Erik's strength failed a little more each day since returning to the opera house and his home five cellars down. The bullet wound in his thigh hadn't healed right, even after the three months since his return, but his physical condition wasn't very different from his mental state. Both suffered.
He stopped making his rounds of the opera house, but only after it became too difficult to walk on his bad leg. It's not that he didn't want to get better. He meant to call Bonnet and have him look at it, but instead ended up working on the piece of music he was dedicating to Christine, or found himself grabbing his sketch pad and drawing feverishly until he got her likeness down just so. Somehow, contacting the doctor always slipped his mind.
The ballets and operas were performed on schedule, but without Erik's critical ear listening in. With the sophisticated sound system he installed years ago, he could remain in his home, and listen to the rehearsals in progress, far above him. But now, he effectively tuned them out- something that would have been impossible in the past.
Twice he climbed to the roof- what was once done with grace and expediency now wore him out. The view did nothing for him anymore, but he liked to imagine Christine's excitement, looking out at the myriad and glittering lights of Paris spread out like jewels on black satin. His very next thought was how high it was from the ground. It would no doubt kill a man if he were to jump. He filed that particular thought away for future reference.
When he wasn't working on the adagio piece, he spent much of his time putting her likeness on paper. Drawing her from memory was so very easy, but it was the finished product that was the most difficult for him. Viewing her sweet face and graceful limbs as they unfolded beneath the sure strokes of his pencil could only wound him, for a one dimensional image was all he would ever have. He swore to himself, no more sketches, and before the morning sun had risen fully over the Garnier, he was once more creating her lovingly from the image seared into his memory.
The care of his leg was perfunctory at best. He popped a few pills every so often for the pain, and washed them down with scotch. Scotch was his new best friend- well, if truth be told, his only friend. But even though he tried hard to drink himself into oblivion, he failed. He had always possessed a great capacity for alcohol, and eventually he stopped trying to drink every single bottle in Paris. Now he at least on occasion substituted Merlot for the Scotch. He changed the dressing on the mess that was his leg, and studied the swollen, tender flesh for signs of blood poisoning. It appeared to be healing when he first arrived home, but it had begun to bother him again. Two weeks ago? No, not merely two weeks...longer than that, surely.
He was living more like a rat in a hole and it suited him well enough. He ventured out once in a while, prowling the dark streets and alleys, needing to expend some of the energy he had shortly after his return; to exhaust himself and deaden the torturous thoughts of what could have been. One evening he found that he had roamed far from the Garnier and was headed toward the Seine.
He walked through a dingy alley, littered with garbage and pungent with the odor of decay. He paused to rest his aching leg, when a man appeared in front of him, a nearly empty wine bottle clutched in one dirty hand. Erik could smell the stench of unwashed body and the sourness of the cheap wine from a dozen paces away. The vagrant approached him, staggering from side to side until he stood closer than Erik felt was comfortable.
The man was upon closer inspection, in late middle age, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused.
"You look lonely, mon ami. Perhaps you would like a leetle company tonight, eh? I can give you pleasure if you like, for whatever you can spare- wine and maybe a meal?"
The derelict leered at him and sidled closer, Erik's silence giving the impression of consent. He put a gnarled hand out, palm up, expecting money to be laid there. "It won't take long, my friend and then you'll be on your way. Old Jacques knows how to please." he crooned, licking chapped lips.
The drunkard finally raised his eyes to the man he propositioned, and was pulled from his alcoholic haze abruptly. He saw twin beams of fire glaring down at him from the shadows. The man tilted his head at him, and put a long pale finger to thin lips, tapping them gently. Then he spoke in a wondrous voice, soft and gentle.
"Let me understand this, my friend. You will give me a sexual favor, n'est-ce pas? And I will give you money in return, no?"
Something insidious in that voice, a threat wrapped in velvet words, made the short hairs on his neck rise. The man nodded, starting to feel uneasy, the pleasant alcohol buzz quickly dissipating, but before he could step back, there was a blur of movement too quick to catch, and something settled around his neck and proceeded to tighten, causing excruciating pain.
"I think not," the Phantom said gently.
There was a laugh edged in frost, from above him, and he knew that tonight he had approached the wrong man. He was going to die. But to the drunk's surprise and Erik's regret, he reluctantly removed the lasso from the man's neck. Disgusted with himself for his change of heart, he nevertheless decided to let the derelict go. "You, my friend have an angel by the name of Christine to thank for your miserable life. Have a care for who or what you approach from now on. Next time you may not be as lucky."
