The Midnight Run
The Midnight Run
Fandom: Phantom of the Opera
Summary: On her wedding day, Christine and Raoul ride by carriage to their honeymoon. But upon the road, dark figures lurk in the shadows. Also an entry in the PFN Morbidity Contest.
Author's Note: As always, I thrive off criticism and feedback.
-------------------------------------------
As the blushing bride, Christine was happy. Raoul’s lips over hers and the priest’s commanding words were all the reassurance she needed to know that she was now a wife, the wife of the man she loved. Raoul de Chagny. Truly, she had never been so happy! Today she was the blushing bride; a day should never exist that she would feel more happiness, except perhaps the birth of her first child, when the hours of pain would become the sweetness of bringing new life.
Her own private sweetness however, came from the fact that she could forget. She had come from the darkness at last, and the purifying rays of light obliterated any of its taint.
Some day she might not want to forget the darkness. After all, if not for the darkness, she might have remained a lost, sad girl forever. She was no longer lost. She had grown and she had flowered.
All that remained now was consummation, and she would truly be Raoul’s loving wife, in every sense of the word. Christine heard that hundreds of years ago, a tradition existed for the end of the wedding reception, where the bride and groom would be undressed by friends and family, and marched to the marriage bed. She was not sure if she was entirely unhappy that tradition had faded away.
The wedding reception was over now. It had been a glorious affair. Even more magnificent was the honeymoon, still yet to come. Raoul said they would go to Italy, to see Vienna and Rome and the Vatican, and any other places they could think of. They would take a carriage to a port in Toulon, and then go by ship to l’Italie. The carriage was so very beautiful with its rosewood paneling and gold trim, and the four gray Holsteins. The German-bred horses stood quietly, regarding her with soft brown eyes. The driver, attired in a long, pleasing yet sensible black coat, helped her into the coach.
Raoul kissed her once they were inside. Had he had a touch more wickedness, she might not have had to wait until they got to the hotel for him to claim her maidenhead, but Raoul was too much of a gentleman to go farther than a few warm spring kisses.
* * *
Christine woke suddenly, the lantern in the carriage contrasting sharply to the surrounding darkness; rain fell steadily but she could hear no thunder. The world smelled earthly and natural. Raoul dozed beside her, his aristocratic features softened by sleep. From a fold in his waistcoat dangled a gold pocket watch. Reaching out, she gently took it in her hand and studied the dial. It was midnight. That meant she had been in the carriage for a little less than five hours. No wonder her legs prickled from disuse! She shifted against the velveteen cushions into a more comfortable position. Her legs had quieted, but now it was her ears that prickled.
Hoof-beats clattered behind her. The sound must have been what had woken her up. Raoul stirred beside her. As he also heard the hooves, he turned to her and smiled.
“Someone must be in a hurry tonight.”
Christine kissed his throat gently in response and settled back into the seat, prepared to fall asleep once more.
The hoof-beats never passed them. For a moment, she assumed the horse and rider must have ridden far behind them and were just coming up. A minute later, she realized the sound of iron against road never grew louder.
Sitting up straighter, she looked at the covered window. The rider must have pulled up alongside them. Glancing back at Raoul, she realized her husband was also curious about the mysterious horseman.
Leaning over, he pulled back the shade covering the window. It took a minute for Christine to make out the figure in the murky darkness. The stranger on horseback had a manly figure and appeared thickly covered in furs and his face obscured by a cowl.
Suddenly she saw his head turning towards the carriage until she imagined his shaded eyes locking with hers. Though she could not make out any discernable features, she felt an inexplicable twinge of dread from the man’s shadowed expression. The man slowed his mount to a canter and remained beside them, his horse easily keeping pace.
Christine looked back to her husband and saw his brow furrowed in concentration. He reached forward to the narrow pane separating them from the driver. Raoul pulled it open and put his mouth near the opening.
“Coachman, do you know this rider?”
The rain partially drowned out the man’s voice but it did not hide the anxiousness in his tone.
