The Music of the Night Read Free Page A

choice, she would have stayed with the Phantom? But this wasn’t a play, and this
Phantom was a vampire.
     
    His voice rumbled in her ear. “A
month, my Christine. Won’t you stay with me that long? The world you know will
still be there when you return.”
     
    “And if I refuse?”
    He had meant to keep her against her
will, if necessary, but looking at her now, seeing the fear in her eyes, he knew
he would not. “No harm will come to you,” he said. “I will take you back to the
theatre where I found you.”
     
    Relief washed over her, but only for
a moment. How could she refuse him? Never before had she seen such pain, such
utter loneliness, reflected in anyone’s eyes. And yet, how could she stay? How
did she know she could trust him to keep his word? What if he only wanted to
drink her blood, or worse, make her what he was? The mere idea filled her with
revulsion.
     
    “I will take nothing you do not wish
to freely give,” he said quietly. “I want only your company for a time.”
     
    Christie glanced at her surroundings.
She had come to Paris looking for excitement. Was she going to turn her back on
it now? She was in a place no one else had ever been, with a man no one believed
existed. Think of the stories you’ll have to tell, she thought, ignoring the
little voice in the back of her mind that warned her she was being a fool to
accept the word of a vampire.
     
    “Will you stay?”
     
    “Yes.” The word seemed to form of its
own volition. “Yes I’ll stay.”
     
    He smiled at her then, and she
thought she would promise him anything if he would only smile at her like that
again.
     
     
     
     
    They were sitting side by side on the
bench in front of the organ. At Christie’s request, Erik had played The
Phantom’s score for her; played it with such fervour that she had seen it all
clearly on the stage of her mind.
     
    Such a beautiful, bittersweet story.
With a sigh, she glanced at Erik. “How did you come to be here?” She lifted her
had to his smooth cheek. “What happened to you?”
     
    “Three hundred years ago, when I was
a young man. I ran into a burning building to save a child. A wall fell on me.
It burned the right side of my face and most of that side of my body. They took
me to the hospital where the physician said there was nothing they could do. I
was dying. Late that night, a woman came into my room. She said she could save
me, if I was willing, and when I agreed, she carried me out of the hospital and
made me what she was. Years later, I came to this place while it was in the last
stages of construction. It has been my home ever since.
     
    “But the Phantom. He’s not real.”
     
    “Men were more willing to believe in
ghosts a hundred or so years ago. It was easy to convince the owners of the
theatre that the Opera Ghost lived, easy to convince them to do my bidding.”
     
    “But the play –”
     
    “– is based in part on my life.”
     
    “And Christine? Was she real?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “What happened to her?”
     
    “She married Raoul, lived to a good
old age and passed away.”
    “You loved her.”
     
    “Yes.” He lifted a hand to his mask.
“But after this, I never saw her again.”
     
    “So she never had to choose between
you and Raoul?”
     
    “No. I made the choice for her.”
     
    “And you’ve lived alone ever since?”
     
    He nodded.
     
    “But –” A rush of heat warmed her
cheeks. She wanted to ask if there had been other women, but couldn’t quite
summon the nerve, any more than she could ask how and when he fed, and what
became of those he preyed upon.
     
    “I am not a monk,” he said, surmising
the cause of her flushed cheeks. “The managers pay me quite well. On occasion I
have entertained courtesans. As for those I prey upon, I pay them handsomely.”
     
    “I didn’t mean to pry.”
     
    “Ask me what you will. I will hide
nothing from you.”
     
    “Do I look very