Avalon Revamped (3 page)

“Perhaps they eloped?” Avalon offered, ever the hopeless romantic. Emphasis on hopeless.

“Nonsense. Let me see that.” I snatched the paper from her to read the article myself. “Ah! Here’s the rub, sweetheart. This is written by W. D. McFerret, London’s ambitious journalist. Shameless,” I said, slapping the newspaper with the back of my hand. “Aspiring author trying to make a name for himself in the papers first. American at that. This is sensationalized drivel, Avalon. Don’t believe a word. I’m astounded at what passes for news.”

“Aren’t you even curious? Perhaps a new mystery is exactly what we need, Arthur, to get back our spark. Something to rekindle our love,” she said, reaching out to touch my hand, but I turned the page, pulling it out of her reach, pretending I didn’t see her trying to touch me, trying to bridge that ever-widening gap.

“Nonsense,” I spat, shifting away from her ever further, and read more. The article was indeed intriguing. “Seems blood was found in Nick’s parlour, along with upset furniture, which isn’t too surprising. Nick did like it rough now and again. Looks like you’re right, my darling. This is rather strange.” I looked up from the paper, but Avalon was gone. “Perfect.”

I found her up in our bedroom, weeping. “Avalon. You were right. That is interesting, and perhaps we could do a bit of investigating on our own. Would you like that?”

“I’m hungry all the time. I can’t bear this constant ache, this insatiable need.”

“Well. We could find some people to drink tonight, if we must. Just be careful about it. Make sure they don’t remember and aren’t hurt.” I could hardly keep a straight face.

“No! I’m not hurting people for my own benefit.” Excellent. Best to let her think it was her idea. “This…this is not natural, Arthur. How could you have lived like this for so long? How can you bear the constant ache, the constant thirst? Then the gala tonight. How can I be around all those people, hearing their blood pumping through their veins, knowing that relief from this anguish is just a prick away?”

“I’ve told you, Avalon, you will get used to it. I gave all that up for you, and it did hurt for a while, but it’s better now. Even when I did drink humans, I fed from the willing when I could. And if they weren’t willing, I altered their memory to a pleasant one. Like we did on your first night, for you needed that for your strength. To solidify the change. You almost didn’t make it, remember? The problem with human blood is that it makes the thirst worse and worse and worse. Even when we just alter their memory, something inside them always knows what happened, and it’s maddening for them.” Just talking about it made me want to feed, to feel that rush of warmth spurting up into my mouth. Shackled. Huh. Infuriating, really, to have her and her bloody morals around. Having to keep up this bloody façade. That was the problem, not bloody enough. For me, at least. I did like keeping her away from human blood, else she would discover her true strength. Couldn’t have that. Sneaking around to fulfill my desires just to keep her under control. I was beginning to think it wasn’t worth the effort. That she wasn’t. Besides. I longed for passion, yearning.

She had turned out to be a grave disappointment.

“You know how it has to be, Avalon,” I lied. “We sustain on animal’s blood from the butcher. There’s plenty of that. I know it doesn’t taste as good, but it’s the only other option. I’ll send Thomas out to get more. You learn to manage it.”

“Yes, so you keep saying. It’s been four months. Four agonizing months, and the only relief is a few drops of blood in tea and making love to you, but we can’t stay in bed all the time, Arthur. Besides, you’ve been wholly uninterested for a while now, it seems. That along with your callousness, and I—well—I just don’t know what to think anymore.”

“It’s all to save you, Ava. Do you want to become a killer like I was all those years ago? Human blood makes it worse. As much as you suffer, my agony is worse, but you don’t hear me complaining, now do you? Have some compassion, Avalon. Have some fucking courage. You’re so weak, it’s pathetic. Look at me, off human blood for as long as you, all along with an even stronger urge, more insatiable thirst, and I don’t mewl about it.”

That was rather convincing. I almost believed it myself.

