A Mysterious Room
By Alina S. Howell
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Alina S. Howell
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The photograph in Max's hand showed a handsome, scholarly looking man. Probably in his mid to late twenties with blond hair, piercing blue eyes and skin a deathly shade of white. This was to be expected though, since the man in the photo was a vampire.
It surprised Max. With his admittedly limited knowledge of vampires, he was fairly certain you couldn't take pictures of them. At least, Hollywood movies had led him to believe things like that and Hollywood was, sadly, the source of most of his vampire knowledge. But with the photo in his hand, it seemed like Hollywood had gotten another legend wrong. After some reflection, he realized it wasn't that surprising since they also got a lot of things wrong about werewolves.
Max skimmed over the remaining contents of the file folder he'd been given. The man in the photo, his target, was named Daniel Johansen. His age was listed as “150+?” which still struck Max as strange despite everything he knew about him. The rest of the file contained a couple more sheets of paper that barely expanded on what the pack had already told him.
He closed the folder after removing Daniel's photo. Max studied it intently for a few minutes, attempting to memorize Daniel's face, then stuffed it in his pocket. His new pack had told him that Daniel would likely be opening his bookstore around eight tonight. The file had said it was a specialty bookstore that only sold Mystery novels. It would seemingly only be open on random days and for obvious reasons, only at night. It said that Daniel ran it as a hobby. Rumor had it that he'd made a small fortune from good investments shortly before he became undead. He also had six different degrees in things ranging from History to Organic Chemistry.
If Max was to be honest with himself, he would say that Daniel sounded like an interesting person. The kind of person he'd like to have a drink with. Having lived for so long, Daniel undoubtedly had a million stories to tell. The fact that he was also good looking was just icing on the cake as far as Max was concerned.
Best to stop thinking along those lines anyway.
He lamented that nothing could ever happen between them. The worst of it was that this never would've been an issue in his hometown. There were some vampires around but they never bothered the local werewolves and the werewolves, in turn, never bothered the vampires. After accepting a new job and moving halfway across the country, Max discovered that his new pack had problems with their local vampires. They hadn't elaborated on what the problems were exactly, but they demanded that Max go spy on one of them.
“They know all of our faces so you're the only one who can do this,” the alpha had said. “This guy, Daniel, acts as something of a treasurer for the higher up vampires. There's some indication that he's hiding valuable documents in his bookstore. It's unlikely that you'll be able to grab them while he's there so don't bother trying. Just watch him for awhile. Look around. See if you can find some likely hiding places.”
Max entered the bookstore shortly after eight. It occupied the street level of what was otherwise, an unremarkable two story building. The inside, however, was completely different. It didn't look like any bookstore Max had ever seen before. It was more like some rich guy's personal reading room. On one side of the room, there was a fine set of plush chairs arranged artfully atop an expensive looking rug. The floors were a rich, dark wood. The bookshelves were made out of matching wood and lined the walls. Only a few books were displayed prominently on a couple shelves but they looked more like museum pieces than something for sale. The whole place was rather dimly lit for a bookstore as well. Max felt uneasy. Like he had broken into someone's home. There was a distinct feeling that he shouldn't be there. It was made all the worse by the fact that the store was empty.