Michael Jilani leaned back in a cheap plastic dining room chair, his belly full and a satisfied smile on his face. The cracked plaster ceiling of his little home away from home had yellowed long ago sometime after the 70s or 80s or whenever the place was built. Swinging gently in the current of the A/C was a single low-watt bulb, the incandescent kind that you could never find anymore, and that amused him for reasons he couldn't entirely articulate.
A mariachi tune wafted softly through the air from an old record player his host family kept in the living room. He didn’t care for the music much, but he felt it added a little ambiance to the place when he came by. It wasn’t a bad musical genre. Far from it. It just wasn't his thing. However, he liked to immerse himself in the culture as much as he could wherever he landed at any particular time.
A steaming plate of rice, beans, and freshly butchered beef was offered to him, but he held up his hand.
“No, thank you, Maria. I’ve had quite enough. Why don’t you go and eat that yourself,” he intoned, interlacing a gentle suggestion of his will into the words.
Maria, a matronly woman with an aging but beautiful face paired with long, braided salt and pepper hair, bowed her head and cradled the plate in her arms, careful not to drop any of it as she began to scoop the food into her mouth with her bare hands.
Michael sighed wearily.
It happened sometimes when he stayed in one place for a while. Puppets like Maria were literal followers, meaning that, when Michael gave commands, her mind was entirely consumed with the purpose he gave her. There was no capacity for manners, customs, or even to take care of her own needs such as eating, drinking, sleeping or even going to the bathroom. She couldn't. There was no room in her thought processes for anything other than Michael's needs. From the smell of things, Michael probably should have accounted for that earlier in his stay, but he couldn’t be bothered to micromanage every single thing his playthings did, especially if the thrall in question cooked like Maria. Interrupting her when she was working her magic would have been a crime in itself. If the woman was cognizant, she'd understand.
Maria gorged herself messily on the meal she’d been preparing for the better part of four hours, stuffing her face and barely taking the time to chew before swallowing. Her eyes stared blankly at him as the food disappeared into her mouth. The wet smacking of her lips slowly ground down Michael's patience with her, and soon he'd had enough.
“Chew your food, woman. You’re going to choke, and where would I be then?” He asked rhetorically. People like Maria didn’t survive long, needing direction like they did. In a way, his new chef was lucky to catch Michael's attention early into his stay here. Otherwise she would have died of dehydration or exposure by now. The tang of stale urine and sweat wafted to his nose. “And eat over there in the corner. No, facing the corner. I don’t want to even know you're here.” The woman shuffled over to the other end of the dining room next to the dirty yellow blinds that kept out the New Mexico sun.
Michael, or Gull depending on who you asked, turned to his right, speaking to a husky, mustachioed man who lurked in the doorway to the living room where the record player was. “I’m not sure how you put up with this, Hector. Your wife, despite her talent in the kitchen, simply cannot take care of herself. You must be a busy man,” he said nonchalantly with an extra dose of his power. “Don’t you agree?”
Hector nodded his head dumbly, his eyes never leaving Michael’s, always listening for a command like a good dog.
Sighing, Gull leaned his chair back and put his legs up on the little laminate table, pushing the half-dozen plates and bowls on it aside to make room for his booted feet. A plastic bowl, half filled with rice, fell to the floor with a hollow *thup* and rolled around underneath the table, spreading its contents over an impressive amount of carpet.
“You’ll need to clean that up later, Hector, or you'll have roaches,” Michael chided. “And while you’re at it, clean up your wife and make her presentable for next time. Make sure she is bathed and groomed. Understood?”
Again, Hector nodded, this time with a perceptible vigor that told Gull an infusion of power into the order would not be necessary. Naturally, the man wanted to take care of his wife, even in this state of hypnosis. It was a pity Maria’s mind was too weak to withstand Michael's power for too long. He would need to find another family to move in with soon. These two would be used up in a matter of days if he didn’t give them a little space, and Maria’s cooking was too good to squander. Originally, he'd planned to be done with Las Almas by now, moving on to greener and more civilized pastures, but he'd found himself more and more comfortable here over the past few weeks. An extended stay meant planning ahead, and he didn't want to use up the Torres family so early, not when they had so much to offer.
