Well-Suited

2 - Smoke

The human mind was an interesting thing. Erik found that he did not remember much from his time at the opera house, as though his mind was striving to protect him from those memories, or, more precisely, the guilt associated with such a time in his life. He remembered his student, of course, remembered her in unpredictable waves of grief at the oddest moments. He remembered Meg's mother, his associate; recalled the abysmal orchestra, the opera's more memorable productions. The end of his time in Paris was, of course, spotty; there were rooms in the manse of his mind that were not investigated for good reason. He certainly did not remember the mousy blonde with the passable extension and two-bit roles, the ballerina with little to say when she found him in the cellars those years ago.

But New York taught him the shades of Meg Giry, the opalescent darkness she harbored next to dazzling golden brilliance when she stepped on stage. The deep blood red of her passion, the bitter chartreuse of her disappointment. He had left his once-impenetrable world of the night to step into her prism and he could not imagine going back to the shadows of his past once more.

He watched her stride into the room as if she was on stage. She changed her gait, as he had suggested; but the rest was her, brazen and fearless and obstinate. He followed her from the shadows, watching, as she returned to the table where Hawkins continued to play. Erik remembered that she had his wallet.

He found a place to stand, near a table, where the gas lamp would not illuminate his mask, and waited.

"A gentleman's wager," she was suggesting in the husky tones of her voice. Erik was embarrassed he had ever been tricked; it was so obvious now how it was her, of course it was. He gritted his teeth. Would the man recognize her folly as quickly? How had he let things go so badly so quickly? Why could he never say no to her?

Meg set the wager high and leaned back in the chair, the picture of gentlemanly repose, her legs spread and her arm on the back of the chair next to her. The man next to her offered her a cigarette; she leaned over to let him light it. Her green eyes found him and the breath fled from his throat and out his open mouth. She was fucking with him, too.

Infuriating.

Heat spread across his chest and he accepted the glass of whiskey from the waiter without thinking, just for something to hold onto.

She was...was she playing her rival in cards? This was her brilliant plan?

"I was well taught," she commented, exchanging Erik's money with the blackjack dealer. A millennia ago, cramped in a tenement barely paid for by her mother's tailoring, he taught the insatiable girl every card game he knew over candlelight.

But those were silly games, not the high-roller table at a gangster's fancy gambling hall. He watched her lips move, her shoulders shaking with laughter at another man's comment. Something vile occurred to him.

Oh no.

She was not counting cards at the thousand-dollar table. She was not. He was going to kill her, if these men didn't do it first.

"Oh come on you bastard, not scared, are you?" He heard her reprimand in her pretender's voice.

Erik's fingernails dug into the wall behind him as he held himself back from tearing her from the table where she laughed and goaded the man who owed them, roughly, $20,000 in fines and a good amount of their pride and reputation besides. The glint in her eye told him yes, that was exactly what she was doing. She was cheating at the gambling hall dressed as a man to- what, send Erik to an early grave? He gulped down the last of the Irish whiskey and looked for another.

Some commotion at another table allowed him to leave his hiding place in the shadows and return to a nearby table relatively undetected. If Meg minded, she didn't let on, gleefully raking in the chips to the chastened Hawkins across the table.