Nick grinned. “In many ways, you remind me of Gatsby. Look at what greatness you’ve achieved.”
Jack saw himself in Gatsby, not because he thought himself great, but because he still preferred to observe the world as an outsider looking in.
He once thought he could kill his demons by killing the chancellor. Instead, he awakened something dark inside himself that refused to fade. Fragmented memories scattered through his mind, crisp like dead autumn leaves turned up by the wind.
“I showed him mercy he didn’t deserve,” Jack growled. “Because he made me weak.”
“You’re far from weak, sir.”
“If I were stronger, I would have let him suffer like the others.”
“The world is better without him.”
Jack nodded, excusing himself again and again, but never fully letting himself off the hook. Killing the chancellor wasn’t mercy any more than it had been revenge. It was selfish and desperate. Jack tried to cut away the part of him that still flinched when he heard heavy footfalls in the dark.
It didn’t work. “Now his ghost can haunt me forever.”
“Only as long as you grant it that sort of power, Jack. It’s time to let the memories go.”
He nodded, but lacked the ability to make it so.
“You’re not cruel, Jack. The minute you stop trying to prove otherwise, you’ll see.”
He laughed to himself, cold and devoid of humor. “Perhaps. But only a fool would mistake me for safe or kind.”
“Then I suppose I’m a fool.”
Beyond the haunting thump, thump, thump of those ghostly footfalls that tormented him at night was the lingering, inescapable question as to how his mother could have done that to him. Why? What made him so impossible to love? A mother was meant to protect her young, and she sold him to a monster for drugs and a pantry full of beans.
A balmy draft mixed with the chill. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m any different from the men I destroy, using these women as bait.”
“They choose this, sir.”
“When a person is out of options, there’s very little choice left.”
“That may be true, but they’re adults. It’s still their decision to make.”
“I suppose.”
Once more, he wondered if this tenth anniversary of The Feast would be the last. A thought he had every year as the event approached. Yet somehow, he always returned.
Jack wanted to believe his intentions were noble, but the truth was, he had an addiction to the hunt. Not the hunt these men would attend this week, chasing after prey and glutting their carnal appetites until they stunk of sweat and sin. No, Jack wanted to hunt the hunters.
Each one was a possible token for his mantle, hidden monsters who believed themselves untouchable. Jack knew how to draw them out. He created a perfect setting to unleash their darkest nature. And that was what brought him back year after year.
Not nobility. Not lust. But a thirst for blood and power from the most indomitable, reprehensible men alive.
True, some were just perverts looking for a wild fuck fest. But Jack knew how to tell them apart. He knew how to weed out the truly depraved, and that was when the real work began.
“How much longer can I do this?”
“You’re Jack Thorne. You can do it as long as you like.”
“Not without cost or consequence. I feel it, Nick. Eating away at my soul.” He emptied his glass in two long swallows. “Promise me one thing, Nick.”
“Anything.”
“Promise you’ll tell me the day I go too far.”
