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charleygirlTitle: The Garish Light of Day 40/?
Author: charleygirl
Word Count: 4035
Rating: G
Genre: General, Drama
Characters Involved: Erik the Phantom, Christine Daae, Madame Giry, Monsieur Reyer
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the creation of Gaston Leroux but probably these days copyright to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Summary: The past is never truly dead.
WHY CAN’T THE PAST JUST DIE?
Elated, Erik left the Reyers’ after midnight, following two hours of frenzied work upon the piece. It was far from finished but would be enough to keep the managers and, more importantly, Antoinette happy and give the ballet rats something to do during rehearsals. He had seldom felt more fulfilled, and there was a definite spring in his step as he walked the darkened streets back to the Opera. Even Bruno seemed to sense his good mood, and trotted along beside him quite happily.
It was a mood that was not destined to last. Two blocks from the Place de l’Opera Erik’s sharp hearing caught a sound behind; he had been followed enough times in the past to recognise footsteps even when their owner was doing his best to conceal them. He stopped, and his pursuer stopped too. Waiting patiently for several seconds and hearing nothing he moved off again, and sure enough there was the faint padding of shoes upon concrete some twenty paces away.
There was a street lamp still burning on the Boulevard; halting beneath it ostensibly to tie his shoelace Erik listened carefully to the steps approach. When they were so close he could almost hear the man breathing he whipped out a hand, rising to his feet in one fluid motion, and was rewarded with a strangled gasp as his fingers found the soft flesh and taught sinew of a human windpipe. He squeezed slightly, just enough to cause pain, and the man gurgled as his airway began to be cut off. Surprisingly he was a fairly well-dressed individual; his dark hair slicked back with pomade and waxed tips to his thin black moustache. His clothes were not new but decently-tailored. Hardly the sort that one would expect to be trailing a man at this time of night.
“What do you want?” Erik hissed in the man’s ear, wishing that he had not listened to Christine and agreed to stop carrying the Punjab lasso. “Why are you following me?”
There was another step, louder and with no attempt to hide it; Erik spun, not letting go of the man whose larynx he had begun to crush. He realised he was illuminated by the streetlamp, the light bouncing from his mask and he shied away into the shadows as the newcomer slowly approached. Bruno whined, shivering and hiding behind Erik’s legs.
“Well, well, well,” said the new arrival, and he found the voice with its guttural accent horribly familiar. “So it really is you. When I saw the sketch in L’Epoque I thought I was dreaming but that silly little ballerina confirmed it. I thought you died long ago.”
Erik’s eyes widened in horror as he recognised the shadow that fell onto the pavement, bisecting the circle of light from the lamp. It was a shadow that had fallen over him many times as he crouched, dirty and beaten, amongst the filthy straw of his cage, just waiting for the next blow. For the first time in many years he felt his blood run cold; his hand slackened on the man’s throat as his limbs began to shake involuntarily. There were few people in the world who had the power to frighten the Phantom of the Opera, but that voice belonged to one of them. A face, bronzed and smiling, chin covered with a bristling black beard, blossomed out of the darkness like something from a nightmare.
“It is convenient, though,” its owner said as the first man fell to his knees, clutching his windpipe and coughing, “As you still live I will have the pleasure of killing you myself.”
________________________________________
“You...” Erik’s voice was hoarse and seemed to vanish as it emerged from his mouth. “You are dead. I - ”
“I think you are mistaking me for my father,” the newcomer replied, stepping into the light. He was tall it was true, but slender and though quite obviously able to defend himself there was no sign of the enormous coiled muscles and brute strength of the man Erik remembered. His dress was different, too; Dumitru had always favoured the brightly-coloured shirts and baggy black breeches of his native country, his ears adorned with huge gold rings but this man wore the ordinary, unobtrusive clothes of a city-dweller, his neat suit hidden by a light overcoat and his hair and beard carefully trimmed. “However, he is indeed dead and you of all people should know that. You did kill him, after all.”
Fighting against his instincts, Erik forced himself to stand straight and tall, head held high and chin tilted defiantly despite his urge to turn and run. “He would have killed me first. He almost did, on many occasions. Your father took a sadistic delight in battering me; it was pure luck that I managed to survive his treatment.”
