He was really irritating her now. “I could find someone who would appreciate the gift more.”
“Good! Do so!” Henry exclaimed. “You have made me an evil creature. No matter what I do now, I will never make amends. I shall be damned.”
“You are already damned, you fool!”
He shuddered at her words. “What? How can this be? Before my foul deeds this night, I had devoted my life to doing good, and helping people. I was a respectable man.”
She yawned, obviously bored at this. “And what is good and evil, pray? These notions were simply inventions concocted by men in order to control the masses. I think for myself, and need no such words. I am not encumbered by conscience; I live only for my desires. One day you too will come to this understanding. You will give into the Darkness, a darkness you have proved you are capable of!”
Henry already knew he detested this she-devil. He sighed. “There is a great gulf fixed between us, lady, and I hope it ever stays thus.”
She narrowed her eyes in anger. “You would be foolish to make an enemy of me, Henry Stuart. I made you and I can destroy you,” she said, venomously, before turning as though she were leaving him.
He responded plainly. “You made me because you want me to love you, to follow you around like a little dog, but I am a man, Griselda, and I was a prince among men. Do not forget that.”
She looked up at him for what seemed a small eternity.
“Come, we have tarried here too long. We must set flame to this establishment and return to the house.” They torched it all, and Henry inwardly said a prayer for the souls of all he had butchered. He knew that their faces would haunt him for the rest of time. As they walked through the darkness of St. James’s Park towards the house, Griselda noted his gloomy countenance.
Back in her well-appointed terraced house, Henry washed the bloody slime from his hair and put on fresh clothes — the others being soaked in blood and tissue — and Griselda endeavoured to make him understand his new circumstances better. She ushered him into the drawing room, which had an ornately carved fireplace. The iron firedogs in the hearth had the figure of a dragon, fire spewing from his open jaws. Henry sat in front of the crackling fire, and stared at his hands — hands which had torn and shredded, eviscerated and decapitated — lay motionless now upon his lap. They seemed so much like normal hands that he was oddly mesmerised and frightened by them. What other ghastly things was he now capable of? How many others would die now because of him?
“I must acquaint you with more rules about our kind, for we were not able to discuss them all during your bath,” Griselda purred by his ear. “We must sleep during the light hours. We can, of course, go into the daylight if we must, but our powers are considerably less than they are at night. We cannot fly in daylight, we cannot thwart attacks, and it is in the daylight that we must be careful.”
“You don’t seem to tread carefully.”
“Oh, but I do. We have, as vampires, one major weakness. Your flesh may be mostly impenetrable, but there is upon each one of our kind a sole spot that is vulnerable.”
He made no reply but looked at her as though he was in a dream. None of it seemed real to him.
She moved the top of her bodice aside, revealing one of her pert breasts. “Here, the heart, this one spot can be staked and then you will become dust and endure the eternal flames of hellfire.”
She seemed entranced, as though her mind’s eye was filled with a memory of something great. “The Devil always takes back his own.”
“The Devil takes back his own? I have ever been a faithful Protestant prince, and now you say I belong to the Devil?”
“The Devil himself made me what I am. I am forever young, forever beautiful, and as long as I avoid being staked in my sleep or in battle, then I am his vessel in this world. I shall do his bidding.”
“You are what we have always been warned against. You are one of Satan’s whores!”
She shook her fair head and tutted. “Come, there is no need for such language. I am content — He has always provided me with youth, beauty, riches and land… and power! I am one of his many concubines, and we want for nothing.”
“I care not,” he said, walking back towards her, with the ebb of light flowing in his eyes. “I overheard my physician state that I could improve, and you destroyed what chance I had.”
“Chance at what? You were but the third of three living sons and third in line to the throne. You were expendable, and the people will soon forget you even existed. But you are alive, in a way, and what’s more, you are invincible now!”
“Alive? You call this living? This is no life — I cannot be with my family. I was imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle for years and all I yearned for was to be united with them. My brothers need me. I had only a very brief time with them and now you have dashed my hopes before me!”
Griselda shook her head again. “You fail to understand the great dark power that you now have at your disposal. Your past life is nothing now, even though you were a shining star of the House of Stuart, you will be a prince of the night, now, and forevermore.”
He could see plainly that this Griselda’s views were thoroughly entrenched and rendered her completely implacable. Nothing he could say would make them see eye to eye. Other things began to trouble him as well. She was manic with her movements; her eyes were often wide, darting here and there for no reason. She looked at him with pure, unbridled lust that made him uncomfortable; not because he found her ugly, but because he was certain she really was insane. She constantly spoke about the glories of working for her Master, which Henry thought likely to be a figment of her diseased imagination. She sometimes began to whisper to herself, and reply angrily or with a bout of laughter. Henry had not known her long before he distrusted her completely.
Blood was everything now. Against his character, against his will, blood was the sole thing he needed. And he hated himself, and most of all; he hated Griselda for making him become that way.