He left the man curled in a fetal position from the searing pain inflicted by the tight ligature, and returned quickly to his home disgusted by the encounter.
He remembered very well, another time years before, when he hid himself in an abandoned storefront, cold and hungry. New to the Paris slums, he wasn't fully cognizant of the evils present in the dirty alleys and rundown deserted buildings, or what could happen to a skinny, twelve year old boy all alone. The glittering and gay nightlife of Paris could have been on the dark side of the moon for all it meant to Erik, crouching on a cold, bare floor wondering what he could find to ease the gnawing hunger in his belly.
Shivering from the dismal weather of late February and the dampness of an icy rain, he pulled the tattered blanket closer around his thin shoulders, never realizing the man was there until it was too late. The predator left him badly bruised and bleeding, but alive. He'd made a vow to himself, that he would kill the next guttersnipe who approached him with that in mind.
And for a brief moment, that was his intent. But Christine, damn her, kept appearing before him as he contemplated the drunken vagrant and his swift demise. He found it next to impossible to kill the man with her face in front of his eyes, and her voice whispering in his ear that he was wicked to even think of killing him.
He hadn't ventured out after that, instead having his solicitor Bernard Prideux take care of business matters and anything else he required, which wasn't all that much. Bernard had been his lawyer and man of business for thirteen years, nearly from the moment he graduated from law school. Erik wanted someone intelligent and ambitious. Who didn't ask questions.
Someone from whom he could buy loyalty.
Prideux had a large and hopeful family. Money was always in short supply, so being on retainer for a generous client such as Erik, became very satisfactory for them both. When Bernard's third child had required surgery, Erik took care of all of the costs, insuring his loyalty even more. Bernard would never have considered Erik a friend. How can one like a man when he fears him? But he did respect Reauchard even if his wife Celine did not.
She could not abide her husband's ghoulish client anywhere near her five children or her home, even though it was Erik's money that kept her brood of children safe and warm. And so Erik went to ground and in effect, gave up on the one event that had given him some light and the fleeting hope of love.
He left his violin with Christine, wanting her to have something to remember him by- something beautiful. He told her to forget him, but perversely he prayed she did not.
She was far away, but never far from his thoughts. He took every memory of their days together and replayed them in his tired mind, hoping to get his feelings for her down on the composition paper that he feverishly worked on for hours, and then just as suddenly stopped for days at a time.
He would torture himself remembering kisses that meant everything to him. Kisses stolen by a gargoyle, taken from an angel- someone pure and clean. She smelled wonderful. He chuckled without humor. Dazzling. She smelled Dazzling. He bought her a large bottle of it, intending to give it to her the next time they met. But that hadn't happened at all, had it? Maybe she's wearing it for someone else right at this very moment. De Chagny? Perhaps he's holding her close and pressing his lips to her neck just as I did. The glass of scotch exploded in his tight fist, tiny slivers of glass embedding in the meatier part of his hand. He pulled the bloody shards out of his skin and rinsed the blood away, wrapping his hand in a kitchen towel. He got himself some more whisky, and it was business as usual.
He would often lick his lips, trying to resummon the exquisite taste of her on his thin mouth. He recalled the way her arms clasped him around the neck, and their bodies pressed tightly together, his twisted lips seeking the warmth that only hers could give him.
And she wanted to be with Erik. She told him so.
He shivered sometimes from the memory of her softness pushed up against his spindly length, helpless from the raw emotion of those feelings, and nearly hating her for it. A month after his arrival back in Paris, he snapped and started throwing clothes in a suitcase, his one intent to go back to Gettysburg and claim his prize- whether he deserved her or not. He called Bernard and required his presence below the opera. Prideux had shown up and Erik met him at the door, giving him instructions to carry out in his absence. He moved from room to room in a disjointed manner gathering what he needed for his trip, all the while muttering unintelligibly.
Bernard watched Erik uneasily, seeing a man nearly out of control- a state he never observed with Reauchard before. Finally, his wild excitement at the prospect of seeing her again ran out, and a harsher reality took its place. On leaden feet, he walked slowly back into the living room, and dropped boneless into a chair, staring at his hands.
"I am merely fooling myself, Bernard. She will have no wish to see me again," he whispered, flexing his fingers and watching the play of tendons and bones, with very little meat covering them. Skeletal- just like the rest of him.
"I won't be needing you after all. Show yourself out." Erik never looked up from the close study of his hands.
He felt pity for this man who lived in the bowels of the earth alone. "Erik, maybe you..." he started to say, but halted when Erik raised his head and stared at him, those yellow eyes of his flat and mean.
