Sorry for the slow update. I just drove almost two thousand miles roundtrip in the past week. It has been a few chapters since I thanked my loyal readers, and reviewers so thank you once again especially Brambled13, kit Kat, Tamara, Miss Fleck 734, Rupert Bear, lovewillstillremain, Phantom Lilac, Marilyn, trrmo77, paulagrandmother and of course my beta Judybear236. Anyone else who is out there, thank you as well. Your attention to my story is greatly appreciated. No one wants to write just for themselves although ultimately just the mere accomplishment of writing a story and finishing it can be daunting. I know that I can occasionally get too wordy in this, which probably has added much to the length of this, but so many of you like the way that I get into the character's head. When I write, I try to let the characters speak to me and I just take down what they say. Yes of course none of these characters are real people but when I am writing I let them come alive for me and try to do the same for you.

I have not allowed the antagonists of this tale to speak for a while so this chapter is their turn.

Chapter 3

Raoul's POV

After the Phantom's attack, I filed a complaint with the gendarmes. The more charges against the Phantom, the greater the chance that one of them would stick. I wanted his ugly severed head to be placed on a pike, or better yet, displayed in a museum of oddities. After he showed me his hideous face, that night, and threatened to make my face look like his; I wanted him to die in agony. I doubt that even he could turn my face into his; no mortal can make anything so hideous. If I were his parents I would have killed him at birth and spared the world a lot of pain. I daresay that the next time that I find him; I will make sure that he does not come back from the dead. I was careless that night; I should have continued to stab him until there was no way that even he could survive. He appears to have an incredible knack for survival. To my regret, I was frightened that someone would see what I had done. I did not want to be charged with murder, even if I were simply executing a murderous beast, and not anything human.

Before I boarded the train to Alsace, I made sure that the gendarmes were notified of the monster's presence in Germany. Despite that action, I decided that it would be ideal to bring him back to France in a coffin so that there would be no chance that the beast could escape. Just in case, I would bring all of the de Chagny influence to bear to make an arrest. I was sure that once that thing was out of the picture, I would be able to bring Christine back with me. She would surely give up her inane idea of returning to Sweden; now that the fiend had followed her, and tried to ensnare her once more. By now she would have realized that the beast would never leave her alone as long as he still lived, and finally come to understand my actions on that night. Christine had never been rational when it came to the Phantom. He would hypnotize her with his voice and then she would do whatever debased thing that he had in mind for her to do.

Without me to protect her, I hoped that he had left her virginity intact. If he had not, she would no longer be a suitable wife for me; but I would still support her as my mistress, as my brother Philippe had once advised me to do. I would marry someone else of my own class. I did not have to love my wife to marry her. I doubt that there had ever been a de Chagny who had been in love with their wife. It was simply just not done. In our class, we married for power and position, love was an afterthought. If the monster dared to impregnate her, the child would have to be discarded. Anything as odious as him could not be capable of creating offspring that were not similarly monstrous. In reality, I doubted that he was capable of impregnating anyone. He is not even of the same species as the rest of us.

My cheek throbbed where he made his disfiguring mark on my face. When I looked in the mirror it was all that I could see. I would grow angry with rage at the thought of how he violated me. Even though he had left my other areas intact, I felt that he had unmanned me that night. I would do the same to him, given the chance. But I would go through with it. I had brought a poker with me to use on him as he did on me. By the time that I was done with him, they would be calling his disfigured side his better one. I would remove any last vestiges of a human face from him and only then, give him the mercy of death.

It is strange but I have never hated anyone before. Until the Phantom appeared in my life, I prided myself on the tranquility of my disposition. In the beginning I was not too fond of the Comtesse, who claimed to be my grandmother. I could see that she was manipulative. I did not know why she was so avid that I become a patron of the Opera Populaire. She told me that I was never too young to get involved in the promotion of the arts. She claimed that she wanted to be involved on her own, particularly in the Opera because it was very prestigious, but lived too far away to be a proper patroness. When she and I met Andre and Firmen at a soiree, she talked them into purchasing the Opera. She insisted that it would help establish both of them in the first water of society. She promised to provide them with funds to operate the theatre. I could see them salivating at the prospect. After she talked them into it, she turned to me and told me that she needed me to keep an eye on her stake in the establishment. I wondered why she would want to talk those particular men into running the opera. They knew nothing about music or the arts, only about the junk business, and making money. Neither man would ever claim a place in Parisian society no matter what they owned. They were both too ill bred and barely literate. They were so crass that even I had to admit that the beast made some excellent suggestions to them. Until he set the Palais Garnier on fire, his suggestions saved more than one production from descending into a pedestrian lower class spectacle.

