Paris, France
“So the Phantom of the Opera was for real?” Ezekiel Jones boggled at the notion as he and Jake Stone made their way down a murky underground corridor. The dapper young Librarian shook his head in disbelief. An Australian accent tinged his remark. “You’d think that, by now, this wouldn’t surprise me, but I’m starting to wonder if anything is just a story.”
“You heard what Jenkins said,” Jake Stone said gruffly. A backpack hung from his broad shoulders. A flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots combated the dank atmosphere of the age-old tunnel. “Gaston Leroux, who wrote the original book, was a celebrated investigative journalist back in the day, and his so-called novel was actually based on eyewitness testimony and written records he unearthed while looking into certain real-life events that had taken place at the Paris Opera … and beneath it.”
Stone glanced up at a vaulted stone ceiling. A world-class expert on the history of art and architecture, albeit under a number of pseudonyms, he took a moment to contemplate the historic edifice towering above them.
The Palais Garnier was the largest opera house in the world, seventeen stories tall and a full three acres across. Located in the heart of Paris’s 9th arrondissement, it had taken nearly fifteen years to build back in the late nineteenth century, its construction occasionally interrupted by wars, riots, and revolutions. At one point, it had even been turned into an armory and makeshift prison, its vast basements and subterranean catacombs converted to dungeons housing many an unfortunate prisoner of war. These gloomy subterranean chambers had witnessed ghastly scenes of torture and execution even before the Phantom had famously haunted them. If the dank stone walls could talk, they might well moan and groan instead.
Stone repressed a shudder as he and Ezekiel made their way down a dimly lit stone ramp leading into the lower reaches of the Opera House’s fifth basement. These dismal cellars were a far cry from the opulent Belle Epoque elegance several stories above them, which the Librarians had visited briefly not too long ago. Dirty water trickled down the damp granite walls. Cobwebs infested the corners of the ceiling. Rats scurried at the Librarians’ approach, their beady eyes reflecting the flashlight beams from the men’s phones. Stone and Ezekiel relied on the beams to navigate the sprawling labyrinth, whose pervasive shadows had once sheltered the infamous Phantom—and might well be doing so again.
“So how come we got stuck spelunking down in the cellars,” Ezekiel griped, “while Baird and Cassandra get to snoop around upstairs where all the lights and glitz are?”
“Because I know historical buildings,” Stone said, “and you know how to break into hidden treasure vaults. If anybody is going to locate the secret hiding place of Phantom’s long-lost masterpiece, it’s you and me.” His brown eyes took in the authentic nineteenth-century architecture; despite the urgency of their mission, the expert in him appreciated the opportunity to explore the Opera House’s sprawling subbasements. “While Baird and Cassie try to find out what the competition is up to.”
Rumor had it that the only copy of the Phantom’s legendary concerto, Don Juan Triumphant, was still concealed somewhere in the depths of the Opera House. Not even the Library had a copy, despite its extensive collection of rare (and often literally mythical) musical compositions. Nor had Jenkins, the Library’s venerable caretaker, been able to say for certain that a copy of the Phantom’s masterwork had survived, or even that it had ever truly existed at all. Still, the fabled concerto remained the most likely target of whomever (or whatever) was rumored to be once more haunting the Opera.
“Well, when you put it that way.” Ezekiel grinned impishly, soaking up the implied vote of confidence. As Stone well knew, the only thing the cocky thief liked better than demonstrating his talents was having them recognized by others. “No dusty old sheet music can hide from Ezekiel Jones.” He grudgingly tossed a bone to Stone. “And associates.”
“Assuming we get to it first,” Stone said, having no reason to believe that they weren’t the only ones prowling these cellars recently. “And don’t run into any opposition.”
Ezekiel’s arm started to droop as it held out the phone in front of him.
“Watch it,” Stone said. “You need to keep your arm up, at the level of your eyes, just like Jenkins warned us.”
“Right, right,” Ezekiel said skeptically, “so the Phantom can’t strangle us with his spooky noose.…”
“The Punjab lasso.” Stone kept his own right arm carefully aloft, as instructed. “Which was the Phantom’s weapon of choice back in his heyday.”
“Sure, but, even if the Phantom was for real, that was over a century ago, right? And he was just a psycho stalker with a thing for sopranos, not some sort of immortal like Prospero or Dulaque.” Ezekiel frowned at the memory of those notably ageless foes. “You don’t really think he’s still alive … and back up to his old tricks?”
“Better safe than sorry.” Stone reached over and raised his friend’s arm. “What with some of the stories going around upstairs.”
Ghost stories, to be exact.
* * *
“So what’s this about the Opera House being haunted?” Colonel Eve Baird asked. “Again, I mean.”
She had been surprised to discover that the Paris Opera had its own library. The Bibliotheque-Musee de l’Opera National de Paris was a combined museum and library dedicated to preserving and cataloging the long history of the Paris Opera and its myriad productions. Its voluminous archives contained hundreds of thousands of books, musical scores, libretti, set and costume designs, correspondence, posters, programs, scale models, and even some three thousand pieces of antique costume jewelry. Housed in a domed pavilion on the west side of the theater, the library paled in comparison to the Library, but was still pretty impressive in its own right. Towering oak shelves lined the walls, with the rarer volumes protected by wire screens. Framed paintings of dancers and divas decorated any available wall space. An ornate crystal chandelier hung over the elegant reading room on the second floor of the library, where Baird and her companion, Cassandra Cillian, were currently interviewing the director of the library, while posing as, well, librarians.
“Sheer foolishness,” Monsieur Claudel assured her, dismissing the reports with a wave of his hand. He was a slight, middle-aged man distinguished by spectacles and a receding hairline. “Nothing more than idle rumors fed by overactive imaginations. The Phantom is just a legend, kept alive by Hollywood and the musical theater.”
Baird was grateful for the man’s impeccable English. A statuesque blonde in casual attire, she had picked up a smattering of French, along with several other languages, during her stint as a counterterrorism operative for NATO, but it was easier to converse in English, and she suspected that Cassandra felt the same way. Her partner-in-sleuthing was a math and science whiz, not an expert linguist.
“Is that so?” Cassandra asked. The petite redhead had donned a jaunty beret for this excursion to Gay Paree. “Word is that a mysterious masked figure has been glimpsed prowling around the opera in recent weeks, appearing and disappearing like a ghost.”
“This is an opera house, mademoiselle. Masks and costumes are nearly as ubiquitous as superstitious performers. Why, there’s a new production of Faust debuting tonight even as we speak, complete with any number of sinister demons and disguises.” Dramatic music, coming from the Opera’s main auditorium, could even now be heard faintly in the background, although Claudel had no trouble speaking over it. “Who knows? Perhaps these rumors you mention are nothing more than a publicity stunt to get people talking about the Opera?”
Baird wasn’t buying it. The Clipping Book back at the Library would not have alerted them to the recent spate of ghost sightings unless there was an actual situation that required the Librarians’ attention. And her gut told her that Claudel wasn’t being entirely forthcoming. She’d taken part in enough interrogations to know when somebody was holding out on her.
“Too bad,” she said. “Here I was hoping that maybe you had some inside scoop on the stories you could share with us.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink. “Just between us librarians?”
“Well…”
I knew it, Baird thought. She leaned forward, as though hanging on his every word. She was not above playing to the Frenchman’s ego if it got him talking. “Yes?”
Claudel glanced around furtively and lowered his voice, even though there was no one around to listen in, or at least so it seemed.
“It was probably nothing, but there was one night, not too long ago, when I was working late and briefly thought I saw a cloaked intruder rifling through one of the archives, but when I flicked on the lights, nobody was there.” He chuckled weakly. “My own imagination playing tricks on me, no doubt.”
