Unable to make out the words spoken, his eyes focused on Désirée’s shoe. Like a snake striking to bite its prey, he pressed every ounce of strength in his body toward her foot and weakly grabbed her ankle. She screamed and pulled away. Erik’s hand dropped limp to the floor with a thud.
“Ah, the monster lives. See, I told you that it wouldn’t be long before he’d come around.” He watched Sybelle’s feet walked toward him. She lifted her foot and kicked him in the ribs. Erik moaned from the pain assaulting his already bruised body lying in a puddle of spilt cognac and sharp glass.
“Mother, please! Don’t hurt him like that. We weren’t supposed to hurt him. That wasn’t the plan.”
“Shut up!” she spat in Désirée’s face.
Mother…mother…she’s Désirée’s mother? Erik tried to process the confusing information swirling in his muddled mind.
“Let’s lift him up and lean him in the chair so he can watch,” Sybelle commanded.
Before he could protest, the two women, one on either side, slipped their arms underneath his armpits and roughly pulled him upright into a nearby chair. They plopped him down, and he fell to the side. His body wanted to roll back onto the floor, but Désirée’s hand pushed him back up until he could maintain the position.
He lifted his droopy eyelids and tried to find the blueness in her gaze that always calmed him, but it was gone. Her eyes spoke of sorrow.
“What…what do you want?” He sounded like a thick-tongued drunk mumbling his words. He tried to focus, but the room spun in circles. After a few more attempts, his gaze rested upon the two women who watched him closely.
Sybelle Renard reeked of evil. The burning indignation in her eyes told him things were not going in his favor. His vision slipped over to Désirée. The room spun, but after a few more seconds, he was able to focus upon her face. She looked frightened and confused. He grabbed the arm of the chair to steady himself.
“Désirée, what is the meaning of this? Tell me.”
Désirée looked at him with a slight shade of pity. “Erik, my name is not Désirée Martin. It’s Theresa Désirée Hessier. This is my mother, Sybelle Hessier.”
Hessier…Hessier…he had heard the name before in Paris, and tried to remember but could not.
“What do you want with me,” he managed to sputter. “Out with it!”
“Retribution,” Sybelle replied, slithering over to his side like a serpent.
Désirée interrupted to clarify. “We just want you to know what you did, Erik, and that I need compensation for my pain.”
“How?” he spat, “By drugging me?” Erik began to regain feeling in his lower limbs and arms, but refused to move, playing their game to bide more time. His hands tingled like a thousand prickly pins, which told him control slowly returned to his body.
Sybelle walked toward him, her eyes blazing with hatred. She reached down and tore off his mask and hairpiece, flinging it to the floor to reveal his ugliness. The witch reacted in shock, as he had expected from Désirée, who still stood unaffected by his appearance.
“The ugly monster!” her mother roared. “My God, he’s disgusting!” She spit in his face, and Erik turned away, feeling her salvia run down his cheek.
Désirée protested. “Mother, please, don’t ridicule him.”
Her mother turned and eyed her daughter. “I’m sorry, dear.” Her mother spoke coldly. “But there has been a slight change of plans.”
Erik witnessed the horror on Désirée’s face, and he braced himself for what lay ahead.
“What do you mean?” she demanded, coming over and grabbing her mother’s arm. She quickly tore it from her grasp.
“You’ll see, but first let’s tell the monster the story, shall we?”
Sybelle’s words dripped like poisonous venom, and Erik watched stunned as she proceeded to explain the reason for his punishment.
“Well, this is such a wonderful story,” she announced, turning to her daughter. “It’s almost like a fairytale actually. Of course, my daughter’s life would have been a fairytale had it all played out the way it was supposed to in the end. But no, the Opera Ghost had to ruin it all.”
Sybelle narrowed her glare and began her discourse, while Désirée stood to the side with her head hanging in shame.
“Once upon a time,” she began sardonically, “there was a ghost who lived under the opera house in Paris. He was obsessed with a certain soprano. One night in his selfish attempt to capture another woman for himself, he brought down the chandelier on the unsuspecting audience to create a diversion while he dragged her to his lair.”
