Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Into the Giant’s Keep
The sleek, black car from the day before returned. It wasn’t scary, but the silent energy radiating from his mother terrified him.
Sliding his hand into hers, he looked up. “They’re here.” She cracked the door and cold wind cut through his clothes. Chills raced over his skin and every instinct of him begged not to go.
They could lock the door and hide. That’s what she’d taught him to do whenever anything reeked of danger. Why weren’t they hiding now?
“Remember what I said, Jackie, be a good boy.” Her grip tightened as her voice cracked.
Something was wrong. Heaviness sank, cold and wild, in his hollow belly. “I don’t feel good, Mum.”
“That’s just nerves.” She kissed his head, briefly running her fingers through his fine, dark hair. “Once you get there you’ll feel better. They’re going to feed you.”
The car stopped and Jackie’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. The windows were too dark to see who waited inside. A tall man unfolded from the driver side, his face arranged into an expression that gave nothing away, his eyes hidden behind sleek black glasses.
Jackie followed his mother down the path to the car where she pulled him forward to introduce him to the man. “This is Jackie.”
The man nodded, and handed Mum a small card. She released his hand, took the card, and stepped back.
When Jackie moved to follow her, the man caught him by the back of the coat. “Not you. You stay with me.”
He looked back at Mum, no longer wanting to go with this man. He didn’t care how hungry he was. The air was too still. “Mummy—”
“Go with the man, now, Jackie. Don’t fuss. I’ll be here when you come back.”
His chin wobbled and his vision blurred. A door opened and the man waved him inside the warm car.
“You do as I say, when I say, and we’ll get along fine. Understand?”
He didn’t understand any of this. But he nodded anyway, because good boys did as they were told.
A dark, rich scent swirled from the warm interior.
The smooth black leather was soft and warm beneath him, the car fancier than a church.
A basket of toys waited on the seat, a splash of color in an otherwise obsidian tomb.
The door shut like a sealing vault before he could ask who the toys were for.
Jackie rose on his knees, pressing his hands to the cool, black glass. “Mummy!” She turned away, deaf to his cries and he pounded his palms harder. “Mum!” She didn’t look back. “Mum, wait!”
The car began to move.
Jackie sat back, wiping away tears as pressure built in his chest. He cried so hard he could hardly breathe. But the car kept moving.
Buildings whooshed by, replaced by streets he didn’t recognize, then hedgerows and fields so vivid and green they hurt his eyes. The sky opened up, wider than any sky he’d ever seen, and the world no longer appeared drenched in grey.
It was his first car ride, and a rather long one. He didn’t want to touch the toys, but after a while, when his sobs had slowed to short breathy hiccups, he gave in to temptation and pulled a brightly colored book from the basket.
He traced the letters on the cover and slowly sounded them out. “Jack…and…the…” He didn’t know how to say that big word. He looked at the back of the driver’s head. “What does this say?”
Dark lenses looked back at him from the mirror, but the driver didn’t respond.
“Bees,” Jackie decided. “Jack and the Bees.”
With a sniffle, he opened the book, choosing not to read the words, but getting just as much pleasure from the colorful picture. There was a cow and a boy. He planted seeds that grew into a long vine that reached the clouds. Then there was a giant.
When the car slowed, black iron gates appeared, twisted into leaves and topped with spikes that reminded him of sharp teeth.
“I’m here with the boy,” the driver said to a post with a tiny box.
The gates opened inward, revealing a driveway that stretched like the tongue of a sleeping giant. The building at the end was too big to be a house. A castle, maybe.
It rose from the hill as if seated among clouds. Thick, white columns framed the entrance as a hundred windows stared out like eyes. They parked beside a fountain with three stone horses rearing upward and spraying water into the sunlight.
The door opened and Jackie sank deeper into the shadows of the car.
“Come on. This way. The chancellor is waiting.”
His legs shook as he climbed out, white gravel crunching beneath his tattered, dirty shoes. He didn’t belong in this pristine place.
A woman stood in the entrance, tall and thin, dressed in black, grey hair pulled so tight it stretched her face. She looked at Jackie like a stain on the carpet.
“He’ll need to be washed.” She touched his hair, as if searching for something hidden in the strands. “And those clothes should go right in the rubbish.”
“Is this a church?” he asked, stepping under the high ceiling with a dome glass that let the sun in. Gold framed paintings hung on every wall, depicting clouds, twisting vines, and cherubs stroking harps. Even the white tile floor gleamed.
