Page 24 of Angel’s Flight (The Phantom Saga #4)

“Well, I don’t want to fail to meet any more expectations,” Erik replied, voice low and deadly.

He caught Pauline’s other hand easily as she swung at him, then in an instant, he twisted her around, trapping her wrists behind her so she was facing Christine.

“My dear wife, would you hand me that cord Pauline here left on the ground? I’ll make sure it’s tight this time. ”

Christine didn’t let her eyes leave the two of them as she knelt to comply. When Pauline finally winced as Erik forced her to move, Christine knew she should have worried about the state of her husband’s soul, but she only felt satisfaction.

“We want you to tell us who employed you and Monsieur Bidaut,” Christine demanded, her voice unsteady as she handed Erik the frayed rope that Pauline had somehow escaped from. Pauline only stared at Christine defiantly as Erik forced her back into her chair and bound her tightly and viciously.

“My wife asked you a question, Mademoiselle – what was your surname, by the way? Is Pauline your real name at all?”

“Topilina,” Pauline said, her voice taking on an interesting lilt as she said the name.

“Interesting,” Erik muttered. “Now, my wife’s question.”

Pauline sneered at Christine as Erik loomed behind her like a great raven ready to strike.

“You calling her your wife doesn’t make her any less of a failure,” Pauline spat, looking Christine up and down with pure disgust. “Just like forcing some poor priest to mutter magic words won’t erase what she’s done. ”

“I was hoping you’d say something provocative,” Erik sighed, and in a flash of movement, he had a second length of cord around Pauline’s neck.

“Erik!” Christine screamed, watching as the woman struggled fruitlessly to breathe, her face turning red and her eyes bulging with terror. “You can’t kill her!”

“Why not? I killed Bidaut. Probably,” Erik replied lazily as horror filled Pauline’s face at the words, and spittle dripped from her mouth. “This ties up a loose end. Pun intended. We throw her in the river, and we’ll be done with this.”

“Then they’ll just send someone else!” Christine cried, tears stinging her eyes.

Erik gave a dramatic sigh and let the dark-haired woman go. Pauline took a gasping breath and looked up at Erik with a terrible, hungry smile. “That’s more like it.”

“We’ll let you go if you go back to whoever sent you and tell them to leave us alone!” Christine begged. “This money isn’t worth your people suffering or dying. Please, let us live our lives in peace.”

“My employers don’t care about that, you idealistic little fool,” Pauline laughed hoarsely. “They don’t care about your love or whatever fictions you concoct to sleep at night. After this, they’ll be even more determined. There’s nowhere you can go where we won’t find you.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” Erik said, coming around in front of Pauline at last and leaning in close. “I would like to know who would hunt me in such a way, so I can eliminate them.”

“No!” Christine screamed and grabbed Erik by the shoulder, hauling him back out of the cellar while Pauline cackled behind them. “Erik, we can’t do this!”

“We can’t leave loose ends, you have to understand that!” Erik shot back, echoing off the stone wall. “Not if we want to start fresh.”

“Did you not hear her?” Christine replied, equally fiercely. “She practically promised that they will follow us to New York! Killing her will only make it worse and – dear God, you said things were different now!”

“Things will be different the moment we get on the ship, I swear.”

“Erik, please! Let me try to reason with her one more time before you...” Christine couldn’t even get out the words. Erik sighed in something like disgust.

“We have to be on the way to Naples by dawn. I will give you an hour,” Erik rumbled. Erik huffed and disappeared back into the dark, to where Jack and Howard hopefully waited to do their part. Christine rushed back down the stairs. She had to be quick about this.

“So the dog is back in his cage, and you’ve come to try and sway me?” Pauline mocked as Christine returned to the little circle of light she sat in, cast by an old oil lamp. “But sway me to what? To change my heart? For you?”

“I thought we could be friends once,” Christine countered. “You were kind. You made me feel so much less alone.”

“Because you were a fool then and you’re a fool now if you think I’m going to tell you who I work for out of the goodness of my heart.”

“I don’t care who you work for. I care that you live and leave us alone. And you’ll do that if I let you go,” Christine stated, and for once, Pauline looked shocked. “I don’t want another death on my hands or his.”

“So you admit what you’ve done?” Pauline asked carefully.

“We did not kill Antoine, if that’s what you’re asking.

” Christine braced herself at the way the memory of his body hitting the floor still made her sick.

How his corpse became a falling chandelier in her mind.

“But we... He has done things and is capable of horror. So, I’m saving your life and we are leaving this damn continent. ”

“You think an ocean will be enough to keep you from the past?” Pauline spat as Christine approached.

“I’m going to let you out, and you’re going to run out of here. Erik and the others are busy with our things. You have to go quickly,” Christine ordered as she stepped behind Pauline and began untying Erik’s tight knots around her wrists. “Please.”

“You think I’ll care that you saved me,” Pauline asked, fascinated and cold.

“I want to think you have a soul capable of compassion,” Christine replied and meant it.

Even so, she was not surprised when Pauline sprang up the moment the bindings were loose and struck Christine hard in the face with the chair as she pushed it back.

She added a vicious kick straight to her stomach that took the wind out of Christine’s lungs.

“You’re more of an idiot than I thought,” Pauline chuckled.

Christine shut her eyes tight and braced herself for another blow, but it didn’t come. Instead, she heard the sound of Pauline’s steps retreating up the stairs. Christine held her breath, scant as it was, and listened to the distant sound of a door slamming. Then nothing.