Chapter 7:
Conscience & Hunger
For a week after the eating-house atrocity, Henry had kept to his rooms, filled with remorse and self-castigation. He refused to eat, wanting only to end the misery that his life had become. He did not care whether this meant he would descend into the world of ghosts forevermore for living as the vampire was abhorrent to him. He missed his family, the very people who had been the sole reason he had fought so hard to stay alive during his imprisonment. Griselda came to him and pleaded with him to feed, fearing that he would wither away and she would lose him.
“Come and hunt with me tonight, for there is a festival in Covent Garden, and with such crowds, we shall have our pick and can avoid being seen.” She loved large gatherings of humans, for they were often chaotic and exciting — attracting people from all over the neighbouring villages to London. More people inevitably meant a greater variety of tasty blood. Ever since the Restoration, there had been more colourful festivities, and she enjoyed them immensely. If only Henry, too, could come to appreciate such things! she thought. He was getting weaker with every day that passed without feeding, and Griselda’s mind turned to other things. She had wanted him since she had first laid eyes on him, and now, in his weakened state, she was sure he would not be able to refuse her.
He was more handsome than ever now, his long wavy black hair shining, and his full, sensuous lips were calling to her, inviting her. She bent over and, turning his face towards her own, pressed her cold mouth against his. He pushed her off in disgust, but this only served to make her want him more. In the heat of her wild lust, she tore off the front of her bodice and ripped through the shift beneath this. Her pert breasts with their brown nipples, thus exposed, were thrust into his face as she threw herself violently upon him.
“Take me now, my Henry!” she moaned as she straddled him, and ripped off his cravat and opened his shirt. “Let us make one with the darkness!”
“Get off me!” he bellowed, as he took hold of her arms a
nd threw her across the room, where she hit the wall with a loud crash. She looked up at him and snarled, shifting into her vampire form.
“How dare you!” she shrieked, jumping up onto her feet. “No one has ever denied me!”
“Well, perhaps they should have,” he stated, his nostrils flaring. “I do not desire you, Madam, and I never will.”
“That’s impossible! I refuse to believe it.” She stood by the wall in a stance that made him think she would attack him.
“I want to be left alone to do what I please,” he said, frankly. “I must gather my thoughts, for never did I think I would have such a life as the one you have thrust upon me. I did not want this, Griselda.”
She shifted back into her perfect human form, though she was still breathing heavily from her anger. She clutched her torn garments together at her chest. She had never been refused before, and she felt hurt and bewildered by this. She wondered, briefly, if she had been rushing things with him. After all, she had the rest of eternity to make him want her. And want her she knew he would.
“You will in time, trust me. I have had this life for over two hundred years and I wouldn’t change it for anything now.”
“But you made a pact with the Devil for this life,” he stated, through gritted teeth. He wanted to tear her head off, just as he had done to that poor man in the eating-house, but he knew he could not. A vampire cannot kill the person who Begat them.
Griselda ignored this, possessed once again by the awe of the Devil. “He is an Angel of the Darkness. He is the greatest of them all. He is the night. He is in every dark corner, and every fiend that prowls is Him.”
Again she had the look of the fanatic in her glowing eyes, of a creature in love with evil. It sickened Henry almost as much as the human food he had eaten all those days before. He felt the same desire to leave her, but he had no idea where to go and how to live as the creature he now was. It was as though he had reverted back to his childhood, for he believed himself dependent on this more experienced being to look after him.
Still, he felt the need to wander, to leave her side. She did not stop him when he left, and he walked on into the night, heading southwest by the river. All manner of odours were in the air, of fish hauled in upon the various boats that dotted the embankment, of sewage, of rotting carcasses and unwashed bodies. Henry found that since his transformation, not only his hearing and eyesight had improved, but also his sense of smell. He never noticed how foul other people smelled. He continued on and on for miles until he realised that he had reached the gates of Hampton Court Palace.
It was midnight then, and he knew that his brothers were probably indulging in one vice or another, or several at the same time. He grasped the iron bars and placed his cold forehead against the smooth gate and sighed. They were no doubt drinking wine and fondling some of the beauties that littered Charles’s court. He wanted to see his brothers so badly, and before he knew what had happened, he had jumped over the fence and was flying above the palace. Landing upon the old Tudor roof, and surrounded by many elaborately decorated and unique red brick chimneys, Henry was shocked by yet another aspect of his body’s change.
I can fly?
It was an incredible sensation; feeling weightless and having the wind rush by him like a kiss. He never knew such a thing could be possible for a man, but, he reminded himself, he was no mere man anymore. But then he remembered Griselda’s words, ‘in the daylight we cannot fly’, and then it made sense to him. Clutching onto the sides of the roof, he then peered over the steep drop before him and jumped down to the ground, where he landed softly and silently. There were two guards positioned by the gate, torches burning brightly behind them, but they didn’t notice his presence as he slipped by them. He stealthily made his way around the building; towards the rooms he knew his brothers used the most.
The doors were all unlocked, and he was soon inside. He had a fondness for this palace, but now he looked upon its halls and walls with new eyes. He saw cracks in the mortar, heard the scurrying of a small brown spider in the corner. He could hear courtiers carousing in one room and from another, he heard her voice, Lady Margaret Foster’s.
Of course, he thought, this is her bedchamber.
