Chapter Thirty-nine
“Let destruction come upon him when he does not know it! And let the net that he hid ensnare him; let him fall into it—to his destruction!”—Psalm 35:8
Forward March
Erik felt a deep pain in his chest stronger than any he had felt before, like his heart was being pierced through with a sword and being crushed with a stone both at once. He bowed his head in shame and sorrow; he could no longer bear to look into Alana’s eyes. He could not watch her leave him.
He hid the side of his face with a hand and waited for her to tell him goodbye, or to hear her footsteps as she away. But there was no sound from anywhere but the sound of his own heart racing, dying.
And then there was a soft, warm touch on the hand that hid his face. Slowly, he set it down, and brought his gaze up from the ground.
Alana stared back at him, her eyes still brimming with tears. He looked down at the floor again, too ashamed to speak or even look at her. She kept hold of his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. “Look at me,” she whispered.
“I can’t…”
“What?”
“I can’t…I don’t even deserve to look at you…I don’t deserve anything. You should have just let me die that night at the river…no. You should have left me long before that.” He sighed, and at last he met her gaze. “I am so sorry that you had to meet me, Alana Valjean. You did nothing to deserve such a fate.”
As he spoke he saw her expression change from sadness to shock. “No!” She shook her head. “No…” Another tear ran down her face, and he reached across to wipe it from her cheek.
“Don’t you see?” he asked her. “Think of all the sorrow I have brought to you. It would have been better if you had never even met me…”
“Stop it!” She interrupted, her voice cracking on the words. “Don’t say that, Erik. You saved my life, you helped bring me to my family, and you’ve brought me so much happiness…”
“I have brought you too many tears,” Erik said, fighting tears of his own. “Far too many, sweet Alana.” He coughed, feeling the effects of the fever that still raged in his body. “Please, for your own sake, leave this place. Forget me. Forget all of this…” Dark memories of the past stirred in his mind. Is this always the way things end? With my evil deeds driving someone away, and with myself, warning them away from me and begging them to forget?
“I could never forget you, Erik,” Alana said, trying and failing to recover herself. She choked on a sob. “I won’t. And I won’t leave you either.”
“Why?” He stared at her. “Why not?”
“Because I love you.” She took his other hand and held them both in her own.
“But how?”
She paused to think a moment. “I don’t know…” She let out a small, sad laugh. “I don’t know! But I do love you Erik, more than I’ve ever loved anyone else in my life.”
“But…”
“I know you’ve done terrible, awful things in your life before, and God knows it breaks my heart to hear it. But you’ve suffered so much, and I can see why you might have done what you did. And I know that today you are not the same person who did those things. I’ve seen you change so much just since the day I met you.” She broke off, searching for words. “I can’t explain it…but I feel…like nothing you do could ever make me want to leave you.”
Erik stared at her, not knowing what to think or believe. “Surely…you can’t mean that. I’ve stolen, I’ve murdered, and I’ve lied to you…how could you possibly love someone like me?”
Alana bit her lip. “Honestly…I don’t know.” She smiled sadly. “But I do. Please, know that I do. I love you now, and I always will. You are not what you’ve done in the past. The man I know and love now is kind and good. And worthy of all the love in the world,” she added in a quiet whisper.
Erik could not understand. His mind was spinning as he burned and shivered with fever. Perhaps his sickness would kill him and then Alana would be free of this delusion that she could really forgive and love a monster like him. “I don’t know what to say,” he began.
“Then don’t say anything.” She let go of one of his hands and reached up to touch the exposed side of his forehead, frowning as she felt the heat of the fever. “Rest, and get well. I promise, I will stay with you until you’re better.”
“And after that...?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But don’t think for a minute that I’m going to walk away from you when that time comes.”
Erik said nothing for a while, and then he couldn’t keep from allowing himself a small smile. “You deserve so much better than me, Alana.”