She waited in silence, her jaw smarting where the chair had struck her and her guts aching. She was glad her corset protected her somewhat, but it was still a chore to move. Luckily, a shadow appeared and helped her.

Erik was there, right where he said he would be, helping her to stand.

“Are you alright?” Erik asked, touching her face gingerly. She could see the concern in his shining eyes, and it warmed her heart. It made her feel cared for and seen as only he could.

“Do you think it worked?”

“She ran out into the street, like we hoped,” Erik replied. “And she saw the tickets on the table in the kitchen, in case she didn’t hear our destination.”

“She heard it,” Christine sighed. “She wouldn’t have left me in one piece if she didn’t know where to find me again.”

“You hardly seem in one piece.”

“I’ve had worse,” Christine replied with a shrug. “Or maybe it’s you who’s supposed to say that.”

“I’d encourage you to get some rest, but I don’t think either of us will be able to sleep tonight.

” Erik still pulled her into his arms, and Christine melted into them.

Part of her wanted to recoil; it recalled the violence he had unleashed on Pauline with fear and disgust, even knowing it had been a ruse.

What he’d done to Bidaut hadn’t been, but that was the price they paid, wasn’t it?

“We’ll sleep on the train,” Christine murmured against his chest. “It will be a long journey.”

“I love you,” Erik whispered in her ear, somehow knowing she needed to hear it. “I love you, and I’m sorry for all of this. I truly am. I’m sorry we can’t go to America now.”

“It was too far, anyway,” Christine replied, and let another dream wither in her heart.

Paris

S haya meandered through the Tuileries as dawn broke, mired in indecision.

He had promised Armand he would look about at the Opéra, but he had a nagging instinct that his suspicions about the de Chagny manor were more important.

How this new phantom and the secrets that the family kept were related, Shaya had no idea, but he knew there was a connection.

For the hundredth time, he wished he could speak to Erik about it.

Shaya slumped onto a bench between two manicured trees and tossed the last of his breakfast roll to a horde of waiting pigeons. They were all over the gardens, outnumbered only by the crows who roosted there at night, close to the cool air of the river.

Shaya cast his eyes to the trees just in time to see a murder of birds explode from the branches in a great cawing cloud. Something must have disturbed them. Yes – there. A figure was standing by a tree trunk in the shade... looking at Shaya.

Another man would have thought nothing of it. Another man would have assumed this other was merely out for a walk, the same as Shaya, enjoying the last gasps of summer before the trees shed their golden leaves and left the gardens like a museum of skeletons.

But Shaya wasn’t another man. He had been raised among spies and treachery; he had spent years in the secret police, observing the Persian court and years after that tracking a ghost. He knew when he was being watched.

The hair rose on the back of Shaya’s neck as he regarded the spy across the park. Shaya couldn’t make out any details except that he was a man of average height and build. Had he noticed Shaya watching him back? He hoped not.

Shaya rose, making sure to look casual and calm as he wandered out of the gardens to the Rue de la Paix .

The streets were quiet and uncrowded this time of day, with only a few shop owners and waiters outside sweeping steps and cleaning tables before the workday began.

Shaya made it to the Place de Vend?me before pausing, making a show of looking up at the triumphal column Napoleon had erected in the square.

His gaze followed the spiraling line of figures on the green bronze as they ascended, telling the story of old battles.

Or that’s what he made it look like. In truth, his focus was on his peripheral vision, taking stock of anyone who might follow him into the square.

It took a moment, but he wasn’t disappointed.

The same figure from the Tuileries entered the square, his gaze falling on Shaya before retreating to a newsstand.

Shaya walked nonchalantly from the square, checking his reflection in windows along the avenue as he meandered.

He didn’t catch sight of the other man until he reached the Opéra and went left on the Rue Scribe .

Perhaps the man knew where Shaya was headed, for he drew closer, to see which entrance Shaya made for.

It wasn’t a simple thing to enter the Opéra alone when one wasn’t a patron or employee.

The backstage entrance at the rear of the building on the Boulevard Haussman had an imposing gate, but the guard there knew Shaya – and had been paid well by him before.

So did the clerks by the door, who opened it for Shaya. He smiled at them in clear view of the glass-paneled door because he wanted the spy to see. He wanted whoever was following him to know he was in the Opéra and nowhere else.

The dark figure waited across the Boulevard Haussmann , watching the door.

Shaya watched him in return. He waited, observing from a hidden corner for a quarter of an hour, then made his move.

It was thanks to Erik that he knew one of the secret ways out of the Opéra – the stables.

The groom was asleep in a stall when Shaya shuffled by, and soon enough, he was back on the Rue Scribe .

Soon enough, he found his pursuer, seated in a door frame, watching the Opéra.

Now it was Shaya’s turn to watch. The man looked bored, and after ten minutes, he took a notebook out of his pocket and jotted something down, exactly as Shaya would.

What Shaya wouldn't have done was leave his post so quickly, but this one was young. His gait was easy and spry as he headed away from the Opéra down the Rue Auber and towards the Saint-Lazare train station. Thankfully, the man didn’t enter the crowded station but turned right and towards the shops at the new Galeries Lafayette .

He went beyond that too, with Shaya trailing all the while until he turned down a small street and entered a nondescript building. Offices of some kind.

Shaya wondered if he should wait to see what kind of building this was or come back some other time.

His impatience won out, but he was careful about it.

He waited for another man to walk along the street and then followed a little beside him, only glancing at the names on the plaques by the door before moving on. One look was all he needed.

Pomeroy and Associates: private detectives.