Avalon Revisited

by O. M. Grey

  I had always been amazed at the passion of these High Society London women. All the stuffiness and etiquette that had been strapped so tightly inside their corset was unleashed in the bedroom. Good for me.

  We moved together faster and harder, until she came again. She threw her head back and cried out, loudly. Surely the party below had to be able to hear us, but I didn’t care about that.

  Not now. For now it was my turn. I bore down on her, grabbing her shoulders as I thrust deeper and deeper inside her. Her head was still thrown back in ecstasy, giving me the perfect opportunity. I ripped the pearl choker from her throat. My fangs descended and I plunged them into her neck while still thrusting inside her. She screamed, but not in terror, in euphoria again.

  I exploded inside her just as her blood began to gush into my mouth. I held her beneath me as she began to squirm. She was shouting something, but I didn’t hear words. I was too engulfed in the rapture of her blood. I drank deep, and I heard her heartbeat begin to slow. Before I could bring myself to pull away, it had stopped all together.

  I had lost control in my passion and killed her. I had only intended to feed and then wipe her memory of it.

  Oh well.

  I withdrew from her and redressed. Her blood, the little I had left, trickled down the side of her throat and stained the ivory bed, coloring it to match her fine gown. I ripped some lace off the canopy and wiped my mouth clean.

  There she lay. Legs spread wide. Breasts lolled out. Glassy eyes of death: a vision.

  Still, must allow her some dignity, I thought, so I straightened her legs and covered her up with her skirts. She probably wouldn’t be found until morning or perhaps afternoon. Not until the chambermaid did her rounds. This was a guest room, so it was low priority without a guest present.

  I pulled my watch out of the small pocket in my waistcoat and looked at the time.

  I still had hours before dawn.

  Perhaps a dance or two before I retire.

  Chapter 2

  My butler walked across the dining room to the balcony overlooking Kensington Road where I liked to start my days with a hot cup of tea. With one hand, he balanced a silver platter on which he carried today’s newspaper. The other arm was properly tucked in close to his stomach, hand clenched in a soft fist. The perfectly folded towel draped across that arm bounced against his belly as he moved towards me.

  Of all the rooms in my home, this one was the brightest, albeit still rather dark. The walls were of a deep rose accented in gold. Huge portraits of noble men long forgotten stood proudly in their golden frames that hung along each wall. Heavy wine-colored curtains framed both front-facing windows, beneath one of which I sat at a small, round table waiting for my tea. An iron fireplace dominated the middle of one wall. Dormant, as it was too warm to have a fire at this time of year, but it certainly added to the comfort of the room when I entertained guests in the winter. A long wooden table sitting atop a lengthy burgundy rug filled the center of the room.

  The table wasn’t currently set, although a silver candelabra surrounded by fresh flowers served as a centerpiece until my next dinner party. Over it hung a grand wrought iron chandelier, lit only during dinner parties, as wax dripping from so many candles became quite tiresome to endure. At the opposite end of the room was an alcove that held a beautiful mural of a pastoral scene, similar to that seen in Italian Villas. I did enjoy my finery.

  “Good morning, m’lord.”

  “It’s afternoon, Cecil. I know it’s morning for me,” I said as Cecil opened his mouth to protest, “but we must be accurate in these things.”

  “Of course, m’lord. Your paper, m’lord,” he said smugly with an expression to match his tone.

  “Thank you.”

  I took the paper from Cecil, and the headlines screamed at me: VAMPYRE ATTACK

  “Oh dear.”

  “Your cheeks look quite rosy this morning, m’lord,” Cecil said, folding the now empty platter under his arm. One corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile.

  “Enough, Cecil. Bring me more tea.”

  “Yes, m’lord. Right away, m’lord.” Cecil smirked as he bowed, then turned to leave the room. A small, stout man, Cecil was the perfect butler. He was professional and courteous. He was supportive and, most importantly, discreet.

  I read the article about the vampire attack while waiting for more tea, but there was no mention of a suspect. Yet. The article reported that the police found the victim’s body in a

  “compromising position.”

