The traffic of London used to roar with the mystery of a man's adventure on the seas of life, like a vast sea-shell, murmuring a thrilling, half-comprehensible story. Now it booms like monotonous, far-off guns, in a monotony of crushing something, crushing the earth, crushing out life, crushing everything dead.
"I was starting to think you weren't going to show up," the Lord smirked, standing in the middle of his grand foyer still covered in the drying life-blood of the unfortunate sod who dared stir his anger. Dorian was unapologetic appearing before Charles in this state, men like him had a particular taste that Dorian was more than happy to cater to. "I do apologize for the inconvenience, but you are the only one I can turn to these days for times like this."
Charles could not be certain what awaited him upon answering the young immortal’s call, but he had an inkling it would be something stimulating; this was Dorian, after all, and one of only a small few reasons why Charles would ever so much as consider agreeing to such a spontaneous request for his presence. London ran on a tight schedule; everything had a strict time and place, but Dorian existed separate from this; an arbitrary distraction, but a distraction all too fitting to the morbid dark decadence of London’s ancient soul.
As he approached the mansion, Charles found that the front door had been left unlocked. So he entered the darkened reception hall, his steady footsteps echoing on the marble floor as the turned toward the parlor; the only room that emitted any light. As he pushed the door which stood partly ajar fully open, he experienced a sharp shock to the senses upon perceiving the gruesome sight before him.
A thick pool of blood, the body of a poor anonymous citizen forsaken, half-naked, upon the ground, his lifeless eyes wide from whatever horror he had witnessed before his unfortunate end, and standing over him, the beautiful Lord Gray, horrifically caked in red, speaking something nigh incomprehensible to Charles in a breathless, adrenaline-drenched cadence. London was rather too overcome by the gruesome scene to make sense of the boy’s words; quite overcome by the twisted bolt of passion that awoke from somewhere deep within him in response to the horror of the scene.
He was wordless in his reply, his dark eyes meeting those of Dorian as he slowly approached him. Stepping over the body, Charles pushed the young man up against the wall, securing him there as he looked upon him with slight awe. He brought a leather-clad hand to Dorian’s face, and slowly smeared the blood across his cheek, staring down at him as his thumb traced his lips. “You are awful, Mr. Gray,” he spoke finally, in that deep, emotionless tone of his, before capturing those murderous lips in a harsh, possessive kiss.
The Bishops Avenue, a street in North London, is known for its celebrity connections and sky-high property prices, even though many are crumbling.
Some are bright and gleaming, bustling palaces for celebrities and the 1%. Others are derelict hulks, falling apart while somehow maintaining enormous valuations in London's swollen luxury property market.
The street is also a monument to the avoidance of tax. Most houses on it have a tax-efficient ownership structure that epitomizes what many say is an unjust system shielding the wealthiest from contributing their fair share.
A seven foot sunflower with a nine inch span grows on a narrow raft in the Thames at Limehouse, East London. The flower is believed to have grown from a seed dropped from a bird.
The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the streets, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.
“I’m just a little cold, I’m okay, really. Let me sit with a blanket or something.”
Charles’ townhouse was very old and very large, tall-ceilinged and draughty. Even though it was fully ventilated with a modern central heating system, it remained difficult to keep warm.
It did not bother him. Charles had grown accustomed to cold. He had learnt to accept it long ago, to the point where he now embraced it. Over time, the cold had become a second skin to him in a way; more consoling than heat or even warmth. After all, for as long as he could remember, his most destructive enemy has been fire.
This was the reason he refused to light the fireplace despite Arthur’s indirect complaints. He did understand England’s position, temperatures had dropped drastically over the last few days, and Arthur tended to suffer the brunt of it a fair bit more than him, but a fire was simply out of the question. Lately, Charles had gone so far as to completely ban domestic wood burning from every household within his vicinity. If anything, it helped him rest easier at night.
“I’ll retrieve a blanket from the guest room.” He could offer this, at least. “And get Miriam to make you some tea. This should help warm you a tad.”
Lily wasn’t the sort you would describe as a chatterbox, and Charles preferred it that way, so once she did begin to go off on an opinionated tangent, instead of suffering through it, he simply decided to hush her by pressing a dark suede finger to her lips. This was one message Lily surely need not attempt to decode.
He rolled his eyes, however, when despite his intervention, she just kept right on talking. “No game,” explained Charles. “It is merely that you are far more attractive when you’re silent.” His own pale lips assumed the slightest ghost of a smile in response to her indelicate reaction. “That cryptic beauty of yours tends to fall apart the moment you open your mouth,” he said. “It’s rather a shame.”
It only took one swift yank to evade her grip, at which point he continued shuffling the cards. “Sechsundsechzig it is. Now I suggest you tighten your lips and set about loosening those purse strings.”
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