membership Discount
Logan wasn't quite sure how to feel.

The protestors had stopped making his storefront their place of residence, and for that the former Watcher was glad. He didn't know the details of why, since he'd made a point in recent weeks to steer clear of the news in all its various forms, but Logan didn't really care. The noise and the chants and the hatred were no longer camped out in front of his place of business, and that was really all that mattered. Some customers that stayed away even began coming back.

Still, the bookstore owner couldn't shake a vague feeling of dread. Not because the latest shipment of vampire and werewolf texts was late -- the UPS guy said he'd be there at 9, yet the clock was approaching noon and still no brown truck.

No, it had been almost a month and a half since Diego's appearance, and no sign of the vampire since.

Was Izzy right? Was there really nothing to be worried about? Logan wondered if that was the case; he no longer trained a Slayer, and Francis had been dead for over a year now. What would be the point in making Logan's life hell again? The vampire made it perfectly clear how little Logan mattered to him, so maybe he'd decided to skip town and leave things as they were.

Only Logan knew Diego better than that. The creep would show himself again, when least expected, and the former Watcher shuddered to think what his next entrance would entail. All the mystical security measures had been taken, at home and here in the store, but still, Logan wasn't comfortable.

Janine hadn't stayed away from Thoth's Library because of the protests; she had just been busy. Now she had found herself with an extra-long lunch break, and instead of paying for an overpriced sandwich down the street from her work, she had decided to hop on the train and visit one of her favorite places. Ever since the bookstore had taken up residence in the city, the brunette had kept a keen eye on it, trying to stop in at least once every two weeks or so. The costume designer had never been a voracious reader, but she had never before found subjects that had fascinated her so.

Entering the store, accompanied by the tinkling of a bell, Janine made a beeline for the front counter and Logan. "Is it here?" she asked eagerly, referring to the late shipment. "Sorry, I mean, hello."

Logan smiled and pushed a tome on the biological properties of time travel -- God, some of the crap people sent his store -- before resting his elbows on the counter and chuckling to himself. "Hi, Janine," he said to one of his repeat customers.

"Sorry I haven't been reading your stuff lately. I kinda hermitted myself when the protests started."

One would be amazed how No comment never worked anymore. If anything, uttering those two words was akin to tossing a piece of raw meat into a den of lions -- anything that got in the way of the ensuing chaos would lose an arm.

And that was the best-case scenario.

"I'm afraid not," he added with a frustrated sigh. "Third time he's been late in the last two weeks. This keeps up, I might have to try FedEx."

She shook her head, waving a purple-gloved hand dismissively. "Hey, don't worry about it. It's been a little slow there, besides everyone wanting to talk about your store. I got tired of it and shut down threads for that particular topic, citing the fact that nothing new was being said. What surprised me was how people put up party lines about the whole thing. But what are you gonna do, right?"

Janine leaned forward onto the counter, her eyes scanning over the cover of the book he had pushed aside. "I was thinking, you know, of hosting my own site and getting a domain name. I could host ad space to pay for it, you know, for local businesses that relate to our subject matter ..." She smiled winningly up at him. "This is a hint for you, by the way."


Another chuckle. Logan scratched under his chin, glancing over his shoulder at the laptop humming away on the desk. Maintaining the store's website was proving simpler than the former Watcher had anticiptated; he thought he'd have to hire a webmaster to take care of that, but so far the website was pretty much taking care of itself.

Setting up online transactions would prove more difficult, though, and Logan figured simply registering with GoDaddy.com wouldn't be enough. He'd need someone computer-savvy to help, and he supposed it wouldn't hurt to have someone on-board part time for that.

"I would like some more traffic to the site," he said. "I'd like to let people buy stuff through the website, just haven't figured out how to do that yet."

Dissecting the feeding habits of Fyarl demons? Piece of cake. This? The cake was made of lead.


Janine stood on the tips of her toes, following his gaze to the glowing notebook computer. "You should get a business PayPal account. All of your transactions can be handled through there, and people won't feel weird about putting their credit card information into your site. A third party always makes people feel safer, for some reason." She looked around the store. "You have a small business line of credit, right? With one of the city banks?"


Logan nodded. "Only reason this place got opened at all," he mused with a sideways grin, his hands stuffed into his pockets.

He mulled over the Paypal thing in his head a little, having spent a little time when the store first opened checking out that particular site. He hadn't really known what he was looking at back then, but with Janine's suggestion, the former Watcher figured a return visit wouldn't hurt.

Then again, the online store wouldn't be a possibility if Logan weren't getting calls from people in Los Angeles and New York and Beijing asking about merchandise. The bookstore owner figured stores of this ilk had been popping up all over the place over the past year, but apparently some places were still lacking in supernatural resources primed for the general public.

Odd, considering the gold mine this business had become.

"But yeah, feel free to put us in your blog," he added. "I'll work out a discount with you since you shop here so often."


"Really?" Janine smiled and thought of all the discount membership cards she currently carried in her wallet. They were all for stores like Blick's art supply and Jo-ann's Fabrics.