A hideous laugh escaped Sybelle’s lips, as her eyes grew wide with insanity, recounting the story. Erik glanced at Désirée, who stood to the side and silently wept.
“That chandelier fell, and it caused a fire. Did you care?” She drew near to his face. “No! You were too busy.”
“Mother, please, don’t…” Désirée cried. “I can’t go through with this.”
Her plea only served to enrage Sybelle. “Do as I tell you, Theresa! Don’t question me!”
She turned Désirée’s body around so that her back faced Erik. “Show him! Show him!” she screamed. “Show the monster what he did to you!”
Her mother grabbed Désirée’s bodice and began clawing at her dress like an animal. The fabric ripped, and Désirée fought against her mother’s hands screaming at Sybelle to stop.
“All right!” Désirée screamed. “All right! I’ll show him.”
Her whimpering cries filled the room as she unbuttoned her dress and lowered it off her shoulders. It pooled to the floor and fell at her feet. Désirée continued and removed her corset, which she also let fall to the floor. Then shockingly, Erik watched as she pulled her chemise over her head and lowered her bloomers until her naked back had been exposed completely. His blurry vision focused on her body. His brow furrowed after his eyes finally beheld her grotesque flesh that weaved across the surface. Burn scars laced her back down to her buttocks. The hideous sight caused Erik to glance away in utter revulsion.
“What’s this? The monster doesn’t wish to look at you,” Sybelle squawked. “I told you that he’d be sickened, didn’t I? I told you! He can’t look at your ugliness.”
Désirée sobbed loudly when she heard of Erik’s reaction.
“You see what you did to my daughter! The chandelier caught the stage curtain on fire and it fell onto her body, pinning her to the floor in a blanket of flames. Thank God, someone had the decency to pull the flaming material off her back and rescue her from certain death. You nearly killed her, and perhaps it would have been better had she died after all the suffering that followed.”
Désirée wept. Her hands clutched to her face in shame. Erik looked back again at her grotesque flesh.
“She was engaged to be married to Dom Fernando, brother of the King of Portugal. Of course, as soon as he saw the scars left on her body, after six months of agonizing pain to recover, he broke off the engagement. If that wasn’t enough, we were left with debts from hospital bills we could not pay.”
Sybelle looked at her only daughter with compassion. “You stole her future, her beauty, her life. You made my beautiful daughter suffer more than any woman should ever have to in a lifetime.”
Erik watched Désirée slip back into her underclothes with trembling hands, still struggling with the horrid revelation. His heart broke watching her sob uncontrollably, heartbroken over his unsympathetic reaction. He did not notice that her mother had moved into a position to make him pay for his sins, until her insane scream reached his ears. Erik looked up and caught sight of her body looming overhead.
“Now you’ll pay for what you’ve done to her and to me!”
Désirée spun around, and Erik’s eyes opened wide. Sybelle had drawn a dagger from her cloak and raised it in the air over Erik’s heart. He saw her hand start to plummet downward toward his chest, but felt as if weights had him pinned to the chair.
“Mother,
no!” Désirée screamed in terror and lunged toward her mother in time to grab her arm. They wrestled with one another as Désirée tried to take the dagger, but was no match for the mad woman’s strength.
“Mother, no. I love him! Don’t kill him. Don’t! Please, I love him!”
Désirée’s mother reacted to her confession. “Love him! You love the monster?” She slapped her daughter hard across her face with her free hand, causing Désirée to stumble and fall. Sybelle whirled around and returned toward Erik, once again raising the dagger high above his head, aiming straight for his heart. Whatever strength Erik regained, he had to use now or death would arrive in the next second.
He roared at her like a lion, wobbled to his feet, and grabbed her wrist, pushing the blade away from his chest that hovered a mere inch away.
“I’ll kill you!” she screamed! “I’ll kill you for what you’ve done!”