“Luck that has now run out.” Dumitru’s son snapped his fingers and another man, this one looking more like the gypsies Erik remembered, came out of the shadows. He heard another step and knew that at least one more was behind him; had he his lasso he might have been able to take at least two of them on, but they had him surrounded. “You have been clever, my friend; for years we tried to find you but when you left the fair that day you vanished without trace. But I waited and bided my time and now I have you before me, because you finally made a mistake and crawled out of the woodwork like the miserable insect you are.”
Though he was expecting the blow and tried to prepare for it, when something heavy smashed across the back of Erik’s head he was sent reeling, tongues of fire licking around the base of his skull. He staggered, trying desperately to remain upright, but his legs betrayed him and he fell into a waiting pair of hands. He struggled, trying to free himself but he was held fast, arms twisted behind his back in the work of a moment and pinioned with a grip of iron. His left shoulder, the gunshot wound still only recently healed, screamed in protest. Raising his head, he saw Dumitru’s son smiling brightly at him, black eyes hard and cruel.
“How did that feel, Corpse?” he enquired, dragging the name that his father had bestowed upon Erik from the depths of the past. Erik did not reply, instead lifting his head with an effort and choking back the cry that threatened to break from him as his skull seemed about to explode. Gathering the all the saliva he could he hawked it and spat right in his tormentor’s face. The gypsy scowled; slowly he wiped his cheek and then, without warning drew back his arm and lashed out with lightning speed, backhanding the Phantom across the face. Erik’s head snapped to the side with the impact; the blow knocked his mask, skewing the angle at which it sat, and the gypsy (his name was Grigore, his fuddled mind recalled dimly) reached out, snatching it away. He tossed it aside carelessly and Erik heard the porcelain shatter as it hit the pavement.
The brute holding him laughed, a low rumbling in his chest. He grabbed Erik by the hair, dragging his head up once more so that Grigore could see his distortion clearly. “Still just as ugly, I see,” Grigore said with a sneer. “Any more damage to that pathetic excuse for a face will hardly matter.”
Erik snarled, pushing past the pain and bringing up his right foot with a sudden burst of strength he kicked out, catching Grigore hard in the stomach with the pointed toe of his boot. The gypsy roared in pain, stumbling backwards, and motioned to his henchmen who fell upon Erik with evident delight. The first blows barely registered as Erik fought wildly against his attackers, succeeding in catching them with knees and elbows before another savage blow to the head subdued him. Sounds faded in and out and his vision blurred, obscured further by the blood that was dripping into his eye from a gash to his forehead. There was a dull crack as a fist connected with his deformed cheek; he grunted with pain, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind where a tiny rational voice remained whether the bone, protected by little more than tightly-stretched skin and twisted muscle, had been broken. Another fist drove deep into his sternum; the air was forced from his lungs and he would have fallen had he not been held upright to make things easier for his assailants.
There was a shout from somewhere and panicked muttering, but he hardly noticed that he had been dropped until his battered body hit the concrete. He could not have raised his head had he wanted to, and he didn’t want to, quite content to just lay there and let death come. It surely could not be far away. In the encroaching shadows he thought he saw a face, pale and concerned, hovering over him, mouth moving in words he could not understand.
Oh, Christine, I’m so sorry...
His last coherent thought before darkness overwhelmed him was that he would never now get to see her in the wedding dress she had so wanted to wear.
________________________________________
“It’s all right; don’t move, we’ll get you to a doctor.”
The voice was strange, its inflexions peculiar and its accent wrong. Erik tried to frown but the movement was exquisitely painful so he settled for cracking his eyes open. He nearly recoiled from the bright light that greeted them but in the brief moments before he was forced to shut them once more he could see that the face was still there above him. It was frowning at him and saying something else but he couldn’t make it out; his head was throbbing and he was too tired to make the effort. Was it an angel? Had he somehow managed to cheat Hell and break free of its clutches upon him? It seemed unlikely. Death wasn’t meant to be this agonising, surely? Something was licking his hand and he tried to pull away but couldn’t find the strength.
“Christine...” he breathed before he faded away again.
________________________________________
“Open your mouth and sing, you deformed piece of shit! Do you expect people to pay good money just to see your ugly face? If I thought they would I’d tie you to the bars and leave you there so that they could have their fill of you!”
The whip whistled through the air and Erik’s body jerked involuntarily, the lash cutting into delicate skin already crossed with scars and open sores. His face was throbbing from the punch the gypsy had thrown as he entered the cage, a blow hard enough to subdue his captive enough for the torment to start. Knuckles white with the effort he gripped the bars, determined to remain on his feet and not give the brute what he wanted: a snivelling piece of human wreckage sprawled in the straw begging for release.
