A/N: This chapter deserves the M rating.

Chapter XXXIII

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Music streamed into her mind, the chords unraveling there, ribbons of white light shrouded by fringes of translucent darkness … not unlike a wispy veil of mystique that obscured all clarity, draped over a crystal dome that shielded a brilliant flame.

Without warning, the heavy door swung inward. A cloaked figure entered her dimly lit chamber and strode toward her with single-minded purpose.

She turned her head on the pillow with a shock as his shadow fell over her, barely given enough time to gasp out a confused question with regard to his sudden presence in her bedchamber. He pressed his lips to hers, stealing all breath, his leather-encased hands grabbing her wrists. When she did not struggle to free herself, he ran his smooth, cold gloves down her arms and sides, scattering tingles in their wake.

Erik! her heart cried in conviction even as her mind refuted the possibility.

His searching kiss drugged her senses while his evocative, dark music possessed her soul. She felt as if she were suspended, time itself holding its scandalized breath to watch. Powerless to thwart his intimate advances, she had no wish to try. His touch aroused her body, his fingers kneading sensitive breasts and brushing soft nipples to taut awareness…

She groaned for more.

Their kisses grew needy, urgent, tongue swirling with tongue, heated breath warming frozen lips. He pressed close, fitting his hard, slim length to her soft, yielding one…

In an instant she lay without her shift, naked beneath him. The flesh of his hands was warm, his gloves now absent, as traces of flame from the heat of his body joined with the tingles of sensation along her chilled skin.

She felt no shame to be unclothed, only a hollow ache for him to fill her. His hand brushed between her thighs, stroking damp warmth and she arced toward him, begging him without words to make her his. Clawing at his shirt in an attempt to bare his own body, she was relentless in her aim as her fingers brushed smooth skin and muscle and the soft, sparse hair that grew on his chest. He began to pull away. She clung to his shoulders, for the first time looking into his face - to see not Erik, her eternal love, staring down at her through the black mask…

But the Phantom of the Opera - with eyes of gold burning fire and branding her as his own.

At the revelation of her nocturnal visitor, her hold did not lessen, her need only spiking, unquenched. Once more she brought his head down to hers. His lips traced wet heat from the slope of her neck to the swell of her breasts. Lost in the ache he wrought and the pleasure he perfected she turned her head on the pillow, her lashes sweeping downward, falling halfway closed in desire…

Mozart's unblinking amber eyes watched from where he sat on the mattress directly beside her and he shook his silky black feline head.

"Do not be fooled by a name," he purred. "Names are of no significance here - Open your eyes…"

Christine gasped in shock, her eyes flying wide open as she bolted upright to a sitting position in bed and clutched the tangled covers on either side of her. Still panting, her shift intact and clinging to her damp, aroused body, she shook her head in an attempt to regain her wits.

A dream…

It had only been a dream.

Still dazed, her face going hot at the memory of all that dream entailed, she looked around her chamber and noticed she was alone. Yet the music from her erotic slumber carried on, seeping through the rocks…

He played music from his opera and what she had sung in their practice, music that had not affected her in such a shameless manner on those occasions, not like that first day in his twisting tunnels, when his dark, evocative chords and velvet lure of a voice had literally seduced her where she stood. This music would not have led to such a shocking dream. As she listened, she heard him play a stanza over, and realized he was working to perfect his composition.

Beautiful as always, but it did not elevate her breaths or cause her to feel things she shouldn't for a man who was more of a mystery to her with each passing day. Three of them had come and gone since their last awkward lesson, when Christine had witnessed the truth of Jolene's feelings for the Phantom. And each had proved more difficult for that reason and much more.

The blame for this dream could not be placed with the composer, as much as she would wish to pin all of it on him and be absolved of any part of its emergence. He had filled her bizarre slumber that held no limitations on decency, but the trappings of her own confused mind were clearly her tormentors this time. Why she should dream such things about a man she scarcely even liked she did not care to question. No doubt, it had to do with her frequent and involuntary comparison of the Phantom to Erik. And the cat's strange advice - (that a cat could even talk to give it!) - likely had to do with her pet's dual names, both herself and the Phantom insisting on the moniker each had given. Christine would not back down, neither had the Phantom, and the poor cat bore the uncanny title, "Faust Mozart", since usually her correction came after a comment the Phantom made about the black feline.

