Thorn kept his father’s attention on him, baiting him again. “There’s no guarantee the incubator you’ve made will grow her a pair of lungs. This is all an idealistic design that’s never been tested. You could be killing Christine’s essence forev—”
“Silence!” Erik seethed, accidentally cutting Thorn’s neck in his rage. Thorn felt the drizzle of blood. It was only superficial, but it stung far deeper than his skin.
Eyes widening behind his mask, Erik stepped back and dropped the scalpel to the floor with a metallic ping. “I’m sorry.” The apology seemed strange—so vague and hollow—considering he had Thorn standing over a nest of asps. Erik drew a handkerchief from his pocket and reached over the glass to blot Thorn’s neck with a gentle hand. “I’m so sorry, my son.”
“I’ve never been your son. I was just a means to an end.”
“No, I grew to love you.” Erik squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his sunken forehead to the glass case inches from Thorn’s chest. “I do love you.”
Rune dropped to the floor on the other side of the table while Ange fluttered her wings to camouflage the sound of rustling clothes. Gripping the table for balance, Rune turned tear-sparkling eyes to Thorn, an unspoken inquiry for how she could help. He shook his head. Erik was too unstable, fluctuating between the monster and the man.
“You and I,” Erik moaned, hands gripping the glass’s edge, eyes still closed. “We have our family together at last. Please tell me you can see that, as she never could . . .”
“Yes,” Thorn answered, dismal and dark. “I see it. We’ll live as a family, you and I. Or we’ll die as a family, the three of us.” He yanked his right wrist free of the loosened cuff and slammed down the lever. “You choose. That’s the sacrifice.” The roar of gushing water tumbled upstairs in the apartment, instantaneous.
Erik’s head popped up. His mouth gaped at the bottom of his mask. Horrified perception crept across his bright eyes, hazing them like storm clouds, as water flooded in from the elevator chamber and filled the cellar, scented of fish, mud, and algae. Within seconds it rose to Erik’s knees and Rune’s thighs.
With an agonized cry, Erik spun, wallowing toward the pulsing glow of the cryogenic chamber. When he reached the glass case, he wrestled with cords and tubes, wailing as he fought to free the tiny body.
“Etalon . . .” Rune’s voice, little more than a squeak across the room beneath the thunder of water.
“Go now,” Thorn insisted. “Diable will show you the way. It’s irreversible. There are only forty seconds left.”
The water pulled at her white dress, rising up to her neck. “No,” she whispered. “I won’t leave you!” She stood there, stubborn even while her aura was desperate, a thousand emotions in her teary eyes.
Her heartache ripped through his own heart, leaving his tongue soured with the flavor of hopelessness. Thorn tugged at his left wrist still clamped to the wall as water started sloshing into his glass case, upsetting the snakes under his feet. “I’ll find a way out.” A lie. The only one who could save him was mourning the child he never even had, oblivious to the one he did—a cruel truth that bled like a gaping wound in the core of his being. “Your friends, your aunt . . . they need you.”
Rune’s delicate features shifted to pained resolution. Diable paddled atop the water, spinning circles around her. Sobbing, she gave Thorn one final, imploring glance and dove in—braving her fear of water and disappearing with the cat into the passage that led to the chapel.
The first place he touched her face . . . and the last place she would see his.
26
LEGENDS
“Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.”
Helen Hayes
After Diable and I climbed free from the airtight chamber that opened into the baptismal, the rest of Halloween night played out in agonized slow motion. I stumbled upon Etalon’s suitcase in the chapel and opened it . . . I cried over the violin, fairy tale book, and clothes inside. But when I found the half-masks, perfect copies of his beautiful face, I broke down completely. Then I heard sirens and smelled smoke, and remembered the other side of my life.
I slammed the suitcase shut and left it all behind, racing through the dark cemetery in soaked clothes and bloody bare feet with Diable at my ankles—making a point not to look at the baby’s grave—across the footbridge, through the garden, and to the opera house.
Someone had used the landline to call for help, and the flashing lights of ambulances and fire trucks greeted me. I was surprised by that . . . The Phantom could’ve disabled the lines, had he wanted to. He would never have forgotten a detail like that. He left us a way to save ourselves. Which gave me hope for Etalon.