Page 81 of Angel's Kiss
“Or if it wasn’t,” Julianne corrected.
“What else could it be?” Christine listened to herself say. “You said he was hanged.”
“Why would Buquet kill himself?” Julianne snapped back. “Christine, don’t you understand? Everyone knows who Buquet crossed.” Julianne looked frantically between Christine and Adèle, as if afraid to speak.
“If the Ghost killed Buquet, then I’ll be the first to tell him thank you!” Adèle spat, and both Julianne and Christine looked at her in shock. “Do you know how many rats he forced himself on? There’s a reason they stuck him in the flies, far away from the girls. But that didn’t stop him. Don’t you remember Rochelle? Emilie? Lucile?”
“He was a drunk and a brute,” Christine agreed aloud. “He nearly did the same to me. And you.”
“Christine!” Julianne gasped.
“Good riddance. The world is better without that monster in it,” Adèle crowed.
You won’t believe it the first time you tell yourself he deserved it.Erik’s voice rang clear in her mind as Christine fought a shiver and made herself nod. “Good riddance indeed.”
“Christine, if it was the Ghost, that means the Opera is more dangerous than we thought,” Julianne said slowly, filling each word with meaning as her eyes bored into Christine. Her friend was scared for her, and for good reason. Christine was scared too, but somehow, she managed to shake her head.
“I doubt it was him,” Christine replied slowly, hating that it was not a lie.
“And where were you last night?” Julianne asked in a pointed tone. “While your suitor was finding dead bodies.”
“Why does that matter?” Adèle answered. “She was here. Having a lovely time with another suitor far less concerned with the police.”
Christine threw her face into her hands, hiding from the shock in Julianne’s eyes. “Adèle, for God’s sake, not everyone needs to know my personal affairs.”
“Then you and he should have kept it down. The whole street knows your affairs now,” Adèle laughed. When Christine looked up, Julianne was staring at her with the deepest of concern and uncertainty.
“So, he is your lover,” Julianne said quietly. “Your Angel of Music. After he left you sobbing in my house not two weeks ago!”
“I don’t think you’re one to judge others on who they fuck, Mademoiselle Bonet,” Adèle reprimanded as Julianne ignored her in favor of keeping her eyes on Christine. They were full of disappointment.
“I am my own person. I can take care of myself and make my own decisions,” Christine declared. Now that was a lie too. She wasn’t her own, not after last night. Perhaps she never had been.
“Are you really?” Julianne asked back. “Because you don’t behave like a woman acting in her best interest. From where I stand, I see a fool who cares more about her stupid career and spreading her legs for whoever is puppeteering her than the people getting hurt!”
“How dare—” Christine’s hand flew back of its own accord, red-hot anger and shame blotting out her vision.
“That’s enough!” Adèle bellowed, and Christine froze before the slap could launch. Suddenly she could see again, and there was nothing but horror in Julianne’s eyes as tears filled Christine’s.
“Like I said,” Julianne growled through gritted teeth. “I don’t know you anymore.” Christine opened her mouth to protest again, but Julianne spun and stalked away before she could, slamming the door behind her.
“What on earth is she on about?” Adèle asked as Christine collapsed into her seat, hiding her face. “The girl needs to learn her place.”
“I’m going out,” Christine said suddenly, rushing to her room and grabbing her cloak. Or was it still Erik’s? It didn’t matter anymore.
“Are you sure?” Adèle asked, following Christine to the door. “You haven’t even eaten.”
“I’ll get something somewhere else. I just need air.” Christine stopped with her hand on the handle of the door, catching her breath.
“Will you be back here tonight or otherwise occupied?” Adèle asked, eyebrow high.
“I don’t know. But don’t wait for me.” Christine said no more as she rushed onto the street. It would not be too hard to find Julianne, she could not have gone far. But what would be the point? There was nothing she could say to dissuade her about the danger Christine was in or the way she had changed. Because it was all true. Erik would never hurt her, she knew that, but what if he was right? What if he was cursed and she was already marked by it? What about those he would hurt for her?
She turned right, heading away from the Opera. She walked in the cold, as fast as she could, turning at random until she found herself at last on the banks of the Seine, near the gardens of the Tuileries. She took a place on a bench, among the barren trees that would not bloom for a month at least. It was freezing, the wind biting at her cheeks and the slate gray sky threatening snow above. She pulled Erik’s dark cloak around her tighter, wondering if she would ever see spring again. Or if she deserved to. Still, she breathed deep, the winter air like ice in her lungs.
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Raoul’s mind was fullof ghost stories as he wandered the streets. He didn’t want to go home. What would he do there other than brood on phantoms and death? The Opera was haunted apparently, by a ghost who took a box and cursed prima donnas and spoke through the walls. He had listened to various workers relay the stories to the bored Inspector Mifroid, and while he had assured the man that he himself was a good Catholic who did not hold with superstition, Raoul could not deny that something was going on in the Opera. Christine had disappeared more than once. He had heard a voice in her room and found no one there. But how did that connect with her teacher, thisangelwho wished to seduce her, who proved as elusive as a ghost himself?