"You know what I just thought of? You should offer membership rewards to everyone. They could sign up for mailing lists with store news and notifications, and printable coupons. And if the idea really gets off the ground, you could make little plastic cards. People like to feel they belong to something, and that they're appreciated. And after this whole debacle, I'm sure the good will would do wonders."

Logan nodded. "It would be a nice way to try to get some of our regulars back," he agreed. Janine was thinking of how to turn all the negative surrounding the store over the past several weeks into a positive down the road, and even if it didn't work, it was something worth pursuing.

"Keep this up," he half-joked," and I might just have to give you a job."

Which was when Logan realized that as often as Janine had come into the store, and as many times as they'd talked, she hadn't told him what she did for a living. He guessed the blog was just a side gig, more than likely not her source of income.

"What do you do right now?"

"I'm a costume designer for a small theater." In fact, the off-white, tea-length Victorian style dress she was wearing underneath her bright teal coat was one she had made for a production about a year ago; she had liked it so much, it had gone into her regular wardrobe rotation, after a little extra lining and modifications that made it wearable in public. "Act Macabre. It's a play on Danse Macabre, my boss is a bit of an esoteric sort."

She gestured to the store's stacks of texts. "These help me do my job, in a way."

Logan quirked a brow, a sideways grin playing on his features. "Oh, yeah?"

It made sense; vampires had a gothic mystique about them, even if they were anything but in reality (well, the smart ones who'd been around a while, anyway). Werewolves and all that were probably fair game as well, and the former Watcher saw no reason for that sort of thing to retain its popularity, even with the world learning it was all, in fact, real.

He guessed interest in that sort of thing was a coping mechanism. A more literal examination of everyone's fears and how best to handle them.

Janine nodded. "My interest in this whole thing didn't start until my theater switched in that direction. Putting on plays about demons and the underworld, which is not so much 'under' anymore."

She glanced to each side of her as if to make sure no one was listening, forgetting for a moment that she had been the lone customer in the store, before leaning over and informing Logan, "A lot of the regulars on our site were hoping your employee was really a vampire. They thought it was amazingly exciting. But now people are not so sure, since he gave those documents and stuff to that news reporter when he staked the other vampire on TV."

Logan frowned a little. "Other vampire?" he wondered, before remembering that Avery told him two weeks ago he'd sired someone. No evidence to support the claim, but the former Watcher wondered if that was what went down. The other vampire was there with the cameras rolling, and something happened to make everyone go away.

If Logan had to guess? Avery's childe was staked.

Admittedly, Logan was growing tired of the charade. If he had any hope people would understand, he would've told the truth from the beginning. But he understood how society and the mainstream media worked -- if Logan had admitted Avery's true nature, the place would've been closed faster than one could say Persephone. It might've even been burnt to the ground by a crowd of protestors.

But from what Logan could tell, Janine was trustworthy. Making a decision right then and there, the former Watcher leaned closer to her, his voice lowering to a hush in case anyone else decided to enter the store at that moment. "Just between you and me?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder. "This will never show up on your site?

"Avery is a vampire. But he's not a dangerous one, and he's been invaluable to this place."

Brown eyes widening, Janine's shocked expression turned into a slow grin. "No way. I bought a book from him. He said, have a nice evening, to me." She bounced a little on her heels. "I've seen a vampire in person!" Realizing her voice had risen shrilly, she clapped a hand over her mouth, chagrined. "Sorry. I just ... I never thought I would, at least, not without being bitten or killed or whatever. And I have, and ... and ..."

The brunette trailed off, deflating a little. "And I can't tell anyone. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. I like this store too much to jeopardize its continued existence."

"Thank you," Logan said with a smile and a nod, folding his arms. He had a habit of not being sure what to do with his arms when he was nervous. He no longer had to worry about things with Avery, but the Diego situation was starting to unnerve him again. In a lot of ways, the vampire's silence was more frightening than any overt displays of aggression and violence.

It was like he was plotting. Logan cringed mentally -- no way Diego was smart enough to actually plan something. Sure, killing Francis at that press conference on the 11 o'clock news was an elaborate scheme, but the former Watcher wasn't convinced he came up with that on his own.

The owner's thought process was interrupted upon seeing a UPS truck pull up at the curb, a portly white man with a handlebar moustache and those hideous brown shorts climbing out and opening the back trailer. He grinned once more, unfolding his arms.

"Finally," he uttered, nodding in the direction of the front entrance.

Janine followed Logan's gaze, spotting the deliveryman. "Well, I'm gonna run next door and get a coffee while you take care of that. Do you want one?" She knew it took a while to sign for the package, open the boxes and get everything squared away, and she was sure her over-eager presence did nothing much to speed up productivity.

Offering a smile, Logan emerged from behind the counter, straightening his black tie. "Yeah, thanks," he said. "Nothing too fancy, regular coffee, one sugar."

Stopping in front of the UPS man, and greeting him as Mr. Box Man, Logan signed the digital display in the driver's grasp before pointing the spot by the door to Izzy's work station for the boxes to be placed. Once they were all there, the former Watcher would open and inventory them all before placing them on their respective shelves.

A somewhat tedious process, but one that went relatively quickly on days like these where there weren't many customers.

It would be nice to be busy again, though.