Spanish Angel (Phantom of the Opera)

Chapter 6

"Both Phillippe and I warned you not to marry that girl in the first place." A middle-aged man said as he pointed at Raoul with hand and cradled a glass of sherry with his other. "We told you she wasn't going to turn out well. Too many ghosts involved." The man muttered, swishing the liquid in his glass.

"She'll get better!" Raoul insisted to his late brother's friend, Nicolas Jules, the Marquis de Bonnaire. "Jules, I know she will!" The Marquis's father and Raoul's own father had been quite close and so, naturally, their eldest sons grew close as well. Jules had, to some degree, helped Phillippe raise his much younger brother and now with his friends demise, he had determined to guide his young friend into a path safe for his feet to tread. The Marquis himself was familiar with the curses of marrying a weak-willed wife but, had been freed of her when she had abandoned him for another man. Never once did he resent the other gentleman's misfortune in brides.

"How do you know? She is a fragile creature and it seems the stress of the last several months has taken its ultimate toll on her body. She's dying, Raoul." Silence ensued in the room as the word that none wanted to think of was spoken aloud. Tears formed in the Comte's eyes as he turned away from his friend and hung his head.

"And...if she dies...I'm afraid I'll die with her."

"Oh, cease these melodramatics!" Exclaimed Jules as he set down his sherry glass and walked over to his friend. "Those operas you listen to have gotten into your brain. You will do no such thing. You will survive even if she doesn't." Clapping the young de Chagny on the back, Jules walked past him to the door.

"But, if I were you, I'd start looking beyond those doctors and nurses that seem to know nothing. Surely you know someone who can help?" With that question hanging in the air, the older man left, showing himself out of the mansion.

Raoul kept silent for a few moments before whispering,

"I do know someone."

E-OC

"Monsieur, I'm leaving for town. Is there anything you need?" Candela asked as she knocked lightly on the door leading into the Opera Ghost's scarlet chambers. A shuffle of papers greeted her ears and she knocked once more, aware the preoccupied man probably hadn't heard her.

"What do you want?" A frustrated voice hollered from within and she smiled quietly to herself before re-asking her question and the reply coming back as a negative. A lightness in her step, she grabbed her basket and pocketed some coins before heading out the door and untying the small boat moored there.

"Off to town I go then." Hopping lightly into the boat, she pushed herself away from the dock and propelled herself through the dark waters she had learned easily within the first month. Frightening as they might have seemed to some normal human being, she, the mad girl, found them quite appealing.

"Garish light of day." She sang softly to herself, remembering a song she had found one day while cleaning the Phantom's small house. "I have to agree with you there, Monsieur Phantom. Light is quite bright and overrated."

Without another worthwhile thought or word, she made her away up to the surface.

E-OC

"I must be going quite mad, Little Lotte. I'm considering asking for the help of a madman. A madman who hates me. But, he loves you. Jules said to find someone who could help you." Raoul whispered to the listless woman lying on the bed, her eyes closed in a drug-induced sleep. Two weeks previous, she had completely collapsed and in a desperate attempt to save her life, the doctor had prescribed heavy sedatives while her body calmed itself and returned to equilibrium. It was all they could do for the Comtesse.