A Day in the Life

"Mitsy is off today." Erica ran down a list from a tablet. "Nancy tomorrow. Summer in three days. And, me in four days with a back to back."

Both of Summer's fingers tapped on the screen of a phone. A low whine sipped through the pursed lips of the blonde with strands of hair dipping down around her face. The blue sweater had one button closed to keep the sides just sliding over the top of a black skirt. "Why can't I have today off?"

"You had two days off two days ago." The tablet agreed and Erica pointed to the row proving her point. "You need to actually help Nancy do fittings today."

"Why can't I have the day off." Filing one of her nails, Nancy looked up with her bangs brushing across her forehead. The red dress she wore held her form together at the right places and never let anyone know Nancy could possess a wrong point.

The arm holding the tablet extended like a wing over Erica's shoulder. "You do the fittings. We have fittings today. No. You can't have today off. You have tomorrow off!"

Nancy finished the nail. "If Mitsy were here, she would give me today off."

"Yes. Yes she would." Danny kept her arms crossed, leaning next to the 'open' sign, knowing once it flipped, there was no going back. She donned a turquoise shirt with a pair of black shorts with her hair around her shoulders framing the sour look on her face. "Which is why Erica does the schedule. Because, she says 'no' to you all the time, and I love that. Also, we're hiring my friend Tori and there's no negotiations about that."

"As manager, I get to-"

"This was in the backroom." Tsukimi walked out of the backroom holding a cocoon. The slender Japanese woman in a black pencil skirt with a floral blouse looked around. "I think it came out of the demon portal."

Erica tossed the tablet on the table. "I'm sure that won't have any bearing on today."

"If a demon comes to get its thing back, just give it back and don't look at the most evil parts." With her advice given, Danny turned and opened the store. "Let's just get through today and tomorrow. After that Summer has the day off, so we can get real work done then."

"So, what you're telling me is, this clothing store is actually some sort of demonic hideout?"

Carter questioned in disbelief, glancing across the street where the establishment had just opened for the day. The alleyway he stood within obscured him from general view, though that wasn't exactly what he was worried about being seen.

The Stygian Spider, who had been providing wild 'evidence' to Carter ever since he had been approached, hung overhead and upside-down, from a dark strand of web produced by the device around his wrist. The dark-suited webslinger seemed to nod, dropping from the web string that was attached to some apartment's fire-escape.

"Come on, Carter. This stuff is well documented. I've shown and told you more than enough. We go in there, we can expose them. Don't you want to be a Hero?"

Blake Hall, known only by few as the Stygian Spider, let his venomous words from beneath the mask sink into the mind of his new found 'friend'. He had never really known that much about the clothing store, and after following up on many strange rumors on the streets, Blake was intrigued. Not by the demons or anything stupid like that, though. That wasn't his concern, at the moment. Blake knew a sucker when he saw one, and he could already see everything unfolding before his eyes. With Carter by his side, how could anything go wrong?

"Here's the plan, Carter..."

---

Roughly thirty minutes later, the door to the clothing store was opened, with Carter Chaplin stepping in to the shop. He wasn't sure if there were any other customers in here, but there were several employees about, it seemed. The young man was dressed very casually today, a white T-shirt and a dark jean-jacket on top, with blue-jeans to boot.

He ventured further into the store, looking at a few shelves and clothing racks, before turning to visibly glance around, apparently in need of assistance. He called out to whoever was closest.

"Could I get some help over here, please? I'm looking for a few specific things, wondering where I could find them."

The opening hours of the life of the shoppe never panned out well for any kind of rush and today offered no deviation from the norm. Fine in all. It gave the shoppe time to prepare, get ready, and for the most part, partake in large helpings of nothing. And, nothing bestowed itself upon Carter. "Nancy, this guy wants some help."

A bob twirled and fell in perfect sync from the other side of the shoppe. "If he doesn't have an appointment, he doesn't need me. And no one needs me until 11. It is currently 10:45."

Summer leaned on the counter, her phone clutched between her hands like a raccoon. "He isn't social media, so I don't have to help him."

"Oh my god." Danny walked from the stairs. "Can someone not be useful and justify their salary for once around here?" Offering no actual help, Danny continued towards the back work room with an ornate dagger in one hand and a spellbook in the other.

"Nancy will see you now." Summer leaned back in her chair again.

"In 15 minutes. If you have an appointment."

Sliding past Danny, Erica grew in anger like a fireball into the front room. "Everyone needs to be happy Mitsy won't fire anyone because she knows you would all starve to death on the street." Her forward motion took her to Carter. "Yes, I can assist you."

