Key to Redemption Read online

  Touching him would be very bad right now for both of them. Gillian had no doubt they would have fallen on each other like starving beasts. She wanted to help him; this was just a new and uncharted area of Sex Therapist 101. Shit, shit and double shit.

  Perrin turned from her and rose, walking toward the now open kitchen area of the house. The way he moved was elegant, poised; he drew the eye to him. He was six feet three inches tall, but his frame, though powerfully built, was lean and stylish: broad shoulders, lean waist, tight, sculpted butt and long, muscular legs. He moved with the refined poise of a dancer, masculine and predatory. He was compelling to watch.

  “My parentage is mixed, as you have presumed, Dr. Key.” He took a single rose from the vase of flowers that sat on the small dining table and turned back to her. “My mother was half Human and half Sidhe or Fey as some call them. I do not know from what Court, only what I was told, much later . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked lost.

  “Go on, Perrin, and please call me Gillian.”

  “My mother was in Paris, with a troupe of performers who were all of mixed blood. She was a singer, a music Fairy, and was known for the delight she brought to the Humans who came to hear her sing.” He touched the petals of the rose delicately with his gloved hand. “She had been warned to stay away from Notre Dame. Gargoyles reside there, you see. There were rumors of a particular Gargoyle who preferred females of Faerie as his prey.”

  Even with the mask, Gillian could see the pain that flashed across his face. She waited until he collected his feelings. “One night, the story goes, she was carried off by some revelers and taken to the cathedral area. She managed to escape and was trying to make her way back to her troupe when she was set upon by the Gargoyle.” Perrin lifted his eyes to hers. “I am the result of that pairing.”

  That certainly explained a lot of things, Gillian thought. The Fey glamour was what was naturally pouring out of him. The Gargoyle blood . . . Well, that could do a lot of things besides cause a physical deformity. Gargoyles were generally hideously ugly but had their own glamour they could use on unwilling partners: making them believe they were being courted by a creature of great beauty. They were also renowned for their vicious and exhaustive sexual appetites. A sadistic, oversexed stone creature who could become literally rock-hard flesh and had no morals to speak of . . . that getting hold of anyone wasn’t a comforting thought.

  “Your mother was raped, Perrin. That isn’t her fault or yours.” Gillian rose and went to him, unable to bear his pain for another moment.

  “She didn’t want me. Not with this.” He gestured toward his masked face, his voice low, angry and brimming with eons of anguish. “She abandoned me, to another troupe of gypsy players. Only they were nowhere near as genteel as the group she performed with. They put me on display . . . a performance freak who did magic tricks and who could sing . . . even with this face. I helped make them wealthy . . . They fed me, clothed me, made me sleep among the beasts.”

  Gray green eyes turned toward her. “In over a hundred and fifty years, I have only experienced the gentle touch of another on three occasions, Gillian.” He tried out her name again. “I was rejected by my mother at birth, raised like an animal in a sideshow until a sympathetic soul rescued me and led me beneath the streets of Paris, into the catacombs. No one wanted me. Not my mother, not her people, not anyone!”

  The magical voice was harsh with unshed tears as he turned away again. She was afraid he would stop talking but wondered if they should take a break from the enormity of emotions that were pouring from him.

  “Perrin, if you would like to continue this later . . .” she began, but he waved her off.

  “No, I would like to continue. It is the first time I have told this story to anyone.” He turned slightly back and looked at her from the corner of his unmasked eye, imploring her. “I feel safe with you, Gillian, I want you to know my story. Perhaps there is a chance you can help me.”

  She knew why he felt safe—she was bombarding him with comfort and warmth—but the level of pain he had was still off the scale. “Come and sit with me, please. I want to hear it if you want to tell it.” Holding out her hand, she waited.

  Slowly he took her hand and she led him back to the couch, sitting closer to him than she had before, and she didn’t let go of his hand. She was also trying to put his story together—there was something familiar about it and it was kicking at her to understand. Something obvious. Something she should know.