Erik’s momentary strength would soon seep from his body. He clenched his teeth, raised his arm, and punched Sybelle in the jaw with his clenched fist. He used every ounce of adrenalin that shot through his veins. The blow hurled her backward. She tumbled to the floor with a hard thud, the dagger clutched in her hand. Sybelle landed on top of the blade, and it thrust into her waist.
Horrified, Désirée ran to her side screaming. “Mama! Mama!” She knelt beside her mother and wailed uncontrollably.
“I did it for you, Theresa. All for you,” she gasped in response, wincing from the pain. “I wanted to kill him because he killed your spirit and ruined your life.”
“No, Mama,” she cried, her hand shaking above the knife, wishing to remove it. “I don’t hate him any longer. I’ve forgiven him.”
Her mother smirked. “You foolish girl,” she gasped. “Men only wish for beauty. He will never love you, mon petite! To him, you are only a casualty; a scarred casualty that offers no beauty to his ugly world. He will discard you, just like your fiancé did.”
Sybelle panted a few times in agony and then closed her eyes, falling limp into her daughter’s arms.
Erik fell to his hands and knees on the floor, struggling for breath, still weakened from the drugs coursing through his veins. He looked at Désirée, whose scars were visible upon her upper shoulders, still horrified by their appearance. He tried to speak, when the door to his quarters slid back, and Richard and Andrea ran in horrified at the scene that lay before them.
“My God! What’s going on here?” Richard’s eyes darted back and forth.
“We heard all the screaming and came running,” Andrea shouted. She saw Sybelle Renard bleeding with a dagger protruding from her flesh.
Erik tried to catch his breath and pointed at Désirée with his index finger. “Ask her,” he groaned contemptuously. Désirée turned and looked at him with profound remorse. Erik’s eyes met her blue gaze of sadness. He blacked out and fell prostrate on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Andrea paced the length of the room back and forth wearing out the carpet. No one got a wink of sleep. She stayed by Erik’s side waiting for him to recover from his drugged stupor, afraid he would die at any time.
After they arrived upon hearing the ruckus, Richard tended to Sybelle, who had lived but bled profusely. He removed the knife and put pressure against the wound. Darius fetched a physician. Désirée sobbed uncontrollably in the corner like a baby, curled in a fetal position. Erik drifted in and out of consciousness.
The doctor finally arrived, and Sybelle had been taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. The physician sent word that she would survive and recover.
When the police arrived the evening before, Richard and Andrea tried their best to keep Erik’s involvement out of it, but it was difficult to do so. Désirée seemed intent on confessing her sins, explaining their scheme of blackmail. Everything had gone terribly wrong when her mother turned into a raging lunatic, trying to kill Erik instead.
Désirée, through heaving sobs, admitted to drugging Erik with a potion placed in his decanter of cognac. Her mother had planned to merely blackmail him into paying a large sum of money for their troubles. Instead, she went off the deep end and decided his demise would be a more satisfying means of justice.
Richard pressed the matter further. Before Désirée redressed, she showed the scars upon her back, relaying the story of her injuries. She blamed Erik for a number of things, including the reason behind her fiancé breaking off their engagement.
Andrea had no sympathy for her after the diabolical plot the two women had perpetrated upon Erik for revenge. Désirée knelt by Erik’s unconscious body telling him repeatedly that she loved him and cried her apologies. It sickened them both. Richard would hear nothing of her ranting about love, thinking she only said the words to keep from getting in trouble.
He insisted on pressing charges against her for the incident. The police cuffed Désirée and led her away to jail, sobbing hysterically and pleading to stay by Erik’s side. The authorities accused her of conspiracy to commit murder, since she admitted that her mother had attempted to do just that. Richard and Andrea did not protest. In fact, they were thankful to see her hauled off to receive her due punishment for her actions.
Beyond what she had told them, everything else was speculation on their part. Andrea anxiously waited for Erik to come back to life, so they could ask him what had actually happened. When he finally moaned and brought his hand to his head, she ran to his bedside.
“God, Erik, are you all right?”