“Or not,” Baird said. “Can you show us where exactly this went down?”
Claudel gave her a quizzical look. “Why exactly are you so interested?”
“What can I say?” Baird said. “I can never resist a good ghost story.”
“And we’re big Andrew Lloyd Webber fans,” Cassandra lied. “You don’t want to know how many times we’ve seen the musical. So, pretty please?”
“If you insist,” Claudel agreed. “Although I fear you’re wasting your time on such nonsense. Are you quite sure you wouldn’t prefer to review our current exhibit on the illustrious history of the Opera-Comique?”
“Maybe another time,” Baird said. “Indulge us.”
Claudel shrugged. “Far be it from me to refuse such lovely colleagues.”
“Merci,” Baird said.
“It was over this way.” Playing tour guide, he led them toward a nearby row of bookcases. The cases stretched all the way up to the ceiling, requiring a rolling ladder to reach the upper shelves. “This particular archive houses records and memorabilia from the late 1800s.”
Cassandra’s eyes lit up. “That’s roughly when Leroux’s ‘novel’ is set.”
“Surely a coincidence, mademoiselle,” Claudel insisted. “As you say, that was just a novel.…”
“Can’t always judge a book by its label,” Baird said. She contemplated the looming shelves, which were practically overflowing with bound librettos, scrapbooks, playbills, periodicals, posters, and random theatrical ephemera dating back to the previous previous century. “Do you recall,” she asked Claudel, “what exactly the intruder was looking at?”
“Apparent intruder,” he said, shaking his head. “As I said, I caught only a glimpse of a shadowy figure, who was nowhere to been seen when the lights came on. My weary eyes must have simply deceived me.”
“I wouldn’t sell your eyes short just yet,” Baird said, unconvinced. She turned to Cassandra. “What about you, Red? Anything suspicious leap out at you?”
“Let me take a closer look,” the other woman said.
Cassandra closed her eyes, then opened them again. She raised her hands and swept them gracefully through the air as she surveyed her surroundings as only she could. Cassandra’s unique mind and senses had always bordered on the magical, and all the more so since a risky brain operation had removed the life-threatening tumor that had previously inhibited her special abilities. Her fingers traced diagrams and flowcharts in the air that only she could see, as though exploring a virtual version of the archives around them.
“Sorting by date, category, obscurity, relevance, allowing for attrition and institutional drift,” she murmured softly to herself. “Filing, organization, shelving, alphabetization à la française…”
Baird couldn’t see what Cassandra saw, but she knew that the brilliant Librarian could find patterns—and deviations from a pattern—that nobody else could even recognize. For Cassandra, the world was an endless series of real-life-story problems that she had a definite knack for solving. If anyone could zero in on a telltale clue here, it would be her.
“There!” Cassandra pointed at a particular shelf of dusty books, secured behind a locked metal grille. “One of those volumes is missing.”
“You can’t be serious,” Claudel scoffed. “No offense, mademoiselle, but I know these archives better than anyone alive, and I see nothing amiss. You can hardly expect me to believe that—”
“Trust her on this,” Baird said, interrupting him. “She has an eye for this sort of thing.”
“More like a brain,” Cassandra corrected, “but the eyes helped.”
Baird brushed by the dumbfounded director to investigate the shelf in question. “You’re going to need my key,” Claudel began.
“Not necessary.” Baird tried the latch, and the protective grille swung open easily. “Looks like somebody’s already picked the lock.”
The Phantom?
She and Cassandra exchanged a concerned glance before Baird took a closer look at the exposed volumes, which appeared to be a collection of scrapbooks containing correspondence and newspaper clippings from the second half of the nineteenth century. Most of the volumes looked as though they hadn’t been consulted in years, but, sure enough, there was a narrow gap in the collection, indicating a missing volume, covering the year 1881. Squinting at the gap, Baird made out a black paper envelope resting on its side.
“Somebody left us a note,” she observed.
Claudel’s jaw dropped. Cassandra, more accustomed to unusual discoveries in unlikely places, simply waited expectantly as Baird procured the envelope and examined it. The black paper had caused the letter to blend in with the shadows unless one looked closely enough. Inside was a handwritten note, inscribed in bloodred ink, which she read aloud:
My apologies for borrowing this precious volume outside of normal business hours. Rest assured that it will be of great aid to my research.
Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant,
O.G.
Claudel gasped. “Non. This must be a joke.”
“O.G.?” Baird asked.
Cassandra supplied the explanation.
“Opera Ghost.”
* * *
An underground lake lay before the spelunking Librarians. Stygian black waters, never touched by the sun, stretched like an immense liquid shadow beneath the crouching stone ceiling of the Opera House’s deepest, darkest subcellar. The water lapped softly against a set of low stone steps leading down into the lake. Ezekiel didn’t want to think about what might be swimming below the inky surface of the subterranean reservoir.
“This lake’s been here for more than a hundred and fifty years,” Stone exposited. “When they first started constructing the Opera House back in 1862, the excavation kept filling with water from an underground stream, so the architects added an immense concrete cistern to the foundation to help stabilize the building. A clever solution, actually, providing ballast as well as containing the excess groundwater.”
Ezekiel took his word for it. Old buildings and blueprints were Stone’s specialty.
“I’m guessing we’re not turning back,” Ezekiel said, sighing. Given a choice, he’d have preferred a luxurious hot tub in a swanky hotel to a dismal black lagoon five levels underground. But being a Librarian wasn’t always glamorous, even if you were a master thief and international man of mystery.
“Not a chance.” Stone swept his flashlight beam across the lake. “Look over there.”
The light from the phone fell upon a small white gondola docked at the opposite side of the lake, in front of a moldering brick wall. The elegant craft looked better suited to a Venetian gondola than to a dank underground cistern, but there it was regardless. The boat was empty at the moment, which begged the question of who had oared it across the lake—and where he, she, or they were now.
“Looks like someone’s already been this way,” Ezekiel said.
“Yep.” Stone shucked off his backpack. “Good thing we came prepared.”
He removed a collapsed inflatable raft from the pack. It took a few moments to pump the raft full of air, but it beat swimming across the deep, dark pool. “Kinda figured we’d need this,” Stone said. “In most versions of the story, the Phantom’s lair is across the lake.”
“Good thinking,” Ezekiel said. “All aboard?”
The men clambered into the raft and pushed off from the shore. Ezekiel let Stone handle the rowing, since the roughneck Librarian liked that kind of outdoorsy stuff; Ezekiel chose to save his energy for tasks better suited to his talents.
Like cracking safes or breaking and entering.
“Keep it up,” he encouraged Stone. “We’re making good time.”
“What do you mean ‘we’?” Stone grumbled.
“I’m navigating,” Ezekiel said. “And keeping watch.”
“Watching for what, exactly?”
“I’ll let you know when I see—”
Something splashed in the darkness to one side of the raft. Startled, Ezekiel swung his flashlight beam toward the noise, but found only some circular ripples in the water, left behind by whatever had briefly broken the surface. Ezekiel gulped as his heartbeat settled down. His mouth went dry, but he wasn’t remotely tempted to take a sip from the stagnant lake.
“What was that?” Stone asked.
“A fish or a lizard or something?” Ezekiel said, crossing his fingers. He knew from personal experience that the alligators in Manhattan’s sewer system were no urban myth; he hoped Paris had a better handle on reptile control. “There are no sharks in the story, right??”
“No,” Stone said. “But didn’t the Phantom used to drown unwelcome visitors in this very lake?”
“You tell me, mate. It’s not like I know that old yarn.”
Stone eyed him incredulously. “You don’t know The Phantom of the Opera?”
