It was abnormal that customers could truly pull my attention away from whatever it was I had been doing in the shop. The owner of the shop might tell you I had been hired under the guise of "buyer" and that title morphed into other things like sculptor or something along those lines. Me? I'd tell you it was more like I walked into the shop to find a knife to mess around with and place some magic in, and I had hired myself due to the sad shape of the shop. It had been littered with useless weapons, the shelves of many of the cases lined with artifacts that were pathetic and had no reason in a shop that wanted to cause harm to other individuals. I had taken a look around, and after brief (no) conversation, taken the task upon myself to fix the place. He had hardly any employees to keep customer service intact, and while I wasn't particularly into the chore myself, I was better than none. Okay, maybe that's not true. I don't know if I'm better in place than no customer service, but my existence in the shop garnered more revenue than it had ever seen before, even if the increase in said revenue was a fairly new occurrence as the shop became more well known for its quality and ability to procure nearly any kind of weaponry one might imagine up. Vaguely amused with my flippant nature and inability to take no for an answer, the owner had offered me keys on the spot, and the back room of the shop became my cave so to speak. When customers entered, I had never offered to take care of them until the task fell into my care. This task was mundane, awful, and there was nothing I liked less than dealing with giggling women who didn't understand that the blade that they sought out was far more likely to have a mind of its own than they thought possible. It wasn't uncommon for them to attempt to return the blade they'd purchased, only to be reminded of the strict no blood on blade return policy.

Did I mention I hate customers? The shop housed my hobby only because of my love for the actual act of creating weaponry, not for my love of servicing privileged individuals that I would rather use my weapons for practice on. Test dummies, for sure.

The bell had rung amidst my favorite song, and I was more inclined than not to ignore it and let the customer fester in their own agitation at the lack of employee presence. Like I'd said, I wasn't there for the service, only for the abundance of money I was offered to travel and find objects that a supernatural city might be in need of. Pestering consistently often caused me to ignore the customer entirely, keeping to my work in the dark back room as if I weren't even there. The woman who had been lurking finally wandered into the back room for my attention, which garnered a severely agitated response and my admonishment of her behavior. No, I wasn't going to give her a discount. No, I wasn't going to help her find a blade that would hurt a witch. No, I wasn't going to do anything, really. I had huffed irritably when she made her purchase, only to loiter aimlessly by the door while she browsed items she had no need for. I could have been watching her, but my eyes rose to the clatter on the roof. What, Santa already? The reindeer must have weighed tons because the clatter was immense, and I grit my teeth to keep myself from letting the roof cave in and yelling at good Ole Nick myself.

I didn't have to let the irritation gnaw my patience for long, as the glass from the window exploded dramatically at the appearance of a body through where the window had existed. Drumming my fingers on the counter with a characteristic rhythm, I watched as my familiar feline wind his way into the shop at about the same time as I disintegrated the glass into its former form of sand to let it sprinkle over the woman that had been nagging at me, only to be rewarded with a shriek as the intruder neared her form and she fled with a swiftness that I had begun attributing to said intruder once his identity was obvious. His appearance only elicited the extreme raise of one of my eyebrows, my curiosity raging. With Tobias' appearance, too, and his visible display of familiarity I noted that the Hunter had clearly appeared in pursuit of my ... whatever Tobias had attributed me as. The head remained in Azrael's hand in a stunned sort of way before being lobbed into the air as if I was supposed to catch it. Unamused, I watched as it flew towards me and fell to the floor with a flat sounding clump. I moved my gaze slowly from it to the Hunter I had no intention of engaging, and shrugged a shoulder.

"Of course it was."

I offered the words blandly, using the magic at my fingertips to roll the head far behind me into the room that Tobias was probably lurking in, allowing him a possessed toy to play with to keep him from attending the meeting of sorts that seemed to begin in the main shop. I licked my lips, lazily leaning against the counter with an obvious lack of interest at his appearance.

"No, I flip burgers at the local McDonalds too."

The words were hardly a taunt but a simple jest back to his quite obvious taunt. While I had half a mind to explain that my parents would have been happier if Azrael had actually killed me or performed some kind of lasting damage, the words remained lost in the confines of my mouth and mind. Instead of explaining that there were a great many other things I was involved in, his not so gentle reminder that I was being watched by the council had been more or less emblazed into my recent recess of my memory. I was almost inclined to rattle the figurative bars of my cage by shaking the contents of the store, but my temper wasn't something to let hurricane around as I had actually been listening despite what the Hunter might think.

"Between my excursions here and McDonalds, sometimes I utilize my PhD and other times I exercise my inner homicidal freak and kill people for money."

The words were flat, again, before I sighed and put the knife I had been idly sharpening down.

"If you're not here for any reason other than Tobias, you've proven you don't think I can assist you with anything else."

Prove me wrong Dobby.