Taking in a slow breath, she struggled to regain her wits. The music stopped but sleep proved as elusive as the exit to his underground maze. Recalling that Jolene once told her the bathtub in this chamber was similarly outfitted to his and would allow her to draw water without assistance, Christine decided a soak in heated waters was exactly what she needed to relax.

In the bath chamber, she plugged the hole with the stopper, pushing down the lever above. A gush of steaming water poured from the faucet and she marveled at such an invention, to have heated water always at hand. Slipping out of her sticky chemise, she piled up her hair with pins then pushed the lever up to stop the flow and stepped into the silky warm water. A trifle on the hot side but tolerable. She almost fell when the music resumed, louder than before, and slapped her hand to the rock, looking up with surprise toward the hole in the wall.

So that was how the music filtered into her chamber!

She hesitated, then stepped back out and padded toward the opening. Pushing the table back to the place she'd had it, she stepped up and grabbed the ledge, standing on tiptoe and peeking through the gap.

Soft candlelight filled one edge of the lake on the right hand side, streaming from somewhere out of her range of vision, the music even stronger than before, and she realized that the light must be coming from his bedchamber. She hadn't realized their rooms were side by side, the twisting corridor that led to his rooms a longer trek than what this opening now showed her.

He was right next door. In distance, if the wall weren't there, almost as close as the walk to her bed!

Stunned, Christine blinked, shivering in the chill air, her skin prickling with gooseflesh. Rubbing her arms, she hurried back to the tub and immersed herself in the water up to her neck, the strangest sense of expectation laced with dread filling her thoughts at the discovery. The dream was addling her mind, and frustrated with the journey it took her on, she focused on the vials in a nearby basket, choosing an oil that smelled of roses to slather over her body and into her hair.

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xXx

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Arabella left her bedchamber and caught Raoul just as he was about to slip into the hotel corridor.

"And where do you think you're off to, cousin?" she demanded, crossing her arms below her breasts.

Under his breath he cursed his stroke of bad luck and turned to her with an easy smile. Her face above her dark wrapper was drawn, a shade on the pale side, the skin beneath her eyes puffy with her recent ailment.

"I only wish for some fresh air, perhaps a turn around the block. I'll be back shortly. You should rest."

"You're going for a stroll?" she said in disbelief. "At this hour?"

"This is Paris. The city abounds with life at all hours of the night. We're not in the English countryside any longer, Arabella."

He felt no guilt for his mild deception. His reasons were honorable, his wish only to safeguard his headstrong cousin, who doubtless would walk into a dragon's lair in an attempt to save those she loved. With talk of phantoms and madmen and abductions, he didn't know what he would find at the theatre and did not need to be concerned for her welfare as well.

"And you expect me to believe that you suddenly have this desire for a stroll in the cool night air, when only hours ago on the drive here you were again bemoaning your part in sending Christine to the opera house?" She sneezed then sniffed with derision at his explanation and delicately wiped her red nose with a lace handkerchief. "You're not going there without me. It will take me only minutes to change."

"You don't sound well."

"I'm fine. It's only a pesky reaction to the pillow. I can tolerate goose down but not chicken feathers, and trust me, despite their claims to the contrary that's what those pillows are stuffed with."

"I will see about getting you a replacement." His hand again went to the latch.

"It can wait a few minutes longer. I'll join you shortly. Wait for me."

Before he could refuse, she slipped back into her room and closed the door.

"Sorry, cousin," he said beneath his breath as he left their suite of rooms, "but you're not winning this round."

He was barely to the end of the corridor and down the red carpeted stairs when a uniformed worker approached. "Vicomte de Chagny, I trust everything is to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, yes, everything is splendid." Raoul frowned, sending a glance to the top of the staircase, half expecting Arabella to appear at any instant, though he had just left her room and knew it would take her at least a quarter hour to don all the layers of material women wore.