“From where? A creaky old French novel? A silent movie? A sappy Broadway musical?” Ezekiel scoffed at the very notion. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s all old media.”
He knew the basics: a mad genius “haunting” the Opera House and obsessing over some cute Parisian babe with nice pipes. But that was pretty much the extent of his knowledge. Just because he was a Librarian didn’t mean that he had a headful of musty old “classics” from before he was born.
That was what Jenkins was for.
“Just row faster, okay?”
Stone muttered something under his breath, but took Ezekiel’s advice.
In no time at all, they arrived at the far end of the lake, which, by all appearances, was a dead end. The white gondola was tied up at a low stone wharf facing a moldy brick wall that seemed to block any further progress, but Ezekiel knew from experience that appearances could be deceptive, especially where lost artifacts and relics were concerned.
“What do you think?” he said as they managed to disembark from the raft without tumbling into the drink. “A secret passage or trapdoor?”
Stone nodded. “Legend has it that Erik, the Phantom, was one of the original architects and builders of the Opera House, and that he took advantage of that opportunity to install various concealed doorways and passages that he used to come and go throughout the Opera undetected, as well as to spy on the goings-on there. He’s also supposed to have constructed a private lair here in cellars hidden somewhere between the thick double walls constructed to contain the lake.”
“So the whole ‘ghost’ business was just trickery?” Ezekiel said. “Like on Scooby-Doo?”
“In theory,” Stone said. “Which is why our magic detectors aren’t going to do us any good here.”
Among the Librarians’ resources were unique handheld sensors that, under the right circumstances, could detect mystical energy the way a Geiger counter detected radiation. They came in useful sometimes for locating and identifying magical objects and entities in the field.
“No worries, mate,” Ezekiel said confidently. “I’ve got this.”
He examined the dank brick wall by the light of his phone. A slimy layer of mildew coated most of the bricks, much to his disgust, except for one brick off to one side and just above eye level. A closer inspection revealed smears in the slime that might have been made by fingers pressing down on the brick.
“Bingo.”
Smirking, he reached up and pushed on the brick. His grin broadened as a concealed lever shifted with a satisfying click. A door-sized section of the wall rotated to reveal an entrance to a darkened chamber beyond.
“Voila!” Ezekiel gestured toward the door. “Après vous?”
“Your accent sucks,” Stone said, “but good work, man. Let’s see what you found here.”
They cautiously stepped through the secret door, wary of potential ambushes or booby traps, and suddenly found themselves in a very different environment. Hidden behind the dungeon-like walls of the cellars was a once-opulent suite whose former elegance was still evident despite more than a century of decay and disuse. Tattered silk and satin draperies, in faded hues of black and scarlet, hung on neatly painted walls. Antique pieces of furniture, exquisitely carved and upholstered, displayed their fine lines and quality construction even through thick layers of dust and cobwebs. Ezekiel gulped at the sight of an open coffin occupying an ornate bier, where saner people would have put a comfy bed or sofa. Peering into the coffin, he was relieved to find it empty, except for some plush red cushions and pillows. A man-sized depression in the cushions suggested that the casket had been occupied at some point.
“Okay, what’s the deal with the coffin?” Ezekiel asked. “Please tell me that the Phantom wasn’t actually a vampire, ’cause I am so over vampires.”
“Not that I know of,” Stone said with a shrug. “Maybe he was just kind of morbid? The guy did live underground while posing as a ghost.” He swept his flashlight beam around the spooky boudoir. “Hey, get a load of this.”
Hanging on the wall above a carved wooden mantelpiece was a framed portrait of a beautiful blond woman with delicate features and soulful blue eyes. Her pristine white gown looked more like a theatrical costume than everyday wear, even way, way back in the day; Ezekiel assumed she was cosplaying a character from some famous old opera he’d never heard of. An offstage spotlight gave her an almost angelic radiance, while her wistful expression conveyed both innocence and a trace of melancholy. Ezekiel turned his back on the coffin to fully contemplate the painting.
“So that’s her?” he said. “The bird the Phantom had the hots for?”
“Can’t imagine it’s anyone else,” Stone said. “Christine Daae. The Phantom’s protégé and obsession.” He took a moment to admire the artwork. “Nice brushwork, very reminiscent of Degas, which puts it more or less in the same era as the Phantom and Christine. You can see the influence of early French Impressionism, particularly in the looseness of the brushstrokes and the play of light and color.” He leaned in closer, squinting at the bottom of the canvas. “You see a signature?”
“Enough with the art appreciation.” Ezekiel stepped up to the portrait. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he observed that, unlike the rest of the furnishings, the painting had been carefully dusted—by someone who cared? And was it just his imagination or was the painting hanging slightly askew? “You seeing what I’m seeing?”
Stone glanced at him. “Which is?”
“I have a hunch.” Ezekiel couldn’t resist drawing out the suspense. “Let’s peek behind this valentine.”
Working together, they took down the painting, exposing a hidden niche built into the wall. Ezekiel was disappointed but not surprised to find the cubbyhole empty.
“Called it,” he said. “Want to bet this is where the Phantom hid that long-lost music we’re looking for?”
“Makes sense,” Stone agreed. “He stored his masterpiece behind a portrait of his greatest love. Kinda romantic, actually.”
“In a creepy, crying-out-for-a-restraining-order way,” Ezekiel said.
He groped inside the niche, confirming that it was empty. Whoever had left the gondola outside was clearly one step ahead of them, even if that whoever had taken the time and care to dust off the portrait and put it back where it belonged.
“No sheet music here,” he said. “Somebody’s beaten us to the prize.”
Organ music suddenly blared throughout the underground lair, coming from somewhere way too nearby. The booming notes bounced off Ezekiel’s eardrums.
“You think?” Stone said.
Leaving the empty niche behind, they followed the music through a curtained doorway into an adjacent chamber dominated by a large, old-fashioned pipe organ. A caped figure in evening dress sat before the organ, his back to the Librarians, as he pounded away at the keyboard. A silver candelabra, resting atop the organ’s hefty wooden console, illuminated the chamber. Shifting shadows seemed to dance along with the unearthly music emanating from the organ. Squinting in the flickering candlelight, Ezekiel made out the title on the yellowed sheet music propped up on a rack before the mystery organist’s eyes. Dramatic black strokes, rendered with a flourish, proudly named the composition.
Don Juan Triumphant.
Apparently that part of the story was not a myth either. Jenkins would be pleased to learn that, assuming the team could actually acquire the Phantom’s legendary magnum opus for the Library. Ezekiel guessed that their music-loving competitor might have his own ideas on that score. Wouldn’t be the first time a long-lost treasure fell into the wrong hands first.
The Librarians’ arrival did not go unnoticed. Without missing a note, the organist glanced back over his shoulder at the intruders. A white porcelain mask covered the upper half of the man’s face, exposing only his lower jaw and chin. A chill ran down Ezekiel’s spine as he wondered what kind of gruesome visage lurked behind the mask. Could this really be the actual Phantom of the Opera?
He sure looked the part.
“Bonjour!” the Phantom said, turning his masked face back toward the music. His mellifluous voice was far from monstrous. “Qui vient?”
“And good day to you,” Stone replied in English. “Sorry to interrupt your little underground recital.”
“Kind of stuffy for my tastes,” Ezekiel added. “I don’t suppose you take requests?”
“I’m afraid this is a private concert,” the Phantom said, switching to English. Annoyance colored his voice, along with his cultured Gallic accent. “And you would be?”
“We’re … Librarians,” Stone said.
“Then you’re in the wrong place. The Opera Library is several levels above us.”
