Chapter Text
The group of foreign people standing in the foyer of the Opera Populaire stood sorely out of place, in their strange clothes, with their odd collection of heavy, misshapen trunks and boxes and they stuck out amidst the bustle and hubbub of the busy opera house, drawing stares and open observation from the staff. They appeared to be quite in the way of the hustle and bustle.
The two, willowy siblings at the forefront were German in appearance, with square faces and strong jawlines, long noses and hooded eyes, fair skin and dark brown hair and eyes. The shorter one, the girl, was a beautiful, feminine version of her taller, mustached brother. The German man behind them sported a hooked nose and wild hair, with round eyeglasses and a comically large steamer trunk gripped lovingly, almost frantically, in his spindly arms. They appeared to be quite enraptured by the house, in all its glory and grandeur, their eyes scoured the grand, golden room and hungrily drank up all that there was to see. Watching and waiting.
They did not have to wait long, however, before two men descended the stairs, one short and one tall, both dressed in laughably elaborate and intricate finery. The men appeared quite frazzled as they rounded on the odd group, their faces clearly showing their unease, both with the trio before them and the reason why they were there in the Opera Populaire.
"Venkman and associates?" The shorter, stouter one asked. His voice betrayed his anxiety in a crack over the man's name and he promptly cleared his throat and began again, attempting once more to hold the uncomfortable smile that put no one at ease, "I assume you sir, are the Herr Venkman which we have hired to solve our little… problem?"
The tall, broad shouldered German with the mustache smiled warmly, charisma practically oozed from his warm chocolate eyes and easy demeanor. He offered his hand, shifting a cane into his left, so as to interact properly with the "high" French society.
"Yes that is my name," He spoke in perfect French with only the slightest whisper of a German accent and shook the two men's hands, "These are the associates, my good friend Doctor Egon Spengler and my lovely little sister, Ida Venkman." Egon nodded as he heard his name spoken and Ida gave an affiliative smile that did not reach her eyes and dipped her head.
"How do you do?" She asked in slightly more accented French. The managers all but ignored her as they exchanged names with her brother although she didn't seem to mind.
"I must admit, we rather hoped you might have arrived a little later in the day," The taller manager, Monsieur Richard Firmin, glanced around at the stares they received, "We were hoping to keep this whole… huzzah fairly quiet amongst the staff. They tend to be quite…"
"Excitable," Monsieur Gilles Andre supplied.
"Obsessed," Firmin followed.
"Ah my good monsieurs," The older Venkman, Peter, smiled charismatically and waved away the managers' increasing agitation and fear with a practiced calm, "Brushes with the paranormal are wont to cause such anxieties and gossip, it is the way with the world." Ida watched a bit of tension roll off of the two older men, her brother had such a way with people, that was why they were in such a laughable, derisory business specializing in "supernatural, paranormal exterminations and liquIdations". He could talk people into anything, even believing in their ghost problems and that they ought to pay him a handsome sum for taking care of it. Her brother was a type A skeptic but she and Egon knew there was more than what met the eye as far as the supernatural goes and to a degree believed in the work that they did, expelling homes and communities of haunts, they discovered foundation in the spiritual.
"We'd heard of your work in Belgium," Firmin gestured that their bags should be picked up and attended to by footmen that suddenly flanked the group. Egon reluctantly gave up his trunk and shoved his hands into his fraying pockets. Ida remembered Belgium and her eyes briefly fell to Peter's cane. Floorboards in the attic of a Count had given way, dropping him onto a flight of stairs. Peter, of course, dramatically saved the event by claiming a murdered lover, killed because of her bastard child with one of the Count's ancestors had pushed him through as she was exiting the house, leaving it no longer haunted. The sum of the cheque that they were paid almost made up for the fact that her brother would never walk normally again. Egon swore and Ida had concurred in secret that the two had seen objects fly off of shelves and a flash of spectral violet before Peter went careening through what had previously been strong, unrotted wood.
"Ah yes," Peter recalled, as it were a fond anecdote, "It was just another job, I assure you, merely a month's work and the Count shall never have to worry of old spectors again."
"And you've experience?" Andre enquired, "With very… active ghosts, I hope?"
