Page 3 of Angel's Kiss
At first, she didn’t understand what she saw. It was a fine bedroom, but it was also so undoubtedlyherbedroom. For months, she had slept in the Opera on a borrowed prop bed beneath a bower of silk flowers, where she had nested and gathered trinkets like a magpie. And now, she was staring at her bed and bower, in Erik’s house. There were her brush and baubles; her shawl draped over a chair. There was the clock he had supplied her, and her books arranged carefully on the nightstand. He had even placed a vase she recognized from her dressing room on the mirrorless vanity and supplied it with a few violets.
But it was also like the other room, with inviting but old and mismatched furniture, mostly in the Louis-Philippe style. The floor was piled with soft carpets and the walls were crowded with exquisite paintings. A door to the left of the bed caught her attention and she rushed to it. Her jaw went slack when she saw the comfortable bath chamber, complete with a beautiful copper tub. She turned to Erik in awe.
“The rooms were here before. I just made them yours,” he explained with an aloof shrug as he remained at the door. Once again, Christine could do nothing but stare.
Months ago he had revealed himself to her in a darkened hall, and it had been the sadness in his eyes that had made her pity the Opera Ghost. Now those same lonely eyes watched her as silence rose between them like the tide. He was even more of a mystery now than he had been then and it terrified and fascinated Christine.
“How did you find this place—”
“I will leave you to make yourself comfortable,” Erik cut off her question, stiff and formal, and retreated without a sound. As he closed the door, Christine suddenly found herself alone in a room beyond all her dreams within the home of a man so many knew to be a living nightmare. She didn’t want to make herself comfortable, she wanted the answers he had promised her, but she stood frozen on the spot.
This wasn’t right. She was in a windowless room with a dangerous man outside her door, a hideous creature that pretended to be a ghost and yet still wanted to be her teacher and angel despite all his monstrousness. Why? What did he actually want from her? Why had he done this to her in the first place? It was anger that propelled her from her room and back into Erik’s parlor with demands for answers ready on her lips. But she found the room empty.
“Erik?” she asked the silent walls, her terror rising until she saw a note on the piano, written in red ink with an angular hand.
I have errands to attend and will be back soon. You have nothing to fear in my home.
Christine’s heart fell again, though she knew she should feel relieved. He was gone and she was free for a while. If she wanted, she was sure she could leave and find her way back to the land of the living. Couldn’t she? She had come here of her own free will and had agreed to stay. Though, now that she considered it, hadn’t she simply been told to stay? And for five days at that.
She pulled her cloak closer around her shoulders as she shivered. If she had come here willingly and had nothing to fear from Erik as he said, then why did she feel like a prisoner?
––––––––
Shaya Motlagh let outa sigh that turned to a cloud of steam in the frozen night as he trudged down theRue de Rivoli. The Tuileries “gardens” were even less like a garden than usual this time of year: a barren landscape of leafless trees and pale stone. A desert of a different kind in the land of his exile. At home, it would not even be dark yet. At home, he would not have missed the sunset prayer. Even in the depths of winter, Tehran would be hot and crowded and alive, redolent with the scents of cooking meat and sweat, the air full of the shouting of merchants, the whispers of women, and the distant call to prayer. Thinking of home made him remember how and why he could never return. The anger warmed him more than a fire.
“Spare a sou, good sir?” a brittle voice asked from a dark doorway along his route. Shaya did not hesitate to delve into his pockets, pulling out a few small coins that were so chilled from the January air that he could feel the cold of them through his gloves. The beggar, an old woman wrapped in rags, took the alms with a nod of blessing. “Thank you, sir. God bless you.”
“God is great,” he whispered in his own tongue beneath his breath, so she would not know it had been a Muslim who had given her alms, obeying a prophet she did not know. This cursed country was full of men and women like her, lost souls doing all they could, knowing no better. Shaya wondered, as he pulled his coat tighter for the final push home, if Christine Daaé knew better.
He had been shocked to see the girl alive and in one piece after Erik had stolen her away right out of her dressing room. And yet, somehow, he had not been surprised at all that she refused to reveal the monster’s secrets. He was far too familiar with Erik’s ability to manipulate the fear and suspicion of others or the strange control the “Ghost” had over the Opera. Therefore if the girl was protecting Erik out of fear, that made sense. She had to be an innocent in all this.
Shaya came at last to the door of his flat, which opened before he could even fumble for the key.
“It’s late, sir, I was beginning to worry,” Darius chided before Shaya had even stepped through the threshold.
“You know the rules, you have to wait three days before going to the police if I don’t come home,” Shaya replied as his servant took his coat and stood aside to allow Shaya entry into the humble parlor of the flat they shared. Thank Allah, Darius had stoked the fire.
“I must say, as always, that I disagree with that rule,” Darius muttered as Shaya sank into a chair and took the cup of tea that was ready for him.
“Your concerns are, as always, noted, but irrelevant,” Shaya replied. “There are innocent people out there that need protection.”
“What if they’re not innocent?” Darius asked back. He did not need to speak Christine’s name.
“The girl will require more convincing of the danger she is in, that is all.” Shaya said it as much for himself as for Darius. Perhaps if he could explain betterwhoErik was – what he had done, how much he had destroyed, what the monster looked like, for heaven’s sake – she would see the light. The girl could not possibly have seen Erik. If she had, she would not have protected him. “I will try again. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“You think the creature will allow that, if he is as interested in her as you suspect?”
“If he has his sights on corrupting her, then may Allah protect us all,” Shaya whispered.
––––––––
Erik knew the pathup from the Opera cellars into the world above by heart, which was a blessing today because he could not have thought of anything but Christine if he tried. He had no lantern now, so he merely saw the shadows with his waking eyes. But in his mind, he saw only her. He saw her expression of awe as she entered his home, he saw her curiosity when he had revealed the secret of the lake, but above all, he saw her fear. He saw the way she had shivered and recoiled from him, the terror in her eyes as she had looked at him and remembered what was beyond his mask.
And so he had run. He had fled his own home and the relentless pressure of Christine’s gaze. Back into the cold and the black where a creature such as he belonged, hiding his evil away from the searing light of her goodness. He found himself too soon above ground in the gaslit halls. Even that light stung his eyes after so long in the dark.
He had been such a fool to think she would return to him with anything but horror in her heart. He was a monster, and she was right to fear him, but there had to be some way to earn back her trust. To make her look at him with a fraction of the adoration she had given to her angel. He just had no idea how to accomplish such a thing. Frightening people was what came naturally to him. He didn’t know how to comfort someone. Not anymore.
The Opera kitchens were small, compared to the huge building they served. It was a haphazardly added place, adjacent to the grand salons, built when the management had realized that the well-heeled patrons expected a few canapes and pastries between acts as they sipped champagne. Erik usually found the food left there to be stale and uninspiring, not that he minded. But he needed something fresh to feed her, didn’t he? He normally waited until much later at night to visit, but it was past dark and a Sunday; surely no one would be there at this hour.
