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He was sick of the attention.
People constantly found a way to be near him for whatever reasons they could come up with, no matter how far fetched.
Well, it wasn’t that he disliked the publicity. He did enjoy it a good bit, actually. It was just that he couldn't deal with the people. Which did sound rather contradictory, now that he thought about it. Then again, publicity and people yelling across the street to ask for an autograph were two different things. And simply yelling and reaching out and grabbing him were two very different things.
“Alastor! Alastor!” He stopped at the sound of his name, then realized what a bad move that was. Stopping means acknowledging he heard something, and acknowledging he heard something opened the door for conversation with the town low-lives. He did not enjoy conversation with them very much.
“Alastor!” The low-life yelled again. He despised people like that. He despised people in general for the most part. Most of them were simply… stupid. Drunken fools stumbling around at ungodly hours. Absolutely ridiculous. But sometimes-
Sometimes he found them entertaining.
This was not one of those scenarios.
The man - clearly drunk - meandered over, clearly not noticing how Alastor had practically gone over to the other side of the street. He was probably too drunk to notice. He cursed his luck, but chalked it up to the less-glamorous side of publicity.
He knows what he is. This random wannabe stalker does not. So he says to himself, promises himself he won't do it again. After all, even his reputation couldn't save him if they found out. But it can deflect suspicion from him. Promise forgotten, he grinned to himself in anticipation.
~~~
It was an oh-so-easy game to play, and easy to win, too. Everyone was too incompetent to connect the dots. To be fair, he had never left any dots to connect, but that was beside the point.
The next day, he went back on the air as if nothing had ever happened. He went through the normal news, then pauses for a minute to admire his handiwork. No pictures were included, but he remembered it clear as day. The shattered limbs, broken ribs, cracked, bleeding skull were so far from what people would expect from him. It wasn't that he was living a lie; he more viewed it as sometimes the societal 'rules' he valued so had to be set aside for the greater good. Yet still...
He hadn't meant for it to end like that. He had cleaned the dried blood from underneath his fingernails in the bathroom sink that night, careful to wash all traces of it away. He was still his mother's perfect, sweet, popular son. He was still the happy, smiling daily radio show host everyone knew and loved. No one knew, and no one had to.
But, he had standards, and they had to be upheld. It wasn't his fault society was so... crude. The pleasure he gained from it was just an added bonus.
Any normal person would have just ignored those people and moved on. They were only ever a minor annoyance at worst. No harm, no foul.
But Alastor was no normal person. He simply didn't, couldn't live like that. After all, everyone has their quirks. Some, he thought, taking a slow drink from a glass of whiskey, are just more entertaining than others.
~~~
Eventually, inevitably, the excitement surrounding New Orleans' newest serial killer died down. He wished it didn't have to be that way, that they would remember for longer. People got bored, just as he did, with repetition. So he vowed that they would never forget his name when he was done with this town. And this was a promise he was intending to keep.