“No problem,” Stone said, thinking of Baird and Cassandra. “We’ve got that covered.” He stepped toward the figure at the organ. “So who are you … really? And what do you want with that music?”
The Phantom scowled below his mask. “This is a concert, not an interrogation, and you’ll forgive me if I prefer a captive audience.”
A gloved finger stabbed an ebony key—and a trapdoor opened up beneath the Librarians.
Ezekiel yelped as he and Stone plummeted through the dark, landing hard on a sandy floor several feet below the trapdoor, which snapped shut behind them. The impact knocked Ezekiel’s breath out, and it took him a moment to recover. Groaning, he sat up and tried to look around, but saw only blackness. No trace of light invaded wherever it was they had landed.
“Stone?” he called out.
“Over here,” Stone answered, close enough that his voice made Ezekiel jump. “In one piece, I think.”
“Me, too.” Ezekiel tested his limbs experimentally; nothing seemed to be fractured, although he was probably going to be black-and-blue tomorrow, assuming they saw tomorrow. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere good,” Stone predicted.
Ezekiel groped for his phone, hoping that it hadn’t been shattered by the fall. Just as he located it, however, the lights came on, bright enough to hurt his eyes. Blinking, he scoped out the scene.
Mirrored walls surrounded them on all sides, reflecting the fierce light, which seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Multiple reflections of themselves gaped back at them, and those reflections were captured by mirrors across from mirrors, multiplying them to infinity. A blazing sun was painted on the high, six-sided ceiling, while a deep carpet of glittering white sand conveyed the illusion that the Librarians (and their mirror images) were trapped in an endless, sun-bleached desert.
“Great,” Ezekiel muttered. Wincing, he clambered to his feet. “A bloody hall of mirrors.”
“More like a torture chamber.” Stone stood up and wiped the sand from his jeans. “Straight out of the story.”
“Not a story,” a disembodied voice interrupted. “History!”
The Phantom’s voice echoed off the walls of the chamber. The lights dimmed slightly and the Librarians’ reflections were replaced by a view of the Phantom seated at his organ. Snarling in anger, Stone lunged at their adversary, only to bounce off a tall glass wall.
“Save your strength,” Ezekiel advised him. “It’s all done with mirrors … literally.”
In fact, the Phantom surrounded them on all sides, his image somehow reflected from the music room one level up, so that he appeared to be facing them even as he faced the organ. Ezekiel glimpsed the rest of the gloomy chamber behind the (presumably) villainous virtuoso.
“Neat trick,” Stone conceded, scowling. He looked faintly embarrassed for having fallen for it, but Ezekiel resisted the temptation to tease him about it.
Maybe later, he thought. After we get out of this.
“Erik was a master of tricks and illusions,” the Phantom proclaimed, “as well as many other skills and disciplines, from music to architecture. Indeed, this very chamber is a superb example of his ingenuity; you should take a moment to admire it, gentlemen. He based it on an elaborate torture chamber he had previously devised for the Shah’s palace in bygone Persia, before a cruel reversal of fortune forced Erik to seek a new life in Paris, albeit here in the shadows, hidden away from the shallow judgments and prejudices of mankind, who failed to truly appreciate his genius.”
Ezekiel shrugged. “Or maybe he was just crazy?”
“No!” the Phantom said vehemently. “He was misunderstood, scorned, maligned! Driven to madness by an uncaring world that could not see the brilliant mind—and wounded heart—behind his accursed ugliness. He should be revered as a genius, not reviled as a monster!”
That this Phantom kept referring to Erik in the third person was not lost on Ezekiel. “So?” he asked. “What’s it to you?”
“I am Erik’s direct descendant and rightful heir! The living legacy of the all-consuming passion that inspired his greatest masterpiece!”
It took Ezekiel a moment to process that. “Wait. Is he saying that the Phantom and that Christine chick…?”
“Guess Leroux cleaned things up a bit,” Stone said. “Perhaps to protect Christine’s reputation?”
Ezekiel wasn’t too scandalized. “Well, this is France.…”
“Theirs was a forbidden love that defied convention … and ended in despair. But I will make the world pay for the wrongs done to my illustrious forebear and his name, by carrying out his ultimate revenge!”
He returned to his music, pounding away at the keyboard with a vengeance, even as the music grew steadily louder and more violent. At the same time, the light bouncing off the mirrors got noticeably brighter … and hotter.
Much hotter.
* * *
“‘Opera Ghost’?” Baird repeated.
“It’s from the book,” Cassandra explained. “It’s how the Phantom signed his notes.”
“Like this one.” Baird held up the missive they had found in the Opera library. “But are we actually dealing with the honest-to-goodness Phantom of the Opera?”
“It’s possible,” Cassandra said. “Could be he’s a Fictional sprung from the pages of his book.”
“Or maybe just a Phantom wannabe who is copying the original?”
“That works, too,” Cassandra said. “Or maybe the book was based on a real person who is still around, like with Dorian Gray? Impossible to say at this point.”
Poor Monsieur Claudel looked completely nonplussed by both their conversation and their discovery. “Pardon,” he entreated, briefly falling back on his native tongue, “what kind of librarians are you, precisely?”
Technically, Baird was a Guardian, not a Librarian, but that was more than the perplexed director needed to know.
“The kind that’s got a bad feeling about this,” she said, wondering what sort of craziness they were in for this time. Unfortunately, her familiarity with The Phantom of the Opera was limited to fuzzy memories of seeing some old movie version or another; about all she remembered was the Phantom’s mask getting ripped off, exposing his monstrous features, and a giant crystal chandelier crashing down on the audience during a performance at the Opera House.
That was the problem with traveling instantaneously via a Magic Door. There were never any long plane flights on which you could fully study up on the mission. If they’d had to fly from Portland to Paris, she could have read the damn novel on the trip.
Then again, that’s what she had a team of Librarians for.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” she said to Claudel, “but you don’t still have a great big chandelier these days … do you?”
“But of course, mademoiselle. One of the finest and most impressive in all of Paris.”
“Of course it is.”
Cassandra frowned, clearly following Baird’s chain of thought. “You don’t think…?”
“I hope not,” Baird said, “but it pays to anticipate the worst.”
She glanced nervously up at the smaller chandelier over their heads, just in time to see it sway ominously back and forth. Seconds later, a heavy book tumbled off the open shelf and crashed loudly to the floor.
“Okay, what’s happening?” She backed away from the swinging lamp, just to be safe. “Tell me it’s just the music from onstage shaking things up.”
“I wish I could.” Cassandra placed her palm up against a wall. Worry creased her brow. “But, no, this is something different. There’s a peculiar vibration—strange, discordant—coming from somewhere. And it’s building in intensity.…”
Baird didn’t like the sound of this. “What kind of vibration?”
“Give me a second.”
Baird watched tensely as Cassandra’s super-brain switched into high gear again. As before, Baird couldn’t see anything herself, but she could imagine the luminous graphs and equations manifesting before Cassandra’s wide eyes as the rapt Librarian gestured like a maestro conducting an orchestra, shifting her hallucinatory images around in order to examine them from every angle.
“What—what’s wrong with her?” Claudel asked, somehow managing to stammer in fluent English, which was something of a feat.
“Not one thing,” Baird said. “Not anymore.”
There had been a time when Cassandra’s singular abilities had overwhelmed her, when she couldn’t always process all the brilliant perceptions flooding her mind, but that was before she’d found her calling as a Librarian. Now she controlled her gift, not the other way around. Baird didn’t have to worry about Cassandra getting lost in her own brain anymore.
Good thing, Baird thought, since I’m guessing we’re in enough trouble right now.
Cassandra gasped, the sharp intake of breath putting Baird on full alert.