Alana shook her head. “I’m not so sure of that…but even if you were right, I don’t care. You’re the one I love.” She squeezed his hand and reached up to touch his face. “No matter what.” She smiled. “Now rest, and heal. I’ll be here when you wake up again.” She moved closer and kissed him on the cheek. “I promise.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A week had passed since the day Raimond Valjean hired Emilian Richters to do repairs and other odd jobs around their house and the church. Raimond had always been too busy with his books and sermons to pay as much attention to the place as he should have, so the extra help was much appreciated by the whole family. Amelie always made sure that Emilian had something good to eat and drink, and never forgot to invite him to come to the service on Sunday. Cerise kept her distance from him though, and from everyone really. She spent most of her time reading, sewing, or working in the garden alone, constantly and silently worrying to herself about her cousin being in danger or being caught by the authorities.
Emilian found things strangely ironic as he put in the new window, replacing the one that he’d broken himself. The Valjeans were so trusting, he thought.
If they only knew the real reason I was here…
It was no wonder then, that the girl had been fooled into believing that the Devil’s Child was a man like any other, one worth helping. Emilian pitied her, really. He’d done a lot of things in his life that he wasn’t proud of, but maybe finding and destroying the Devil’s Child once and for all would redeem him somehow. He’d be ridding the world of a dangerous criminal, and he’d be freeing a helpless girl who had somehow fallen under a dark spell. The Comte de Bellamy would reward him well if he could bring the girl safely back, he thought with a grin. She was just a common girl, but she would make a fine Comtesse. She was certainly beautiful enough. Anger boiled beneath his skin. It was unfair, unjust, that the Devil’s Child could have her love. Perhaps…he couldn’t help but think…Perhaps she will be so grateful to me for rescuing her from the monster that she will fall in love with me and not the Comte!
The possibility was always there, and so he worked, always thinking of the future, of this grand quest of sorts that he’d begun, to rescue a girl from an evil monster. He raked up the autumn leaves that littered the sidewalk on both sides of the street, pulled weeds from the garden, and began work on repairing the railing that had been broken in the bell tower stairwell. When he wasn’t working for the Valjeans, though, he would make runs to Parc de Seigneurs to see if there was any work there to be done. He drove a few of the household servants around on errands, but nothing more. The Comte was not there, leaving the house unnaturally quiet and empty.
One day, Raimond Valjean gave him a letter and asked him to mail it. Emilian left in the direction of the nearest post office, but once he reached a safe distance he stopped and opened the letter. It was to the missing girl, asking why she had decided so suddenly to take a trip alone to her hometown, telling her to be careful, and encouraging her to come back to Paris as soon as possible.
So she’s gone on a sudden and unexpected trip.
Emilian could hardly believe his luck. This practically confirmed to him that she had gone away to help the Devil’s Child. Instead of continuing on to the post office, he put the letter in his pocket. The Comte de Bellamy would need to see this when he came home.
Finally, at the end of the week, the Comte returned. By the time Emilian reached his house, the sun had set and a chill filled the air. It would be a cold, cold winter this year, he predicted. He went into the enormous city house and found Damien having drinks with several guests as they waited for their dinner to be served. Emilian recognized some of those guests; the Vicomte de Chagny was there—his wife noticeably absent—as well as an unusually subdued Comtesse Seraphine. The owners of the hardware store he’d visited were there too, he noticed with interest. What exactly is their connection to the others here? He wondered. They were businessmen, not aristocrats.
“Good evening, my lord Comte,” Emilian said, bowing as he walked up to Damien.
“Good evening,” the Comte said lightly. “How is your new career suiting you?”
Emilian smiled. “Very well, monsieur! But in your absence I have done some other work. I may have some important information regarding...” he paused, and lowered his voice to a whisper, “…the Devil’s Child.” Despite his quiet tone, he noticed the Vicomte de Chagny and the store owners stop and look at him for a moment before they resumed their drinking and talking.
Damien rolled his eyes. “He’s dead, Richters. If he didn’t die of his wounds then he drowned in the river. Forget him.”
“If we did not see his dead body, then there is still a chance that he’s alive. I say he is.” The Comte opened his mouth to speak but Emilian cut him off. “The Valjean girl. I say she helped him escape from the river. That she’s still helping him now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. She ran off in the opposite direction, and we saw him being carried away by the river…”
“She is missing.”
