There Is An Occult Store Near The Seattle Underground Where You Must Never, Ever Go. And Here’s Why.
“Are you the proprietor?” Tad was again taken off guard when he heard a foreign accent. He couldn’t tell if it was Powers or Dundee. After replaying it in his head with “shrimp on the barbie” and “shagadelic”, his guess was Gold Member.
“No…” Tad replied barely containing his urge to mock the man. “The proprietor is on holiday. A safari in the heart of Africa.”
The mystery man seemed to be turning Tad’s words over in his head as he began to scan the shelves again. Eventually, he replied, “I am looking for something very unique. Something I was led to believe your shop possesses… A skull.”
“Ah yes. I can see you are a man of distinguished tastes, a fellow collector perhaps?”
“What I seek I intend to use.”
“Oh, might I venture a guess that you dabble in the dark arts.”
Two in one day, thought Tad. And this one looks like he heavily invests in this trash.
Tad grabbed a pale shrunken faux-skull from the glass display at his knees and held it out. “Might I interest you in one of our rarer finds. Our original proprietor brought this back from an Amazon quest, it was made from his valet…”
The mystery man interrupted him to ask, “What are you playin’ at, Mate? Do I look like a J.K. Rowling groupie to you? Do you see a lightning bolt branded on me ‘ead… Well, do yah?!”
The man poked at the brim of his bowler hat, revealing a forehead covered in even more rune tattoos. None of them was in the shape of a lightning bolt. Tad slowly shook his head.
“Quite right and I can promise you this… You’ve never had a customer the likes of me before.”
The pompous tone on this fucker was starting to make Tad’s blood boil, but he forced on his best poker face and calmly shook his head. The limey was going to pay dearly for what he wanted.
“Now… If we are done with the tourist theatrics, I’m looking for a skull.”
“Yes sir, we got plenty of those.” Tad waved down at the display case and then nodded at the rack of skulls behind him, some mounted under dusty bell-jars and other less-convincing models contained in clear plastic bags. “The more exotic bones are kept up here.”
Tad could see the man wasn’t amused.
“What I seek came from a human.” As the man spoke these words, Tad’s mood visibly brightened.
“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” Tad walked to the front door, made a show of checking to see if all was clear before turning the “open” sign to “closed”, and then turned the lock. “Our… how should I say this …more controversial pieces cannot be displayed out here.”