“Oh, no,” the Librarian whispered. “This is not good.”
“What is it?” Baird demanded. “Spit it out, Red.”
It took Cassandra a moment to come down from her heightened state of awareness. Taking a deep breath, she lowered her arms and focused her gaze back on Baird, who could tell from the other woman’s expression that bad news was on its way.
“The vibration, the one I’m feeling, it’s setting up a resonant frequency within the Opera House that’s amplifying the building’s own natural vibrations. If it keeps building like this, steadily increasing the amplitude of the oscillations on an atomic level, the resonance effect could conceivably threaten the structural integrity of the entire building.”
For once, Baird thought she understood the theory. “The way enough marching footsteps, moving in the same rhythm, can cause a bridge to collapse?”
As a soldier, she had been trained to break stride when marching across bridges for that very reason.
“Exactly!” Cassandra said. “Once the vibrational energy exceeds the building’s load level, the Opera House will shake itself apart!”
“Crap!” Baird swore. “Any idea where these bad vibrations are coming from?”
“I’m not sure,” Cassandra said. “Maybe from somewhere below?”
Baird put the pieces together. “The cellars. The Phantom’s old stomping grounds.” She hastily fished her phone from her pocket. “We need to alert the guys. Let them know what’s up.”
“Maybe they’re already on top of this?” Cassandra said hopefully.
“Or under it.” Baird glared in frustration at her phone. “Damn. I can’t get through to them.”
“Spooky underground lairs tend to have inadequate Wi-Fi,” Cassandra said. “In my experience, that is.”
Baird remembered running into the same problem while buried alive beneath the Mountains of Madness. She’d needed Morse code and a cursed Tibetan gong to get out of that one.
“No luck.” She put the phone away before turning to Claudel. “You heard what she said. We need to evacuate the Opera House immediately.”
Claudel balked at the idea. “On whose authority? A pair of ghost-hunting American librarians?”
“The Librarians,” Baird insisted, even as she realized that there was no time to go over his head. Even if she could reach the proper officials in time, what was she supposed to tell them? That the Phantom of the Opera was about to bring the house down in a big way? Yeah, that was going to go over well.
“Let me guess,” Cassandra said. “We’re on our own?”
“So what else is new?”
A drastic tactic occurred to her. Glancing around, she hastily located a convenient fire alarm and lunged toward it. Claudel gasped in alarm as he grasped her intention.
“No, mademoiselle! You mustn’t! There is a performance under way!”
“Sorry, mon ami. But Faust is going to have to take a rain check.”
Triggering the alarm wouldn’t nab the Phantom or save the Opera House, but hopefully it would clear the building before it fell down and went boom, assuming they couldn’t find a way to cut off the dangerous vibrations at their source. Bracing herself for an ear-piercing siren, she pulled down on the lever.
Nothing happened.
“The alarm!” Cassandra exclaimed. “It’s not working!”
The Phantom’s work? Baird suspected as much. The Opera Ghost must have sabotaged the alarm system as part of his sinister agenda.
“Damn it,” she muttered. “I hate it when the bad guys plan ahead. That’s supposed to be my specialty.”
“So now what?” Cassandra asked.
A rhythmic creaking noise drew Baird’s gaze upward once more. The chandelier was rocking even more wildly now. Cracks appeared in the ceiling where it was mounted. A jolt of adrenaline shot through Baird’s veins.
“Watch out!” she shouted to the others.
The swinging chandelier tore itself loose from the ceiling, crashing down onto the floor. Baird dived out of the way to avoid being hit by the flying fixture, even as Cassandra yanked Claudel out of the line of fire.
“Everyone okay?” she called to them.
“We’re fine,” Cassandra reported, letting go of the shaken director. “But that’s just the beginning. The tremors are only warming up.”
More books toppled from the shelves, but Baird had bigger concerns.
Just like the Opera House had a much bigger chandelier …
* * *
The blazing light and heat put the “torture” in “torture chamber,” and the deafening organ music wasn’t helping any. Between the oven-like temperature and the Phantom’s impassioned playing, Stone could barely think.
“I liked this better when it was a silent movie,” he muttered.
“What?” Ezekiel said, his hands over his ears. He shouted over the increasingly manic strains of Don Juan Triumphant. His face gleamed with perspiration.
“Never mind.”
Sweating like a legionnaire in a Roman bathhouse, Stone searched for a way out. Presumably there was a secret exit hidden behind the mirrors somewhere, but he couldn’t find it. Tearing off his flannel shirt, he wrapped the fabric around his fists and tried to smash the mirrors, in part to kill the merciless light and heat reflecting off them, but the original Phantom had apparently anticipated this response on the part of his prisoners—the mirrors were unbreakable. Shielding his eyes with his hand, Stone squinted up at the ceiling where the trapdoor had been, but it was too high to reach even if the blinding glare hadn’t made it impossible to locate.
He glanced over at Ezekiel, who was trying to call for help on his phone. Jenkins couldn’t open a Magic Door to the torture chamber if there was no door in sight, but maybe Baird and Cassandra could come to their rescue?
“No luck!” Ezekiel shouted over the music. “No signal!”
Figures, Stone thought. This is a dungeon, not a coffee shop.
Sweat dripped down his face, tasting salty upon his parched lips. He found himself pining for the murky water of the lagoon or even the moisture seeping down the grimy stone walls of the cellar earlier. The oppressive heat rippled the air above the sandy floor, almost as though they were genuinely stranded beneath the harsh sun of some forbidding desert. He started digging through the sand in search of a way out. Maybe another trapdoor buried under the sand?
“What are you doing?” Ezekiel asked, putting down his phone.
“You got a better idea?”
Ezekiel opened his mouth as though to supply one, but his usual cocky attitude evaporated in the heat. “I got nothing,” he admitted, then started tunneling through the sand as well.
To be honest, Stone wasn’t sure if this was an actual strategy or if their brains were just baking, but he kept digging away, if only to try to escape the faux sunlight beating down on them, not to mention the relentless sonic assault of the Phantom’s organ. He wondered how many victims had lost their minds in this torture chamber back when the original Phantom had called these underground dungeons home. He vaguely recalled something about thirst-crazed captives hanging themselves to escape the agonizing heat.…
But those prisoners weren’t Librarians, he thought. We don’t give up even when the odds are against us.
“Hang on!” Ezekiel shouted hoarsely. “I think I found something!”
Stone scurried over to where his friend was frantically scooping handfuls of hot sand away from what turned out to be a closed ebony box buried under the sand. Ezekiel tugged on the box, which didn’t budge—it was mounted to the floor at the very center of the torture chamber. The men exchanged a look before Ezekiel popped open the lid of the box to reveal two carved jade insects resting atop a velvet cushion.
A grasshopper and a scorpion, to be exact.
“What the heck?” Ezekiel said, sounding disappointed by the box’s contents. “Just what we need: a pair of creepy-crawly knickknacks!”
He reached for the grasshopper, perhaps to throw it away in frustration.
“Wait!” Stone grabbed Ezekiel’s wrist. “Don’t touch them!” His mouth and throat felt as dry as the Sahara, but he mustered enough spit to speak. “There was something like this in the book. It was a booby-trap thing: if you turned the right insect, you were saved, but if you chose the wrong one, you were dead.”
“Okay,” Ezekiel said. “So which was which, the grasshopper or the scorpion?”
“I’m not sure.” Stone ransacked his memory, but his brain was moving about as well as a car with an overheated engine. His synapses were stalled along the side of the road, waiting for a tow truck. “I’m trying to remember but it’s so damn hot … and that music! I can barely hear myself think!”