He moved across the wide expanse of carpet, the man following at his elbow. Raoul politely smiled and nodded to two young women, tipping his hat as they strolled by.

"And your wife, I trust she is happy with the accommodations?" the man persisted.

"My wife?" Momentarily Raoul faltered then shook his head. "I have no wife. However, my cousin is most displeased and wishes for an exchange of pillows, ones of better quality." At the thought of Arabella suddenly appearing, he spoke, "As for myself, I am in need of assistance…"

"Then you are the one I was told to expect?" the man asked in surprise. "But of course." He gave Raoul an oily smile and brusquely motioned to a maid with a cloud of fair hair. She hurried forward and curtsied to Raoul. The girl looked barely fourteen in countenance, though in the black and white uniform her figure was as well rounded as a woman in her twenties. Her unsmiling lips were full and heavily rouged, her eyes downcast. Raoul sensed she wished to be anywhere else but there.

"Giselle is one of my best. Well worth the fifty francs. For one hundred, you may have her for the entire night."

"I think you are mistaken, sir," Raoul said stiffly. "I have no interest in this girl." He felt disgusted to be solicited as if he were a customer in a brothel, and in such a fine establishment. Did the hotel owner know what his workers did on the sly?

"If you prefer them younger, I do have another girl…"

"Younger?" He glared at the man. "This girl is little more than a child! And your desire to peddle her off to whatever gentlemen will line your pockets makes you a corrupt creature of the lowest sort."

Giselle's light blue eyes flickered upward, her shock noted, her relief evident. A grateful smile flickered at the corners of her lips.

The man looked toward the receiving desk in alarm. "Please, monsieur, I beg of you, lower your voice. I think there has been a misunderstanding. I offer my apology. However, you will find that in Paris this sort of thing is common." He grabbed Giselle's arm, preparing to walk away.

"More's the pity." Raoul glared at the man, his countenance softening as he glanced one last time at the unfortunate girl. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll hail my own cab."

Quickly he left the hotel and summoned the driver of a horse-drawn cab sitting nearby. Time was of the essence. He didn't wish to try to locate his own driver, who doubtless had found a seat at the nearest tavern. Raoul's choice to visit the opera house had come after he dismissed his driver for the evening.

His father had been absent for most of Raoul's life but had left him with a few pearls of wisdom, one of which he relied on now. The Comte told him if he wanted all the pomp and circumstance of being treated as a noble, then he should send a notice of his arrival and visit during daylight hours. But if he wanted to see those incidents swept under the carpet and hidden from view in preparation for such an event, it would benefit his cause to arrive when least expected and in a manner no one would perceive.

He directed the driver to drop him off at the back door of the building where deliveries were made. Once there, he paid the man then tested the door, grateful to find it unlocked with no one in the immediate vicinity. Pulling the collar of his coat around his neck, the brim of his hat shielding his face, he made his way through the throngs of performers, some busy at practice, others relaxing and indulging in an evening's entertainment.

A group of men playing cards glanced at him as he walked by but paid him little interest. He continued to the area where the dressing rooms were located.

Before he could approach, the painted rose doors of the diva's dressing room burst wide open, the singer he remembered as La Carlotta sweeping out, a servant on either side of her. Her face was mottled red where patches of white face powder didn't show, her eyes blazing in fury. Not wishing to be spotted and recognized, Raoul stepped closer to the wall behind a scaffold to watch, his mouth dropping partway open at the sight of her. Her brassy red curls were covered in the same white powder that also dusted her pink dressing gown.

"I demand zat ze managers find me another room in which to make my costume changes!" she decried like a queen to her subjects. "I will not stay in zat room another moment!"

"But signora, there is nowhere else to go," the aid on her left said nervously, pushing the round spectacles up his long nose.

"Zey must find a place for me. Thees room is haunted. Zat little snit of a maid vanished from behind those locked doors, where she should not have been - and just look at me!" she whined, sweeping her heavily ringed hand from her face to her gown. "Candles blow out and a wind comes from nowhere and does zis to me? Thees things have happened far too long! The wretched Opera Ghost," she snidely growled, "he is to blame. And I'll not stand for his tricks no more!"