“Yes,” he mumbled, trying to sit up as he held his head with his hand. “I feel as if I’ve been hit with an iron rod.” He squinted when the light hit his eyes, realizing he was still unmasked and without his hairpiece. “Have I been lying here like this all night?”
Andrea nodded. It did not bother her, but she knew that Erik always felt profound shame when uncovered. She handed him the mask and hairpiece, and he quickly slipped them on before speaking with her further. Andrea watched compassionately while he struggled to regain his senses and composure.
“Where is she?”
“Which one?”
Erik’s eyes shifted his gaze toward Andrea. “Both, I guess. Is Sybelle dead?”
“Dead? No, she’s in the hospital. The witch will live.”
“I suppose that’s good news,” he answered, with a half-hearted drawl. “At least I won’t be accused of that murder.”
Erik tried to stand to his feet, and Andrea reached out to help him steady himself. “I can do it,” he told her, pulling away. “Don’t drink the cognac in the decanter, by the way,” he added, with a slight chuckle. “It’s a bit deadly.”
“Don’t worry. It shattered to the floor in a million pieces. I’m surprised you have no cuts on you from the glass.
“Yes,” he noted, “but I reek of alcohol apparently.”
The poor man looked horrible, and Andrea sighed. “Désirée confessed to drugging you.” She wanted to remind Erik that she had been responsible for his horrid condition.
“I wish to see her. Bring her to me.”
Andrea pulled her eyes away from him, not wanting to look at the displeasure that would follow. “She’s not here, Erik. She’s in jail awaiting trial.”
“What? What do you mean in jail?”
“Well, the authorities came to the scene last night. She admitted to everything from the beginning. She cut the rope on the rigging and stole the keys plus the architectural plans. Her mother sent the death threats through the mail. Their last plan of action was to drug you and then blackmail you for money by threatening to turn you over to the Parisian authorities. Of course, when her mother tried to murder you, the charges quickly turned into a conspiracy to commit murder. I’m afraid the police were not too lenient and hauled her off rather roughly in handcuffs.”
“Damn it, Andrea! Why did you let them do that?” He brought his hand back to his pounding head.
“Are you crazy, Erik? Her mother just tried to cut your heart out with a dagger. Désirée poured a dru
g in your alcohol, and you wonder why she’s in jail?”
“Did you see?” His voice was laced with remorse. “Did you see the burn scars?”
“Yes.”
“I did that,” he remarked coldly. “One moment of madness on my part. How many more did I hurt that night, Andrea?”
She grew silent as her memory filtered back to that night and his reign of terror that she wished to forget. “A few suffered injuries, Erik. There was the one poor woman that died. I didn’t know of Désirée.”
“Her name is Theresa.”
“Yes, she told me. She was, as I recall now, a dancer who only performed periodically as a backup, but I didn’t recognize her when she came here to work. There were so many that worked at the Garnier. She happened to be in the chorus that evening, and her fiancé was in a box with her mother watching when the chandelier fell. They escaped unharmed, but she did not.”
Erik looked at the clock. “I want all the charges dropped, Andrea. Tell Richard that I am not pressing charges against her. She’s innocent. In fact, she tried to save my life while her mother tried to take it.”
“You cannot be serious! She drugged you and had planned blackmail.”
He growled at her, emphasizing each word slowly. “I want Richard to see that all charges are dropped! If I must, I will go to the police myself and testify about her attempt to save my life.”
Andrea sighed, giving in to his demands. “Very well, I will tell him what you have suggested. However, going to the police yourself will only put you in even more danger. Have you thought of that?”
“I don’t care. I can no longer hide like a rat. The police already know I exist after last night. Whether they put two and two together as to who I am and where I came from, only time will tell.”
Erik turned and looked at Andrea. He still felt as if weights were tied to his limbs from the drugs, but he wanted to return Désirée to the opera house. “Go get Richard and tell him that I wish to go to the police station within the hour.” He wrinkled his nose over the stench of his clothing. I need to bathe and change first.”
The Phantom of Valletta Page 20
