by Declan Finn
“Most Wanted for what?”
She waved it away. “Oh, general troublemakers at the Cons. But there is one particular one, the Most Wanted troublemaker….well, actually, he’s best known as Middle Earth’s Most Wanted Elven Assassin.”
Sean blinked. Had he fallen through a rabbit hole and no one told him? “Middle Earth’s what?” He thought a moment, then sighed in relief. “Oh! The last time I made contact with an Elf, I held him off the edge of a New Jersey garbage scow, though he was part of the Earth Liberation Front. You do mean one of the eco-terrorists?”
She shook her head. “No. Tolkein. I think the whole title might be his proper name, but I can’t be sure. Not like anyone’s gotten on a first name basis with this guy. Consensus is he’s meshug, plugged himself into a Lord of the Rings marathon and couldn’t find the off switch. He fell through the TV screen, the looking glass, the wardrobe, the rabbit hole, a jump gate, a black hole, Hyperspace, and hasn’t stopped falling.”
I really hope this guy isn’t here…I don’t want to be taken out by a Keebler elf. “Has he killed anyone?”
She waved it away. “Not really, no…well, we’re not sure. There have been some really strange deaths at some conventions, usually odd accidents, but then, they could be accidents…like someone’s arrow could have been swapped with a real one by accident.” Ester laughed. “One thing we know about Mr. Most Wanted—he shoots arrows, real ones, and always gets around security. And he seems to hit what he aims for. Oh, and he looks like Orlando Bloom.” Ester then turned and waddled away.
Sean sighed, then leaned down and gently banged his head on the table.
***
Andre Dragov smiled at the surrounding area. The whole layout was quite humorous. What fool believed that any of these petty security arrangements could stop the likes of him and his men? After all, it was sheer madness to expect anything less than a small army to counter him and his trained killers.
He walked through the hotel lobby and pondered how many different ways he should have been stopped by now. He had walked in and out of the kitchen, the lobby, the dining hall, the staff-only sections, taken up a position behind the concierge’s desk, and stolen three different uniforms and pass keys, all within the past fifteen minutes.
What sort of joker do they have running this operation?
Then again, he was being too harsh, and he knew it. In fact, the lack of security around the hotel itself was either evidence that security was very stupid or very bright, possibly the latter—an idiot would have spread his resources evenly between the hotel and the convention center. But this bodyguard, Ryan, must have shifted his focus to the convention center as the primary area of attack.
So he at least understands what we’re going to accomplish.
Doesn’t mean that he’ll stop us.
What makes him think that he can stop us, by himself, anyway?
***
“Phantom 1 to Phantom 2, you spot the guy I described?” Edward Murphy asked from the car, knitting a blue baby blanket.
“Might’ve,” Athena Marcowitz answered. “Can’t be certain—too many costumes.”
Murphy looked up and around the parking lot. “I don’t see any new bogeys.” He paused briefly. “You think Sean’s calling the play right on this one, ’Thena?”
“You mean the Lone Ranger crap? Not a clue, Edward.”
Chuckle. “You spent how many years as Secret Service, and won’t even guess?”
“How many guys like Sean did you come across in your Special Forces career?”
He nodded to himself. “True enough. The man’s crazier than, well, anyone I’ve ever met. There are some jarheads I think match him pound-for-pound in creativity, lunacy, and utter destruction.”
“Didn’t know that jarheads could weigh so little.”
***
Sean Ryan flipped through the schedule on one side of the bar, and the guest booklet on the other. There was a panel on “Transferring life back into vampire movies” with someone from a company named Forever Night; a Hematological pathologist at Rockycreek; someone who claimed to be “a real vampire”; and Lee Kristoff, a frighteningly youthful-looking 95-year-old who had starred in the Clawhammer Films B-minus monster movies of the 1950s. He happened to be 6’5” and looked like he hadn’t aged since he was fifty, leading friends and fans alike to speculate on whether or not he was a vampire.
Another panel was entitled “Fantasy Franchise crossovers,” with three MBAs on how the Mad Russian bought Paramount Studios.
There were two other panels of interest: “How to use your DVD to insert yourself into Star Wars. Soon, the Force will be with you, too.”
And a panel on How to Make Bombs from Bisquick. I’ll have to stop by that one.