Gull rocked back in his chair for several minutes, eyes closed, listening to music sung in a language he didn’t speak about a subject he didn’t care to know. The food sat like a warm rock in his belly, and he felt drowsiness creep in slowly. Perhaps he would take a nap after the service today.
Snapping his fingers, he called Hector over. The thrall knew the routine by now. Gull heard a quiet snip then felt the light touch of a cigar on his lips. Allowing his mouth to open to hold the cigar, he sat back and listened to the click of the lighter in Hector’s hand and the hiss of the burning butane as it ignited the end of the stick. He puffed languidly, allowing the thick smoke to pool in his mouth and throat before blowing a dense cloud up and into the ceiling. Hector had already removed the smoke detectors for him after he’d set them off the first night he’d discovered the old man's little humidor. Now, where they'd once hung, there was only exposed wiring. Their absence shouldn't have been a problem as long as Gull was around. Maria was incapable of mustering the will to turn on the stove in his absence anyway.
Fucking A, it was good to be him right now. He’d worked for Graviton for long enough that he’d nearly forgotten what being a free agent felt like. Having a megalomaniacal prick for a boss wasn’t something unique to Gull, but he felt safe saying that most people's bosses didn't take their obsession so far as to name a floating island nation after themselves. Of course, Gull was self aware enough to know he had a touch of that lust for power himself, so in the end, it was never going to work between him and Graviton, especially considering the fact that the sky king never deigned to meet Gull in person. He’d always sent Michael's orders via phone, messenger, or video call, and that rubbed the super the wrong way. Where was the trust?
A little private laughed escaped his lips.
He opened his eyes to find Hector staring at him, not two feet from his face. This didn’t surprise Michael. Infact, It was comforting, in a way. Their helplessness without his guiding hand meant they needed him, and there was nothing that inspired trust quite like utter dependence. He blew a cloud of smoke into Hector’s face, who suppressed a cough.
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Blinking lazily and pushing Hector upright like he was a posable doll, Gull took his feet off the table and let his chair settle to the ground. “Hector, what time is it?” he asked, stabbing the mostly unsmoked cigar down into a plate of beans.
Hector looked down at his watch then spoke in a raspy voice, weak from disuse over the past couple weeks. “Eleven forty.”
“Welp. I’d better get going then, my man. Ugh." He let out a groan as he got to his feet and stretched. It was entirely performative, of course. Michael's physique put Greecian heroes of myth to shame, and he was almost entirely resistant to sickness, disease, and damage. He did find some measure of amusement from pretending to be mortal, however. It comforted the small people, and it drew in the ones that meant him harm. It was then that they would find just how powerful he was. How merciless as well. "Remember what I said about your wife. It would displease me to see her like this again.”
Hector nodded once again as he followed Gull into the living room where the record player was winding down on the last track of this particular album. A slow, solemn voice crooned over the ancient speakers.
A young woman in her upper teens sat on the couch wearing a green sundress and clutching the cardboard sheath to the vinyl that was in the player. Her face was striking like her mother’s, but the vigor of youth made her glow with the vitality of a woman in her prime. Her raven hair hung loosely over her bare shoulders just as Gull liked, and her chest rose and fell pleasingly with shallow, tremulous breaths as she, no doubt, anticipated what was to come. A little sinister smile slid onto Michael's face.
“Come on, Isabella. We’re leaving,” Michael commanded softly, just enough to be heard by the girl and her father. The power he fed into his words was substantial this time. Isabella dropped the vinyl sleeve to the floor and rose, padding over the carpet soundlessly to join him.
Taking her hand, he led her out onto the cracked concrete of the front porch, both of them blinking away the harsh light of the midday sun. The girl’s hand trembled in his, though her expression was utterly placid. Michael leaned down until he was nose to nose with her and looked into her blank, unfocused eyes. Weaving back and forth, he searched the young lady's face for any hint of the fear Michael knew she must feel at this moment. Nothing.
Feeling a little tinge of disappointment, Gull took the girl into his arms, holding her close enough to smell her lilac shampoo mixed with light sweat. He turned back to the doorway where Hector stood watching the super take his daughter.
“Take care of your wife and wait for me. No need for you two to come to today’s meeting, alright? I’ll bring Isabella back when we're done,” he said, his smile twisting into something more cruel. Hector looked like he was about to be sick, but the pudgy dog still nodded obediently.