Listening to the several employees talk back and forth, watching as they walked to and fro without paying him any sort of mind... Of course, they were likely just pompous, small-minded humans, but Carter could see where Stygian was coming from now. The young man's glare shot to the stairway, noting the fancy knife and and what looked to be some sort of old parchment book? Maybe they were demons after all. Then, the frustrated woman entered the room in a rush, stopping in front of Carter all of a sudden.

The plan itself was sound, but Carter couldn't help but feel as if it would not be going smoothly. His body grew tense, arms straightening before lifting to grab a nearby jacket on one of the racks. It was black leather, not something that Carter was interested in at the moment. He made sure to break eye-contact, looking down at the piece of clothing as he displayed it.

"I'm... Thinking of a design like this. Though, maybe a brighter color, different material. Looking for something more lightweight."

As Carter pointlessly explained his desired article of clothing, Blake continued his surveillance efforts. Slinking around the nearby roofs, crawling along walls adjacent to the clothing store, there was only so much the Stygian Spider was able to see, before being forced out of plain sight. His moves were swift and silent, body bounding from one spot to the next in order to stay hidden. Blake wasn't sure if he would find anything else of interest, but it definitely didn't stop him from trying to.

Erica curled her brow at the request. "So you want this leather jacket, but not black, and not leather, and also lighter." She took a moment. "Do you want a cardigan? They are like black, leather jackets, but come in other colors. And are not leather. And, lighter?"

Nancy and Summer continued doing their due diligence, which in this case occasionally involved getting minor glimpses of something moving about the building. Never enough to directly see anything, and nothing peculiar enough to rouse real attention, but enough to pique their interest slightly.

"I'm going outside to do something." Summer took her leave to open the door to the shoppe, cell phone still in hand. Nothing out of the ordinary- even the person bumping into her was expected with her fingers and eyes attached to the phone. "And, sent." She looked back up. "Where was that thing I was looking at? Maybe the alley?"

With no real clue to go off- and barely any guess as to what she searched for- Summer ventured into the alley between the shoppe and the funeral home next door. Nothing. "Oh wait, this is a camera." Summer held the phone up to begin capturing the alley as she moved closer to the side door. More and more nothing out of the ordinary jumped at her until she faced the challenge of going back inside through the side door or walking forward.

Her hand grabbed the nob. Locked. "Uh." She reached down into the pocket of her sweater to grab her keys and begin opening the door.

Danny and Tsukimi both stood over the cocoon with a dagger and a spell book in hand. Both looked as though they were about to perform open heart surgery with the exact same tools at their disposal. "Do we just poke it?" A gestured motion of a 'poke' accompanied Danny's hand.

"It might make it mad." Tsukimi flipped through pages of a language she could not understand, trying to find a corresponding picture. "If it can feel mad. Or enact revenge."

Tsukimi's finger stopped on a page. "Here we go." Exactly what the thing was still remained a mystery, but at least Tsukimi found a picture of it.

"A... Cardigan," Carter repeated, his jaw clenched tight as the strained words escaped his lips.

As long as everyone around him remained calm, so would he. The young man gave a nod of his head to Erica's astute assessment, craning his neck to casually look around once more, before settling on the woman next to him. From what Stygian had shown him, there was definitely something different about this place. The only strange thing he had seen so far was the dagger and book, and that wasn't really much to go off of for Carter. What hadn't he been told?

"Do you have any in a sort of... Mustard-yellow color?"

Going out in the middle of the day had been an awful idea, for Blake Hall considered himself nocturnal, very much a creature of the night. It had been the only way for him to make contact with the strange nomad that was Carter, and so it was simply a must. When was the last time he had been on the internet, anyway?

Blake had seen much about this clothing store online, or rather about one of the individuals within it, who was very public about their 'metahuman' status. Carter had been the best choice to send in, not because of his own abilities, but because of how disconnected he was when it came to the information superhighway.

Suddenly, the all too familiar tingling along his head began to flare up, his brain reacting with the arachnid awareness trait he had gained years ago. They couldn't have arrived that quickly though, he had just made the call on an old disposable flip cellphone minutes earlier. Peering over the edge of the shoppe roof, Blake gazed down into the alleyway below, where he saw someone fiddling with keys at the store's side door. Having just managed to avoid getting caught stuck to the wall, the Stygian Spider knew that it had been a close call. His suit was colored with dark shades of purple and grey, best accompanied by the camouflage of the shadows.

Down the street in the distance, wailing sirens could be heard. They grew louder on approach, cruisers passing by the store, while others had stopped a block up the street. Even firetrucks and ambulances could be heard, though for what purpose?