One section promised that, “With our new technology, we have assembled the Dead Actors society: a collection of all the copies of every image of every actor and sell them to one producer, who with CGI, can team up Leslie Howard with Telly Savalas and Keanu Reeves and make them the Three Musketeers, directed by Otto Preminger. Let’s see NASA top that! We have Clark Gable, Rudolph Valentino and Antonio Banderas in a sex comedy bachelor hunt starring Clydesdale Clinton.” The first movie they created was “Dracula, the Musical,” starring Karloff, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr., Bella Lugosi, and WC Fields; Vincent Price will be in the sequel with Mandy Patinkin as Igor.
Isn’t CGI wonderful?
There was also “Anger Management with Wolverine and the Hulk,” as well as “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Ethics and Comic Books,” and “History of Fantasy, Part I: Live Long and Prospero.”
With a double billing of Mel Brooks’ “History of the World, Part I”?
The next day had “History of Fantasy Part II: Prospero to Charmed.”
“Dum spiro, spero: science fiction as the genre of hope.”
“Going through the Universe with the Hubble Telescope under one arm.”
“Mugging the Muggles: the Lessons of Harry Potter marketing.”
“For the Pets: Woof 359.”
The guest list was an interesting and colorful assortment of individuals from all ages and decades of the science fiction spectrum.
Erin Green, an actress from an old black-and-white serial like Buck Rodgers or Flash Gordon, was the fairy princess after the happily ever after. Though she was in her 60s, her natural raven-black hair was still fighting off the gray strands for supremacy, as though she were fifty; her face hadn’t aged since she turned forty-two, and the mischievous sparkle in her lovely gray-green eyes hadn’t aged since she was an innocent teenager—teens were allowed to be innocent when she was growing up. This fairy princess had also grown up deadly: she was slotted to spend at least three hours teaching tai chi to the Con attendees; and rumor had it she was still in top physical condition (one of his clients had heard a sixth-degree rumor about her accidentally dropping a security guard when he'd surprised her).
Andreas Sarantakos, the G5 actor whose luggage had been assaulted in the lobby, had a rather flattering photograph and an interesting biography. Despite being Greek, he has been cast as innumerable Middle Eastern terrorists, a one-armed man of ill repute, an alien ambassador on G5, a street cop in Ragtime, as well as assorted roles scattered across Hollywood lots.
Lee Kristoff, the aforementioned 6’5” 95-year-old English actor with a history of starring in horror roles (where the writing was the main horror), also had a recent history of starring in Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, as well as a brief stint in the British Special Air Service during World War II. Sean even recalled meeting the man once; there wasn’t all that much involved in the two-minute fight scene, but Ryan only remembered thinking that he never wanted to get on that man’s bad side.
There was, of course, Eilerson and Peters, two polar opposites of the writers universe—one a jolly whack job, the other a cranky old bastard with all the personality of a serial killer, and manners of a German peasant who grew up to be an SS officer.
Per Sean’s request, not only had they inserted the text, they had also upgraded Mira’s status to Special Media Guest, which elevated her to the level in which she would get the most time on stage to herself with her audience, as well as being in darn near every panel she could be fitted onto without breaking the space-time continuum.
I hope whoever is out to get her is going to be even more pissed off. May you get angry and stupid, you bastards; the better for me to send you to Hell.
Someone clopped down on the bar stool next to him, and one on the other side. “Nice lady you got there, Sean,” Dennis Boyle said, tapping Mira’s photograph. “Isn’t she the one you’re protecting? If we helped you, would you consider our offer then?”
Ryan looked at Boyle’s bulging cheekbones and reddish-brown hair, noting that he hadn’t even tried to disguise himself. There was also no reason to look at the man on his other side, for he was certain that the blond Francis O’Riordan was there, horn-rimmed glasses and all. One had a shirt with Hannibal Lecter’s face in a mask, and the other wearing a “Scoundrel for Hire: 1-900-555-LOOT” shirt.
Sean turned his body so that his right forearm lay on the booklets, cocking his arm for a back-elbow. “And here I thought that IRA meant I Ran Away; you two are still here, despite encouragement otherwise.”
“They never were much to take a hint,” came another brogue-tinted voice from behind the two Irishmen.
Ryan smiled. “Boys, meet Maureen McGrail of Interpol, have you met yet?”