“Tell me about it.” Ezekiel took out his phone again. “Just give me a moment to download the book onto my…” His voice trailed off as he realized the flaw in that plan. “Oh right. No bars.”
Stone chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. You just reminded me of something.” He reached back and extracted a dog-eared paperback copy of a novel from his rear pocket. “I grabbed this from the Library when we were prepping for the mission.”
The look on Ezekiel’s face was priceless. Stone spared a minute to rub it in.
“Think about this the next time you rag me about preferring ‘dead-tree’ books.” He snickered as he flipped through pages. “Sometimes the old ways are still the best ways.”
“Less gloating, more reading, mate,” Ezekiel replied. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t share this with Jenkins. You just know he’d get his lecture on about it.”
“No promises.”
Sweaty fingers stained the pages as Stone searched for the crucial passage. To his relief, Leroux was an old-school author who gave each chapter a title of its own, so Stone could flip straight to “Chapter XXV: The Scorpion or the Grasshopper: Which?”
“Thank God for the table of contents,” Stone said, which, it occurred to him, was probably one of the most Librarian-y things he had ever uttered. Even still, it felt like a small eternity before his bleary eyes managed to extract the vital info from Leroux’s florid prose. “Here it is! Turn the scorpion to live, turn the grasshopper and it’s adieu, sweet world.”
He reached for the jade scorpion, but Ezekiel restrained him.
“Not so fast!” the worried thief said. “How do we know that Leroux got it right? He left out the part about the Phantom knocking up Christine, didn’t he?”
Ezekiel had a point. They had no idea how much Leroux might have fictionalized the true story when penning his so-called novel. And there did seem to be some discrepancies between the book and what they had already stumbled onto here in the Phantom’s old domain, not that Stone wanted to dwell on that at the moment. Trusting the book too far could cost him and Ezekiel their lives—and allow this new Phantom to carry out his fiendish scheme, whatever it might be. Stone contemplated the battered paperback in his hand. How much was fiction? How much was fact?
And what other options did they have right at the moment?
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job,” he said, “it’s that there’s more truth in old stories than anyone could ever guess.” He looked to Ezekiel, not wanting to make this choice without consulting his cohort. “You cool with this?”
Ezekiel nodded. “We’re Librarians. Live by the book, die by the book … even a ridiculous dead-tree one.”
Stone took a deep breath and rotated the scorpion.
Ancient gears creaked as one of the mirrored walls pivoted sideways, creating a route out of the torture chamber. A chill breeze invaded the dungeon, tantalizing the men with the promise of escape from the heat.
“Score one for old-school investigative journalism.” Stone scrambled for the exit, with Ezekiel right on his heels. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
A dank, gloomy stairwell waited beyond the exit. The beckoning shadows came as a blessed relief as the men rushed up the steps to confront the Phantom, who was still pounding away at his keyboard. The music itself was growing steadily wilder and more sinister, as melancholy longing gave way to madness and menace. Threatening notes and chords began to drown out the romantic heights of the earlier sections, sending a chill down Stone’s spine. Without really understanding why, he knew in his gut that they didn’t want to let the new Phantom keep on playing, not if they wanted to stop him from avenging his infamous ancestor.
“That’s enough!” Stone rasped, loud enough to be heard over the music. Fists clenched, he stalked toward the Phantom, ready to kick some masquerading butt if he had to. “I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but this opera is over. The fat lady has sung!”
“What he said,” Ezekiel added, while fumbling with his phone. “Good news: I’m finally getting some bars now that we’re out of the oven.”
“Not really the time, man,” Stone said.
The Phantom was undeterred, despite being outnumbered by two very sweaty and pissed-off Librarians.
“Keep back!” he warned. A gloved finger hovered over yet another ebony key. “One more step and I’ll bring the chandelier down!”
Ezekiel glanced anxiously at the ceiling. “What chandelier?”
“Not here.” Stone froze in place. He knew exactly which chandelier the Phantom was talking about. “The big one … over the auditorium upstairs.”
Stone recalled that a gala performance was under way above. Could the Phantom really drop the giant chandelier on the audience by striking the right key on the organ? Stone had no idea, but he wasn’t about to call the Phantom’s bluff, not with innocent lives at stake. Frustrated, he glanced over at Ezekiel, and was annoyed to see his partner still messing with his phone.
“Seriously, dude? You’re checking your signal now?”
Ezekiel shrugged.
“Got to stay connected.”
* * *
Cassandra and Baird sprinted up a spiral staircase, racing to secure the great chandelier before it was too late. They could hear Faust being performed loudly onstage as they left the public areas of the Opera House behind, venturing into backstage areas frequented only by the cast and crew. The compulsively analytical part of Cassandra’s brain couldn’t help picking apart the soaring octaves and chords, the same way she might break down a complex mathematical equation. There was a lot to digest in the music, and some catchy melodies, too. Too bad there wasn’t time to take in the show.
“You sure this is the right way?” Baird asked.
Cassandra tapped her noggin. “Magic brain, remember?”
She had hastily surveyed a map of the Opera House in the library downstairs before bidding adieu to poor, baffled Monsieur Claudel. Cassandra was not the serious student of architecture that Stone was, but she had a photographic memory and a gift for grasping designs and patterns. That was all she needed to navigate the sprawling Opera House with confidence.
In theory, at least.
“Halte!” a security guard ordered as they reached an upper landing. He held up his palm like a traffic cop. “You are not allowed here.”
“Sorry, pal,” Baird said, “but we don’t have time to debate this.”
A judo flip laid the unlucky guard flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Cassandra gave him an apologetic look as she stepped over his stunned form.
“Trust us, we know what we’re doing.”
Or so she hoped.
A rapid dash up another flight of stairs led them to a cupola directly above the auditorium, which was now used for dance lessons and rehearsals. To their relief, it was vacant at the moment. A wall-sized mirror reminded Cassandra of the way the Phantom lured Christine through a dressing-room mirror in the musical. A long barre was mounted to the wall across from the mirror. A hardwood floor awaited the tortured toes of the ballerinas, some of whom were probably downstairs waiting for their cues. Baird slammed the door behind Cassandra and herself to keep them from being interrupted.
“There should be a trapdoor in the floor that they use to raise and lower the chandelier for maintenance,” Cassandra said, panting after rushing up the stairs. She pointed at approximately the right spot. “Over there somewhere.”
“I’m on it,” Baird said.
The athletic Guardian wasn’t even winded, despite their rapid ascent up the stairs. Cassandra envied her friend’s physical fitness and made a mental note to up her own exercise regime. Being a Librarian required a surprising amount of running and jumping, at least if you wanted to survive the job. She couldn’t always count on her Guardian to handle the more physical challenges.
“Here we go!” Baird dragged a dance mat out of the way to expose a pair of hinged doorways on each side of the massive steel brace supporting the chandelier. Grabbing a handle, she tugged one of the double doors open, the well-oiled hinges making nary a squeak compared with the opera being loudly and enthusiastically performed many feet below—beneath an immense crystal chandelier that more than lived up to its hype. At least seven tons of bronze and crystal hung on a chain high above the unsuspecting heads of the audience, whose attention was fixed on the lavish spectacle playing out onstage. More than two thousand people occupied the huge auditorium, sumptuously decorated in red and gold beneath a brightly colored ceiling mural. Intent on Faust, no one in the audience noticed the two women staring down through the opening above the chandelier. Cassandra wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Just our luck,” Baird said. “It’s a packed house.”
Cassandra placed her palm against the brace. Just as she feared, the hazardous vibration had increased dramatically in the time it had taken them to sprint up the stairs. It was only a matter of time before the chandelier shook loose from its mooring—with the entire Opera House collapsing not long after. Shaking her head in dismay, she confirmed the diagnosis to Baird.