“What?” The Comte stepped closer to him, glaring darkly. “What do you mean, missing?”
“Look at this.” Emilian pulled the letter from his pocket and handed it to Damien, who scanned it quickly, his face paling as he read. “This letter was meant to be posted by her uncle. They think she is in the town of Détente.”
The Comte finished reading and then crushed the paper in his hand. He motioned to one of the servants in the room, the head butler, who made his way toward them. “Summon all the carriage drivers here. Tell them to meet me in the adjoining room after dinner.”
Emilian was not invited to join the dinner party, so he waited in the library while the aristocrats had their meal. Then he went into the room where the drivers were assembling one by one, and soon the Comte entered.
“I have some questions for you all,” Damien said gravely. “Surely you remember how my old housekeeper, Madame Giry, betrayed me by withholding information about the Phantom’s whereabouts. That is a crime, punishable by law…I’d have her arrested if I knew where she was now. So, if any of you have something to say, make it true, because I’d hate to have to fire or arrest any of you good monsieurs.”
The drivers all nodded their heads nervously and promised to tell the truth.
“Very well. First question.” The Comte paced back and forth in front of the line of carriage drivers while the other men stood quietly. “Have any of you driven to the town of Détente recently?”
One by one, each man swore he had not driven there, or anywhere nearby. Most of them did not even know there was such a town.
“You see, my lord?” Emilian said. “None of them have been there. The girl could not have gone there. I say she has taken the Devil’s Child somewhere.”
“Have you all spoken true?” Damien asked the men again. “Have you told me everything that could be of some use to us?”
“No,” one of the drivers spoke up, a surly-looking bald man. Everyone in the room turned to him. He sighed, and wiped perspiration from his forehead. “I drove two girls home from the ball, a red-haired girl and a blonde…”
“Alana and Cerise…” The Comte muttered. “Go on.”
“Along the way they had me stop, and they got out of the carriage. They said they’d be back, so I waited. I’d been there a long time when finally they return with a seriously injured man between them. He looked absolutely terrible, his face all bandaged up. He could hardly walk on his own. They put him into the carriage with them, and I drove them to Paris. They paid me more than the usual tip. Told me not to tell anyone about them, and I did keep my mouth shut. But no sense in that now, my lord. Has my information helped you?”
“It has. Now,” the Comte said, “where exactly in Paris did you take them? Was it near the opera house, by chance?”
The driver’s eyes widened. “The one that was destroyed by fire? Yes. I dropped them off outside a hotel in that general area.”
I knew it. Emilian smiled triumphantly, as Damien’s face turned to stone. Slowly, the Comte turned to the head butler. “Get Raoul, Gilles, and Richard in here, now.”
In a few moments, the Vicomte and the two shopkeepers entered the room.
“What is it, Damien?” the Vicomte asked.
The Comte de Bellamy shook his head slowly in disbelief. “I don’t even know how to say it…”
I can. “The Devil’s Child, Phantom, whatever you want to call him, is still alive!” Emilian announced bluntly.
“Oh my God!” The shopkeepers shouted out. They both looked extremely nauseous, and the Vicomte de Chagny sank into a chair and hid his face in his hands.
“One of my drivers saw him being helped by two women. Alana and her cousin Cerise both left my house together, and they brought him back here to Paris. My driver dropped them all off at a hotel not far away from the opera house.” Damien spoke quickly, then broke off. “How in hell was he able to survive?” He continued to pace around the room, clenching and unclenching his fists or knotting his fingers in his thick dark hair. Emilian wouldn’t have been surprised if the Comte began tearing his clothes.
“Perhaps he cannot be killed, my lord,” Emilian offered. “He is no ordinary man, after all. It is a possibility he is not even…”
“Of course he’s human, you idiot!” The Comte interrupted, furious. “He may be evil and twisted and monstrous and dangerous but he bleeds just like any man! And he can die like one.”
“So what do we do now?” The Vicomte de Chagny asked. His cheeks were flushed with anger.
Damien hesitated a bit, thinking before he spoke. “Well, I’d say there’s a good chance that the Phantom is back hiding under the Opera House. We have to do something, and fast. He should still be weakened by his injuries, but every hour we delay he’ll just be getting stronger.”
