Jack adjusted his top hat and launched himself from the rooftop, the bright lights of the street blurring below him into streams of red and yellow, eclipsed by a broad expanse of darkness as the next building came to a stop beneath his feet. He danced up, as high as he could go, threw himself back and flipped, arms out and legs together, falling like a crucifix. He watched himself in the windows as he fell, then curled his body beneath him, and struck out, his feet slamming into the side of the building, propelling himself across the gap to the building on the other side. Fingers digging into the concrete, he stayed there for a moment, his eyes closed, listening to the pulse of the city. He could clean up in a place like Chicago. All these tall buildings. He could run and jump and spin and dance and kill and eat and live out his life here. Safe. Secure. Anonymous. And then he could die of old age and boredom, if the world hadn’t been destroyed by then.

Jack climbed to the top and sat on the edge, feet dangling.

What was the point, though? What was the point of living for all that time if you’d nothing to show for it? What was the point of living for all those years if you’d no one to share them with? Jack had never been one for self-delusion. He was aware of the facts of the matter, and the facts of the matter were that he was a hideous, hideous monster whom no one could ever love, and he was going to go through the rest of his physical existence alone. Simple as that. As simple and inescapable as that.

When he was a younger creature, he hadn’t worried about such things. He was a thing-about-town, cock of the walk, the Terror of London. He’d seen it all, done most of it, and what he hadn’t done he’d seen, so at least he knew what he was talking about. Back then, he hadn’t thought he’d ever reach the stage where he’d be perched on the side of a building feeling sorry for himself. But that’s youth. Youth’s stupid.

Jack wasn’t one for self-delusion, and neither was he one for denial. There was another fact of another matter, and it had been skirting the edges of his thoughts for a few days now. He hadn’t wanted to put it into words because he had wanted, foolishly, to retain some sort of personal dignity. But now he didn’t have a choice.