“Don’t dawdle.” The woman’s voice cracked like a whip as she urged him up the sprawling staircase. “What’s your name?”
“Jack Fitzgerald Thorne.”
“That’s a long name for such a little boy.”
“My mum calls me Jackie.”
They stopped before a door twice the usual size, and she knocked three times.
“Enter.”
She led him inside a room where bookshelves lined every wall. Flames danced in a fireplace, making the air warm and dry. Behind an enormous desk sat a man like a king on a throne.
“The boy is here.”
The man looked up from his work and drummed fat fingers along the surface of the desk. A gold ring glinted just below his knuckle with the letters RA. “Well, bring him forward. Let me see what I’ve paid for.”
Jackie dug in his heels as she pulled him closer to the desk.
The man rose, eclipsing whatever daylight filtered from the window behind him.
His body spilled over the seams of his clothes like dough rising from a pan.
As he looked down at Jackie, taking his measure, his chin rested on sagging folds of skin.
Maybe he was a king. That would explain why there was so much gold. Gold buttons. Gold watch. Gold pin shaped like a little harp. Even his brassy hair and aged skin had an unnatural golden glow.
His eyes moved over Jackie’s body slowly, like a butcher pricing meat. Whatever he saw, he made no expression to show if he was disappointed or pleased. “See that he’s bathed properly.”
“Yes, Chancellor.”
“We’re approaching The Preserve now, Mr. Thorne.”
Henry’s voice ripped Jack from his memories into the present. Tugging his lapels, he cleared his mind and glanced at the familiar Gothic spires and dark stone edifice approaching. “Thank you, Henry.”
The Preserve materialized through morning mist like a fever dream, the architecture on a scale that dwarfed human ambition, creating an exclusive, otherworldly wonderland where the world’s wealthiest adults came to play.
Despite their darker proclivities, Stone, Ash, and Hunter Volkov were men of integrity and great privacy. Their twisted tastes for carnality helped shape The Feast into everything it had become over the last ten years.
Had it really been ten years since he set his plan into action? The first feast lived in his memory as if it were only yesterday. This year’s festivities marked a commemorative triumph only he could truly understand. To others, it was merely a wild night that changed the lives of a select few.
Jack exited the Bentley before Henry rounded the car. The massive front doors swung open, and Stone Volkov filled the threshold like a sentinel carved from the same dark material as the lodge itself.
“J.” Stone’s green eyes caught the light with predatory calm. “Early as always.”
“Good to see you, Stone.”
Like his Russian brothers, Stone’s bearlike presence radiated the kind of stillness that preceded violence. But Jack was under no threat here.
“Ash is waiting in the study. Hunter’s wrapping up a few security checks.” He gestured for Jack to lead the way inside.
The unchanged entrance carried an inescapable draft due to its massive size and ancient stone walls.
Soaring ceilings reflected in the black marble floors.
Wrought-iron chandeliers hung overhead, bristling with gas flames that never dimmed.
No wonder people called them the three bears.
Something animal and unrefined lay dormant beneath their power and wealth, something only a fool would wake.
When they reached the study, a large library with a gaping fireplace and an antique billiard table in the back, Ash Volkov rose from behind a massive desk, stretching out his hand in a warm welcome.
“J.” His golden hair caught the fading sunlight as his ice-blue eyes creased at the corners.
He rounded the desk and clasped Jack’s hand.
“Welcome back.” He gestured to a leather chair before the fireplace. “Coffee?”
Jack settled into a leather Chesterfield chair. “Mad Hatter, if you have it.”
Ash raised a brow, but made no comment as he moved to the bar cart and poured two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal glass.
Jack was still on Tokyo time.
Heavy footfalls announced Hunter Volkov’s approach as Ash handed Jack the glass. The third Volkov brother entered the study like an unapologetic storm, black eyes sweeping the room before offering any form of greeting.
“Perimeter’s clear.” He eased his impressively honed body into the chair opposite Jack. “You’re fucking early.”
“I’m always early.”
Most would shiver at Hunter’s scarred face, but Jack had seen true ugliness before and didn’t flinch at the superficial kind. Deep down, they all had scars. Some simply had the luxury to hide them better than others.
Hunter’s gaze lowered to the glass resting in his palm. “Good trip?”
“Successful. No complaints.”
“Good.”