“I am sorry Monsieur le Vicomte; I will try to call out.”
Before the driver could do what he said, a second sound of hoof-beats ricocheted through the rain, this time on Raoul’s side of the carriage. Christine half-climbed over Raoul and jerked the shade back before she could stop herself. Another man, similarly dressed as the first one, rapidly drew up beside the coach. The driver swore under his breath.
Trepidation began to unfurl inside her, like a fanged bat preparing to leave the roost. These riders were not peaceful. Lord, what did they want?
She flinched as a crack of thunder shattered across the sky, causing the rain only to pelt down harder. The crash of thunder seemed to beckon even more of the strange riders.
A third pair of hoof-beats sounded, a fourth, and a fifth. Christine could not see them but she could hear them fanning out around the carriage, circling it, consuming it. The clang of steel against stone was creating a cacophonous chorus, of angels surely bound for hell.
“Who are these riders?” Raoul called to the driver.
The driver hunched his back over the reins, his coat whistling behind him. “Brigands, I think!”
Christine watched in silent terror as Raoul twisted the clasp on the window and pulled up the pane of glass halfway. His blond head turned to the equestrian, preparing to call out at the same time that she saw the rider pulling up a long object into his hands.
“Get down!” the viscount shouted, wheeling back to face her.
His warm hands slammed into her shoulders, forcing her onto the floor of the carriage just before a rifle shot rang through the air, undercutting the rain and hoof-beats. The window shattered and Christine heard the bullet embed itself in the wooden paneling. A horse, perhaps one of the Holsteins, or maybe one of the brigand’s, shrieked in fear.
“Pull over!” snarled a guttural voice.
“Speed it up!” Raoul countered, the nobleman in him sharpening his voice to unarguable authority.
The coachman obeyed the vicomte, and cracked the reins over the Holsteins. Their pace increased, the wheels grinding against the wet pavement. Christine remained on the carriage floor, her skirts bunched up around her as thick as the blackguards’ furs. She had to abide by her husband, after all.
If the coachman intended to outrun the riders, he was deluded. Even Christine could see that, seconds later. The riders kept pace, their mounts snorting through the driving rain. She needed no eyes to see them; fear had magnified her hearing a hundredfold.
A second shot rang out, causing some area of the wood to splinter around the impact. The carriage bounced slightly, as if it were an agitated horse with a rock thrown at it.
If the bandits had ever had any patience, they were quickly losing it. Christine looked up at her husband, almost unable to recognize the drawn face looking back at her. He somehow had found a pistol.
A third shot rang out and the carriage shuddered. It seemed to bobble then with unsteady wheels. Raoul grimaced beside her, his gentle face so unfairly hardened. She knew he was trying to be brave, trying to protect her. Trying to protect her, as a husband should, the payment he had to give in exchange for having the husbandly rights to her flesh and soul.
Handsome Raoul, she knew he would protect her until the very end. He had before they had joined in marriage, braving the darkness and pulling her from it-- even if she was uncertain if she truly wanted to leave it. She was no longer unsure. The darkness was full of unseen horrors; she had never seen them before, until they flew upon her like angry ravens.
“Is there a side road anywhere?” Raoul’s voice was as drawn as his face.
The driver concentrated on the road but managed to shout back a hasty reply.
“Very soon, but I wouldn’t-the road is slick from rain!”
Christine saw Raoul’s worry, his uncertainty. He was her, back in the darkness. He had pulled her from that macabre time, now she could at least do this.
She slowly crawled back onto the seat. The viscount did not stop her.
Speech came with difficulty. Mayhap her nerves. Nevertheless, choking and unsteady, as if a noose encircled her neck, she spoke to her husband.
“Do whatever you think is best, darling.”
He looked fully at her, his dark blue eyes silent against the clatter of hooves and wood.
“Take the side road!” he roared at the driver.
The coachman did not want to but neither did he have it in him to defy a vicomte. His arms wrenched back and to the side, hauling the horses to the small side road. Christine returned to the darkness. The coach lurched with the transition. It seemed to bounce frontward and backward at the same time. Christine lost her balance and collided with the door. The impact dazed her as she jerked back again with another jolt.
