Page 1 of Angel's Kiss
1. Seen
For the third timein as many days, Christine Daaé found herself following a ghost through the underground reaches of the Paris Opera. And for the hundredth time, she pondered how her unremarkable life had come to be filled with ghosts and fallen angels. The Phantom who held her hand looked exactly as the legends described him: tall, clad in black, his sweeping cape engulfing him in shadow. The only thing to distinguish him from the dark itself was the meager light of his lantern and the answering glow of his white mask. Christine was afraid, of course. Anyone who knew the stories of the Opera Ghost would be. But she felt many other things alongside her fear: Curiosity. Pity. Wonder. And, most strangely, familiarity.
The first time she’d entered the Opera Garnier had been confusing, wondrous, and frightening too.
Three months ago, Christine had arrived in Paris with nothing to her name after her dismissal from the Conservatory of Music in Rouen. She’d had no hope, save for an old, foolish promise. Though her father had not kept up his end of the bargain by sending her an angel to guide her after his death, Christine had been determined to find her way onto the stage of the Opera they had dreamed of together. She had found herself lost and soaking in the stables of said Opera, and a decidedly un-angelic being had taken interest in her instead.
Christine still didn’t know why the Phantom who now led with a gloved hand had helped her then. Pity, perhaps? Whatever the reason, he had steered her into a job in the costume workshop and allowed her shelter in his theater. She had repaid that charity by loudly and resolutely not believing the Opera’s ghost stories when she heard them. How foolish she must have seemed to him: a vagrant girl with no faith challenging the Opera Ghost aloud to make her believe. She’d been looking for something, anything, to believe in again after years without the angel her father promised. Either through pride, charity, or both, the Phantom had obliged her.
A real ghost had appeared to Christine – or so she had believed – emerging out of nowhere to resurrect her neglected soul. Later that same night, she had snuck to the stage to keep her promise to her father. She had sung and prayed and again, the Ghost had answered. It was on that stage, when she had first heard his inhumanly beautiful voice, that the Phantom had become her Angel of Music.
Now, in the dark far below that stage, it stung for Christine to remember how entirely and instantly she had believed. The drip of water and the scurrying of vermin pierced the blackness around them. The only other noise was the echo of Christine’s steps in the shadows, for her guide made no sound as he moved. It was easy, even now, to forget that he was human.
Hadshe been a fool to believe him? He had been a voice without a body. He’d performed miracles. For months, her supposed Angel had taught her with unparalleled skill, lifting her voice to heights she had never dreamed. And in return, she had given him everything.
Christine’s cheeks heated at the memories, even more so when her guide’s long, skeletal fingers tightened around hers as they turned a corner. She had loved her strange angel and begged for his touch like a wanton trollop, thinking it was heavenly. Again he had answered her prayers and blessed her with pleasure beyond her imagination. She had laid herself out for him like a whore, and he had not stopped her until it was too late. Until he stole everything from her.
The first time he had led her to his domain had been the night before last, after he had cleared Christine’s path to a glorious debut as Marguerite inFaust. She had been so overwhelmed and desperate for him that she had not questioned it when he had somehow led her out of her dressing room, engulfed her in the magic of his song, and ferried her to his strange home. Then she had slept in his arms after he had...
No. She refused to think aboutthatright now, with her hand in his. Nor was she eager to remember the following morning, when she had learned her angel was just a man. When she had torn off his mask to reveal the horror of his face. The visage of living death.
Her guide looked over his shoulder at her for the first time and Christine caught her breath. Even shadowed by the wide brim of his hat, his eyes appeared to shine, glinting like gold stars in the dark. How could a mere man have eyes like that or the voice of an angel? Had it been some horrible heavenly trade, recompense from fate for giving him the face of a monster?
He turned away from her, his focus returning to their path. But his mask remained in Christine’s mind, like the bright disk of the sun seared into her eyes. She remembered him in the moments after she had torn it away, after his fury and her screams had faded. He had wept and sung to himself like a frightened child. He had agreed to let her go but begged her to come back. So he would not be left alone in the dark again.
It had been Raoul de Chagny of all people that had (quite unintentionally) convinced Christine to return. Her first love had found her at the perfect time to remind her that perhaps there was a reason her angel had come in such a form. This bizarre man’s fate was bound to hers now. If she wished to keep singing, she had no choice but to return. And so, here she was, following a shade into the underworld, choosing the foolish hope that the man who had used and condemned her might somehow be her salvation too.
“Are we going back to your...home?” Christine asked, shivering. She still wore the long cloak he had placed around her shoulders the day before, but the cold of the cellars was already deep in her bones.
“Yes. Don’t worry, we’re not far.” His words were careful and clipped but it was still the perfect voice of her Angel of Music – dark and soft, but clear and piercing, like silver upon velvet.
“So you dolivedown there?” Christine’s voice was unsteady as she considered what kind of person would choose such a home. Her guide nodded without breaking his stride. “But why here?”
“Well, you know how difficult it is to find a decent flat.”
Christine nearly tripped. His flippancy annoyed her enough for curiosity to break through. “I still don’t understandwhereit is. There was water and a boat. I don’t understand how that could be.”
“Haven’t you heard the legends of the Opera Ghost lurking beyond the lake?” he asked back as they descended yet another flight of stone steps. “Or better yet, rising from the black waters at night to wander the empty halls. I always liked that one.”
If he was trying to comfort her, it wasn’t working. “I thought that was just another story.”
“Every legend grows from a seed of truth,” the Ghost replied with a shrug. “My Lake Avernus is very real.” He raised his lantern higher, revealing that they had come to a large, open space.
There it was. A lake in the foundations of an opera house. At first, it looked like a cavern, but no, the wide columns were man-made. They simply appeared exceptionally long because they were reflected in the surface of murky water. Faint light came through a single grate above, but it was barely brighter than an oil lamp and served to give the whole space an eerie glow. The water had a smell, like a stagnant stream under a bridge, but it wasn’t awful.
“How – why is this here?”
“When Garnier began construction twenty years ago, the builders came across an underground tributary of the Seine right where the foundations were to be laid.” His was the voice of a teacher again, formal but familiar. It was strangely reassuring in such a grim, dank place. “Instead of moving the site, they drained and dried out the earth. It took months. But they couldn’t change the river’s path. So, to keep the water in check, Garnier installed a lake within the foundations. They couldn’t just dig a hole, so they made a huge casing to hold the water, like a great bowl. And to make sure nothing would leak they built another one around it. There is a great deal of space between the two casings.”
“And that’s where you live? In the space between?”
“I never thought of it so poetically,” he replied quietly. “I like that better than a tomb beneath the streets. Come,” he ordered and turned left before his words could frighten her more. They made their way along the edge of the water, the same way they had followed when he let her go the morning before. He had released her on the condition that she not reveal him, and only hours ago, she had been given the opportunity to do so.
“So no one has ever found you?” Christine asked carefully.
He looked back over his shoulder at her, golden eyes sparking with danger. “Not yet.”
“But someone is looking.” His shoulders tensed and his grip on her hand tightened. She pushed on, trembling again, but not from the cold. “Your Persian friend.”
