sadly as he began to get up. Christine could see his towering figure in the darkness beginning to walk toward the door of the dorms.

"You're forgiven," she blurted out before he left the room. "It's really my fault. You said you didn't want me to see what you looked like and I didn't listen. I'm sorry," she noted. "Forgive me?"

"You don't need my forgiveness," he replied, "because you've done nothing wrong."

"Thanks Erik," Christine said with a smile on her face.

"No, thank you," he told her, "would you still like me to give you singing lessons?" he asked.

"If you don't mind?" she answered happily.

"Then shall we get started?" Erik suggested.

"So Jon you still haven't found out what could have killed the poor woman?" a short and cute female officer asked her Captain.

"No Mary, the search still continues," Captain Horn replied scratching his neck as he always did when he lied."Now if you please I have some…um…business to attend to," he continued motioning toward the door of his small office.

"Yes sir," she said as she got up.

"Can you please lock the door and close the blinds on your way out?" he ordered, and the plump officer obeyed. After she had left he turned off all the lights in the office.

"You lie so well to a person who obviously likes you," the hunter remarked as he emerged from the darkness. "So what did you want to tell me?" he asked as he lounged in the small seat in front of Captain Horn's desk.

"Well there are a lot of things I want to tell you. One of which is that I think you're completely insane and-,"

"Just shut up ok. I've heard this speech before so let me just finish it for you. How can vampires exist? It's completely impossible for it to happen. Blah, blah, blah, but seriously what else explains it? The teeth marks on people's neck, the fact the all the victims are nearly sucked dry, that if you go into the morgue right now the body of the woman is missing, and that if you search the nearest cemetery the body of the dead cook is long gone," the hunter said sarcastically.

The captain's head shot up at the last sentence. "Are you serious?" he asked. "Are the bodies really gone?"

"Go and search the morgue right now. You'll only prove me right," the hunter answered. "Face the facts vampires exist, and you're going to find a lot more death's like the sort these days," the hunter told.

"But why? Why are we finding more bodies now then we have ever?" Captain Horn inquired.

"Now that I don't know. Usually you'll find maybe a few bodies a year that are killed by vampires. It's highly unusual to find two within a month or so," the hunter explained. "Something strange has definitely been happening lately.

"So it seems you don't have all the answers?" Captain Horn asked angrily.

"I don't know that answer, but I promise you I'll find out the answer if it kills me," the hunter growled.

Hope you liked it.