Raoul’s arm suddenly wrapped around her waist and pulled her to him, his body warm against hers. The thought that this might be the closest she would ever know to being truly his might have saddened her at one time. Now, it was almost strangely funny. To be pulled from the darkness and into the light, only to plunge once more into the night.
Another crack of gunfire followed by a scream drove all thought from her mind. It was unfortunate, for she would never have a chance to reclaim them. A moment later, an equine shriek sounded from in front of the carriage.
The coach abruptly flipped forward and Christine went smashing into Elysium, or perhaps just wood. When the carriage twisted to the side, she plummeted to Hades. When the car began rolling, she no longer cared where she went, just for the movement to stop. Death seemed inclined to grant her wish, for an instant later, she knew oblivion.
* * *
Death renounced her. The darkness she was looking up at was not cold, peaceful oblivion, but the night sky, interspaced with tree limbs. At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle.
“Christine…”
With great effort, she looked to the left. The wreckage of the beautiful rosewood coach fell into her vision. The wooden paneling lied in splinters, slumped against a tree like a dying man just clinging to life. A single horse was caught under the carriage. Blood flowed in rivulets down its ruined back as it neighed pitifully. She hoped someone would put the pitiable animal out of its misery.
Between her and the carriage lied Raoul, her poor darling husband. At first glance, she thought she looked at a cadaver. Her fleeting reason, though, told her a corpse could not call her name. She would know his soft, however anguished voice anywhere.
He lifted his head weakly, blood dripping from his brow. To her astonishment, her husband began to pull himself onto his wrists and knees to crawl, crawling towards her. The sight repulsed her and made her want to cradle him in her arms and the same time. His left arm was broken with the bone jutting out red and white at the elbow; his ribs appeared smashed in, undoubtedly piercing his organs, and his once white shirt had darkened to red. Yet he tried to move, trying to crawl towards her.
Christine dully wondered how injured she was. Each breath she took was a burning affair. Her lungs ached in pain and each gasp caused her back to arch above the ground more than it ever should. The ground pressed fiercely into her shoulders, or perhaps bullets. She had gone from the blushing bride to the bloody bride. Once more, it was almost strangely funny. What a slight for her wedding day! No, she realized. Her run had begun at midnight. She had lived as Raoul de Chagny’s wife for a day.
Raoul continued to edge towards her, his bloodied face contorting in pain. His efforts reached half-ripe fruition when he managed to come within a foot of her side. He looked more corpselike than the one she knew so long ago. Even in death, her husband protected her.
His broken arm hanging limply, he slowly leaned back onto his knees, the movement causing his mangled ribs to snap and poke through his clothing. Yet he continued. Did he want to pull her into his arms and cradle her?
Whatever he wanted, she would never know. Without any warning, Christine was suddenly looking at the bloodied edge of a sword jutting through the viscount’s chest. She thought Raoul looked surprised for a moment, before blood gurgled from his mouth and he collapsed onto the steel.
The sword skewered some sense back into her. Someone had just murdered her husband!
“No…Raoul,” she rasped, the effort making her writhe in pain.
Whoever impaled her husband withdrew the sword. Would he kill her next? From somewhere beyond her vision though, a voice cracked like a whip.
“Fools!”
She could just see the shape of the man who had just spoken. Unlike the others, he wore a stygian cloak instead of furs. Nearby him, the brigands stood together, their horses nowhere in sight. The fur-clad men mumbled among themselves, in a language she did not know.
No…
She did not know it, but she had heard it before. Only one person she had ever met had spoken it, and then only once. The language was Romany, the language of the gypsies.
The tallest one stepped forward, speaking in guttural, accented French.
“We stopped the carriage, as you asked.”
The cloaked man appeared to simmer in the darkness.
“I told you to apprehend the carriage, not destroy it!”
The guttural-voiced blackguard shifted.