My 'cousin' and I attended the first show after the new managers took over. We sat together in the Patron's box with Maman and Eugenie as well. My half- brother, Philippe, was away in Monte Carlo to patronize the very fashionable casino there, and to watch his mistress La Sorelli dance in a new production at the Salle de Garnier where a new Opera House that was almost an exact replica of the Palais Garnier in Paris had opened. I never much cared for Opera prior to that evening. I much preferred plying the Moulin Rouge and gentleman's clubs with my friends. At first I was bored, but then I heard Christine sing. The magical purity of her voice brought back long ago memories of our time in Perros. Until I heard her voice, I had long forgotten her; but suddenly remembered everything with a fondness and nostalgia. She and I had been friends, and even then, spoke of marrying one another. I was enchanted by how beautiful she had become, and how her soprano voice had flourished. The old lady left right after the opera was over, but encouraged me to seek out Mademoiselle Daae and ask her out to dinner. For a while, the Comtesse remained in Paris, encouraging our romance. Oddly she never wanted to meet Christine, but blessed my involvement with her.

When I started to tell her about Christine's strange affiliation with the Phantom, she encouraged me to help Christine escape his grasp. I would have expected her to tell me the opposite, to have nothing more to do with her rather, than involve myself in the strange affair of the Phantom of the Opera. My mother told me so, but not her. The Comtesse told me that it was my duty, as a nobleman, to protect my chosen bride. She told me that Christine would enliven our ancient bloodline, which had been purely noble for too long. After a time, she suggested that I try to trap him and turn him over to the gendarmes for execution, and failing that, if I could lure him out of his lair, I should kill him. She was quite angry with me when I spared him at the cemetery at Christine's request. I did not know why she was so angry at me. It was more my concern than hers, but she was almost irrational. She returned to Alsace in disgust, telling me that she had no time to help such a weak willed milksop as me. She warned me that I would end up dead from my irresponsible act of mercy. She was right. I should have ignored Christine and cut him down. Christine might have been angry, but she would have been free. I did not hesitate when I had a second chance. I remembered her warning, and I took the beast's own knife and stabbed him in the back. Who would have guessed that Christine would react in such a way, when I did it all for her and our future together?

After those final moments in his lair, and his visit to me, I rued my former act of compassion for the beast. When I told Maman about my problems with Christine, and her desire to go back to Sweden, she was very pleased. The Comtesse was not, while Maman wanted her gone, she decided to employ her. She explained to Maman that she would keep an eye on Christine. Maman never knew how the Comtesse had been on my side all along and had encouraged our romance. My grandmother had been a widow for a long time and had never expressed an interest in having a companion; but I knew that she felt that Christine would be useful in some way. It was to her Chateau that I would go, to find out firsthand what was going on, and how she proposed to get Christine out of danger. I would listen to her this time. She was so right before, and I so foolish. I would not fail to kill him for a third time.

Auguste Marie's POV

My grandson took the bait as I knew that he would. He was so predictable. I remember how malleable he was to my idea of him becoming a patron of the Opera Populaire. I felt that having an ally there would help me find a way to get at old Erik's namesake living below the opera house. It gave us an excuse to have free access to the opera house even when it was closed. It was a great boon to find out that Raoul was attracted to a chorus girl, who had just become one of the stars of the opera house. Christine Daae was quite beautiful. It was worth the dilution of my bloodlines with such a common strain if it allowed us more access to the masked man below.

When I found out that the girl was the Phantom's love interest. I knew that it could be used for good. I encouraged Raoul to pursue the girl, and also to go after his rival. I would belittle the Phantom as much as I could and incite my grandson into getting rid of him. I had never found my daughter to be very intelligent and her son took after her. It was one reason, at times, that I doubted that Georges was Aurore's father. Most members of the Mulheim family were exceptionally intelligent. The only foolish member of the family was Christian's father Otto, who was ploddingly average. Otto was so easily fooled and led astray, that I would have wondered about his parentage if he was not so handsome in the Mulheim way, like his son Christian. I wanted to make my old beau Erik, suffer; therefore I had to come up with a way to kill Charles Mulheim. With little effort Otto became my willing tool. It was not difficult to persuade him to get rid of his cousin.

Christian was quite different, until recently Christian had been a great ally. He disposed of his great uncle and then passed on to me every scrap of information about his cousin, like a good soldier. He was useful, at least until he started to gain sympathy for his masked cousin. When the Phantom fled to Germany, I could see that he had become less forthcoming with information, and started to falter. I decided to kill two birds with one stone by staging the accident with my carriage. I watched the two cousins interact and realized that Christian might lose his desire to hurt Erik. My grounds for doing so were already weak. The Phantom had been a hard sell for even Otto. After a quick trip to Bonn, I was able to convince Otto that his Uncle would still win, if his grandson were to become the heir to their ancient family seat. After appealing to his latent greed, I was able to convince Otto that he would only triumph over his Uncle for good if his final heir had been wiped away, and the estate fell into his own hands.

