Page 50 of Angel's Kiss
“Neither do I.” Erik balled his hands into fists at his side. He knew what hewantedto do, more than anything, and that was to keep touching her, keep kissing her until he faded to dust. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t trust himself with that pleasure, especially not with the memory of the sin that had created him so fresh in his mind. “Let me attend to the bandages. You should rest.”
He saw her disappointment out of the corner of his eye as he retreated, his idiocy stinging as much as the wound on his side. The pain was useful though, it kept his treacherous cock in check. It wasn’t half as pleasant to change his own bandages as to have Christine tend to him, but that was the point. And if he pulled them too tight around him, that was good too.
He waited in his lonely room, whispers of the past both near and far echoing in his head. He remembered his mother, how the worst stretches of her madness had not been the violence or the cruelty, but the tenderness. Those times when her demons had made her blind, and she had thought Erik was someone else, the child she was supposed to have from the life she never got to live. For a few precious moments, his mother would smile and reach out to him, but the touch of his hand or the reminder of his mask would always ruin the illusion. And she’d hate him all the more when she realized. Would Christine run too, when she knew the whole truth of him? Was he lying to her now as surely as when he had pretended to be an angel, taking the mercy and trust he did not deserve from her like a thief?
“Are you just going to stand there staring at nothing?”
Erik spun to see the object of his brooding waiting in his door. She was a vision, as always; an angel on earth, clad in her creamy dressing gown and nothing else.
“I thought maybe you had gone to sleep,” Erik said. “You must be tired after so many long days.”
“I am. But I have trouble sleeping in the quiet,” she replied, and to Erik’s shock, stepped into his room. “Luckily I know someone who can help.”
“What are you—” Panic seized him as she walked past him and climbed into his bed, where the sheets were still mussed from the last few days. “Christine, please, I—”
“Just let me hold you tonight, nothing else,” she whispered, looking up at him shyly from where she had curled herself into the covers. “Please?”
“How can I say no?” As carefully as he could manage, he joined her in the bed. It was gradual, the way she arranged herself against him, gentle and cautious so as not to hurt or frighten. It still did hurt, of course. His skin still screamed at the new sensation of tenderness. But the panic and ache subsided quickly, replaced by awe and joy at the feeling of her in his arms, her head on his chest, against his heart.
“I was there too. When Papa passed. I watched him...leave. So I know how it feels. For the whole world to fall out from under you in a second. I knew it was coming. I’d known for years, but it still hurt more than anything before or since. He told me not to be afraid, that he was going home to Mama. The last thing he said was that the Angel of Music would protect me. I ran to the beach, after. And I looked for his soul and my angel in the waves he had loved to watch.”
Erik closed his eyes on fresh tears; for Christine and her pain and the lies he had told her about her angel. And for himself, for the broken child still bent over his mother’s body, knowing he was the reason she was gone.
“I’m sorry,” Erik said, and it seemed so useless.
“But I kept breathing,” Christine went on. “Do you remember when you told me that I was strong because I simply kept breathing and survived? I never thought until today how strong you must have had to be to keep breathing.”
“You have to breathe to sing,” Erik murmured and pulled her closer. He could feel her tears through his shirt.
“Will you sing me that song – the one from before?” she asked softly. “It makes me think of home.”
He didn’t know which home she meant, Sweden or Perros, or somewhere else. The only home that mattered to him was this, right now. “Me too,” he replied and began to sing.
“Siúil, siúil, siúil a rúin. Siúil go socar agus siúil go ciúin, Siúil go doras agus éalaigh liom. Is go dté tu, mo mhuirnín slán,”he began, and she relaxed against him. “Oh I wish I was on yonder hill, it’s there I'd sit and cry my fill, until every tear would turn a mill,”he crooned to her, for the first time placing the refrain in the tongue she’d know.
“Come, oh come, come, my love with me; Come quick, and soft, through the door we shall flee. And safe forever may my darling be...”
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Many people came andwent from Carlotta’s flat on theRue du Faubourg Saint Honoré, throughout the morning, but none were the sort that Shaya wanted to talk to. There had been many well-dressed men, perhaps patrons, who had come to the door only to be sent away, and a few other old men with leather bags who had been admitted only to leave frowning half an hour later. Doctors from all over Paris, Shaya assumed.
Most interestingly, Shaya had seen Richard storm in at around nine in the morning and storm back out ten minutes later, face like thunder. Shaya dearly wanted to know what had been said and the condition of the diva in the flat. That sort of information took time to acquire, but he’d always been particularly good at getting the truth.
Nearly a decade ago, a fur trader had come to court with a wild story of a magician of the like no one had ever seen, both in skill and in ugliness. And Shaya had been the one assigned to investigate the claim, for surely such a treasure belonged in the glorious collection of the Shah himself. He did so enjoy surrounding himself with the unique. From poets and scientists to tigers in golden cages. Alas, the creature the fur trader had spoken of proved to be more like a deadly tiger than a poet.
Looking back, Shaya wished he had not been so good at his job. If he could, he would tell his younger self to forget the fur trader and the Shah’s foolish whims. It was not the first time he had wished that. The first time, he had been looking down at the body of the one person in the world he was truly meant to protect, dead because of Erik the magician.
Shaya shook himself from his reverie as he saw movement across the street again. This time it was not the front door that had opened, but the servant’s entrance at the side of the building. A miserable-looking maid rushed out, struggling to get on her bonnet and gloves. Shaya jumped at his chance, crossing the empty street and following the young woman.
“Excuse me, Mademoiselle, do you work for Signora Zambelli?” Shaya called. The woman turned to him, suspicious and wary. She looked exhausted, as if she’d been awake all night.
“Currently,” the maid replied. “Why do you want to know?”
“I wish to know how she’s doing after last night,” Shaya replied. Honesty worked best with savvy people, and this girl seemed like that type.
“You with the papers?” The girl asked, squinting. “You don’t look like a reporter.”
“I am interested for my own reasons,” Shaya replied. “But I will make it profitable for you, should you tell me all you can.” He opened his hand to show the woman a few francs, likely more money than she made in a week, and her eyes widened.