Her face was streaked with lines of blood, tears that dripped from her lovely jaw and over her perfect lips. She dabbed her handkerchief under her nose and eyes, staining it with blood tears.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, looking up at me with her beautiful green eyes, rimmed in deep sanguine. She was perfection. She was mine. “The urge to kill grows stronger by the night. I don’t believe that you haven't killed for your food. Not for a few centuries, you said. Not since the days of your brother’s reign, since Catherine’s death. You said her death made it all too real, and you couldn’t do it anymore.”

She actually believed that? How cute. Foolish girl.

“How did you manage? How could you resist this urge? You, Arthur? You who revel in your fineries and satiate your needs, carnal and otherwise. That’s right. I’ve heard the stories, the rumors. You go out at all hours, leaving me here. You simply cannot be as good as you claim. ”

“Are you accusing me of lying? Ingrate! I’ve given up everything for you. I saved you from death. Out of love for you, Avalon. I’ve given up my freedom, the life I had become accustomed to. All for you!”

She stood up from the bed and walked to the other side of the room. Facing the window, she wiped the tears from her face and took several deep breaths, calming herself. Framed by the daylight coming through the cracks of the drawn curtains, her silhouette stirred something in me. Her grating voice broke my lascivious thoughts about what I wanted to do to that body. “This is getting us nowhere, Arthur. Let’s not fight anymore. We both have made sacrifices for each other, haven’t we? We will adjust. Now, you wanted to talk about poor Nicholas.”

“Yes. Let us go investigate the scene for ourselves. The paper said there was blood at the scene, and I want to see for myself.”

“We have the Yule Ball in a few hours.”

“Of course, we’ll go tomorrow afternoon. Late afternoon.”

“I’m sure the police will have had the place cleaned by now.”

“We’re vampires, Avalon. We’ll be able to smell the blood, cleaned up or not. Now,” I said, moving close to her. “Have your bath and wash away those tears.” I kissed her cheeks, soft and sensual brushes with my lips along her jawline and cheekbone, allowing my tongue to trace along the tears’ path, trying to recapture the desire. If she’d just keep her mouth shut.

She caught her breath and pressed against me. I had been neglecting her sexually, of that there was no doubt, but the same woman did get ever so boring. Truly, a man needed variety. Before I could turn her away toward the door, denying her again, she was kissing me with all that hunger for blood she had been trying to quell. Her passion was contagious. It had been quite a while, after all.

Her long, black hair fell in ringlets around her blood-streaked face, and suddenly I wanted to watch that hair bounce while I had her, as long as I didn’t have to look at her. As long as she didn’t say anything to spoil it. I spun her around and pressed her against me, grinding my hips into her derrière, nibbling down her neck while my hands caressed her breasts. Her breath coming faster, she tried to turn around to face me again, but I wouldn’t let her. I bent her over the bed and hiked up her nightdress, kicking her feet apart.

“Wait, Arthur,” she said, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear another word, so I held her head down pressed into the sheets, away from me, and had her then and there. Those curls did indeed bounce. They danced with vigor, matching her moans of ecstasy, or were they cries of pain? Hard to tell muffled in the blankets. She loved this. Of course she did. She loved me, and I her. I thrust harder and harder inside her.

This was.

Her place.

Beneath.

Me.

Surrounding.

Me.

Pleasing.

Me.

Before long, her moans turned to sobs, but I continued on, bearing down on her shoulders, driving her onto me. I was so close, so close.

Exploding inside her, I roared with her shriek.

We climaxed together.

That was what just happened.

That was why she screamed.

The day was already improving.

Avalon stood up with me still inside her and lay her head back on my shoulder. “Tell me you love me,” she said. Fresh tears streamed down her face.

Great way to ruin a perfect moment, sweetheart.

“I not only love you, I absolutely adore you. Now, get in the bath.” I withdrew from her, turned away, and left before she could say another word, covering myself with my dressing gown as I stepped out into the hallway. I’d had enough of her prattle for one day. Besides, I needed some real fucking blood. That along with that sweet release would certainly improve my mood. Perhaps a quick nibble while she was in the bath.