“We did not expect them to leave the main route.”
“So that gave you the initiative to shoot one of the horses?” the man inquired coldly.
Christine struggled to keep her focus on the group. They began to blur in front of her, mingling with the surrounding darkness into some unintelligible mirage. Pain washed over her, forceful enough that she could not follow the conversation for a moment, only knowing it grew terser. She gnawed her lip, fighting the unending urge to scream.
She couldn’t, she couldn’t drawn attention to herself. After a minute of eternity, the pain resided enough so that the conversation once more made sense to her ears. Her eyes remained deficient.
“There is only the issue of payment, monsieur.”
“Yes, what we agreed on, along with any loot you may find.”
Suddenly one of the fur-clad men howled in pain. The voice grew colder but not miffed.
“Attempting to cut my purse will not strengthen your funds, or my incentive to pay you, ruffians.”
Another few moments passed of Romany growls and Christine knew she heard the faint clink of coins. From behind her, a foot nudged her shoulder. The brigand might have kicked her for all the pain that wrenched through her that second. She could not hold it in no matter how much she sawed her lip to bloody tissue. She screamed, meaning to wail loud enough to release all her agony. The sound that came from her mouth however, was a gasping moan.
She heard a new voice, one that belonged to the man who nudged her, the one who slew her poor, darling, handsome husband. The voice sounded more nasal, without the husky edge the gypsy leader’s had. It was ruthless all the same.
“This one is hurt but still alive. Should I put the dame out of her misery?”
“No.” For the first time, the cold voice held something akin to human emotion.
She could scarcely see now. The urge to let go was simply too great. The almost nonexistent scrape of booted feet now barely brought any reaction from her, though she was aware of what was happening. Something covered in leather stroked her cheek with surprising gentleness. The cold voice spoke once more, this time right beside her.
“She will live; she is not hurt too badly.”
A pair of arms slid under her back, their feel skeletal even under the layers of clothing. Christine knew the darkness had reclaimed her. So Death had not abandoned her after all.
Fin
Fandom: Phantom of the Opera
Summary: On her wedding day, Christine and Raoul ride by carriage to their honeymoon. But upon the road, dark figures lurk in the shadows. Also an entry in the PFN Morbidity Contest.
Author's Note: As always, I thrive off criticism and feedback.
-------------------------------------------
As the blushing bride, Christine was happy. Raoul’s lips over hers and the priest’s commanding words were all the reassurance she needed to know that she was now a wife, the wife of the man she loved. Raoul de Chagny. Truly, she had never been so happy! Today she was the blushing bride; a day should never exist that she would feel more happiness, except perhaps the birth of her first child, when the hours of pain would become the sweetness of bringing new life.
Her own private sweetness however, came from the fact that she could forget. She had come from the darkness at last, and the purifying rays of light obliterated any of its taint.
Some day she might not want to forget the darkness. After all, if not for the darkness, she might have remained a lost, sad girl forever. She was no longer lost. She had grown and she had flowered.
All that remained now was consummation, and she would truly be Raoul’s loving wife, in every sense of the word. Christine heard that hundreds of years ago, a tradition existed for the end of the wedding reception, where the bride and groom would be undressed by friends and family, and marched to the marriage bed. She was not sure if she was entirely unhappy that tradition had faded away.
The wedding reception was over now. It had been a glorious affair. Even more magnificent was the honeymoon, still yet to come. Raoul said they would go to Italy, to see Vienna and Rome and the Vatican, and any other places they could think of. They would take a carriage to a port in Toulon, and then go by ship to l’Italie. The carriage was so very beautiful with its rosewood paneling and gold trim, and the four gray Holsteins. The German-bred horses stood quietly, regarding her with soft brown eyes. The driver, attired in a long, pleasing yet sensible black coat, helped her into the coach.
Raoul kissed her once they were inside. Had he had a touch more wickedness, she might not have had to wait until they got to the hotel for him to claim her maidenhead, but Raoul was too much of a gentleman to go farther than a few warm spring kisses.