  “It was certainly compromised,” I mumbled to myself, remembering the delicious pleasure of the previous night. I could still feel the warmth of her surrounding me and filling my mouth at the same time. Ah. The meaning of my life: pleasures of the flesh. Everything else had melted away into a blur of faded memories and stolen dreams. Existence became quite tedious after the first century. One finds pleasures where one can.

  From my north-facing balcony, I looked out onto Hyde Park stretching out in shades of green before me. Speckled amongst the foliage were a swarm of what appeared to be multicolored insects, at least from my perspective. Some carried parasols, others walking canes. It was a Saturday, so many families were taking a turn around the park’s loveliness. Surprisingly it wasn’t raining. An airship hung in the sky, suspended over the trees. Its propellers moved far too slowly, one would think, to hold up such a massive balloon. I didn’t understand this modern technology, and I didn’t care to. Dirigibles were the latest fascination in London. On pleasant Saturday afternoons such as today, a well-known airship captain would give commoners rides for a crown.

  Saturday evenings were reserved for London’s crème de la crème. Tonight, that would include me. I have never been on an airship before, but I’m certain it will be quite the experience.

  Although it was summer, it was almost always overcast. This made it a perfect place for one like me to live. I still didn’t venture out during daylight hours too often, in case the sun decided to peek out without warning. However I was able to go out before dusk on most days and in the rain, of course, which in London was quite often. Today, it would be important for me to be seen during the daylight hours. Just in case someone saw me with the woman last night. My place in London society demanded it, as did the impression of my innocence.

  Cecil returned with the tea.

  “One drop or two?” Cecil inquired while filling my cup with the steaming hot liquid.

  “Just one today. I had my fill last evening.”

  Cecil peeled back his sleeve and exposed a leather cuff encircled with a rubber tube. The contraption was held on his arm with two leather belts, which fastened on the bottom. On top of his wrist, connected to one side of the tubing, was a pressure valve; the other side, a small spigot.

  Holding his wrist over the cup of tea, Cecil opened the spigot until a single drop of blood plopped into my cup. The pressure valve bobbed momentarily and then steadied again.

  Perhaps modern technology did have its perks.

  “Will that be all m’lord?” Cecil asked as he dabbed the end of the spigot, creating a tiny red spot on the white towel always kept over his arm, before pulling his starched white sleeve back over the starched cuff. His appearance was always impeccably perfect.

  “Yes, Cecil. That will be all.”

  Cecil turned to leave with a curt nod and I picked up the newspaper again. He was nearly to the doorway when I stopped him.

  “Oh yes. There is one more thing, Cecil.”

  “Yes, m’lord?” he said, making a sharp about-face.

  “Have Thomas ready the carriage,” I said, still looking at the paper in my hands. “I’m going out.”

  “Today, m’lord?”

  “Yes, Cecil. I would like to go out today,” I responded, indicating the headline with a flap of my hand. The middle of the newspaper bore an ad for airship rides in the park. A large drawing of a balloon suspended over a ship dominated most of the ad. The words HYDE PARK were displaye
d boldly across the top.

  “But, m’lord. It is a rather nice day and there are many people about.”

  I snapped the newspaper down into my lap and turned towards him.

  “Yes, Cecil, what of it?” I spat.

  “You don’t like people, m’lord. Also, m’lord, you have the party tonight.”

  “Of course, how very, very trite. But one must find such distractions, Cecil, or one’s life will become too unbearable to, well, bear.”

  The meaninglessness of existence truly had hit me when I turned forty, twenty-five years after my death. I had grown tired of life, mine and theirs. All of it. I couldn’t see much point to it.

  One was born. One lived for a certain number of mostly agonizing years, and then one died.

  Truly pointless. All around me people lived, well, survived, as one couldn’t call what most did living, mostly in utter misery, yet they were afraid of death. Strange. Seems as if death would be a release from the monotony and pain of life, but there it was. Of course, I’m one to talk. Over 350 years later I still existed. I was unable to conceive of nothingness, so I just continued to survive. Find distractions when I could. Did whatever to pass the time. Pleasure when possible.