“Think yourself better than us, eh? I’ll tell you now, Monsieur Corpse, you are worth nothing, do you hear me? Nothing!”
Agony rippled across his back as the whip descended again and Erik could not choke back the cry that grew in his throat. He gritted his teeth, face contorted against the pain. How had his life come to this?
“Shh, it’ll only be for a moment. We’re just going to move you into the carriage.”
That voice, the one with the foreign accent, was back. It was a woman, he realised; what was she doing in this hell? Was she watching, peering through the bars and enjoying his humiliation? He must have cried out again for there was the sensation of a hand on his cheek and someone was stroking his hair. Erik tried to lean into the comforting touch but as he moved red flared behind his eyes and he felt his gorge rise, his stomach turning upside down.
“Hold on, sweetheart, just a little longer,” that voice said. It sounded maddeningly familiar. He struggled to lift his eyelids, to see who she was, but they felt as though they had been weighted with lead. There were more hands on him and his body jolted, sending a wave of fire across his torso. He thought he heard himself groan but couldn’t be sure it was actually his own voice; it sounded so far away.
“Sing! Sing for me!”
Another lash. Hot blood dripped down his back. The wounds, old and new, stung and burned. His knees buckled and he fell against the side of the cage, breath shuddering from him. Dumitru leant over him, trailing a finger down his spine; with an obscene chuckle the gypsy stuck the finger into one of the cuts he had inflicted and twisted the raw flesh. Erik screamed, no longer caring if he was heard.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, honey. Oh, Georges, be careful... mind his head.” That soft touch was suddenly there again, so cool and soothing after the searing heat through which it seemed he was crawling. The woman’s voice sounded achingly sad. “You poor man. Why would anyone want to do this to you?”
“This is all you’re fit for, you monster. Don’t you see that? No one else would have you!”
He was burning up, body in flames. For a moment Erik fancied he could smell the sulphur, hear the wails of the tortured souls he was destined to join. Mercifully the blackness overwhelmed him once more, welcoming him with open arms. He saw a pale face streaked with tears and surrounded by a cloud of brown curls and then there was nothing.
“...Christine? Christine, are you there?”
Author: charleygirl
Word Count: 4035
Rating: G
Genre: General, Drama
Characters Involved: Erik the Phantom, Christine Daae, Madame Giry, Monsieur Reyer
Disclaimer: The Phantom of the Opera is the creation of Gaston Leroux but probably these days copyright to Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Summary: The past is never truly dead.
Elated, Erik left the Reyers’ after midnight, following two hours of frenzied work upon the piece. It was far from finished but would be enough to keep the managers and, more importantly, Antoinette happy and give the ballet rats something to do during rehearsals. He had seldom felt more fulfilled, and there was a definite spring in his step as he walked the darkened streets back to the Opera. Even Bruno seemed to sense his good mood, and trotted along beside him quite happily.
It was a mood that was not destined to last. Two blocks from the Place de l’Opera Erik’s sharp hearing caught a sound behind; he had been followed enough times in the past to recognise footsteps even when their owner was doing his best to conceal them. He stopped, and his pursuer stopped too. Waiting patiently for several seconds and hearing nothing he moved off again, and sure enough there was the faint padding of shoes upon concrete some twenty paces away.
There was a street lamp still burning on the Boulevard; halting beneath it ostensibly to tie his shoelace Erik listened carefully to the steps approach. When they were so close he could almost hear the man breathing he whipped out a hand, rising to his feet in one fluid motion, and was rewarded with a strangled gasp as his fingers found the soft flesh and taught sinew of a human windpipe. He squeezed slightly, just enough to cause pain, and the man gurgled as his airway began to be cut off. Surprisingly he was a fairly well-dressed individual; his dark hair slicked back with pomade and waxed tips to his thin black moustache. His clothes were not new but decently-tailored. Hardly the sort that one would expect to be trailing a man at this time of night.
“What do you want?” Erik hissed in the man’s ear, wishing that he had not listened to Christine and agreed to stop carrying the Punjab lasso. “Why are you following me?”
There was another step, louder and with no attempt to hide it; Erik spun, not letting go of the man whose larynx he had begun to crush. He realised he was illuminated by the streetlamp, the light bouncing from his mask and he shied away into the shadows as the newcomer slowly approached. Bruno whined, shivering and hiding behind Erik’s legs.