“This chandelier is heading for a fall … just like in the story.”
“Great. Another unnecessary remake,” Baird grumbled. “How much time do we have to rewrite the script?”
Cassandra started to do the math, but was interrupted by a chime from her phone. Her eyes widened as she read the text.
“It’s from Ezekiel,” she told Baird. “They’ve run into the Phantom, who is threatening to drop the chandelier by remote control!”
“Can he do that?” Baird asked urgently.
“It’s a slight update on his M.O., but certainly in character.” Cassandra leaned out over the trapdoor to take a closer look at the chandelier. Was there something going on there beyond the impending resonance disaster? Raising her hands before her, she kicked her brain into a higher gear, the better to analyze and observe. “Let me see what I can see.”
Synesthesia scrambled her senses as her world came into sharper focus, showing her the complicated equations and geometry underlying everything around her. The swelling music flashed in all the colors of the rainbow, with the altos and sopranos and tenors at the brighter end of the spectrum and the basses and tenors at the darker end, while the orchestra added its own complementary hues. Flutes and piccolos streaked the music with brilliant shades of crimson and scarlet, the highest notes ascending into infrared even as the deep, dark colors of the bassoons and kettledrums edged into ultraviolet. She smelled the brilliant sets and costumes, and the glittering, prismatic shine of the crystal chandelier tasted like rock candy on her tongue. Studying the chandelier, absorbing its lines and symmetry, she constructed a glowing, hallucinatory model of it in the empty air before her eyes. Her hands manipulated the image, which only she could see, rotating it along the x, y, and z axes so she could examine it from every angle, looking for any detail that didn’t belong … such as maybe that odd little bump where the chain met the top of the chandelier? The one that marred the chandelier’s otherwise perfect symmetry?
“There!” Cassandra waved away the virtual chandelier, letting her senses ramp down to everyday levels, and plucked a pair of opera glasses from her purse. She had packed the glasses on the off chance she might be able to take in the show, but now she used them to zero in on the actual chandelier and that one incongruous flaw—which proved to be a tiny metal box with a blinking red light on it. Pointing urgently, she handed the magnifying goggles over to Baird. “Please tell me that’s not a miniature explosive device.”
“Wish I could, Red,” Baird said, confirming the worst, “but that’s exactly what it is. Guess our Phantom is determined to replay the chandelier scene one way or another. Want to bet that charge is rigged to snap the chain holding the big lamp up?”
Footsteps sounded outside the rehearsal room.
“Great,” Baird said sarcastically. “We’ve got company on the way. You keep them out of my hair while I deal with this.”
“Deal with it how?” Cassandra asked, making a beeline for the door.
“How else?” Baird said. “The hard way.”
* * *
Wood scraped against wood as Cassandra shoved an antique wardrobe up against the door to the chamber, barring the entrance just in time. Fists pounded on the other side of the door. Angry voices, shouting in French, demanded admittance. Baird sighed and rolled her eyes.
You deck one security guard, she thought, and everyone wants to make a federal case out of it.
But the upset locals could wait; Baird had a bomb to defuse. Seeing no other option, she dropped through the trapdoor and shimmied down the heavy-duty metal chain until she reached the top of the chandelier, which swayed slightly beneath her feet. Baird hoped her added weight wasn’t making a dire situation even worse.
“I knew I should have skipped that extra slice of cheesecake last night.”
She could feel the massive chandelier tremble from the pernicious vibration working its way up from the cellars. Despite her precarious perch, she was relieved to see that the explosive charge was pretty standard-issue, as opposed to some exotic magical talisman. She had defused similar gadgets plenty of times during her career in counterterrorism, albeit never while suspended above an audience of rapt Parisian culture-lovers. She could disarm this device in her sleep.
Assuming the chandelier didn’t come crashing down first.
“Time?” she called out to Cassandra.
“Kind of busy right now.” The wardrobe scraped across the floor. “Just … hurry.”
Baird heard Cassandra straining and shoving to keep the door to the rehearsal room closed. Baird appreciated the effort, but knew that the petite Librarian couldn’t keep the Opera security goons out for long. Cassandra was fighting a losing battle.
Too bad the guys weren’t on hand to help with the heavy lifting.
Focus, Baird told herself. One problem at a time.
Fully aware the Phantom could conceivably trigger the device at any moment, Baird got to work. With her favorite Swiss Army knife, she deftly pried open the casing on the device to expose its innards. No arcane knowledge or ancient lore was required to locate the detonator; if anything, Baird experienced a peculiar sense of nostalgia as she confidently cut the blue wire, rendering the device inert. The blinking red light went out.
Just like old times, she thought.
Not that they were out of the woods yet. She could feel the chandelier quivering beneath her. If Cassandra’s math was on target—and it always was—the entire Opera House was on borrowed time.
Unless Stone and Ezekiel could cut off the vibration at its source.
* * *
Stone found himself in an old-fashioned standoff, afraid to call the Phantom’s bluff. He knew full well how large and heavy the grand chandelier over the auditorium was. If there was even a chance that the Phantom could drop it on the audience by pressing a single black key, they had to take the masked madman’s threat seriously.
“Keep back,” the Phantom repeated as he resumed his concert. “But do feel free to enjoy the music. I am literally playing to bring the house down!”
Don Juan Triumphant blared from the pipe organ. The music shook the underground sanctuary, causing dust to sprinkle down from the ancient masonry. Stone’s eyes widened in alarm as he grasped the Phantom’s ultimate ambition.
“The music! The vibrations!” Stone recalled an article he had once written, under one of his many aliases, on the dangers of mechanical resonance with regards to high-rise construction projects, going all the way back to the Tower of Babel. “You’re trying to trigger a structural collapse!”
“Not trying … succeeding!” the Phantom corrected him. “There is no possibility of failure. Don Juan Triumphant is more than just Erik’s masterpiece; it was composed to be his ultimate revenge against the world above, held in reserve until this very moment!”
The music grew wilder and more thunderous, building toward its apocalyptic crescendo. Stone started forward to drag the Phantom away from the organ, then hesitated as he remembered the chandelier, hanging like the Sword of Damocles over the vulnerable operagoers in the auditorium.
“A thorny dilemma, isn’t it, Librarian?” the Phantom taunted. “Do you dare risk my wrath by attempting to interfere? Are you truly willing to sacrifice innocent lives to prevent an even grander, more glorious catastrophe?”
“Shut your mouth,” Stone snarled, his fists clenched at his sides. He couldn’t just stand by and let the Phantom keep playing, but what about the chandelier? He turned desperately to Ezekiel, who was still glued to his phone. “Help me out here, man. What are we supposed to do?”
Ezekiel smirked. “No worries. Just got a text from Cassandra. The chandelier’s staying put … for now.”
“Hang on!” Stone couldn’t believe his ears. “Are you saying—?”
“Baird took care of it. We’re good to go.”
That was all Stone needed to hear. He lunged at the Phantom, who stabbed an ebony key with one finger. “Fools. You brought this on yourself … and on the innocent souls you just condemned to death!”
Stone kept on coming. Down here in the depths, there was no way to tell whether the chandelier was falling or not, but Stone trusted his teammates. If Cassandra said that Baird had things under control upstairs, he believed it without question.
Which meant that the Phantom was about to get whupped.
“Show’s over, dude. Get your hands off that keyboard!”
“No! Keep away from me!” The Phantom jumped to his feet to evade the furious Librarian, knocking over the bench in front of the organ. He hastily snatched up the precious sheet music, clutching it to his chest. Stone caught hold of the Phantom’s black cape, determined not to let him get away, but the Phantom shrugged off the cape and flung it back at Stone, briefly snaring the Librarian in its folds. “Damn your souls!” the foiled Phantom cursed. “You’ve ruined everything … for now!”