"Get out." The words were spoken very softly, but the threat was there.
Prideux did not have to be told twice, and the pity he at first felt for his client, vanished just as quickly as it came. Reauchard silently stood and walked from the room. He noticed a hesitation in the man's gait; it was not Erik's usual gliding walk, graceful and confident. It was that of a man old and beaten. Bernard heard a door snicking closed in another part of the house, and shaking his head, he left, wondering who she was and if the lady felt anything near what Erik felt for her. He doubted it very much.
Three months after he left Gettysburg, Erik knew he was sick. He was finally becoming the very thing he was labeled all those years ago. Day by day he was less substantial. Sickness from a broken heart and mind were just as lethal as any disease. He was living proof of that.
He was turning into a ghost.
At the moment, his stomach clenched painfully; limping into the kitchen he opened a can of soup, dumping it into a pan. Eating had never been a priority of his. Food didn't hold nearly the allure with him as it did for others. It was merely the fuel which drove the engine of his physical self, feeding nutrients to body and brain to force his arms and legs into motion and his mind to deliberate. Hunger forced him to eat until his belly no longer required sustenance, which thankfully never seemed to take very long. After a few mouthfuls, he felt the demands had been met, and he could go on to something more lucrative. The awful minutiae of one single day sometimes exasperated him. So much time lost in the care and feeding of the human animal. It was ridiculous really.
He did eat after his return to Paris, but not nearly the amount of food he should have been consuming. What he managed to get down was more from force of habit than anything else.
He stood there now, waiting for the soup to get hot and struggling to think of something...anything, to stop his slide down the slippery slope into madness. He realized his tenuous hold on sanity had finally snapped, for he kept hearing his angel's voice singing in his head. Frightened, he tried to reason with himself. Yes, I think I'll clean myself up then call Bonnet...get him over here to look at this leg. And it's time I stopped being so pathetic and self-pitying. I can do exactly what I did before meeting Christine. I haven't ever needed anyone before. Why start now? Yes, that's what I'll do. But I still hear her voice...
A bizarre, shaky laugh forced its way out of his mouth, and at the strangeness of it, he shoved the back of his hand hard against his lips. "That didn't sound very sane, old man. You need something, and it's not just a shower. You need a rubber room and a strait jacket, I think." He slipped easily into talking aloud to himself, the quiet and the loneliness of the underground unhinging him a little more. Just as it had been doing for the last three months.
He finally let out a harsh sigh and turned the burner off. He rummaged through the pile of dirty dishes in the sink, and grabbed a fairly clean bowl, dumping the soup into it. "Merde! Soup again. What's this- the fourth day in a row for it? No wonder you never have much appetite...your choices are so damned boring. And yes, you still hear her magnificent voice, don't you? Pretend harder then."
He cocked his head as her voice soared, and his eyes filled with tears. "Faust. My darling is singing Faust. And beautifully! There's really no hope for you now. You got along fine without her all of your wretched life. Why can't you again?" he muttered peevishly.
He kept hearing her voice all around him, lovely and maddeningly real. He let out a rusty bark of laughter and doubled over laughing harder, until the mad sound of it frightened him. "Maybe this will work out fine for you. Next, you can conjure her body into your arms, then it will be Heaven. Yes, it will be Dazzling." He chuckled, and wondered why he heard no orchestra, just her clear liquid tones. Beautiful. So beautiful... He imagined her voice. Why not the rest?
He stumbled to a chair and sat heavily down, wrapping his fingers around his head and squeezing as if to squash the sounds into nothingness. He moaned and rocked back and forth as the singing continued on. "Damn you! God damn you! Leave me alone...leave me alone...leave me alone...
"Christine," he whispered raggedly.
He stood up abruptly and decided he'd had more than enough. He would march right up there and tell her to go away- he couldn't take this sublime torture anymore. After all, he was the only phantom around here, by God. He started toward the door, and then out of a lifetime of habit, his hand went to his face, and encountered the exposed nasal cavities. He turned in a tight circle looking for his mask, and not seeing it, he started a frantic search, finally finding it sitting on the piano in his music room. It stared at him from its hollow, empty eyes. "Hiding from me, were you?" he grunted. Securing it over his face with shaking hands, he left his home to seek the angelic voice, convinced he had finally lost his mind completely. But the need to follow the golden sound, and continue this lovely game his mind started, gave him the impetus he needed to climb the distance to the stage.
"Don't stop, darling," and he hurried forward as fast as his leg would allow him, worried that indeed, she would do just that.