"Perhaps it would be wise to just do as he says and go," a meek mouse of a woman said to her right. "He did demand that another singer take your place."

"Never!" La Carlotta swung to the side as if she would slap the girl, who cowered a step back. The diva remained motionless, gritting her teeth. "Come." She whirled around in high dudgeon. "Bring my doggie. I will have another room!"

Raoul watched as the queen diva and her entourage moved away, a third man holding a black poodle with a pink bow bringing up the rear.

Raoul shook his head in disbelief, grimacing at his new role of patron of this madhouse to which his father assigned him. He hurried inside, closing both painted doors behind him, and began his search. If Christine had literally disappeared from within this room with the doors locked, there had to be a logical explanation. A hidden door somewhere, leading to a passage behind the rose patterned walls, perhaps…

He pulled a tapestry away from one wall, looking for indentations that would mark a door. Finding none, he moved nearby to the full-length mirror, heavily scrolled and ornate, and searched the gilt frame, running his fingers along the inside edge.

"What do you think you are doing in this room? Leave at once!"

The curt words startled him, and he turned to see the stern ballet mistress, dressed in black as she'd been on the day he met her. Her daughter, again dressed in a white ballet costume, trailed behind, seeming hesitant.

"Vicomte," the older woman gasped in surprise. "I did not realize it was you!"

"Madame Giry. Mademoiselle Giry." He somberly greeted the pair.

The woman, who at first looked ready to tear his head off and serve it on a platter when she was unaware of his identity, now seemed apprehensive to recognize him. Her gaze cut to the mirror and back again.

"May I ask, monsieur, what brings you to the theatre at this time of evening?"

"I came to investigate the disappearance of Christine Daaé."

The ballet girl gasped, her fingers pressed to her lips. Her mother stood taller, her blue eyes now a blank mask. "I'm sorry, monsieur, I cannot help you. I know nothing."

"Perhaps you can tell me the last time you saw her?"

"I am very busy with my duties each day. Miss Daaé worked as a maid under the authority of another. Since she was not under my tutelage, I did not keep track of her whereabouts."

"But you don't deny that after her failed audition you secured her that job when a hidden creature known as the Phantom dropped a note telling you to hire her?"

The younger Giry's eyes went wider as she looked quickly at her mother, who would have passed for mimicking a statue made of stone.

"I assure you, monsieur, the Phantom is only alive in the active imaginations of a theatre troupe which desires continual excitement. He does not exist. It was a prank, nothing more."

"Her disappearance was no prank!"

"You seem to have a vested interest in the young Miss Daaé," Madame pointed out, ignoring his heated words. "But you have been sadly misinformed. Miss Daaé left of her own accord."

"Miss Daaé is a close friend of mine. I highly doubt, with no more than the clothes on her back, that she would leave her cloak behind, if she left this theatre of her own accord."

The ballet mistress's chin sailed another notch into the air. "Believe what you will, monsieur. I cannot tell you what I do not know. I must go now. I have duties to which I must attend."

"Of course." He gave a curt nod of his head in dismissal.

"Come, Meg," she said moving away from the door.

"I will speak with your daughter, alone."

"She knows nothing," Madame argued.

"I will be the judge of that."

The woman in black hesitated, first looking at Meg, whose eyes seemed to plead for her mother's help, then back to Raoul.

"Please," he said with a gallant incline of his head, "do not let me keep you from your duties, Madame Giry."

A message seemed to pass between the two women before Madame curtly nodded and left the room. The little ballet dancer stood frozen, staring at him with huge eyes.

Raoul motioned to the divan. "Do sit down, Miss Giry. We have a great deal to discuss."

"Yes, we certainly do."

Raoul swiftly glanced toward the doorway in disbelief, his heart plummeting.

His cousin moved into the room, her smile brittle.

"Arabella! How did you get here?"

"Cousin." She gave him a terse nod. By her narrow-eyed look he had no doubt he would hear the sharp edge of her tongue later. "In the same manner you did, of course. And how thoughtful of you to leave the carriage behind for my disposal."