With that, Gull bent his legs, coiling his muscles. There was a great unfurling sensation that emanated from his back and then thousands of little pinpricks of sensation from nerves he didn't have a second ago. Then, with a mighty leap, they were in the air, a soft tapestry of pearlescent white feathers catching the wind and carrying the two of them up and over the little town of Las Almas. Once at the right altitude, he glided gracefully, using the warm updrafts and infrequent gusts of warm southern wind to make a wide circle around his domain.
The town was small, boasting only a pair of traffic lights and a handful of roads. Nearly all the buildings were made of tin with white rooves, though there were a few exceptions. Circular shapes of above ground pools and children's trampolines made some of the houses stand out from the rest as being more well off, which flagged them for Michael as potential places to stay now that the Torres family was nearly spent. A fenced trailer park sat at the edge of town just off the highway, the astroturf rugs placed on their front porches clashing with the desert aesthetic the rest of the town had going for it. An old, defunct railroad with rotted ties and rusted iron tracks seemed to materialize from the earth near the edge of town to run through a half collapsed station complete with skeletal husks of what must have once been a depot, only for the ancient track to disappear again back into the desert sand.
From as high as they were, Los Almas looked like a model , one where Gull could just reach down and pluck entire lives like a child plucked petals from flowers.
Gull enjoyed looking down on places like this, seeing the way normal people their lives, small and fragile as they were. In fact, the people were out and about as he'd come to expect, piling out of their homes and businesses wearing their sunday best, putting on hats or opening parasols to make their pilgrimage to the noon service.
Isabella clung tightly to his neck, burying her head in her chest and squeezing her eyes shut, not fully able appreciate the gift Michael was giving her. He thought about commanding the girl to open her eyes and look down at where she lived so she could see the place how he did, but he decided against it. Last time, the girl had been a useless wreck for a whole day, unable to even follow commands properly. Not without being heavily dominated first.
They swooped down, heading for the church where a good crowd of townsfolk had already gathered at the locked double doors that led into the sanctuary. Michael brought them in low, passing over the throng and banking left, past the town's sizeable cemetery and to the parish house nestled among a copse of trees. He touched down lightly with only a slight bend in the knees to absorb the impact of the landing.
“Look now,” he ordered the girl. Not wanting to carry her the entire way, Gull needed her to pay attention before he could put her down. Isabella did as she was told, opening her eyes to look around. Tears were flowing freely down her face, but the placidity hadn’t left her expression. She slowly loosened her grip on his neck, and Michael felt her body relax enough to be set down. Once she was shakily standing on her own two feet and not in danger of fainting, Michael flashed a grin and headed for the house’s already open front door, stepping over the body of the town’s priest and scattering the cloud of flies that had gathered on the old man’s dead flesh with a flap of his wings.
He climbed up the stairs of the porch and paused at the threshold. When he didn’t hear the girl’s footsteps behind him, he whirled, hot, pounding fury creeping to the surface of his mind. How many times would the stupid cow fail this test?
Isabella stood there shakily, staring at the old priest in his dusty black robes, face down in the dirt where he’d been left. Scavengers had been gnawing at the body over time, ripping into the clothes and stretching organs and sun-baked skin over a larger and larger patch of dirt, but it was easily deduced how the man died, his neck wrenched into the unnatural position that it was. As she stared, the girl wiped away fresh tears with shaking hands and sniffed pitifully, her meager consciousness transfixed on the grisly scene.
Showing his capacity for understanding and forgiveness, Michael shoved his anger back down into the pit of his stomach, and there was only the odd twitch of his neck before he was back under control.
Gull gathered up his power, and spoke. “Forget the body, Isabella. Come help me change for the service, and, if you're good, I'll let you sit on the altar during the sermon.” His will was like a tidal wave, flooding Isabella's mind with his power so forcefully, so completely, the only impulse left to her was the capacity to please him.
Isabella's tears stopped flowing. Her lips parted, and a shuddering moan escaped her. What little fire she had left in her eyes guttered and died. Then she too stepped over the rotting corpse of the priest to take Michael's outstretched hand, and the two of them entered the little house together.