* * *
Christine woke suddenly, the lantern in the carriage contrasting sharply to the surrounding darkness; rain fell steadily but she could hear no thunder. The world smelled earthly and natural. Raoul dozed beside her, his aristocratic features softened by sleep. From a fold in his waistcoat dangled a gold pocket watch. Reaching out, she gently took it in her hand and studied the dial. It was midnight. That meant she had been in the carriage for a little less than five hours. No wonder her legs prickled from disuse! She shifted against the velveteen cushions into a more comfortable position. Her legs had quieted, but now it was her ears that prickled.
Hoof-beats clattered behind her. The sound must have been what had woken her up. Raoul stirred beside her. As he also heard the hooves, he turned to her and smiled.
“Someone must be in a hurry tonight.”
Christine kissed his throat gently in response and settled back into the seat, prepared to fall asleep once more.
The hoof-beats never passed them. For a moment, she assumed the horse and rider must have ridden far behind them and were just coming up. A minute later, she realized the sound of iron against road never grew louder.
Sitting up straighter, she looked at the covered window. The rider must have pulled up alongside them. Glancing back at Raoul, she realized her husband was also curious about the mysterious horseman.
Leaning over, he pulled back the shade covering the window. It took a minute for Christine to make out the figure in the murky darkness. The stranger on horseback had a manly figure and appeared thickly covered in furs and his face obscured by a cowl.
Suddenly she saw his head turning towards the carriage until she imagined his shaded eyes locking with hers. Though she could not make out any discernable features, she felt an inexplicable twinge of dread from the man’s shadowed expression. The man slowed his mount to a canter and remained beside them, his horse easily keeping pace.
Christine looked back to her husband and saw his brow furrowed in concentration. He reached forward to the narrow pane separating them from the driver. Raoul pulled it open and put his mouth near the opening.
“Coachman, do you know this rider?”
The rain partially drowned out the man’s voice but it did not hide the anxiousness in his tone.
“I am sorry Monsieur le Vicomte; I will try to call out.”
Before the driver could do what he said, a second sound of hoof-beats ricocheted through the rain, this time on Raoul’s side of the carriage. Christine half-climbed over Raoul and jerked the shade back before she could stop herself. Another man, similarly dressed as the first one, rapidly drew up beside the coach. The driver swore under his breath.
Trepidation began to unfurl inside her, like a fanged bat preparing to leave the roost. These riders were not peaceful. Lord, what did they want?
She flinched as a crack of thunder shattered across the sky, causing the rain only to pelt down harder. The crash of thunder seemed to beckon even more of the strange riders.
A third pair of hoof-beats sounded, a fourth, and a fifth. Christine could not see them but she could hear them fanning out around the carriage, circling it, consuming it. The clang of steel against stone was creating a cacophonous chorus, of angels surely bound for hell.
“Who are these riders?” Raoul called to the driver.
The driver hunched his back over the reins, his coat whistling behind him. “Brigands, I think!”
Christine watched in silent terror as Raoul twisted the clasp on the window and pulled up the pane of glass halfway. His blond head turned to the equestrian, preparing to call out at the same time that she saw the rider pulling up a long object into his hands.
“Get down!” the viscount shouted, wheeling back to face her.
His warm hands slammed into her shoulders, forcing her onto the floor of the carriage just before a rifle shot rang through the air, undercutting the rain and hoof-beats. The window shattered and Christine heard the bullet embed itself in the wooden paneling. A horse, perhaps one of the Holsteins, or maybe one of the brigand’s, shrieked in fear.
“Pull over!” snarled a guttural voice.
“Speed it up!” Raoul countered, the nobleman in him sharpening his voice to unarguable authority.
The coachman obeyed the vicomte, and cracked the reins over the Holsteins. Their pace increased, the wheels grinding against the wet pavement. Christine remained on the carriage floor, her skirts bunched up around her as thick as the blackguards’ furs. She had to abide by her husband, after all.
