Page 70 of Angel's Fall

“Now!” Raoul cried in turn. Her relief at Raoul’s failed shot evaporated as Christine saw Shaya Motlagh rushing towards Erik, gun aimed, and from the other side, Antoine de Martiniac. Erik moved to charge at Antoine, and the man aimed his own pistol. Not at Erik, but at her.

“Fight and she will suffer, monster!” Antoine yelled.

Erik froze. His petrified eyes locked with Christine’s as pure terror filled every particle of her being. Raoul would not hurt her, but Antoine would, and Erik knew it.

“Christine...” Erik lamented, and the men seized him.

“Let him live and I will go with you!” Christine cried with all her strength and watched Erik crumble to his knees, eyes wild as he reached for her. “Please! Take me! Don’t hurt him!” she screamed as she struggled to run. Raoul held her back.

“Christine, you need to calm down!” Raoul bellowed, but she saw that Antoine had something in his hand now that he was raising to use for a blow. Chains. Horrible, heavychains.

Erik collapsed as Antoine brought the iron down on the back of his head, his mask falling to the ground beside the violin.

Christine screamed again, knowing what they meant to do; knowing that Erik would wake in a nightmare because of her. She screamed, piercing and raw, the sound echoing off the church walls and charnel house just as the notes of her father’s violin had moments before. She screamed because it was her fault and now Erik would never trust the world above again. They were doomed entirely.

“Christine, stop!” she heard Raoul beg as he shook her. He placed his hand over her mouth to stifle her cries and her very breath. Suddenly, she was falling, collapsing into his grasp as the sweet smell of his hand filled her nose. Her strength was gone, and the world was fading to black.

Suddenly, there was nothing.

10. Shackles

Shaya could not helpbut smile at the sight of Erik, unconscious, in chains. The last time he had caught the creature in a seaside town with a stolen love, it had been Ramin’s body that had ended up on the ground. Now, Erik was the one bleeding and defeated.

“I’ll see you soon, old friend.” Shaya ascended the steps of the crypt and into the church proper. The sight he found there was less alluring: Raoul de Chagny kneeling over Christine Daaé’s unconscious form, caressing her face and straightening a few errant hairs.

“Antoine’s getting the carriage. I’ll need your help to move her,” Raoul said as Shaya approached and grimaced. It had been one thing to help de Martiniac drag Erik’s limp body from the graveyard into their makeshift dungeon, but it was quite another to transport an insensible woman.

“It was lucky for us that she fainted when she did,” Shaya muttered.

“It was a blessing. Hopefully, she will sleep all the way home,” Raoul replied, distracted. “She’ll be relieved to wake up somewhere safe. Somewhere we can reason with her.”

“Do you think you can?” Shaya asked darkly. “What I saw in the graveyard was a woman willing to do anything for a man she—”

“A man who has manipulated her, lied to her, and twisted her mind into thinking she—” Now Raoul looked ill. “She is simply a kind woman. She took pity on a deformed animal, and he used that to ruin her. Now she’s safe.”

“I hope you are right,” Shaya said, eyes on the girl.

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