  Tried to live for the moment, as the past was just a dream and the future, a mirage.

  Cecil stood by the stone archway that separated the dining room from the hall, as if waiting for me to come to my senses. The distance across the polished hardwood floor between this person, alive for such a short time, and I who was so very old, seemed endless. And yet he questioned me.

  “Cecil. The coach,” I said with a hint of impatience as I returned to the newspaper.

  “Yes, m’lord.”

  I stepped out into the dirty cobblestone streets of London a short while later. Dirty, of course, was relative. Since they had cobbled the streets, it was much cleaner than the old muddy roads of my time. I remembered when father caught Henry and I playing in the rain, splashing through the mud puddles along the road. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old, which had made Henry just five. We had laughed and splashed from puddle to puddle, muddying our fine royal garments. Father had scolded us for behaving like peasants, but I still fancied that I saw a twinkle in his eye. Or at least I wished it there, for how could a father had felt anything but joy at watching his sons play? If anyone could have felt anger, he could have. Such a hard man. We had been whipped, of course, for the ermine would never again be white.

  Such petty squabblings. Why did such insignificant memories remain over so many years?

  The cobbling of today still had low spots, and I had seen children play in its puddles.

  Somehow not as fun without the mud. It did also make for quite a racket with all the carriages clattering over them. Not a moment’s peace.

  It was a cool, cloudy day, but the sun could possibly come out. Must take precautions.

  “Hyde Park, Thomas,” I said to my coachman, tapping the tip of my special walking stick on the cobblestones, glad for the lack of mud today. Glad for the centuries between me and my father.

  “Very good, m’lord,” he responded as he opened the carriage door for me.

  I stepped up into my brougham and sat in the middle of the seat, laying the cane across my lap. After the crack of the whip and a sudden jolt, we rattled our way into Hyde Park.

  There were far more people out today than I could have seen from the advantage of my balcony. It was, after all, one of the nicer days I had ever seen in London, and I’d spent most of my existence in this city. And a perfect day it was. Grey, but bright. Slightly warm with just a hint of a cool breeze. Days like this one were few and far between.

  I rapped on the roof of the coach with my walking stick.

  “Thomas,” I called out.

  “Yes, m’lord?” he shouted back.

  I leaned my head out of the window after checking to see that the sun mightn’t suddenly appear. “Somewhere shady,” I said. “Perhaps on the eastern shore of The Serpentine.”

  “Yes, m’lord,” he replied.

  I settled back into the middle of the black leather seat and watched as we passed London life.

  London life hadn’t changed that much over the centuries. Here was the old maid, bitter from a hard life. Here was the scowling married couple, sick of each other’s presence. Here was the young lover trying to woo his mistress. Here were the group of young ladies gossiping about their latest fancy. Here were the children full of hope in a world full of sorrows they can’t even begin to comprehend. No. London life hadn’t changed much, but women’s fashion styles changed continuously. The colors got brighter then gradually became drab, but they always cycled back to vibrant again. The necklines plunged then crept back up to the chin, and then they plunged once again, to my great delight. The skirts got fuller, and then gradually shrank.

  Still, one didn’t normally see anything one hadn’t seen before. It was all pretty much the same, and it did get ever so dull.

  Thomas pulled up to the shady end of The Serpentine, and I stepped out.

  “Stay nearby, Thomas. I may need you soon.”

  “Very good, m’lord,” he said.

  “Keep watch for the sun.”

  “Of course, m’lord,” he replied. Then with a “Yah!” and a snap of his whip, he drove the carriage a little ways off before stopping again, and I made my way beneath the shade of the trees. I had brought along the blanket I always kept in the boot just for such an occasion to sit upon and my special walking stick could quickly transform into a parasol, if needed. A very manly parasol, mind you.