I could see that Christian had trouble agreeing with his father. He turned on me and asked me why I even cared. He claimed that he could understand why I would want the grandfather dead because he had betrayed me, but why did I want them to go after the grandson? Otto had always been too dull to mull over the obvious; but Christian was shrewder. I had to tell him that I was still outraged at the old Baron's acts towards all of us and felt that his injustice could not stand. Also, why should a masked freak, who knew nothing about the Mulheim heritage, become the head of their family? As a noblewoman, I found that to be 'outrageous.' Otto bought my support completely. Christian needed to be reminded that I had a witness to his past deed. I could see that Christian was troubled but he reluctantly held up his end of the bargain and continued to provide me with information. I believed that the potential rift between us had healed.

Christian had always been more difficult, even as a young man. I was able to force a duel between him and the husband of a woman that he had fallen in love with. I anonymously sent a note to the husband, advising him of the affair. I also made the affair be known to the community so that the young woman would feel too ashamed to stay with Christian once her husband had been killed. She fled to Berlin; precipitously old Erik contacted Christian and suggested that he come to Alsace as his heir. I did not anticipate that the boy would grow to like his Uncle. I believed that his knowledge of what he had done in the past would have dissuaded him from developing any true affection for the old man. Apparently he took it upon himself to find out the fate of his French cousin, and it is when this whole part of the business began. If Christian had not gone to Normandy, he never would have uncovered what had happened to his cousin. It was there that he also uncovered what his father had done to Charles. At first he was angry until he was made to see why it was done, or at least the truth that Otto believed. He disliked that an innocent, such as Charles, had to die but he did not want his father to go to jail for murder, so he reluctantly joined our crusade against the old Baron.

I had attempted to circumvent Christian and his damned conscience, by employing Raoul to finish the Phantom instead; but the boy was too weak to do so the first time that he had the chance, and then he botched it again. At that point I threw up my hands in defeat. The Phantom had twice escaped death. When he showed up in Alsace, I decided to give Christian the chance to kill his cousin, but he kept stalling. At first he claimed that he couldn't just stage an accident right after the man arrived, it was too obvious. His great uncle had already died within six months of Christian's arrival. It would not do to have the next Baron die so quickly. Christian would not alert the police to Erik because he did not want scandal to attach to the family.

Just then, to my delight Aurore told me that Mademoiselle Daae was leaving Paris and was looking for a position in Sweden. She was glad to get rid of her. I told her that I would help her get out of France by hiring her. Aurore was so grateful to me, Raoul as well. I told him that I was doing it to give him a chance to reclaim her after a few months with me. I told Aurore the opposite that I would eventually give her the funds to get to Sweden once I could be assured that she would not go back to Paris and Raoul. My real purpose was to once again draw out the Phantom, by bringing the cause of his insanity back into his life. The girl repeatedly claimed to hate him; if I were lucky maybe they would kill one another in anger, or at least he would kill her and then Christian could have an excuse to dispose of the madman. Strangely they did the complete opposite of what I expected and fell into one another's arms. I could not see how she could stand to kiss that hideous face, but perhaps Aurore was right and she really was a social climber.

When we overheard the couple reunite, Christian looked at me and mocked me. He told me that he was delighted that his cousin had found love. He told me that his cousin deserved some happiness and that if I had any sort of heart that I would be able to see that. I did not tell him that his grandfather and great uncle had already destroyed any heart that I might have ever had. My father had been the one to really do it, when he left me behind years ago to go to war for that murderer Napoleon. When Christian dared to mock me, I realized that I would have to bring my inept grandson back into the picture. I decided to incite him by telling him that Christine was being held against her will. I knew that he would once more try to come to her rescue despite the fact that she had betrayed him. The boy had a soft heart, and too many scruples, but he was still my best bet for getting rid of old Erik's final heir. Then I could start on the other part of the family. It would be most pleasurable to dispose of Christian who had mocked and defied me too many times. I made sure that my hired spy, whom I had employed for many years, would come forward at the right time with his information about what Christian had done to the old man. I even let the man 'confess' to the sharp old Persian friend of the Phantom. I could see only a benefit since it would arouse suspicion against Christian in the other camp, and perhaps help sway Christian to come back to my side.

When Christian had been disposed of, I wouldn't even bother with Otto. He was getting older and not likely to have another child. I took care of that a long time ago. When I slept with him I gave him a special present, the gift of syphilis. It was a miracle that I had not died of it as a young woman. Many people who contract the disease die young. I contracted it shortly after a tryst with one of my first lovers. I know of several of my later ones who contracted and died of the disease from their contact with me. Jules had been horrified when he heard that I had it, but it was too late, strangely, he never contracted it. I have survived it for many years. Perhaps it is true, what my old governess told me, long ago, back in Auvergne when I was a little girl. She taught me a story told by the old Greek historian Herodotus about two favored youths who when their oxen went missing hitched themselves to the cart and brought their mother to Hera's temple. When the mother asked Hera to reward the two boys; the goddess laid them both down to sleep, never to reawaken. The moral was "Whom the gods love dies young." Clearly the gods had no use for me.

Note syphilis was not treatable in the 19th century, and was fairly common. One common side effect is to make the person afflicted by it insane. Perhaps now you understand the basis for the Comtesses' evil. It doesn't excuse it, but it does explain it.