Page 86 of Angel's Mask

“What does?” Adèle asked from far away, and her voice sounded like darkness.

“Everything,” Christine breathed, and the world faded to black.

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Erik moved deliberatelythrough the catacombs. These tunnels beneath Paris were not like the labyrinth under the Opera where no one came for fear of a vengeful ghost. Here there was still much to fear, but people and things braved the dark despite the peril, making them all the more dangerous. As a terror of the shadows himself, Erik knew this all too well.

Erik barely made a sound as he swept through the hidden roads beneath the city, through air thick with the scent of earth and decay. His journey out of his corner of the underworld had been successful, or at least a good distraction from the maddening and heartbreaking thought of Christine. She had said there was a chance. She had to come back. Each time he told himself that he thought of a new reason why she would never return, and why she would be wise to do so.

Erik froze in his stride, listening to the darkness as he approached the entry to the Opera cellars. He was accustomed to strange sounds down here, echoes of ghosts who had been in residence far longer than his six and a half years. This sound, though it was angry and eerie, was not otherworldly.

Someone was down in his cellars and they were yelling. There was only one man in Paris who would be so bold and stupid.

“Come out and face me!” Shaya screamed into the darkness around his lantern’s halo of light as Erik approached. “I know you’re there, you coward!”

“Then there’s no need for such a racket,” Erik replied with a sigh.

The Persian spun to face him; his right hand raised to the level of his eye. Smart. He did not move or take another step, careful to keep as much distance between himself and Erik as possible. “Where is she?”

“You’ll need to be more specific,” Erik drawled back.

“Don’t fucking play with me, Erik, where is Christine Daaé?” Shaya demanded, the catacombs around echoing with his ire.

“Well, I am sure I don’t know,” Erik answered innocently. Ironically, he wasn’t actually lying. “Did you not get a chance to speak with her as you hoped? That’s too bad.”

“She disappeared from her dressing room without a soul seeing where she went!” Shaya pushed and Erik took a deliberate step towards the smaller man.

“I only removed her so that you would not frighten her and ruin things,” Erik replied calmly, advancing once more so that Shaya had no choice but to back up against the moist stone of the cellar wall.

“Tell me where you have her then.”

“I don’t have her anywhere,” Erik replied.

Fire in his eyes, Shaya took the risk of lowering his hand from his face, only to pull out his pistol and aim it at Erik. “I shall ask one more time.”

“And I will tell give you the same answer,” Erik replied, keeping his voice calm even with the pistol aimed at his heart. Maybe he could entice Shaya to fire it and end this misery for all of them. Wouldn’t that be nice. “I don’t know. I sent her home.”

“An why would you do that?” Shaya balked. “You don’t give up your toys.”

“You do not know me as well as you think then, Daroga,” Erik replied, cold and calm. How could he explain that this was the only way to earn her trust and that he had perhaps made the greatest mistake of his life by letting her leave?

“Erik, I swear,” Shaya growled and cocked the pistol.

“Go ahead and shoot me then if you don’t believe me. If I’m the monster you say, then she’ll be trapped in my lair, scared and alone with no way out,” Erik intoned, imagining his home as Shaya might, a place of cages and torture, not the warm haven he wanted to make for her. “Shoot me and kill her. Or shoot me and find out that I’m telling the truth; kill me for no reason other than your gutless hate.”

Shaya stared at him in the dark for an endless moment, jaw twitching. Erik wondered if this was at last the end of their chess game and wished he had been fool enough to kiss Christine just once before his life met its inevitable bloody end.

Shaya uncocked the gun and dropped his aim.

“If you wish to know more of Christine Daaé’s whereabouts last night and now, I suggest you ask her yourself,” Erik commanded, the words slow and cold. “She lives onNotre Dame des Victoires, near the Basilica I am given to believe.”

“I look forward to speaking to her,” Shaya replied, eyes dark with consideration. “If she knows what you are, I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to betray you.”

“Or she might want to save me,” Erik retorted, equally grim. The more he thought about it, the more he knew it was impossible. “Others have before,” he added, just to twist the knife for them both.

“Let us hope that she does not make that fatal mistake then,” Shaya said. “You do not deserve to be protected.”

Erik smiled cruelly at the edge of the mask as he gave a small bow and backed away. He did not disagree. He only wanted a stay of execution, at least until he knew she wasn’t coming. If she was to betray him, he wanted it to be fast. And Shaya deserved to be the one to bring his doom. “That is for her to decide,” Erik said.

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