“But what if he’s not down there?”
“Where else would he go? He’s too weak to travel far, and there is nowhere else he could go without drawing too much attention to himself. Besides, the opera house has been abandoned by all but vagrants since the fire. Even though it’s the most obvious place for him to hide, no one would go to search for him there.”
“Rightly so. Those tunnels underground are dangerous,” the Vicomte said. “But I think you’re right. The Phantom must be there…”
“And Alana must be with him…” Damien said softly. “We need to get in touch with the police. We should have at least twenty of their best officers with us.”
“But how will we be able to find him?” Emilian asked. This was the one thing he wasn’t sure about. If there were tunnels everywhere beneath that opera house, it could take a long time for them to discover where the Devil’s Child was hiding, and the thought of searching endlessly in the cold, dark passageways for such a vicious monster wasn’t very appealing.
“I know the way,” said the Vicomte with an air of forced confidence. “I can lead everyone underground. This time, the Phantom will not escape.”
“He’ll hang for sure, if…” Richard began.
“If I don’t shoot him first,” Damien finished. “And this time, I’ll kill him.”
Emilian raged on the inside. You’re wrong, Comte. His life is mine to take.
“Do…do we all have to go underground after him?” Gilles looked as if he might faint. “I for one would much rather prefer to read about your triumph on the front page of the newspaper.”
“I can’t say I want to go down there either,” Richard agreed. “I think the whole thing is best left to trained professionals.” He turned to the Vicomte. “You remember what happened to Buquet and Piangi. What almost happened to you. Is it really wise to risk your life again up against that…that…”
“Monster,” The Vicomte scowled. “And perhaps not. But I want to be there when he’s arrested or killed. He’s put Christine and me both through hell and you can’t blame me for wanting to see how it finally ends.”
“Enough talk!” Damien shouted. “We need to summon the police.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It had been a long, fruitless afternoon for Madame Antoinette Giry and her daughter. They had walked the streets of Paris for miles looking for employment, but there was none to be found. On their way they’d passed fanatics raving to mobs of angry poor, and beggars languishing in alleys. Though neither one of them said anything, they both silently asked the question: Would they ever end up like them?
Antoinette hated the thought of having to rely on Erik’s ill-earned money to keep herself and her daughter from starving, but she wasn’t sure what choice they would have if things kept going this way. She and Meg had almost nothing left of their wages from their time at the de Bellamy house.
They were headed to Café Aria now, where they planned to pick up some meals for themselves, as well as Alana and Erik. In the past week, Erik’s fever had broken and he was beginning to heal. Despite everyone’s urging for him to rest, he had begun to play the organ again, and even to pick up some of his old compositions, looking over and sometimes revising them. It was clear that he was still weak and in pain, but working on his music again, and having Mademoiselle Alana there seemed to make him happier than Antoinette had ever seen him. She saw him smile much more often than usual, and every now and then, she even heard him laugh as he and Alana talked together for hours.
Maybe this was the beginning of a new chapter in Erik’s life, she thought. Maybe his story would have a happy ending after all…
“Maman, listen!” Meg said suddenly.
They both stopped walking, and Antoinette strained to hear something out of the ordinary. The street was mostly empty, and soon she heard the sound of footsteps. Many footsteps, marching in perfect time.
“Soldiers,” Madame Giry whispered. “Best get out of their way.” Quickly, she seized her daughter’s arm and pulled her into a shop. They hurried to the window overlooking the street, and watched as a large group of officers marched by.
“What could be going on?” Meg wondered. “Is there a riot nearby? I didn’t think those people we passed were that angry yet…”
“Wait.” Antoinette gasped when she saw two very familiar faces walking alongside the uniformed officers. There was the Comte de Bellamy and the Vicomte de Chagny, passing them by outside.
By now Meg saw them too. “What in the world…oh no.” Her face paled.
“Quickly, my love,” Antoinette took her by the arm again and they made for the door, leaving the shop as soon as the soldiers were out of sight. They broke into a run, hurrying for Café Aria as fast as they could.
We have to warn Erik and Alana before it’s too late…