If the coachman intended to outrun the riders, he was deluded. Even Christine could see that, seconds later. The riders kept pace, their mounts snorting through the driving rain. She needed no eyes to see them; fear had magnified her hearing a hundredfold.
A second shot rang out, causing some area of the wood to splinter around the impact. The carriage bounced slightly, as if it were an agitated horse with a rock thrown at it.
If the bandits had ever had any patience, they were quickly losing it. Christine looked up at her husband, almost unable to recognize the drawn face looking back at her. He somehow had found a pistol.
A third shot rang out and the carriage shuddered. It seemed to bobble then with unsteady wheels. Raoul grimaced beside her, his gentle face so unfairly hardened. She knew he was trying to be brave, trying to protect her. Trying to protect her, as a husband should, the payment he had to give in exchange for having the husbandly rights to her flesh and soul.
Handsome Raoul, she knew he would protect her until the very end. He had before they had joined in marriage, braving the darkness and pulling her from it-- even if she was uncertain if she truly wanted to leave it. She was no longer unsure. The darkness was full of unseen horrors; she had never seen them before, until they flew upon her like angry ravens.
“Is there a side road anywhere?” Raoul’s voice was as drawn as his face.
The driver concentrated on the road but managed to shout back a hasty reply.
“Very soon, but I wouldn’t-the road is slick from rain!”
Christine saw Raoul’s worry, his uncertainty. He was her, back in the darkness. He had pulled her from that macabre time, now she could at least do this.
She slowly crawled back onto the seat. The viscount did not stop her.
Speech came with difficulty. Mayhap her nerves. Nevertheless, choking and unsteady, as if a noose encircled her neck, she spoke to her husband.
“Do whatever you think is best, darling.”
He looked fully at her, his dark blue eyes silent against the clatter of hooves and wood.
“Take the side road!” he roared at the driver.
The coachman did not want to but neither did he have it in him to defy a vicomte. His arms wrenched back and to the side, hauling the horses to the small side road. Christine returned to the darkness. The coach lurched with the transition. It seemed to bounce frontward and backward at the same time. Christine lost her balance and collided with the door. The impact dazed her as she jerked back again with another jolt.
Raoul’s arm suddenly wrapped around her waist and pulled her to him, his body warm against hers. The thought that this might be the closest she would ever know to being truly his might have saddened her at one time. Now, it was almost strangely funny. To be pulled from the darkness and into the light, only to plunge once more into the night.
Another crack of gunfire followed by a scream drove all thought from her mind. It was unfortunate, for she would never have a chance to reclaim them. A moment later, an equine shriek sounded from in front of the carriage.
The coach abruptly flipped forward and Christine went smashing into Elysium, or perhaps just wood. When the carriage twisted to the side, she plummeted to Hades. When the car began rolling, she no longer cared where she went, just for the movement to stop. Death seemed inclined to grant her wish, for an instant later, she knew oblivion.
* * *
Death renounced her. The darkness she was looking up at was not cold, peaceful oblivion, but the night sky, interspaced with tree limbs. At least the rain had slowed to a drizzle.
“Christine…”
With great effort, she looked to the left. The wreckage of the beautiful rosewood coach fell into her vision. The wooden paneling lied in splinters, slumped against a tree like a dying man just clinging to life. A single horse was caught under the carriage. Blood flowed in rivulets down its ruined back as it neighed pitifully. She hoped someone would put the pitiable animal out of its misery.
Between her and the carriage lied Raoul, her poor darling husband. At first glance, she thought she looked at a cadaver. Her fleeting reason, though, told her a corpse could not call her name. She would know his soft, however anguished voice anywhere.
He lifted his head weakly, blood dripping from his brow. To her astonishment, her husband began to pull himself onto his wrists and knees to crawl, crawling towards her. The sight repulsed her and made her want to cradle him in her arms and the same time. His left arm was broken with the bone jutting out red and white at the elbow; his ribs appeared smashed in, undoubtedly piercing his organs, and his once white shirt had darkened to red. Yet he tried to move, trying to crawl towards her.
