Author's Note: Couple things before we get into it. Due to a change of jobs, my writing schedule has been non-existent and it will be closer to Oct before I can be in a consistent Schedule. You won't have to wait until then for an update here (I hope). As such, this is the last of my 'backup' of Chapters for Ghost. Chapter 13 will take time as the apparent teases of what's to come and the Characters that will be involved takes some work on my end to 'tap into.'

I know the direction of the story, but ultimately, the Characters tells me how everything unfolds. Erik and Charles are easy - been writing them for Years, privately. The rest of the stable of characters takes more brooding. A.k.a, me staring blankly at the screen until a character gets chatty. At the time of this posting, I will be Brooding on Chapter(s) 13/14 for the rest of the day and tomorrow. Wish me Luck.


Police Judiciaire


"I dislike him being out there," Robert Destler growled to the other two men as they sat in the parlor of Julien Claudin's home. "Especially if that man is as capable as I think he is, it would only be a matter of time."

"He might lack your conventions and prowess, but he no less capable of handling himself," Herbert Petrie responded as he sipped at his brandy. "He's been at this job longer than you."

"And trained by me," Julien reminded them. "Just as you all were." At sixty-four summers, he was the oldest among them. While well into the age of retirement he could neither quit the job or have the job leave him. Without a marriage or family to tend, investigating curious crime and murders where what made him the most content. Sitting by with idle hands suited none of their investigative collaborations. "Michael might seem the mellow one among us, but I can assure you he is not. He can hold his own when and if necessary."

Robert grumbled something under his breath.

Julien rose to his feet and stepped over to the map of Paris and the surrounding countryside, eyeing the pins marking Chelle, Vaujours forest, morgue, and where the body of the Comtesse was discovered. "You said you found this man on here?" he asked, pointing towards a side route between Vaujours and Paris."

"Yes. Returning. Michael noted the horses' shoes were new, and their hair matches what we found. His timeline also is suggestive."

"But could be coincidental, never the less."

"I find that unlikely, you didn't see him."

"I'm wondering if I have before," Julien muttered.

"Come again?"

Herbert sat us in his chair a bit, brow raised but continued his silence.

"Why would the Comtesse wind up in Vaujours, if that is where she truly died? Why not head to Paris?"

"A meandering route? Random direction? An escape for sake of escaping? It could be any number of reasons," Robert stated.

"Yes…" Julien murmured. "Herbert, how much digging have you done with the de Chagny."

"Apart from possibly the boy, every de Chagny has wound up dead or missing. Including the Comte's sisters."

Julien turned to him; brows raised. "You're joking."

"Unfortunately, not," Herbert rose from his chair and pulled out some folders he brought with him. "We knew about Phillippe, beneath the opera. Bash to the head and drowned in ninety-six, blamed on the Ghost."

"What Ghost?" asked Robert as he stepped closer to look.

Herbert raised a hand to pause the youngest man. "Eveline du Bouvier died in her sleep– heart gave out after her husband and family died in a carriage accident, and Roseline de Faure been missing for a long time now. The list extends to aunts and uncles. Now with Raoul and his wife…"

"What about this Ghost with Phillippe?" Robert pressed.

"The Opera Ghost," Julien smiled. "You were but, eighteen then?"

"Watching skirts, no doubt," teased Herbert.

Robert glared between them.

"Comtesse Christine de Chagny was once Christine Daaé, a soprano at the Palais Garnier," Julien began. "The Opera Ghost is said to be a deranged man who lived beneath the opera house, blackmailing management, harassing divas, and fell madly in love with Mlle. Daaé. The Comte himself told me the Opera Ghost was little more than a deformed man, who wore a mask."

Robert inhaled sharply and went over to the decanter and filled a glass with bourbon, down it, and poured a second glass.

"There is much more to the story, but you have a tendency to want the side notes," Julien went on.

"You think the masked man we found," Robert downed a quarter of the second glass, "Is the Opera Ghost?"

"Hard to say without evidence. Many will wear a mask for medical reasons, veterans, and such. There were many after the last war and the commune."

"Why didn't you find and arrest him then?"

"He was a Ghost. Hard to put such phantoms into cuffs you know. Regardless, the Comtesse proclaimed this Opera Ghost innocent of killing Phillippe."

"Why is that?"

"She was under the notion that Phillippe's death… was not of the Ghost's method. Which I am inclined to agree from what I know of him," Julien explained. "Every other death in around the opera house were largely asphyxiation via ligature or drowning. Even those were rare. We cannot be certain if he killed anyone. All we have is rumor and the Comtesse's word."

"This Ghost is this LeRoi who is the man we encountered on the road. He is a killer, I would bet my salary on it, and he likely killed those seven men with ease," Robert growled.

"We work off facts, not inclinations!" Julien snapped. "I am not saying you are wrong, you do have a reliable sense of this things, but we need more than just hunches. You know this. Even if the Ghost, LeRoi, and the masked man are the same person, he is not the one who killed the Chagnys."

Herbert's eyes darted between the two. "You did say those tracks from the men were traced back to Chateau," he noted. "Following Christine."

"Yes, but Michael and I had someone else follow the whole trail while we covered a rough third. It was winding, not direct meaning she either did not know where she was headed or was being evasive."

