A pale, ugly face gleamed up at him from the next catwalk below. Buquet, the ape.
'Quite a show you put on down there,' drawled the man, looking boldly up at Erik. 'A nice piece of pussy, and you managed to find your way down into it. Not that you're the first, you know.'
It was nothing for Erik to launch himself from the narrow, rick ety catwalk and flip himself onto the one below. He landed, flat-footed and steady, and turned face-to-face with Buquet.
'You are a coarse, stupid man,' Erik said, fury cold and steady through him. He might burn for Christine, but he had learned long ago to control his other emotions into efficiency. He did not rage; he acted with decisiveness.
Buquet had the balls to laugh, yet Erik saw that he stepped back. Fear glinted in his eyes, displayed by the low lantern the man carried, 'I'd be happy to keep what I saw to myself, if you allow me to watch-'
Erik's hand shot out and closed around the man's throat. His fingers tightened over his windpipe, and lifted his weaselly bulk from the narrow wood planks. 'If I find out you have even breathed the same air as Miss Daae, if you even
The man choked and gasped beneath the same fingers that played the piano with such elegance and beauty. Erik constricted, then loosened them, and allowed the man to collapse at his feet. One leg dangled off the narrow walkway.
'Do not let me see you or hear you again, Buquet.'
He turned to stalk away, the frustration that had been centered in his cock now vibrating throughout his being. Rage and desire were a monstrous combination.
'You'll never have her, scuttling rat.' Buquet's words were so soft, perhaps he did not mean for Erik to hear them. The coward. But Erik did hear, and he whirled back around just as the man leaped at him.
Buquet's lantern rested on the walk, leaving his hands free. One held the flimsy rope railing, and the other a glinting silver knife. 'You're naught but a sick devil, scurrying about in the dark,' he said boldly, brave now that he brandished his weapon. 'You must hide your filthy self-'
Erik kicked out, and Buquet dodged on the narrow footbridge, continuing to taunt him. 'You bury yerself in the dark, and yearn for what you will never have. She won't be looking on the likes of you, no matter that she spreads her legs when you force her. She'll not spread 'em for your cock, for the-'
Erik stopped the mocking voice with both feet, slamming into the man's face as he lifted himself with the weak rope railing on either side. Buquet tumbled to the boards and, grasping at the rope with one hand, pulled himself up, the knife raised in the other.
As he brought the knife down, Erik ducked and lunged, and knocked the man off-balance… and then felt the footbridge tip as he slid to the edge. Before Erik could turn, the walkway righted with a jerk, swaying mightily as Buquet tipped off and he hurtled through the air.
He caught, tangled in the ropes from the backdrops and lights, hanging there as he frantically tried to claw himself free. Erik watched, and saw what was going to happen before it did… before he could move to try and stop it.
Rope snagged around Buquet, and as he struggled to free his hands, one of the lines looped around his neck. As the last part slipped free from his arm, Buquet fell freely until that rope tightened its deadly grip.
His neck broke with an ugly snap that echoed in the dark chamber.
Erik turned impassively, picked up his gloves, and, leaving the lantern and the knife, walked off the catwalk to the iron ladder that lined the wall.
They would find Buquet in the morning, and it would be yet another evil attributed to the Opera Ghost.
The tussle with Buquet had eased some of the rampant lust coursing through his body, but as Erik climbed silently down the iron ladder, it all came flooding back. Images swam there, haunting him in the dark as he forced himself to count the rungs. Anything to keep his mind steady.
But the counting could not keep them away. The open curve of Christines white neck. Heavy, walnut-colored hair brushing the part of his face that was bare, he imagined it falling in long waves down her pale back. Plump pink lips, wet and full like the lips of her sex, open and inviting. Panting, as she writhed on his finger. Hard pointed nipples, shooting up, jiggling and jerking with every shuddering breath she took.
The vibration of her beneath his hands, between his palms. Her scent… roses and lavender and whatever it was that made her Christine. Slickness everywhere, the musky smell curling into his nostrils as he played her. Played her.
His throat was dry and crackling and his erection surging, straining with need. Buquet's words haunted him.
Buquet's taunts mingled with memories of his youth, of those dark, horrid days with his brother, where the girls would scream at the sight of Erik's face. And his brother would shove them at him, make him touch them. So he could watch them scream, and fight.
Erik stepped onto the wooden floor of the backstage and turned. Someone was there.
Madame Giry stepped forward, holding a lantern that sent stark shadows over her aging face. 'Erik… did you kill Buquet?'
'He killed himself,' he replied. 'Though it was fortunate for me that he managed it on his own, for I sorely wanted to help him along.'
Maude, known as Madame Giry to everyone else in the Opera House, moved closer to him. She smelled like lilies, an erotic scent for a woman nearing fifty. She was the same age his mother would have been, had she lived a full life and not died when he was merely twelve.
The two women had been the best of friends, close as twins from their childhood in the south. They moved together to Paris to pursue dancing careers. His only portrait of his mother was one that Maude had given him of the two women together, and they could hardly have been more different. The young Maude was fair-skinned and fresh-faced, with generous curves, while Erik's mother had the lithe, exotic beauty of her Persian mother and French father.
Ten years ago, when Erik was in trouble and had nowhere else to turn, he came to the only friend he knew. Maude had been his protector ever since.
'Buquet was a filthy man who did not know to keep his mouth shut. I have caught him spying on my girls more than once. He is no great loss.'
'I will be blamed.'
She nodded. 'Yet another tragedy attributed to your legend. This will only serve to protect you further, Erik, and you know how important it is that you remain a mysterious, shadowy figure. As long as you remain a half- believed legend, you are safe. With a little prompting, the new managers will be inclined to keep you happy in exchange for a peaceful house.'
'And you will continue to ensure that they do.'
'I will ensure that they have every reason to comply with your requirements. I consider it my duty to keep them satisfied… on all levels.' In the low light, her face transformed with a meaningful smile.
Maude loved sex, and she did not confine her lustful appetites to one partner, or even many. She had slept with legions over the years, and prided herself for hiding her great appetites behind a rigid, proper persona. 'I'll make myself acquainted with them first before I introduce them to some of the girls.' She looked at him thoughtfully. 'Something I would be most happy to do for you, Erik. There are one or two who could be counted on to remain discreet. Or I'll see them thrown out on the street.'
'No,' he managed to say calmly, though his cock shifted beneath his trousers. 'I'll wait.'
With a sideways glance, Maude raised an eyebrow and shrugged. 'You are becoming as chaste as Christine is.'
'Your girls might be discreet, but they will still gossip. And La Carlotta, though out of your chaperonage, has the loudest lips of them all. It is best if I remain the shadowy ghost I've been for the last nine years so that none can identify me.'
Yes, nearly ten years of his life-one-third of it! — had been spent hovering in the shadows of this Opera