He slowly, quietly opened the door — so slowly, in fact, that the creaking hinge ushered forth no complaints and remained silent. He stood behind a heavy red curtain and despite this, he could see through it with his heightened vision. Henry had not forgotten how the minx had played him false, and his eyes burned as she flirted and kissed yet another man. She was in a state of undress, her hair was loose, and she only wore a shift. They played around on top of the large bed and the air was thick with her expensive jasmine perfume. The scent brought back painful memories. How he had loved her!
The handsome blond-haired young man pinned her onto her back and kissed her deeply. The sounds as their wet tongues entwined were almost enough to make Henry sick. Their moaning increased. The man, his ardour increasing, knelt on the bed as he took off his surcoat and flung it onto the floor.
“I want one of these curls,” said the man, now back on top of her, kissing her hair and nuzzling the side of her face. He intended to collect a keepsake of this tryst.
“What? To add to your ever-increasing collection?” she replied, pushing him off her and smiling coquettishly.
“’Tis the same colour as Castlemaine’s,” he teased. Barbara Palmer was now the Countess of Castlemaine. “I could boast that I’ve had her.”
“Oh, everyone’s had her,” Margaret retorted. “No one will give a fig, not even the King!”
“And not everyone’s had you?” he asked, as he toppled on top of her again.
“Stop it, I’m no whore.” She shoved him off her at this, for she hated it when men ruined her fun by bringing up her reputation. “It’s always the same with you lot, you’re always calling us harlots whenever we enjoy ourselves the same way you do.”
“Not a whore, eh? Well, you certainly have ruined your own good name. I had heard that you were Gloucester’s mistress for a time.”
“And what of it, I never cared for him!” she said, acidly, smacking him with her fan. She remembered her last meeting with Henry, when he had castigated her as a wanton and broken with her.
“You didn’t love him at all? Why, I thought he even had it in his head to marry you!”
“And, why, pray do you laugh, Sir? I have as much right to be part of the royal family as that Portuguese Catherine whats-her-face they keep saying the king will marry.”
The blond man laughed.
“What does it matter now, anyway? The fool’s dead!”
“Not completely,” said Henry, emerging from behind the curtains. Margaret’s eyes opened wide in shock, and her young lover, too, was surprised to see Henry before them, alive. Upon seeing the blond man’s face, Henry recognised the man at once to be John, Lord Pussett — a serial womaniser and gambler who had ingratiated himself into the King’s good graces with his overwhelming capacity for flattery. He knew that Charles was shrewd enough to see this, but nevertheless the man was a weasel… and young, and juicy. Henry, having not eaten in days, was overcome with an insatiable hunger and, within an instant, he turned into his vampire form and clamped down on young Pussett’s throat. Lady Margaret began screaming.
Next door, the drunken fops heard the screams, and Pussett’s moans of pain, but they quickly dismissed these as being the sounds of a couple in the throes of energetic passion.
“I always knew that Foster tart was a screamer!” one dandy declared, and they laughed at their own vulgarity before continuing on with their card game. They were soon to go to the whorehouse, and the moaning and screaming was the perfect stimulus to whet their lustful appetites.
Back in the bedchamber, Henry had finished consuming Pussett’s life, and tossed his corpse wide-eyed upon the floor. The Stuart vampire staggered to his feet and, having morphed back into his handsome human form, turned his attentions to his former flame.
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“What are you?” she cried, trembling, and she backed up against the frame of the bed. As she wore nothing but a thin shift, he could see every glorious part of her milky-white anatomy. He almost married her to see the vision that was before him, but she had been unworthy of his love, and he had made a lucky escape.
He chuckled. “I am your Henry, remember, the one you said you loved and wished to marry. Do not you recall your own honeyed words, Madam?” His voice was greatly altered from what it had been before; it was lower now and more seductive.
“It- it- it can’t be you!” she ejaculated in horror. “You’re dead! They all said you were dead!”
“I have been reborn, Margaret!” he exclaimed. He saw that she wore, around her throat, a new pearl necklace. “I see you have been given yet another costly gift, Madam. Diamonds and pearls to adorn an insipid hussy! My, you must have a great many admirers who are as stupid as I was. But I wonder, do you take them all to your bed?” he asked, shooting a disdainful look upon Lord Pussett’s corpse.
“Have you come back from the dead because of what I did to you?” she exclaimed, tears streaming down her face. “Because I am not sorry! I enjoy having many admirers! Why should I not have them? I am young and pretty and I deserve pretty things!”
“Ah, but you broke my heart, Margaret!” he said, his icy hands now cupping her face, making her shiver. “And that should never have happened, for all along you were nothing but a grasping, cold bitch.”
“Well, I was just being merry! Why I should I be troubled for having fun?” she exclaimed, with a touch of petulance.
Henry did not reply but his expression was angry and vengeful.
“Well, then, I’m sorry!” She was such a little liar. She would have said anything to save her hide.
“No,” he said, tracing the soft contours of her jaw line. “I’m sorry…” with that he attacked her, draining her of her blood. He sucked her sweet and salty blood, her jasmine fragrance seemingly making her blood taste of those exotic flowers.
The Stuart Vampire Page 7
