Here I Have A Note

Erik slammed his fingers on the keyboard, making a mighty din. At least that time, he thought to himself, the dissonance was intentional and not a result of my inability to compose. He had sat at the piano some hours ago, intent on untangling a particular melodic knot in the second act of his operatic tribute to his muse. And for those past few hours, each time he attacked the problem, he had been thrown back with disharmonious results. Breathing deeply, Erik tried to calm himself. He was a genius, and he knew that the melody was in his grasp.

However, he had to admit, he was distracted. A thought had wormed its way into the back of Erik's mind and would not be ignored. It slid in and out of his consciousness repeatedly, hampering his attempts to marshal his creativity. Looking at the scrawled notes on the staff paper before him, Erik knew he would not be able to solve this alone. And after all, what good did it serve him to live with his muse, to be her lover, if not to be able to allow her to inspire him? And more than that, she might also be able to satisfy the nagging thought's curiosity.

"Kira?" Erik called out into the lair. When last he had seen his beloved, she had retired to another room to speak with and gossip with her half-sister, a pastime that always seemed to bring a smile to Kira's lips, and so pleased Erik as well. "Kira, I need you."

With a frustrated growl, Erik crumpled the staff paper that had been sitting all but unmarked on his music stand, mocking him with its blankness and cast it across the room. The past two weeks had been absolute torture for the man-- his frustration had grown with every passing day, and so had his temper gone sharper and sharper. In the last few days, more employees of the Paris Opera had reported sightings of the legendary Phantom of the Opera than had in the past five years. And while the score of his opera was being obstinate, Erik knew that was not what truly vexed him.

It was the absence of his Muse. In the months since he had been introduced to her remarkable and dangerous family, Erik and Kira had been living as idyllic an existence as Erik could ever have dreamed. The lair was constantly filled with the sound of music or the noise of lovemaking, and his beloved Kira inspired Erik to greater and greater heights in all such pursuits. They had ventured to the surface several more times for outings, which eventually led to his acquiescing to another request, the one that had led to his current tension.

Kira had wished to visit with the other Olympians for a short time, and their time thus far having been marked by relatively little difficulty, Erik had permitted it. And now that the appointed time for his Muse's return was less than an hour away, it was only Erik's determination that Kira be happy that prevented him from wholly regretting his generosity.

Erik picked up pen again, intending to work, but when the quill slipped from his fingers he swept it and the other sheets of paper from his piano. A few of them floated free and slid against the nearby harp, letting a few notes ring out. Erik's head snapped up, a half-forgotten intention returning to life. With a wicked, hopeful smile he rose from the bench to retrieve his tools and set to work.

When Erik discovered that the young man had followed him as far as the lake, where Kira had been waiting with the boat, he knew the young man had to die.

There had been a few over the years, perhaps more than a few. If there was one thing that seemed to unavoidably intrigue people, it was urban legends; the more mysterious and shrouded with conflicting rumors and tall tales, the more appealing. So it was with the ghost or madman who was supposed to haunt the Opera Populaire. A few were hack would-be scientists, purportedly cataloguing the world's stories of the unusual. Some were students of architecture and engineering determined to prove the existence of caverns and a lair beneath the opera house an impossibility. There had even been one or two inebriated tourists grown too bold on drink or drug.

The Phantom of the Opera valued only one thing as much as he did music (and now, his muse)-- his privacy. And so, the Punjab Lasso had lain dormant in the ensuing century and more.

The young man had arrived at the opera house bearing the antique writing desk that Kira had selected to replace the one Erik had destroyed in a fit of pique. In most cases when Erik had arranged for items to be brought to him, the generous amount of gratuity left at the drop-off location was enough to dissuade couriers from investigating further. Not this young man.

Erik noticed him just before coming into Kira's view, but not before the delivery man was sure to have seen the woman waiting near the edge of the mist-covered water. Placing the desk in the boat, Erik politely asked Kira to wait for him a moment while he made sure that nothing had been dropped on the way down from the surface. Erik slipped into the shadows, pulled the delivery man from his hiding place almost soundlessly and threw the looped and knotted cord.

The Punjab Lasso did its work quickly and quietly, and soon Erik was forcing the man's body into an alcove, where it could be retrieved for disposal later.

In the last few hours, Erik had come to consider himself a man now blessed with an embarrassment of riches. Not only was he the undisputed master of his domain below the Opera Populaire and a man of almost limitless talent, he was now in possession of a treasure more rare than any mind on earth, he believed, could fathom. Erik stood beside the swan bed, peering through the black lace curtain that surrounded it, the gauzy fabric glinting with black crystals set into the lace. Sleeping in that bed was no mere mortal woman, but a Muse from the myths of old.

She called herself Kira, rather than the name Erik had learned from the books of his education, but her presence and intentions were as they had ever been: to inspire the great artists of humanity to their most magnificent work. And Kira had selected him to be the recipient of her inspiration. But as ever, the man known as the Phantom of the Opera had turned the world to his advantage.

With her words, with her lips and her accepting smile, Kira had made it clear to him that she was to be more than simply muse and inspiration... more than the star and magnificent center of his work... but a woman with desire for him the likes of which Erik had never truly experienced. Oh, there had been stolen hours and nights with other women, from Christine on, but in the time he slumbered holding Kira to his body, Erik knew those times to be mere prologue.

Kira, for her part, had gazed upon part of his ruined, twisted visage and been unmoved. Indeed, she had told him more than once that she saw only the man and the artist of him. It... unnerved him, in ways. It unbalanced him and surprised him, and Erik loathed surprises. But in the face of Kira's warmth and tenderness, he would allow it.

Taking a deep breath, Erik pulled the wrist-thick silken cord that raised the black lace curtain. Kira did not stir, the opiate-derived relaxation scents that he had created and designed to reduce a visiting woman's defenses seemingly doing their job to keep her either asleep or in a dreamlike consciousness. Stripping off his silk dressing gown and slippers, Erik slid back onto the swan bed clad in white dress shirt and black trousers.

His bare fingers traced the delicate, almost elfin lines of Kira's face before he lowered his mouth to hers. Kissing her lips, Erik's hands continued to wander busily. They skimmed over her shoulders and neck, the taut smooth skin over her throat... over the breasts cupped beneath her blouse... up the long, lean and coltish legs beneath her skirt. It was that hand, making its way up the inside of Kira's thigh, as his fervor began to mount and his physical desires for her swelled. So much so that he did not notice the signs of his would-be lover regaining her consciousness...

Details

The Devil, so they say, is in the details. And as there has been more than one individual in this Opera House who has referred to me as the Devil himself, I suppose it is only fitting that I am quite particular about the details of any and all of my endeavours.

Take, for instance, my dear Christine.

While she is an innocent and delightfully trusting soul, she is not as dim-witted and flighty of mind as so many of her fellow chorines have proven to be. She is a bright young girl, and I discovered quite early on in our time together that I have very little room to make mistakes.

If she is to continue to suspect that I, her Angel of Music, her teacher and instructor just might be the spectre of her beloved father, then I must give my attention to every detail. I have researched and studied every aspect of her life, her few childhood years in her father's company, and I have pored over every writing I could find in regards to Monsieur Daaé, both in his profession as violinist and personally.

Armed with such information, I have taken care to make mention of things which Christine should believe no other mortal should know. Names and place, moments in time, all the details which reinforce her suspicions and continue to allow me access to her mind and her heart. More often than not, I need only make a suggestion, imply a certain knowledge, and my beloved Christine will recount to me the details which I store away for use later.

As such, our lessons continue. Her ability grows, as does her connection and dependence on me.

The details, yes. The Devil truly is in the details.