She need not know.

She never did.

CONSTANCE

“I’m here to see Miss Sarah Ann Daughety, please. She’s expecting me,” I said to the peaked nurse dressed all in white. A long white skirt touched to tops of her white shoes, and a white apron protected the front of her white blouse. Even a white kerchief covered her hair.

After gathering some papers and snapping them under her board’s clip, she came out from behind the desk and crossed in front of me. “This way,” she said, without even looking at me and headed down the hall.

Of all the places I’d been in my life, Bethlem Hospital was one of the worst, especially for women. Although not quite as horrific as it was a century ago, it was still an unending nightmare for its inhabitants. As the nurse led me to Sarah Ann’s room, the words of Thomas Tryon returned to me: “those that are more mad lock up those that are less.” Sounds of chains, moans, screams, shouts, and weeping created a background din that struck the core of my soul. To even step onto these grounds, I had to go to great lengths to protect myself from the palpable misery within these walls, unmistakable to any with a heart capable of compassion, but to someone like me with supernatural powers of empathy, it was downright intolerable. For I felt into people, or perhaps more accurately, people projected themselves, unknowingly, into me. I felt their pain, tasted their misery. I saw their intentions. I touched their very soul and knew the truth of it, or in much of my work, the lack of it. Yes, I’d honed my skills well during my time. The danger of walking into a place like Bedlam was a necessary risk, but I prepared well. Still, the waves of grief emanated from the walls, permeated the air. With every breath I took, I swallowed more agony and fear until the despair filled my stomach and created a sickening nausea. The strength of the barriers, using every bit of my power, still could not completely block out these pitiable voices, demanding to be heard, to be seen, to be remembered.

Perhaps even worse than the background drone of vocal despondency was the silence behind it all. As I followed the nurse through the activity room, women sat rocking back and forth. A harrowing vacancy in their eyes stared at nothing. Others found a particular part of their dressing gown or spot on the wall and picked at it, an endless fingering and scratching and probing for some unknown purpose.

“She’s in there.” The nurse halted in front of a closed door and thrust her thumb toward its window. “Can’t stay for long. She’s got treatment at two.”

With that, she turned and strode away, leaving me outside Sarah Ann’s door. Through the window I saw Sarah Ann sitting on her bed, knees pulled up to her chest. Her wrists and ankles, shackled. Chains attached her to a metal pipe running up the wall behind her. Red rimmed her cold steel eyes, focused on nothing in particular. Surrounded in darkness, they sunk into her skull. Once healthy blonde hair hung in dingy strings about her sallow face. Patches of baldness peppered her skull. She rocked back and forth, a ghost who wasn’t really there. Just a shadow of her former self.

I turned the knob and entered, but Sarah Ann didn’t look over.

“Sarah Ann?” I said, keeping my voice gentle, as I had nothing but compassion and pity for this ill-used woman. Her life had been so promising, a young beautiful woman of London’s High Society. It should’ve been a life of galas and balls and high teas, but instead, because that man chose her instead of another, she was now doomed to Bedlam and an existence worse than death.

Because of me, so was he.

Because she had had enough remaining fight and courage to summon me, he would never do this to anyone ever again. If only I had the power to take her suffering away, I would do so.

Alas, such things were not part of my repertoire.

I could reduce the suffering of the innocent by punishing the guilty, by keeping them from harming others. Although it took too much out of me to do it often, I could offer momentary relief, channeling the pain and transferring it where it belonged. The relief sometimes lasted long enough to allow the survivor to fall asleep. Sometimes, that was enough.

“Sarah Ann?” I said again, sitting down on the far edge of her narrow mattress.

Startled, her eyes widened and she flinched, backing up against the corner.

“It’s all right. It’s just me. Constance. Remember?”