“Forget it!” Stone yanked the cape off him and tossed it aside. “That concerto is coming with us!”
“Never! Erik’s legacy belongs to me, his rightful heir!”
The Phantom snatched the silver candelabra from atop the organ and hurled it at Stone, who ducked to avoid being nailed by it. Trailing sparks, the candelabra whooshed past Stone to crash to the floor at Ezekiel’s feet.
“Whoa!” the thief protested. “Watch where you’re throwing things!”
Darkness fell over the chamber as the candles sputtered out, leaving only the glow from Ezekiel’s phone. In the dim light, Stone saw the Phantom shove his way past Ezekiel, knocking the other Librarian to the floor, as the masked lunatic fled down a staircase into the lower depths of the underground lair. Stone took off after the Phantom, knowing that no building in Paris—or the world—was safe as long as the obsessed madman possessed the Phantom’s malignant magnum opus.
“We can’t let him get away!” Stone shouted raggedly, his voice still raw from his ordeal in the torture chamber. “Not with Don Juan!”
Activating the beam from his own phone, Stone dashed down the winding stone steps after the Phantom. He burst through a stone archway into a long, sepulchral corridor. His beam swept the forgotten catacomb before him, searching for the masked fugitive, who was no longer in view. Stone swore under his breath, frustrated to have lost sight of his quarry. Who knew how many secret doors and escape routes were hidden in this subterranean abode? He had to catch up with the Phantom quickly, before the fiend could slip away with the deadly concerto.
“C’mon, c’mon,” Stone said. “Where are you?”
A silken snake wrapped around his throat, cutting off his breath.
The Punjab lasso, Stone realized too late. In his haste, he had forgotten to keep his arm raised in self-defense. Glancing up, he saw the Phantom glaring down at him from a trapdoor in the ceiling, clutching the other end of the noose with both hands. Crazed blue eyes blazed behind the Phantom’s trademark mask as the fiend cackled maniacally.
“American meddler! Meet the fate of all who cross the Phantom of the Opera!”
The strangler’s cord bit into Stone’s neck, choking him. He tried to pry the noose away from his throat, but his desperate fingers could not get between the slippery silk and his skin. A ragged croak escaped his lips as his feet lifted off the floor, leaving him dangling in the air like a condemned man meeting his end upon the gallows. His lungs gasped for air even as the lasso tightened around his throat, depriving him of oxygen. Darkness encroached on his vision, adding to the shadows already surrounding him, as he fought to keep from passing out.
Never thought it would end this way, he thought, far beneath one of the world’s great buildings.…
“Uh-uh.” Ezekiel sauntered into the catacomb. “Cut him loose, mate.”
“You dare to dictate to me in my own domain! Flee, so that the world may know that the Phantom lives again—and that his vengeance cannot be delayed for long!”
“I don’t know about that,” Ezekiel said with a smirk. “Missing something?”
He held up a loose page of the concerto, flaunting it before the Phantom, whose shocked eyes and dropped jaw betrayed his dismay despite his porcelain mask. The rope holding up Stone slipped slightly in his grasp.
“No!” the Phantom gasped. “How…?”
“Did I mention I was a thief?” Ezekiel’s voice took on a harder edge as he gripped the top of the music with both hands, poised to rip the purloined sheet from the top down. “Let my friend go—now—or the music of the night is confetti!”
“Stop, I command you! That’s Erik’s masterpiece, the enduring culmination of his genius!”
“More of a pop fan myself.” Ezekiel began tearing the sheet, just a fraction of an inch. “Going, going…”
“Wait!” the Phantom cried out in panic. “You mustn’t…!”
He let go of the lasso, dropping Stone to the floor. The choking Librarian barely noticed the impact; all that mattered was that the taut noose had slackened around his neck. Gasping for breath, he tugged the silk cord loose. Hungry lungs sucked in heaping mouthfuls of air.
“You okay, mate?” Ezekiel asked.
“Better than a few seconds ago,” Stone rasped. “Thanks, man.”
“For what? Lifting a stray sheet of music during that confusion upstairs?” Ezekiel feigned modesty. “Please. That was child’s play.” He grinned at Stone. “You’re welcome, though.”
Stone massaged his throat. “Would’ve helped if you’d told me, before I got myself strung up.”
“Like you really gave me a chance,” Ezekiel replied. “Besides, somebody had to chase after the bad guy, and you looked like you were definitely in the mood to give this poseur a well-deserved beat-down. Who was I to get in your way?”
“Well, next time…”
Their banter was too much for the distraught Phantom, who peered down anxiously from the ceiling.
“Please!” the masked musician interrupted. “I did what you asked—I spared your comrade.” He reached desperately for the missing page of Don Juan Triumphant. “Now give me that sheet. It’s my inheritance. It belongs to me!”
Ezekiel shook his head. “Nothing doing, mate. Pretty sure you forfeited your claim with that whole attempted mass-murder thing.” He brandished the stolen sheet, tantalizing the Phantom by keeping it just out of reach. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You’re going to hand over the rest of the music and we’ll make sure that it ends up safely tucked away in the world’s most secure library, preserved for posterity, or this page is lost to history forever.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” the Phantom raged.
“You don’t think so?” Ezekiel turned toward Stone. “You tell him, Stone. Would I or wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, he’d totally dare,” Stone confirmed. “Trust me on this. He has no sense of history, no respect for fine art and music, whatsoever. Drives me nuts sometimes.” Stone climbed shakily to his feet. “If I were you, I’d take his threat seriously … if you really care about preserving Erik’s masterwork.”
To be honest, Stone had no idea whether he was feeding the Phantom a load of bull or not. Would Ezekiel really shred a priceless artistic treasure to teach the Phantom a lesson? Stone wouldn’t put it past him, but still …
“Curse you both!” The Phantom shook his fist angrily. Spittle sprayed from his lips. “This was none of your business!”
“Pretty sure it was, mate,” Ezekiel said. “So what’s it going to be? Immortality … or the wastebasket?”
Bloody murder flared in the Phantom’s eyes, but then his shoulders slumped in defeat.
“I … I surrender.”
“Good call.” Ezekiel held out an open palm. “Hand it over.”
With the dexterity of a gymnast, the Phantom dropped down from the ceiling and dolefully turned the remainder of Don Juan Triumphant over to Ezekiel. The fight seemed to have left the defeated “ghost,” but, not taking any chances, Stone tied the man’s hands behind his back with his silk lasso. He drew the cord tight, and none too gently. He hadn’t forgotten the torture chamber, nor the countless innocent lives this Phantom had put in jeopardy.
“So now what do we do with him?” Ezekiel asked.
“Baird still has connections with NATO and Interpol,” Stone reminded him. “Let them sort it out … but first, let’s find out what’s hiding behind this mask.”
Morbid curiosity compelled Stone to reach for the Phantom’s mask. He braced himself for whatever deformed, disfigured visage lurked behind the featureless disguise. Perhaps a face like a living skull, as in the original novel and movie? Or scarred by acid, as in the remakes?
What he wasn’t expecting was for the face beneath the mask to be …
Handsome?
The face of a male model or pop star glared sullenly at the Librarians. Flawless skin, unblemished in any way, adorned perfect cheekbones and chiseled features that gave Michelangelo’s David a run for his money.
“Huh?” Ezekiel said. “Is it just me or does he look more like the Phantom of the Boy Band?”
Flaxen hair and blue eyes reminded Stone of the portrait in the original Phantom’s macabre boudoir.
“Guess he takes after his great-great-grandmother.”