Page 2 of Angel's Kiss
“So the Daroga did find you.”
“That’s not the name he gave me.” The foreigner who had accosted Christine this morning had called himself Shaya Motlagh and been convinced that the man whose home Christine was about to enter was a monster.
“Darogawas his title in Persia when I knew him there. I assume he asked you for information about me.” Nothing of the menace in the Phantom’s aura abated, even with his aloof tone.
“I didn’t tell him anything,” Christine blurted out, surprising herself. She had been sure of one thing in the past few days: that whatever resentment or fear she harbored for the man who had been her angel, she would not condemn him to the clutches of the world above.
“Thank you,” the Ghost said softly as he stopped and released her hand. Without him holding her, she felt unsteady on the platform; like the dark was alive around her, ready to swallow her whole. “Did he say anything else of particular interest?”
Christine stared up at him and swallowed. He was so tall and so solid, but she could not feel a single hint of warmth from him, as if he truly was death made flesh. “He told me you were dangerous,” she confessed tightly. “Are you?”
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes,” Christine answered just as quickly, her breath sticking in her throat as he stared down at her with his shining eyes that were so sad, even in the dark. She waited for him to reply, for some sort of consolation that she was safe in his company. But none came and he turned away from her.
“Look at the water,” he ordered instead, and Christine obeyed so swiftly it made her guts churn. Was it habit, to follow a command from that voice without thinking?
“Why do I need to look away?” she forced herself to demand, turning back around to look at the wall. Only there was not simply a wall there. The Ghost stood next to a door that had appeared from nowhere. He swept his arm out and gave a bow, allowing Christine to enter the strangest flat she had ever seen.
“Welcome back,” her host said as Christine tentatively stepped across the threshold. The warmth that enveloped her was a head-spinning contrast to the cold of the lake.
“Dear God, I thought I dreamed it,” Christine gasped as her eyes fixed on the massive pipe organ that occupied almost the entire wall opposite what could be termed the front door. But there it was, brass pipes shining in the candlelight, bounded on both sides by packed shelves. In the middle of the room, set off to the right, was a fine piano. On the walls, shelves, and tucked into corners were still more instruments – viols, winds, a guitar, a harp. There were even some she did not recognize. It was somehow the exact home she would have imagined for an angel of music.
Set in the wall to the left of the entrance was the fireplace, flanked by more crowded shelves of books. In front of the merrily burning fire were two imposing chairs and a worn couch, none of which matched in style or color. The walls (at least what Christine could see of them past the pictures and papers hung on them) were painted a deep yellow, much – or perhaps exactly – like the walls of the Opera above.
The floor was covered in rugs which, in combination with the fire and well-used furniture, made the strange parlor warm and inviting. Christine looked up to the ceiling, which was oddly dark. Christine gasped when she saw that what she had mistaken for soot on the ceiling was blue-black paint, and upon it, rendered in shining gold and silver, a perfect night sky.
“How?” she breathed in unthinking awe. “How did you do all this?”
“Very slowly.”
Christine whipped about to face her host, her heart jumping into her throat when she saw that he had removed his hat, gloves, and cape. It transformed him from the menacing silhouette of the Phantom intoErik.
She had seen the Ghost, and her angel was a familiar dream. But Erik? He was a stranger. He was exceptionally tall and thin, but his impeccably tailored jacket fit so that she could tell he was muscular as well, in a wiry, angular way. His limp black hair fell well past his jaw, but at least the mop was better combed than when she had seen it last. His thin hands hung at his side, flexing his long fingers absently. Those hands were almost as pale as his mask.
His mask itself was smooth, with sculpted brows and a narrow nose to conceal that he had no actual nose beneath it. And it was delicately painted. Had he done it himself, just as he had made this strange home? Erik stared back at her as blatantly as she stared at him and it made her remember the first time she had looked into his eyes in this home, drunk on lust and delusion and what he had done then. Christine shuddered.
“What happens now?” Her voice was small as she remembered the pleasure and pain the man before her had caused her. “You asked me to come back and I’m here. But what do you want from me?”
That was the question she could not avoid. She had come to find an angel, but what sort of deal with the devil would that require? Erik looked at her forlornly.
“I have been alone for a very long time,” he began and familiar pity shivered through Christine’s heart. “And so have you. It is my hope that we can remedy that together. Your company and presence here is all I ask.”
After all she and her angel had shared, she found that hard to believe. Still, Christine swallowed her fear and met Erik’s plaintive gaze. “How long do you wish for my company?”
He turned away from her, shoulders tense. “You will stay with me for five nights, so that you can know me,” he said, formal and stiff. “You will be free to go to rehearsals, of course, but you will return here. And after those nights have passed, you may go wherever you wish. But perhaps by then, you will want to...” His voice faded as he glanced at her.
“Where – where will I sleep?” she asked, her heart thundering at the idea of returning to his bed.
She could not forget what had passed between them only two nights before. He had bound her wrists and blindfolded her, and she knew now it had been so that he could keep his secret. In the dark, he had ravished her with his mouth and hands and she had never experienced such ecstasy. Would he do the same again or use her for his pleasure? If she resisted, would he force her? How had she come here, knowing this might be the price to continue her career?
“You need not fear for your virtue,” Erik said, bitter and dark, turning away from her once again with forlorn eyes. “Or worry yourself about my feelings for you. I intend to host you as a gentleman, as your teacher, and, perhaps eventually, your friend.”
“Friend?”
“Let me show you to your room,” Erik muttered.
“To my –what?” In a few long strides, Erik was at a door to the left of the fireplace which he opened to let Christine see inside. Hesitant and wary, Christine stepped inside.