Her agitation diminished slightly. I’d been doing this a long time, and all the survivors of such violence behaved in similar ways. After five centuries, I still did, too, at times. On bad days. Even five hundred years later, I still flashed back to that original attack, relived it, and it was like I was there all over again. The terror, immediate. The anguish, staggering.

Those were the bad days.

Easily frightened, jumping at the slightest sound. Reliving the event and subsequent cruelty through infinite loops in their minds. Sometimes they seemed to be in another world, as if they didn’t know what was going on around them. Disconnected with time, lost. Conflicting emotions, a war in their hearts and minds tried to understand how “love” and “violation” could exist together. Feeling not of their body or even of this world, as if everything was an illusion. Heightened anxiety and severe depression, not to mention a propensity toward suicide, and who could blame them? They lived in a hell forced upon them by a selfish, barbaric act. Their reality forever altered. A reality without hope, without trust. A reality where love meant something altogether different. A reality in which the notions of love and sex were inseparable with exploitation and violation. Forever.

It was a life sentence, in or out of Bedlam.

This place just compounded the trauma, ensuring they never fully healed. Damning them to permanent duress. All because a man demanded a few moments of control, taking pleasure in his power over her. Treating her as an object rather than a human being.

Lives shattered. For mere moments. Over and over again.

Until I stopped it.

“It’s done,” I said. “He can’t hurt anyone else.”

Her chains rattled as she pulled her hands up to either side of her face, revealing red-raw wrists, and made a sort of squealing sound. Not in delight, but in mental turmoil.

“Shhhh. It’s all right.”

“I didn’t deserve to be treated thus,” she cried. “I loved him. I trusted him.”

“I know you did. You did not deserve it, not in the least.”

“My parents said I did. They said that was what I got for being alone with him. No one believed me. No one at all. I should’ve kept quiet, like a good girl. But I’m not a good girl, am I? This is why it’s happened. I’m not a good girl at all! I did deserve it!”

“No, you did not deserve it, and it is not your fault. You had the great misfortune of falling in love with a monstrous man, a very convincing man in the ways of love, but monstrous in the end. You did not deserve it. It is not your fault.” I repeated those two phrases as often as I could, as the entire world had told them the opposite with every action and word, with every glare and whisper. “You are so strong, Sarah Ann. Remember? You summoned me. You spoke out. You loved. There is no shame in that, my dear. No shame at all. The shame belongs to him, and he feels it fully now. Yes. Quite deeply, in fact, and he will for many decades to come.”

“Really? He’s been stopped? He can’t hurt anyone else?”

“He cannot hurt anyone else, and that’s because of you. Because of you and me together.”

“Did he hurt you?” Tears filled her eyes, and she regarded me with such concern. Amazing how one who had been betrayed and violated by the cruelty of a lover, then discarded by society, still found compassion for a near stranger.

Her question brought up images of my attack last night, and I shuddered, remembering. My lasting pleasure in his fear and punishment helped me recover. I offered a sweet smile to soothe her as well. No need to share details with her, as it would only distress her further. “How kind of you, Sarah Ann, but don’t you worry about me. I’m just fine.”

“Oh good. I couldn’t bear it if I was somehow responsible for him hurting you. No I just couldn’t bear it! Were you scared?” Fresh tears wet her chapped cheeks, and her eyes searched me for relief. Even just a moment of relief, but there was none.

“Our fears empower us, like monsters to slay. Rest assured, this monster has indeed been slain. He can’t hurt you, me, or anyone else ever again.” Before I could say anything of further comfort, she buried her head beneath her arms, pulling her legs closer, and cried.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault. It’s all right.” Her torment started to affect me as well, breaking down my barriers of self-protection. I had to leave soon or suffer along with her. My presence was not a comfort to her. No. Nothing could comfort this poor woman for long. Death would be her only release from this prison to which Lord Nicholas Stanton had sentenced her.

Lord Nicholas Stanton would not know such relief, not for centuries.