"Or both," Herbert pondered aloud. "Would she have gone to the Ghost if she knew where he was?"

Julien spread his hands at a loss. "She always acted…odd. Whenever I brought up who or what he was. Chagny too, within two months of the investigation in to Phillippe he went about as mum as she did. There was little to work with, Phillippe case went cold and the Chagny family seemed to content with the idea that he slipped and hit his head."

"Content," muttered Robert. "There is no way other than happenstance that she meant to find him where we believe they met up. His trail came from a village, hers from Chelle. Where he went from there is unknown."

Herbert pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes. "Who was that friend of the Comtesse? The dancer?"

"You worked it too?" Robert asked turning to him.

"Along with Michael, but he was still just a patrolman and I just starting on with Julien. I questioned a few persons. Not much else."

Julian's brow furrowed a moment before he went over to a chest of drawers and began filing through files and pulled out a thick one and dropped it on the top, flipping through pages. "Madame and Meg Giry, friends of Christine. The Madame always got notes from the supposed Ghost… Then there as that strange fellow," Julien flipped a page. "Khan, the former police chief from Persia…"

"They knew more than most anyone else there, if I recall," said Herbert.

"Yes… Perhaps they will be chattier after a few years and the death of the Chagnys," nodded Julien. "Herbert, you find and talk with the Girys. I'm sure the girl would be married by now. Robert, you and I will talk to Khan."

"And Michael?" Robert asked.

"Can take of himself, dammit."


~x ~x ~X~ x~ x~


It was dark when Michael started to make a perimeter around the solitary residence which inhabited the singular clearing of the forest it occupied. There were few ways to get close to the stone house without betraying himself quickly with the present snowfall. The front of the residence was unmarred by anything beyond wildlife wandering through. No human, no horses, only cloven hooves of deer or the padded toes of rabbits and foxes, to name a few.

Making his way to the back took time, but there the snow was vastly more trampled thus his presence would be harder to detect if he got close. Hours trickled away and the only other activity he witnessed was the masked man emerging to tend the horses and coax the white one into the stable for the night. The black pair were given feed in their stalls, but not barred from returning to the field.

Whenever the man in question had a moment of pause, he was keeping an eye on the tree line. Whether this was habit or a raised guard, Michael was uncertain. Even with fingers and toes numb in the cold, he was not about to break for camp yet or move to get closer to the house although dim lights had vanished from the windows. The moon was breaking from cloud cover, making the snow glow, and he would be but easily seen.

What would occur if he tried to merely knock come morning? Would he even answer the door?

It no longer mattered when his skin began to crawl in warning, and he pricked his ears to hear a quiet crunch on the snow behind him. Michael spun on his heel with a hand moving hip while the figure shrouded in darkness sprang forward.

Michael's hand never made it to his revolver as a thin cord slipped over his head and tightened around his neck, with a gloved hand bracing the back of his neck. By instinct of former military training, Michael did what no ordinary citizen would do, and threw himself forward against the binding of his neck.

What he did not expect was the other to continue to hang on and take a tumble with him. While the hand vanished from the back of his neck and the tension slackened, it was not enough to free him completely. They both were grounded in the snow, his attacker partially on his back as they both struggled to gain some semblance of control. Michael rolled from his front to side, swinging his elbow around toward the other in a sharp jab.

The attacker grunted and fell to the other side as the bony joint found its mark.

Michael then rolled fully to his back, blindly reaching for the length of cord that was still bound around his throat. There. Upon its discovery, he quickly wrung his arm around the length twice before it tightened. This time, when the cord tightened against him, it was his arm more than is throat. By the feeling of cold bits pressing against his skin in critical areas about his neck, this was a blessing.

But the other, the masked man – Michael assumed, was not finished with the assault yet. The retaliation to the failed throttling resulted in the arm that he wrapped in the cord into being in a skeletal vise grip that wrenched him back over to his front before Michael's unbound right hand could find the holstered pistol on his hip. But now that hand was pinned between his chest and the frozen ground beneath him.

A knee pressed against his spine momentarily as the pistol was removed from his hip. Then, as it was flung away out of easily obtainable reach, the masked man sat astride Michael's lower back. Bony knees were locked on either side of him, and his left arm bound in the cord between his throat and the man. His right arm of course now pinned by both his torso and the others knee. While not completely out of options, Michael was at the other's mercy.

"I had hoped," that sinister silken voice began as he leaned forward and fingers coiled around the cord between Michael's arm and throat, "that you were that other one."

"I'm not… here to hurt you or the boy."

"I care not for your intentions Monsieur, though I must compliment you before you die. Most do not think to throw themselves against what was strangles them. You managed to extend your life if only by minutes."

Michael grunted, thinking quickly as the cord tightened but lacked the initial strength, or rather, the leverage of before. "Wait…" he tried, "I don't think you killed them…"

The cord stopped its growing tension.

"I have no doubt of your capacity to kill me, Monsieur. If you dislike what I have to say, then by all means end me, but I think we can help each other."

"I am hardly one for needing assistance in anything."

"Fine, then help me uncover who killed the de Chagnys." On hunch, he pressed further, "Help me find who killed her."

A long silence hung between them before the cord around his throat lessened.


Author's Note: MarilynKC, You called it, lol.

DarlingPhantom: Hope it went well, and we will get more glimpses into Erik's past soon.