Page 77 of Angel's Fall

“Erik! Please!” the man sputtered as Erik cut off his airway.

“Monsters are not born, they are made, Christine told me that once,” Erik purred into Antoine’s ear as he struggled. “I am not a monster because of this face or because of the blood we share. I am a monster because of what has been done to me – what worthless pigs like you have done to me and so many others. And I intend to be every inch the monster when I take my revenge for these chains.”

“Please...”

“But I am going to let you live, brother, don’t fret. I want you to tell the Daroga and that miserable boy that I am coming to take what is mine.” Antoine’s hands ceased scrabbling at the chain and his body went limp. Erik released his grip and let him collapse onto the floor.

Despite the pain throughout his body, the thrill of violence gave Erik energy and speed. He freed his other wrist using his dear brother’s discarded key and toyed with the idea of chaining him up, but that wouldn’t do for his plans. He wanted the boy and the Daroga to wallow in their fear and to let Christine know he was on his way.

Erik faltered at the thought of Christine. The last thing he remembered from the cemetery was her offering herself to the boy so that Erik could live. He was alive – what sort of sacrifice had she been forced to make? No matter, he would make them pay. He had given the patrons and the aristocracy mercy for far too long, but now the boy and his brother had reminded Erik exactly who he was. Now, they all would know.

He grabbed the food and supplies Antoine had so helpfully provided and raced up the stairs from the crypt. The door opened, thankfully, back onto the cemetery, where his mask and the violin remained in the bright light of day. Near it he found the cloak he had given Christine, thrown on the ground. He wrapped himself in protection and steeled his heart.

The light hurt. Not because of the memory of his face exposed in the daylight six years before – the day he had been taken and abused and used by his own blood. When he had blamed himself for a crime that was not his for six years. No, the sun burned because he remembered Christine’s lips against his in the sun and how he would never know such joy again. They were doomed to the darkness, the two of them, he knew that now. They would be safe while the world above burned.

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Shaya was not proudthat he had done as the Vicomte had ordered and gone home. Even less so when Darius found him staring at the fire.

“Good, you’re alive. I had my doubts when you didn’t come home for the second night in a row.” Darius handed Shaya a cup of strong tea. “I assume you didn’t catch him, or you’d look happier.”

“We did,” Shaya murmured, and Darius’s eyes widened.

“After all these years,” his most loyal companion said, and Shaya’s heart sank further. “And it feels empty?”

“It feels too easy. We caught him with her, out in the open like the fool in love that he is, and we took him. Put him in chains and threw him in a crypt.”

“Where is he now?” Darius asked in horror.

“Still there. He’s guarded by a truly odious friend of de Chagny,” Shaya scoffed. “Antoine de Martiniac.

“Why does that name sound familiar?” Darius asked as he sat across from Shaya.

“He’s a patron. A Baron of some kind. Or he was, before the revolution.”

“Didn’t Erik tell you and Ramin he was a baron’s bastard? You had a list of names of families near Rouen when we first came to France, when you were searching for him.” Shaya gaped at Darius, a student at the feet of a master.

Shaya rushed to the shelf containing years’ worth of supposition and clues regarding Erik and his past. He fumbled for the right volume until Darius calmly stepped beside him and pointed to it. “Thank you. I—”

“Would be lost and probably dead without me. I know,” Darius sighed as Shaya flipped through the notebook. In the years pursuing Erik at the Opera, he had focused so much on his fear for the future that he had forgotten the dark secrets of Erik’s past that had been shared with him and Ramin over long nights of conversation in Persia. There, finally, he found it: a list of barons in and around Rouen where Erik had been born.

Third on the list was Alfred de Martiniac.

“Antoine said he never liked his father. Erik was the one to kill him. What if it wasn’t a coincidence that he was there that night?” Shaya thought aloud. “And what if they learn their connection?”

“You must tell de Chagny.”

“I have a bad feeling about all of this,” Shaya agreed, hurrying to the door. “I need to go with the police back to Perros if they’ve been summoned. Don’t wait up for me.”

“Don’t die,” Darius admonished as Shaya ran out of their flat and hailed a cab. His mind raced as the cab ambled towards the Faubourg. Somehow, it made sense. De Martiniac was so familiar – even the abhorrent things he had done proved he and Erik were fruits of the same poisoned tree. What if the two allied? What if Erik was able to use his silver tongue to set himself free?

The butler sighed when he saw Shaya at the door but did not protest when Shaya pushed past. He followed the sound of raised voices to the parlor.

“Raoul, this is absolute madness! You cannot keep that woman here like she’s a prisoner!” It was Philippe who was speaking.

“I don’t want her in our house either. I can’t believe you expect me to let her take my clothes – as if they would even fit.” Shaya assumed that was the voice of their sister.

“I am keeping her safe – from that monster and herself!” Raoul protested. “Please, Sabine. I need her decent when Richard arrives. I have to convince him she’s ready to sing if he’s to help us.”

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