"Yes," Came the charming, blessed reply, "Quite, quite."
"What will you… do?" He asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
"My good monsieur," The older Venkman took the manager by his shoulder and firmly patted him on the back, "Allow us to relieve you of having to worry about such things, we shall do what we do and take we shall very good care of your opera house, we swear it."
"My brother is the finest spectral exterminator," Ida added, smiling gently, allowing her eyes to crinkle and gaze warmly at them, "You need have no fear with the three of us here, you are in very, very capable hands." She caught the wink and lopsided smirk of her brother.
"Now!" Peter exclaimed suddenly and both managers jumped and whitened at his booming voice as it carried up the stairs, "We're going to ask you a few standard questions if you good sirs wouldn't mind leading us to where you feel the presence of the spirit is the strongest and I hope you do not mind but my sister is going to take some notes while we walk."
The managers started up the stairs leading into the theater itself, Peter's cane tapping on the smooth, elegant marble of the walk.
"Have you or any of your family been diagnosed schizophrenic? Mentally incompetent?"
The managers balked at the question and shook their heads no. Ida scribbled in her notepad as she followed closely behind the confident stride of her brother.
"Are you habitually using drugs? Stimulants? Alcohol?"
"Perhaps a drink every now and again but never often enough to produce hallucinations," Firmin sounded mildly offended.
"No, no, of course not," Peter nodded, "Just asking." They walked in silence for a moment and rounded on a second, smaller staircase. "Well then, what's exactly been occurring here in the opera house that might give you the idea it could be haunted?" The managers glanced uneasily at each other.
"Well," Firman began, "We purchased the house but only mere weeks ago, and when we arrived, on the very first day a backdrop inexplicably fell from the flies." Ida held back a snort and glanced at her brothers climbing back, too often, they'd found, ghosts were the objects of people's imagination and obsession with fantasy ran wild, congruent to chance happenings, coincidences. However, occasionally Egon claimed that they were not the creation of bored minds but very real and possible to scare off. "We thought nothing of it, of course, but the chorus girls began to shout, 'He's here! The Phantom of the Opera!'"
"We thought they were crazy," Andre added, "The idea itself is ludicrous."
"The entire staff believes it- ask anyone, they'll regale you with tales of the "Opéra Ghost" and his terrible Punjab lasso." Firmin began to speak in hushed tones.
"And the letters Richard," Andre sighed, "Tell them of the letters."
"Oh the letters," Firmin commiserated sadly, "The Opera Ghost is telling us how to run our theater." Ida raised an eyebrow at this, she, Egon and Peter had seen their share of people who believed they could communicate with ghosts, but letters?
"You will have to show us these… letters," Peter turned behind the managers' backs and smiled at Ida while he twirled a finger at his temple and rolled his eyes. She set her mouth.
"Watch your cane," She responded, fighting a grin.
The managers led them down a hall as they recounted the elusive ghost's declaration that one of the chorus girls, a name Ida couldn't remember Catherine, Christine, something akin to that, should become the new prima donna. Ida couldn't imagine why on earth it mattered so much who sang what and where but it appeared to be the main source of contention.
It was an odd enough story, one the likes of which Peter, Egon, and she had never seen. An apparition that so many people claimed to have seen against the alleged material evidence of a ghost was altogether entirely new to the ragtag group.
They were being paid, of course, an excellent sum of money or else they would not have traveled to Paris or France for that matter. They'd been living in neighboring flats in Frankfurt when they'd received word from the two frazzled opera managers and after receiving the estimated compensation, Peter Venkman packed up his sister and his disagreeable colleague and boarded the next train to France. Ida had intended to book them to stay in a grand hotel nearby the Opera Populaire but Peter insisted it would be far more fitting if they were to stay in empty suites offered to them, in the opera house. For the exorbitant amount of money, he explained, they'd better be putting on the performance of their lifetimes that no one, not even the most skeptical, could deny. Egon hadn’t protested, the idea that he may for the first time look upon the ghosts that he researched and claimed to know much about had been utterly tantalizing. He too, had a stake in staying there and so Ida had been outvoted.
"Ah… here we are," Andre spun on them and spread his arms wide, "Box five."