  Fortunately, the fashion for men in these times was modest, to say the least. Wearing gloves and a hat on a warm summer’s day wasn’t unusual, and I liked to keep as much of my skin as possible covered. Only my face was directly exposed to the air. I wore a high collar, a little higher than fashion would normally allow, but I had the reputation for being a little off, so it mattered not. I did miss the high collars of a few decades back, but such was the way of fashion.

  “Arthur? Well, what a nice surprise!” I heard a woman’s voice say as I spread the blanket out beneath a very shady spot. I turned to see Lady Pearson, a woman of great repute.

  “Lady Pearson, what a delightful surprise,” I said, bowing to kiss her offered hand. She was magnificently clothed in a deep rose-colored walking dress with matching plum parasol. Huge bustle.

  “Arthur, I’ve told you a dozen times to call me Eliza.”

  “Of course, Eliza. Lovely day.”

  “These are my dear friends: Lady Bainbridge, wife to Baron Bainbridge of Yorkshire, and Lady Hamilton, wife to Baron Hamilton of Wishaw. Ladies, this is Viscount Arthur York.”

  I, of course, no longer went by my given surname of Tudor. It raised far too many questions, as my family’s, especially my brother’s, history was far too notorious. There were few Tudors remaining, so the name was too unusual for my purposes. I wished to remain as invisible as possible. Any mention of the name Tudor called up conversation of my brother’s sordid history, about which I was loathe to discuss, and that inane rhyme: divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. He had ruined my Catherine, and it was upsetting to relive it over afternoon tea.

  Either that or the bloody history of my niece Mary. I did rather like talking about that, but my opinion of her methods was certainly not the popular one of the time. Best to avoid the subject.

  York fit well, as I was half York, but it was also common enough to not raise an eyebrow.

  “Pleasure,” I said, bowing. The ladies curtsied and batted their eyes at me from behind their ornate fans, which matched their outfits perfectly. As did their parasols. They were all the same general age, this was to say between forty and fifty. No doubt their husbands, the honorable barons, were considerably older. Which was why I had my pick of ripe women. It was a good life.

  “Won’t you join me, ladies?”

  “It would be our pleasure," said Lady Bainbridge with a flirtatious
spin of her parasol, obviously the boldest of the lot. She was dressed in garish yellow, the color of effulgent sunshine. I feared the brightness of her dress would dust me on the spot.

  Lady Hamilton was thankfully dressed in a more muted shade of soft pink. Their colorful celebration of springtime no doubt made me look like a deep hole hidden among the blossoms, hoping for someone to misstep and twist their ankle while gathering flowers.

  I stepped back to let them sit upon the blanket, and I took the back corner closest to the trees for myself. It was shady enough that the ladies no longer needed their parasols, so they collapsed them and laid them down.

  “Lovely day,” Lady Bainbridge offered, settling in. She curled her legs to the side, allowing her ankle to scandalously peek out from beneath her lemon skirts. Even with the high boots, ladies were not to show their ankles in public. This woman was indeed bold and quite open to seduction.

  “It certainly is,” I replied, pretending not to notice.

  “Dreadful news from the party last night,” Lady Bainbridge said. “Were you in attendance, Arthur?” She reached down to the edge of her skirt and paused, forcing my eyes there. Then she covered herself completely with the sunny ruffles.

  “I was, Lady Bainbridge,” I answered, snapping my eyes back to hers. She smiled, knowing she had my attention. “I was quite shocked to see the headlines this morning. Did you notice anything amiss?”

  “Not at all, Lord York.”

  “Please, call me Arthur. I have always been uncomfortable with titles.”

  “Then you must call me Emily,” insisted Lady Bainbridge.

  “And me Hazel,” Lady Hamilton added, blushing to a shade much deeper than her dress. She looked down at her hands delicately folded in her lap over her collapsed fan.

  “Of course. Now that we are all confidants, what do you make of such news, Arthur?” Lady Bainbridge asked, pulling my attention back to her. She wasn’t used to sharing attention, but I was quite intrigued by Lady Hamilton. She certainly would pose much more of a challenge.