“Well, well, well,” said the new arrival, and he found the voice with its guttural accent horribly familiar. “So it really is you. When I saw the sketch in L’Epoque I thought I was dreaming but that silly little ballerina confirmed it. I thought you died long ago.”
Erik’s eyes widened in horror as he recognised the shadow that fell onto the pavement, bisecting the circle of light from the lamp. It was a shadow that had fallen over him many times as he crouched, dirty and beaten, amongst the filthy straw of his cage, just waiting for the next blow. For the first time in many years he felt his blood run cold; his hand slackened on the man’s throat as his limbs began to shake involuntarily. There were few people in the world who had the power to frighten the Phantom of the Opera, but that voice belonged to one of them. A face, bronzed and smiling, chin covered with a bristling black beard, blossomed out of the darkness like something from a nightmare.
“It is convenient, though,” its owner said as the first man fell to his knees, clutching his windpipe and coughing, “As you still live I will have the pleasure of killing you myself.”
________________________________________
“You...” Erik’s voice was hoarse and seemed to vanish as it emerged from his mouth. “You are dead. I - ”
“I think you are mistaking me for my father,” the newcomer replied, stepping into the light. He was tall it was true, but slender and though quite obviously able to defend himself there was no sign of the enormous coiled muscles and brute strength of the man Erik remembered. His dress was different, too; Dumitru had always favoured the brightly-coloured shirts and baggy black breeches of his native country, his ears adorned with huge gold rings but this man wore the ordinary, unobtrusive clothes of a city-dweller, his neat suit hidden by a light overcoat and his hair and beard carefully trimmed. “However, he is indeed dead and you of all people should know that. You did kill him, after all.”
Fighting against his instincts, Erik forced himself to stand straight and tall, head held high and chin tilted defiantly despite his urge to turn and run. “He would have killed me first. He almost did, on many occasions. Your father took a sadistic delight in battering me; it was pure luck that I managed to survive his treatment.”
“Luck that has now run out.” Dumitru’s son snapped his fingers and another man, this one looking more like the gypsies Erik remembered, came out of the shadows. He heard another step and knew that at least one more was behind him; had he his lasso he might have been able to take at least two of them on, but they had him surrounded. “You have been clever, my friend; for years we tried to find you but when you left the fair that day you vanished without trace. But I waited and bided my time and now I have you before me, because you finally made a mistake and crawled out of the woodwork like the miserable insect you are.”
Though he was expecting the blow and tried to prepare for it, when something heavy smashed across the back of Erik’s head he was sent reeling, tongues of fire licking around the base of his skull. He staggered, trying desperately to remain upright, but his legs betrayed him and he fell into a waiting pair of hands. He struggled, trying to free himself but he was held fast, arms twisted behind his back in the work of a moment and pinioned with a grip of iron. His left shoulder, the gunshot wound still only recently healed, screamed in protest. Raising his head, he saw Dumitru’s son smiling brightly at him, black eyes hard and cruel.
“How did that feel, Corpse?” he enquired, dragging the name that his father had bestowed upon Erik from the depths of the past. Erik did not reply, instead lifting his head with an effort and choking back the cry that threatened to break from him as his skull seemed about to explode. Gathering the all the saliva he could he hawked it and spat right in his tormentor’s face. The gypsy scowled; slowly he wiped his cheek and then, without warning drew back his arm and lashed out with lightning speed, backhanding the Phantom across the face. Erik’s head snapped to the side with the impact; the blow knocked his mask, skewing the angle at which it sat, and the gypsy (his name was Grigore, his fuddled mind recalled dimly) reached out, snatching it away. He tossed it aside carelessly and Erik heard the porcelain shatter as it hit the pavement.
The brute holding him laughed, a low rumbling in his chest. He grabbed Erik by the hair, dragging his head up once more so that Grigore could see his distortion clearly. “Still just as ugly, I see,” Grigore said with a sneer. “Any more damage to that pathetic excuse for a face will hardly matter.”
Erik snarled, pushing past the pain and bringing up his right foot with a sudden burst of strength he kicked out, catching Grigore hard in the stomach with the pointed toe of his boot. The gypsy roared in pain, stumbling backwards, and motioned to his henchmen who fell upon Erik with evident delight. The first blows barely registered as Erik fought wildly against his attackers, succeeding in catching them with knees and elbows before another savage blow to the head subdued him. Sounds faded in and out and his vision blurred, obscured further by the blood that was dripping into his eye from a gash to his forehead. There was a dull crack as a fist connected with his deformed cheek; he grunted with pain, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind where a tiny rational voice remained whether the bone, protected by little more than tightly-stretched skin and twisted muscle, had been broken. Another fist drove deep into his sternum; the air was forced from his lungs and he would have fallen had he not been held upright to make things easier for his assailants.