“I hate him,” she groaned from her protective cave. “Yet, I love him still, even after everything he’s done.” Her face filled with an ethereal glow as she lifted her head. She smiled, revealing browning teeth from her neglect in this place. “Sometimes, I still think he’ll come for me. That he’ll walk through that door and smile, blue eyes shining, and tell me it was all a mistake. He’ll take me by the hand and caress my cheek and say that he loves me and he’s been trying to get to me for years. That it was all just a misunderstanding.” She giggled, the sound innocent and harrowing at the same time. Then, her face fell.

“It’s been two years, Constance. He’s not coming, but sometimes I still dream he is. Sometimes it still feels so real, like he really did love me after all. Like I’m right back there, dancing with him. Laughing and planning our wedding. The way he’d look so deeply into my eyes when he’d kiss my wrist. Then, it fades, leaving only silence or the sound of my breathing, my weeping, my face against my wet sheets. A rattle of the chains that bind me, and I’m not talking about these.” She shook her hands at me, jolting the chains into a clamor of sudden noise. “I’m talking about these!” she cried, pointing to either side of her head.

“I know, sweet Sarah Ann. I know. I must go now, my dear. My apologies. I’ve done what you’ve summoned me to do. Take some comfort in his demise, knowing he’s not out dancing and laughing while you’re trapped in here.”

“Yes. That will be comforting, indeed. That was added torment, you see? Knowing he was wooing others, hurting others and enjoying it. Did I tell you of the pleasure I saw in his eyes as I cried? Did I? It was more frightening than anything I’ve seen before or since, to see how much he enjoyed my pain, my tears. Horrifying, Constance.”

“Monstrous.”

“Yes. Quite monstrous. Now I can rest easier, thanks to you.”

“Thanks to you, Sarah Ann. Remember, your courage stopped him from hurting anyone else. Your voice. Always remember that, sweet lady. You are so strong, and I am in awe of you. You endure all this, and yet you have the clarity and courage to continue to fight. You are an inspiration to me.”

“Thank you for that, dear Constance. Thank you so much. For the kindness you’ve shown in a world that is so cold, so devoid of hope, of love and tenderness. In a world such as this, genuine kindness is rather revolutionary.”

“Take care of yourself. Take some comfort in this.”

“I shall,” she said, sitting up straight, head held high. “Now if I can just avoid the Rotating Chair, all will be well again. They say I ask too many questions and must be silenced. But I will not be silent. Never again.”

“The Rotating Chair? They should’ve done away with such savage
treatments
fifty years ago.”

“Yes, so they like everyone to think. They’ve kept them in the basement where no one goes, not the press, anyway. None of the private tours neither, and if you’re not good enough, if you don’t laugh and dance and paint and play the piano like a good girl—if you ask too many questions or don’t take your medicine—you get the Rotating Chair, or worse. I have no need for frivolities like dancing anymore. It reminds me too much of what’s lost, of what he took from me, but I would like to write. They won’t let me write. Why is that, Constance? Why won’t they let me write? What harm could come of it?”

“I shall ensure they let you write, Sarah Ann. Take this,” I handed her a white feather from my reticule. “Keep it safe, beneath your mattress or pillow, and talk to it when you are in need of company. Then know, I can hear you, no matter where I am. Although I can’t answer, I am there. Do you believe me, Constance?”

“Yes! Oh! Thank you, Constance. Thank you for being here for me. Thank you for just listening. Thank you most of all for believing me. You are the only one. Thank you.”

“I shall also take care of the Rotating Chair business on my way out. If they ever use such wicked treatments on you or anyone again, you tell that feather, and I shall return to stop them. All right?”

“Yes! Thank you!”

“Can you sleep? Get some rest now.”

“Not well.” Her eyes drifted, unfocused again. “Too many thoughts over and over and over and over.” The tears returned and she started to tremble. “‘Round and ‘round and ‘round, grunting and sweating and laughing at me.” Her chains rattled when she grabbed her head, as if she could push the thoughts out, or just stop thinking all together, if she squeezed hard enough.