  “My rescuer was a young woman, who couldn’t bear to see even a young disfigured man tormented,” he continued. “Out of the thousands of people who jeered and mocked me, only one took pity. She helped me creep away one night into the darkness with her own cloak over my head. I couldn’t see so I had to trust her. Finally she stopped and we were before a grate which led to the underground of Paris. After the fall of the Bastille, there had been a prison built down there, but it had fallen into disuse.

  “Networks of tunnels, caves, canals run under the City even to this day. She opened the grate, gave me her own key to it and said that she would return to bring me food and supplies. I spent the first quiet night of my life in utter terror that someone might have seen where she’d led me, but no one came. The next day I began to explore, but returned every evening to the original grate to wait for her to bring me supplies, conversation, just a brief moment of companionship.

  “Her family had money and supported the arts, so she brought me things she thought would help me pass the time. Drawing pencils, paper, books she gave to me, freely and happily. I fashioned a mask, out of her cloak, determined never to let her see my face again, not wanting to frighten my benefactor. Then one day on one of my searching expeditions, I heard sounds. Beautiful sounds echoing through my dank prison. I made my way toward them and came upon a lake deep beneath the surface of the streets. It was a large chamber and the acoustics amplified the noise.”

  Gillian watched as Perrin’s face reflected his remembered joy of the moment. He was truly beautiful. She hoped she could help him see it. Alarm bells were clanging in her head . . . a lake, deep beneath the streets of Paris . . . music . . . a lonely disfigured genius . . .

  “There was singing. It was the opening of the season for the theatre and they were beginning rehearsal.”

  Gill gasped as her memory clicked and she knew. If she was correct . . .

  “Odin’s hells, Perrin, you’re the actual Phantom of the—” Gillian blurted out, but he interrupted her.

  “Oui, but I do not want to be him anymore. I do not want to be a legend, a shade, a shadow; thought of as a vengeful ghost. I want to feel the sunlight on my unmasked face. I want to live as a man, not as a creature.”

  He finished, looking straight at her for the first time. “I lost more than one love to this face and to my social ineptitude. I do not want to live my entire life alone. I would rather die. If this therapy with you does not work, I shall not continue in this existence.”

  Oh, swell. He was potentially suicidal too. This just kept getting better and better.

  CHAPTER 4

  ONCE breached, the dam Perrin had built up for his own sanity gave way and he told Gillian everything. He had rather liked the idea of being the Opera Ghost at first. “Haunting” the theatre had given him a sense of purpose, of entitlement. With his extended lifespan, he was easily able to foster his own legend with the players and management staff.

  Fear and intimidation were only part of his arsenal. However, he assured her, he had never murdered or harmed anyone, despite what some might say. Displaying an unstable temperament, dire threats and promises of retribution were all smoke and mirrors, like the medium of the theatre or opera itself. He loved the opera, loved to sing, to play his own music and the music of the masters . . . demanded discipline and perfection from the staff and players, just as he required it of himself.

  Gillian was impressed as hell that he seemed to be reasonably sane, despite his hang-ups and loneliness. The fact
that, despite his unlikely abilities, his obvious intellect, his treatment as a child and his isolation, he had not actually become a killer or an opportunistic rapist was astonishing. He had managed to develop a sense of right and wrong. He had morals, he was ethical. He might have been a predator, but he wasn’t.

  Overseeing the opera house behind the scenes was also the only control he had in his life. He felt lonely and guilty for being what he considered a visual aberration, but was desperate for genuine contact with anyone.

  Perrin was blessed with perfect pitch, a glorious voice of his own, which he could never share with anyone, and was nearly frantic for companionship. A discarded pipe organ, discovered in an abandoned church, was retrieved so he could amuse himself by playing the songs he heard. He secreted it away beside his lake and built his own little kingdom, learning to play, mastering the classics he heard from above.