He stifled a groan and managed a tepid smile in return. She turned a benign look toward the young Miss Giry and introduced herself.

"Now," she said gently, as if they were bosom friends and she was inviting a confidence, "please, if you would be so kind, tell us all you know of Christine."

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xXx

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Nothing was going as planned. Almost a week had passed and they were nowhere near where they should be.

Three days earlier, Christine had complained of a headache midway through the lesson, trying to avoid the Phantom's gaze from the moment she entered his chamber. She had seemed nervous, tense, jumping at the least ruffle of a page turned. When she lamented that she could not continue, he grudgingly ended the lesson and ordered her to return to her room, suggesting she partake of a heated bath to help her sleep, adding his wish for pleasant dreams. She had stared at him, frozen, eyes wide with appalled shock as if he'd told her to drop her gown where she stood and bathe in the lake while he watched. When he curtly asked if there was a problem, she only shook her head and left with such haste she practically fled from his lair.

The day after that, when he inquired about her health, she admitted the pain had gone but due to her momentary incapacitation, she didn't know all the lines, "unable to commit them to memory with her head pounding like a huge bass drum". His temper already on a short wick to detonation, they argued more than they practiced and lost valuable hours. A foolish endeavor if they were to keep to the timeline of the opera and he was to present her as his star.

This morning he had struggled to exercise patience, even after hearing her apologetic and stilted admission, with no excuses this time, that she had not yet committed the final act to memory. Somehow, he managed to get across the vital need for her cooperation, without flying into a rage, though his directives had come through clenched teeth. Her face had been pale, her eyes lackluster and ringed with dark circles as if she had obtained little sleep, and he did not persist with his scolding. The day's lesson had gone if not smoothly and free from tension - at least in the correct timing and order, her entrance somewhat improved and befitting Aminta, and he had released her earlier than usual, to return to her chamber and memorize her lines.

Disgusted with their sluggish pace, the Phantom stormed about the lair with no real purpose or direction, at last finding his way to the organ bench, his hands lifting without clear thought to take their place at the keys, his feet going to the pedals. The music came frenzied and furious as he poured his bottled emotions into his composition. The anger drained from him, finding an outlet through the notes until he, too, felt drained. Still he played on, the music winding down to a more soothing note as he allowed its therapeutic voice to calm his senses. Though the hour was late, he thought about switching to his violin, to carry on with this present mood of melancholia - when the atmosphere changed and a prickling at the back of his neck warned him he was no longer alone.

Once before he had felt this sensation. Now as then, he turned swiftly to look - barely catching Christine's wrist before she could grab his mask. Forcefully he pushed her hand away - empty this time of a dagger but no less determined - and rose from the bench.

Not releasing his hold, he moved toward her pushing her a step back. Trapping her hand suspended above them, her fingers spread wide and claw-like - he stared at her in incredulous shock that she would dare attempt such a feat.

Her eyes, no longer lackluster and weary, now blazed with determination and fire, her curls in wild disarray around her satin bed wrapper. And he realized with another jolt of surprise that she had marched into his lair to confront him in her bedclothes, her appearance like that of an avenging angel on a mission.

Golden eyes clashed with brown ones.

"Miss Daaé, what in blazes do you think you're doing?" he growled once he rediscovered his voice.

"Getting at the truth," she furiously spat.

"The truth?" he growled just as angry. "What truth?"

She slammed the papers from the Don Juan on top of the organ. "How the Phantom of the Opera, who vows he's never been to England, can pen the exact lines of a song written by an unknown English composer for his unreleased production!"

He hissed in a swift breath. The little minx must have found and read his original lyrics in the box he'd kept hidden in the stables.

"I have no idea what you're going on about," he hedged, his jaw set like flint, his eyes giving nothing away.

She tried to snatch her wrist from his relentless hold. He tightened his grip further, anxious that she would again try to unmask him.

"Prove it," she demanded.

His eyes narrowed. "And how do you suggest I do that?"

"Take off the mask."

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xXx

A/N: Uh- oh. Wonder how the Phantom is going to get out of this one … or not. ;-)

Thanks for the reviews! You guys are great! Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! :D