The Imitation Phantom

Chapter 9

Suspect No. 1 and Only

The rotunda filled with fainting and frantic guests, enraged men and outraged women. It was deafening. It was threatening.

Erik remembered a time like this. He remembered looking down from the flies, watching a body fall, watching glorious chaos ensue. He remembered wrapping his hands around a man's head, stifling his cries while he slipped a rough rope noose around his neck. He remembered pushing him over the edge. In the end, self-loathing consumed him. He orchestrated chaos with the simplest sweep of a hand. With the lowest murmur of his voice, he destroyed all semblance of calm. He remembered this power very well.

He remembered the silence and dread that filled rooms when they sensed his presence. Stepping into the rotunda, he felt his skin crawl as every eye turned towards him. Varying shades of suspicion, fear, anger, all of them turned to pin him where he stood.

This was normal, expected.

What was new was a pair of large, brown eyes. Glossy and brimming with frightened tears, these eyes had seen the signs of a mob before and knew what was coming. A hand attached to that same body grasped his and the mouth whispered his name but he saw something new there. Something that crushed him to his core and stabbed his heart. It drowned out everything else.

He saw doubt. Lunette... Doubted him. She thought he had done this.

He heard his daughter's murmuring, had seen her holding a distraught young man as he sobbed into her shoulder. He had seen the glare she sent his way as he tentatively entered the room. He had seen his son holding a young woman, his eyes closed and his chin resting her head as he rocked her back and forth. He had seen Raoul tuck Christine a little closer. All of this he had expected in some ways.

But Lunette? She was his anchor, his light, his heart and conscious. His sanity. And she doubted him.

What could he do now?

"You." A low, choked voice made him turn. Noel Boudet was pulling away from Alouette.

"Noel, please." She murmured.

"You!" He lunged for Erik, his large hands wrapping around Erik's throat. "You did this!" He cried.

Taller and, at one time, stronger, Erik could have easily brushed him off. But he was losing his strength and he was just as shocked, just as horrified. He let Noel squeeze his throat, let the surprisingly strong boy push him to his knees. He heard screaming. Hands pulled Noel away and held him back. The rotunda erupted into shouts, accusations, terror. One voice rose above the others.

"I saw it!" An old man shouted. He came to the front and glared at Erik. "I saw 'im. He was wrestlin' with the man and he wrapped that rope 'round him. Just like last time, it was. I remember the last body you dropped on that stage."

"No." Erik spoke finally. His voice was soft, choked, frightened. He stood slowly. His legs shook and protested but he stood. "No! I-I didn't hurt anyone. Vincent was my friend, I would never hurt him!"

"You don't have friends." The man sneered.

"I didn't kill him!"

Felix spoke quietly. "I saw you speaking to him."

"He was nervous!" Erik turned to his son, his eyes wide and pleading but appearing narrow and deceptive behind the mask he refused to remove. "I reassured him and then followed you back to the box. He fell right before I reached the box, how could I have done it?"

"Secret passages, probably." The old man huffed. The crowd agreed. Erik felt them closing in. They were suffocating him, drowning him in accusations, in assumptions, in fear.