  Soon, he began to compose his own scores, self-teaching orchestration, stealing sheets of music to learn what the black dots and lines on the barred paper meant. Then with almost obsessive observation, he studied the workings of the back-stage of the theatre from the fly-walks and catwalks. He learned how they created their special effects, made their magic, created the delightful world of lights, scenery and music that was to become the only world he knew. The only society that he would ever see.

  Perrin’s intellect was genius level, but he didn’t know it. He assumed that everyone was on par with his own intelligence, could instantly understand things as he did. He loved music, architecture, literature. They were vehicles to finally express all the secret longings of his heart, beautifully, poignantly, safely.

  One night, a young, lovely chorus singer caught his attention with her merry tune as she swept the stage after a rehearsal. Her voice was beautiful but untrained, and as an unseen voice in the darkness, using his own legend at first, he’d taken her under his wing, coaching her in her singing. His original benefactor turned up as the Ballet Mistress for the theatre and they too continued their tenuous friendship though they had little further direct contact.

  His protégée was a sweet, docile little thing who would have been on the street had she not had such a compelling voice. Trusting and naive, she listened to his whispered words of encouragement, allowing him to direct her voice and her life. Finally able to control something instead of being controlled, Perrin was a strict taskmaster. He demanded her obedience to his schedule and his teaching methods.

  The girl wanted to be recognized, wanted to break out of the chorus and become a diva. She loved music too. It was a method to ease her own pain. In her own way, she was as dark and troubled as Perrin. Orphaned young, she had been sent to live with a succession of relatives who abused her. Finally she was taken in by the very woman—now the Ballet Mistress—who had rescued Perrin years before, and she was brought to the opera as a dancer and singer for the chorus.

  In the late eighteen hundreds in Paris, physical beauty was honored, almost worshipped. There was a moment of terrible miscalculation on Perrin’s part when he thought that she might be mature enough to love him as he was.

  The girl had begged him for a glimpse of her teacher. Perrin taught her from his secluded alcoves beneath, around and above the opera. He had never allowed her to see him, fearing her reaction, even with his mask. When she was chosen for a lead role, finally, it was a triumph for them both, and led to his second great tragedy. The young woman wanted to see him, to know him. Perrin refused over and over, leaving her in tears, hurt and bewildered.

  But she was persistent, and finally Perrin agreed but not before fashioning several masks to hide the upper-right side of his face. He had taken her with him to his home. Half frightened and half excited, she’d gone willingly with her brilliant master. He kept his masked side turned away from her so that all she saw was the remarkable beauty of his left profile.

  The dank room with the enormous lake was lit entirely by scores of candles held in sconces and candelabras that had been thrown away by the theatre. He’d furnished it with discarded furniture, mirrors; built bookshelves, a pipe organ and a private lavatory with his architectural skill and perfect pitch. The lair looked like a magical realm to her innocent eyes; Perrin, like a romantic hero she’d read about and seen portrayed on stage, masked, mysterious, exciting.

  He sang to her a song he’d written, pouring his soul into the piece and watching the wonderment cross her features. The mask he wore only added romance and mystery to her youthful infatuation. Impishly, she had looked around his home, finding the great bed he’d erected behind filmy draperies. Everything he owned, wore, slept on or used was from the opera or his own hands. The whole lot had an unearthly, theatrical, supernatural quality. She teased him, stretching out on his bed, arms open, beckoning with a smile of delight on her face.

  Perrin went to her, allowed her to draw him down to kiss him. It was her first kiss, and his. Her small hands moved over his chest, down to his waist and below; she had gasped in shock as he stopped her roughly, astonished by her behavior. All he knew of love and life was from the opera. A young lady did not try to seduce a man. No play he’d seen was ever written that way.

  He knew she was innocent, as virgin as he was, though she was eighteen and he closer to thirty. If he made love with her, he wanted it to be perfect, romantic and after they were properly married.

