The Art of Manipulation || Phantom of the Opera & Loki the God of Mischief ||

9. The Angel Sees, The Angel Knows

Chapter Nine || The Angel Sees, The Angel Knows

"Power is only dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands." ~ Loki in The Art of Manipulation

~*~

"Alouette! Alouette, wait! Alouette!" I heard Loki's quick steps match my own as he struggled to catch up to me. "Alouette!"

I ignored his pleas, Erik's distressed cries too loud in my mind for me to hear anything else. I half ran, half walked up the underground stairs and hallways, needing the surface, needing air, needing light.

Erik. Erik, Erik, Erik.

"Alouette!" In my room at last, Loki seized my arm and forced me to stop.

I yanked free from his viper hold and grabbed Odin's scepter, shoving it into Loki's chest, "Reverse it! Now!"

Loki held up his hands and stammered, "I can't!"

"You reversed time and brought me all the way back here to the year 1870, you can rewind to a few hours ago! Do it!"

"Alouette, I can't! I haven't the strength!"

My face tightened up as I felt the tears claw their way up my eyes. 

He won't do it. Of course he won't do it. Dropping the scepter to the ground I shoved Loki, causing him to smash into the wall on the other side of the room, "You lying bastard!"

The wall shook from the force of Loki's hit and he fell to the floor. He remained there, his wide eyes glued to me with speechless shock.

I turned away from him, my anger suddenly blinded by what happened just moments ago in the lair. "Did you hear him? Did you hear him?" A dry sob contracted my lungs and I wrapped my arms around my stomach to provide some form of comfort for myself. "Never have I heard such painful cries or tormented screams. All the wars I have seen, all the tortures I have witnessed, never have I heard such agony. I could feel his heart shatter in his chest as if it were my own heart breaking." This time a full sob attacked me, making me double over and fall to the foot of my bed. "I can't do this....I can't do this." I shook my head over and over again to emphasize my chants, denying anyone to contradict me.

On his hands and knees, Loki crawled across the floor like a slithering serpent. He came to my side to comfort me with false sincerity, "Shh, Alouette. You are a strong woman. A powerful woman. The only goddess Odin himself feared because of the power you have, the power music has. You can do this." He brought me into his chest, soothing me like a man would do to his grieving lover.

I rubbed away the relentless tears with the back of my hand, "Odin didn't fear me. He had respect for me."

A short pause came before Loki's answer, his chin coming up to rest on my head while his hands smoothed down my hair, "With great fear comes great respect, Alouette. And with great respect comes power."

My crying ceased the minute the last word left his heavy tongue. I sat curled up in Loki's arms, my left cheek uncomfortable on the hard material of his armor. I didn't speak, I didn't move away, I only thought.

That day I stayed clear of Christine and everyone else in the opera house, not allowing myself the opportunity to change my mind and fix what I had done, what I had destroyed. I shut down my sense of hearing so I wouldn't be tempted to go to Christine if she chose to call for me like she had one hundred years ago. But she didn't. She didn't call, she didn't send for me. Both Christine and Erik remained as silent as the dead, their hearts a distant beat inside the Opéra Populaire, moving around like ghosts.