Disclaimer: Long story short, I don't own it. I'm not making any money off of this, it's just an ongoing chronicle of a game my boyfriend and I have been playing with a couple of our "own characters"…which is in quotes because technically we don't own them either since they're historical figures, like the vast majority of the characters in the books. Coincidentally.
Disclaimer 2: We've done our best to keep them true to history, here, but obviously we've never met the historical figures depicted here so the artistic liberties will have to be excused, no one's trying to defame anyone's character or anything like that.
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Chapter 3:
"Hello?" she called. The shop was like an old fashioned market tent at some kind of foreign bazaar. Bizarre was right, anyway, there were so many strange things on the walls. She was eyeing a jar of purple eyeballs floating in some kind of clear fluid when there was a slap at the counter that made her jump.
"Yes, yes, how may I help you?" the man asked. He grinned. He was as bad as his shop; dark skin and eyes with a golden tooth like something out of Arabian Nights. She felt her face heating up just thinking about that book.
"I came to retrieve something for Vlad Tepes," she said.
"Aaah," the man said, "yes, very good, come with me."
She followed him past another curtain. This couldn't have been part of normal Paris there had to be something warding this place against normal Humani. She could just imagine a soccer mom taking her two kids in here and freaking out at some of the merchandize.
'Oh, little Timmy, don't look at the severed human hand! I never!'
It was all she could do not to laugh, but she couldn't help but smile to herself. The man blew a layer of dust off a chest in the back and opened it, lifting a brown-wrapped item and offering it to her. Anastasia took it.
"Thank you, how much is this?" she asked.
"Oh," he said, "there is no charge, I was only holding this particular item for Master Vlad while he…prepared for its usage. He brought it here in the first place and paid for its lodgings handsomely long ago."
"Okay," Ana said, "fair enough and thank you."
"Best you run along, pretty blond Russian girl," the man said.
She might have asked questions, but he was already ushering her out of the shop. The eyes in the clear liquid seemed to swivel to follow her as he pushed her out the door and when she turned around to comment on it, the shop was just gone.
Anastasia looked at the burlap wrapped parcel and back up at the spot in the street the shop used to be.
Today was just going to get weirder, she was sure. With a sigh, she felt along the edges of the parcel. It was rectangular like a box, but heavier than a box should be. She wanted very badly to see what she was supposedly risking her life to keep safe, but Vlad's words came back to her.
Was it really so important that this thing be kept safe? Who would even be looking for something so small?
"Oh," she muttered to herself, brow furrowing, "this is silly. No one is going to come after me for holding this thing."
"That my dear," a male voice said from the other end of the alleyway, "is where you're wrong."