His nerves-itched- not like a feral rash but just as consuming. His shoes had a distinct beat. The sound made his subordinates cringe like an injured squirrel caught between a wall and an angry dog. Those shoes, his feet were unmovable, powerful and precise. The shine and the untarnished surface were eyes into who and what he was. They were his throne made for him, special because they were on his feet.
Those feet stopped on the bottom step of his basement. His face was plain but he made up for it with an inordinate sense of self-importance and charm so profuse it didn’t need to mask the bile- it made people forgive its existence. His barren gray eyes searched the hovel. Pipes leaked, mold crawled up walls, the floor threatened to devour all passengers but his money would not be spent to make it livable.
He examined a woman who had neither physical beauty or charm. She didn’t have a face. Her long knot of dark hair covered the holes where ears should’ve been. The only was she consumed sustenance was the plastic hose in her stomach, attached to a funnel. The process disgusted him. His hands were gold and she was cheap department store jewelry but she was useful.
When the container was empty and all the contents were in her stomach, she nodded her thanks. A mixture of irritation and fear dried his mouth. That creature seemed dependent on him but glided up stairs and around furniture as though that unadorned head could see. She had powers he didn’t. She turned to the steaming cauldron and stirred.
The smell was acid to his senses. He didn’t know what she did but the end result to his liking so he didn’t care. She wasn’t brave enough to delude him. He pulled a picture from his pocket and handed it to her. She took it and nodded. The man walked upstairs.
It was a plan that drove him. The plan brought on by years of boredom. The female in the picture was inadequate, to low for him to dirty his own hands with her blood but her mother and guardian…