There was a shout from somewhere and panicked muttering, but he hardly noticed that he had been dropped until his battered body hit the concrete. He could not have raised his head had he wanted to, and he didn’t want to, quite content to just lay there and let death come. It surely could not be far away. In the encroaching shadows he thought he saw a face, pale and concerned, hovering over him, mouth moving in words he could not understand.
Oh, Christine, I’m so sorry...
His last coherent thought before darkness overwhelmed him was that he would never now get to see her in the wedding dress she had so wanted to wear.
________________________________________
“It’s all right; don’t move, we’ll get you to a doctor.”
The voice was strange, its inflexions peculiar and its accent wrong. Erik tried to frown but the movement was exquisitely painful so he settled for cracking his eyes open. He nearly recoiled from the bright light that greeted them but in the brief moments before he was forced to shut them once more he could see that the face was still there above him. It was frowning at him and saying something else but he couldn’t make it out; his head was throbbing and he was too tired to make the effort. Was it an angel? Had he somehow managed to cheat Hell and break free of its clutches upon him? It seemed unlikely. Death wasn’t meant to be this agonising, surely? Something was licking his hand and he tried to pull away but couldn’t find the strength.
“Christine...” he breathed before he faded away again.
________________________________________
“Open your mouth and sing, you deformed piece of shit! Do you expect people to pay good money just to see your ugly face? If I thought they would I’d tie you to the bars and leave you there so that they could have their fill of you!”
The whip whistled through the air and Erik’s body jerked involuntarily, the lash cutting into delicate skin already crossed with scars and open sores. His face was throbbing from the punch the gypsy had thrown as he entered the cage, a blow hard enough to subdue his captive enough for the torment to start. Knuckles white with the effort he gripped the bars, determined to remain on his feet and not give the brute what he wanted: a snivelling piece of human wreckage sprawled in the straw begging for release.
“Think yourself better than us, eh? I’ll tell you now, Monsieur Corpse, you are worth nothing, do you hear me? Nothing!”
Agony rippled across his back as the whip descended again and Erik could not choke back the cry that grew in his throat. He gritted his teeth, face contorted against the pain. How had his life come to this?
“Shh, it’ll only be for a moment. We’re just going to move you into the carriage.”
That voice, the one with the foreign accent, was back. It was a woman, he realised; what was she doing in this hell? Was she watching, peering through the bars and enjoying his humiliation? He must have cried out again for there was the sensation of a hand on his cheek and someone was stroking his hair. Erik tried to lean into the comforting touch but as he moved red flared behind his eyes and he felt his gorge rise, his stomach turning upside down.
“Hold on, sweetheart, just a little longer,” that voice said. It sounded maddeningly familiar. He struggled to lift his eyelids, to see who she was, but they felt as though they had been weighted with lead. There were more hands on him and his body jolted, sending a wave of fire across his torso. He thought he heard himself groan but couldn’t be sure it was actually his own voice; it sounded so far away.
“Sing! Sing for me!”
Another lash. Hot blood dripped down his back. The wounds, old and new, stung and burned. His knees buckled and he fell against the side of the cage, breath shuddering from him. Dumitru leant over him, trailing a finger down his spine; with an obscene chuckle the gypsy stuck the finger into one of the cuts he had inflicted and twisted the raw flesh. Erik screamed, no longer caring if he was heard.
“It’s all right, it’s all right, honey. Oh, Georges, be careful... mind his head.” That soft touch was suddenly there again, so cool and soothing after the searing heat through which it seemed he was crawling. The woman’s voice sounded achingly sad. “You poor man. Why would anyone want to do this to you?”
“This is all you’re fit for, you monster. Don’t you see that? No one else would have you!”
He was burning up, body in flames. For a moment Erik fancied he could smell the sulphur, hear the wails of the tortured souls he was destined to join. Mercifully the blackness overwhelmed him once more, welcoming him with open arms. He saw a pale face streaked with tears and surrounded by a cloud of brown curls and then there was nothing.
“...Christine? Christine, are you there?”
