All in a Night's Work

[Kelan Bishop]

Kelan sighed and leaned up against the doorframe of the small shop. His 8pm appointment wasn't going to be able to make it. In fact, the man wasn't even going to be able to reschedule, on account of being dead. The news has just been passed along to him moments before, and Kelan found himself somewhat at a loss for words. The man had been an excellent customer of his, going so far as to follow him to New York from California, when Kelan decided to open up a second shop. The one in California was being run by someone he didn't entirely trust, but these days it seemed that completely trusting anyone was one of the quickest ways to get your ticket punched.

 

With it being mid-evening, the foot traffic outside his shop had died down considerably, as most everyone in the area had meandered their way home already to have dinner with their families. The chances of someone actually stopping in weren't particularly high, but that didn't really matter to him. Money wasn't an issue. Even if nobody showed up, there was always something to clean, some new design to work on for a customer, or a new way to arrange his studio.

 

Shaking his head slowly, he turned away from the door and glanced up at the old clock he used to keep track of the time. It was a really old alarm clock, one of the ones where as each minute passed the numbers flipped over. The actual alarm didn't work anymore, but it still kept really good time. A former customer had made sure of that. It was a quarter after eight now, and Kelan pulled a white cloth off of the shelf, spraying it with a disinfectant. Even though the shop was kept in pristine cleanliness, since the Nevus event you never could be too careful, especially with the Zee and Vee blood. People were hunting those things, and sometimes they didn't bother to clean the gunk off their clothing when they came in to get work done. If they got infected, Kelan didn't really give two shits about it. People would just write it off as another Hunter getting caught up in the business. But if someone who wasn't associated with that crowd picked up either one of them.... well, that was just bad for business. And so he slowly and methodically wiped down every surface, paying particular attention to the chair and area around it. It was well after 9pm by the time he was done wiping the place down, which in addition to making sure it was all clean had the added benefit of wiping his fingerprints off of almost every surface....if anyone could even find one. He surveyed the small studio, and satisfied, turned around to put the cloth in a small laundry basket behind the counter. With his back turned, the door chimed as someone walked in.