<span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">For the most part, running the curio shop simply didn't pay all of the bills. What he brought in with retail went largely to renting the space, but not much else. Taking jobs from desperate men like the one standing before him supplemented his income, covering his remaining expenses - utilities, of course, but also the extensive travel required to stock the more particular items in his shop. Hardly any of the worthwhile antiques he carried came from New Orleans, which said nothing of the specialty items sought by his core clientele.<br/>
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Clients like Jackson didn't come along all that often, usually once every few weeks at most. Drae rarely turned one down. Few in the States were equipped to handle fickle things like spirits trapped in antique lockets, but most were in Louisiana. The Hex'ras knew all of them, but associated with none. He was, by nature, a solitary man, kept busy only by his work, and if Jackson hadn't exaggerated any of the gory details, he imagined he'd have plenty of work ahead of him.<br/>
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Drae gave the contents of the offered bag a cursory glance, and once he deemed the payment to his satisfaction, he all but waved the man away, offering little in the way of a goodbye. But then, the man hardly seemed bothered with pleasantries. Once he had gone, Drae moved out from behind the counter to shut and lock the shop door, pulling aside the adjacent window curtain to flip a sign from <i>OPEN</i> to <i>CLOSED</i>. He hardly minded making an early night of it to glean what he could from the jewelry.<br/>
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Not upstairs, though. If the locket did indeed harbor a vengeful spirit of some sort, he hardly wanted to expose it where he kept his merchandise. Instead he retreated to the cellar, a wide, damp space largely used for storage. The only furniture there aside from a wardrobe was a simple wooden table and chair, at which the Hex'ras perched. Removing his tinted glasses, he peered into the chamber, head cocked. Human ash, he could only imagine, kept safe for many years by the jewelry's seal. A long enough time to have grown incredibly volatile...</span>