Christine dully wondered how injured she was. Each breath she took was a burning affair. Her lungs ached in pain and each gasp caused her back to arch above the ground more than it ever should. The ground pressed fiercely into her shoulders, or perhaps bullets. She had gone from the blushing bride to the bloody bride. Once more, it was almost strangely funny. What a slight for her wedding day! No, she realized. Her run had begun at midnight. She had lived as Raoul de Chagny’s wife for a day.
Raoul continued to edge towards her, his bloodied face contorting in pain. His efforts reached half-ripe fruition when he managed to come within a foot of her side. He looked more corpselike than the one she knew so long ago. Even in death, her husband protected her.
His broken arm hanging limply, he slowly leaned back onto his knees, the movement causing his mangled ribs to snap and poke through his clothing. Yet he continued. Did he want to pull her into his arms and cradle her?
Whatever he wanted, she would never know. Without any warning, Christine was suddenly looking at the bloodied edge of a sword jutting through the viscount’s chest. She thought Raoul looked surprised for a moment, before blood gurgled from his mouth and he collapsed onto the steel.
The sword skewered some sense back into her. Someone had just murdered her husband!
“No…Raoul,” she rasped, the effort making her writhe in pain.
Whoever impaled her husband withdrew the sword. Would he kill her next? From somewhere beyond her vision though, a voice cracked like a whip.
“Fools!”
She could just see the shape of the man who had just spoken. Unlike the others, he wore a stygian cloak instead of furs. Nearby him, the brigands stood together, their horses nowhere in sight. The fur-clad men mumbled among themselves, in a language she did not know.
No…
She did not know it, but she had heard it before. Only one person she had ever met had spoken it, and then only once. The language was Romany, the language of the gypsies.
The tallest one stepped forward, speaking in guttural, accented French.
“We stopped the carriage, as you asked.”
The cloaked man appeared to simmer in the darkness.
“I told you to apprehend the carriage, not destroy it!”
The guttural-voiced blackguard shifted.
“We did not expect them to leave the main route.”
“So that gave you the initiative to shoot one of the horses?” the man inquired coldly.
Christine struggled to keep her focus on the group. They began to blur in front of her, mingling with the surrounding darkness into some unintelligible mirage. Pain washed over her, forceful enough that she could not follow the conversation for a moment, only knowing it grew terser. She gnawed her lip, fighting the unending urge to scream.
She couldn’t, she couldn’t drawn attention to herself. After a minute of eternity, the pain resided enough so that the conversation once more made sense to her ears. Her eyes remained deficient.
“There is only the issue of payment, monsieur.”
“Yes, what we agreed on, along with any loot you may find.”
Suddenly one of the fur-clad men howled in pain. The voice grew colder but not miffed.
“Attempting to cut my purse will not strengthen your funds, or my incentive to pay you, ruffians.”
Another few moments passed of Romany growls and Christine knew she heard the faint clink of coins. From behind her, a foot nudged her shoulder. The brigand might have kicked her for all the pain that wrenched through her that second. She could not hold it in no matter how much she sawed her lip to bloody tissue. She screamed, meaning to wail loud enough to release all her agony. The sound that came from her mouth however, was a gasping moan.
She heard a new voice, one that belonged to the man who nudged her, the one who slew her poor, darling, handsome husband. The voice sounded more nasal, without the husky edge the gypsy leader’s had. It was ruthless all the same.
“This one is hurt but still alive. Should I put the dame out of her misery?”
“No.” For the first time, the cold voice held something akin to human emotion.
She could scarcely see now. The urge to let go was simply too great. The almost nonexistent scrape of booted feet now barely brought any reaction from her, though she was aware of what was happening. Something covered in leather stroked her cheek with surprising gentleness. The cold voice spoke once more, this time right beside her.
“She will live; she is not hurt too badly.”
A pair of arms slid under her back, their feel skeletal even under the layers of clothing. Christine knew the darkness had reclaimed her. So Death had not abandoned her after all.
Fin