  Puzzled, she had tried again, wanting to gift him for all that he had given her with the only thing she could pay him with: herself. He wasn’t having it. Perrin was a monster in appearance, but he was honorable even after all he had suffered, because of what he’d learned from the heroes of the theatre. He had inborn powers to seduce and deceive; he knew that instinctively.

  He could have lain with her, taken her innocence, but he didn’t though she offered it freely. Perrin did nothing but hold her hands away from his body and scold her for her brazen behavior. He loved her. To use her body, then send her back into the light where he could not follow was something he would not do to his angel, though she begged him to take her.

  Sadly he had turned away, held out his hand to take her back to the dormitory where she lived. Furious with his rejection and embarrassed by her own actions, she had ripped the mask from his face, exposing the horror beneath. Screaming, she backed away and fainted. Perrin, in shock and humiliated, replaced his mask, then carried her back to her safe little room, leaving her untouched and as innocent as she had been.

  He never tried to see her again, nor taught her another note; he ignored her pleas to come back to her and turned away from her voice as the pleas became threats. Lost in misery, he retreated into the darkness of his lair; to the myriad of tunnels beneath Paris, unwittingly perpetuating his own myth of being a ghost. He traveled for a while, under the cover of darkness, revisiting some of the towns and cities he had performed in when with the gypsy troupe. Always separate, always alone; he read, wrote his music, worked on his own structural designs to improve the acoustics of the opera house.

  Years passed before Perrin returned to his subterranean home. Soon after, he found a new protégée to focus his attention on. It was another aspiring young singer whose soaring soprano tore through his soul with its beauty. Determined that things go well this time, he judiciously avoided all personal contact with her for several years. He remained a disembodied voice, instructing her in music, guiding her vocal talent, allowing and encouraging her belief that he was truly an angel or ghost who was protecting and teaching her. Despite her gentle requests to meet, Perrin refused to allow a meeting. Better an esoteric love than none at all.

  He finally caved when he followed her one snowy afternoon to a cemetery outside Paris, where she went to visit her father’s grave. It had become his habit to follow her whenever she went out alone, a watchful eye in the stillness. No family members ever came to see her. He assumed she was alone in the world, and he could not bear the thought of harm coming to her. Silent, unseen, he had always stayed far enough away so that she had only glimpses of him.
Rather than being alarmed, she was warmed to think that her brilliant teacher thought so well of her as to follow her into the streets of the city to assure her safety.

  On that day, feeling lonelier than usual, she decided she wanted to know him and for him to know her. Pretending to fall on the icy steps of the tomb in a hastily thought out plan, she cried out for help, and he had come to her—a black-cloaked figure, tall and elegant—to offer his gloved hand and steady her as she rose.

  Stabilizing herself on his arms, she asked gently if he would remove the hood of his cape so that she might see the face of her teacher. It had been a revelation to him that she had found him out when he had been so careful. When she asked again, he pushed back the hood with shaking hands so that she might see what he was.

  Revealing himself to her by the mausoleum, he was overcome by her gratitude and sweetness as she curtsied before him, kissing his leather-encased hands with glad tears in her eyes. She wanted the mask off too, to see the true face of her teacher and benefactor.

  Terrified, trembling and ashamed, Perrin stood stock still, unable to do anything but let her peel it slowly back, braced for the screams that he knew would come. Predictably, she was rather shaken at first to see such hideousness, but she didn’t scream. The knowledge that this was still her teacher, still the man she respected and admired, still the man who watched over her like a guardian angel, slid into her warm eyes and she smiled. Perrin had expected utter rejection. When instead, standing on tiptoe, she took his face in her small hands and kissed him on his disfigured cheek, then fully on the mouth, he was undone.

  They had kissed in the snow, in the shadow of her father’s tomb. Her acceptance of him as he was, was a healing balm to his broken spirit. Walking back to the theatre together, his mask placed back on his face by her dainty hands, he felt like a man for the first time, instead of a creature. She proudly took his arm, insisting he leave off at least the cowl, and smiled pleasantly at the passersby who had the gall to stare at her escort.