Sean threw back his elbow without warning, only to connect with empty air—Damn it! O’Riordan ducked!—the force of his swing propelled him around on the stool. The two would-be terrorists pushed him off the seat into McGrail. They leapt over the Cheers-like bar, then ran and leapt the other side.
Ryan rolled off McGrail to his feet, McGrail mirroring the move.
Sean: “Don’t you have a weapon?”
Maureen bolted after the larger men, calling over her shoulder, “I am a weapon!”
He briefly considered going after her, and paused. “To hell with it. She can have them. Still won’t be a fair fight…maybe I should help them.”
***
Boyle and O’Riordan had been raised in an area of West Belfast where running is a required aspect of the art of survival. They ran past a group of Trek fans dressed in cybernetic garb, gave them strange looks, which unfortunately managed to distract them enough so they ran into and bounced off what looked like a very tall and slender walking carpet.
“Damn Martians are everywhere, aren’t they?” Boyle muttered.
“They’re no stranger than you two,” McGrail stated from feet away.
The walking carpet bent down to help them off the floor, but each “terrorist” grabbed a hand and flipped him over their heads at McGrail, who deftly caught him.
“Damn buggers think they’re circus folk?”
The two lads were on their feet in a moment, and made for the lobby door. McGrail ripped a bicycle helmet off a guest trying to be RoboCop and hurled it at Boyle’s legs, hitting him behind the left knee. O’Riordan stopped and turned, ready to assist his comrade; only to find that McGrail was almost on them. Francis rushed a man dressed like a character from a Japanese animation cartoon, pushing him over and ripping the sword from his back. The poor guest tried to relieve him of the weapon, but the anime costume required enough metal armor to keep him pinned to the floor.
Boyle made it to his feet as a guest was arriving in a suit of armor for the medieval LARP game. Dennis smiled at him and said, “I’ll borrow this a moment, thanks.” He drew the sword from the guest's scabbard.
Ronald Gold, activist ACLU lawyer and friend to the common criminal nodded and said, “Okay.” He mentally prepared his defense should anyone try charging him with aiding and abetting later.
Maureen paused, glanced at them, then to the guest dressed as an adolescent martial arts amphibian of some repute and smiled. “Are those katanas real?”
The amphibian nodded and handed them to her. “They don’t have an edge, though.”
McGrail turned to the two hard men and slid into an easy fighting stance, holding both swords as though they were kendo sticks for a moment before whirling them in front of her in butterfly patterns, blurring them out of existence like a consummate professional with a black belt. She finished this display with a loud “Ha!”
The two lads blinked, looked at each other and shrugged before hurling their weapons at her and running out the door. She parried downward on each weapon, knocking them to the ground, and casting away both of her weapons before chasing after them. They were gone by the time she got outside.
She came back inside the hotel, and the lobby broke out in applause.
Chapter 4: The Day Of
Mira looked at her son, wondering if all babies had such sparkling eyes. Most parents found Marko either dangerously quiet or an object of envy.
Marko–the promise of having a child–was the main reason she left Zagreb. She wouldn't let any child of hers see his world torn apart, or have his friends abandon him because he believed that life was sacred, or that myths of blood and race were just myths. And for those reasons, she came to America. New York City was a fascinating place, but what had truly impressed her was the proximity of peoples to one another; all of the space in the entire country, they chose to live right next to one another—places like Chinatown and (what was it called?) Maspeth were for the comfort of new arrivals to stay with those that shared their ways, but it wasn’t necessary for survival. One place—Queens—even had 167 ethic groups speaking 117 different languages. The point was only brought home to her when she found a mosque, two Roman Catholic churches, a Greek Orthodox church, a synagogue, and a Buddhist Vijaya all in the same neighborhood. This was where she wanted to go for her son…
Mira smiled. She wanted to protect him ten years before he was conceived; she could only imagine that it would get worse from here.
“Hey,” Ryan whispered, “why are you up?”
Mira turned, noting his presence in the doorway, dressed in a securely-tied hotel robe. The digital clock said it was five in the morning. “I could not sleep, nerves before the convention. Why are you standing there?”
Ryan smiled. “I’m going to get an early start on security checkups for the Con, and I wanted to see two happy people before I left.” He chuckled softly when she cocked her head slightly and lowered her brows, and moved into the room so she could hear him better, sitting down next to her beside the crib. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly a very well-rounded person. I’m a great one for fighting, not…let’s put it this way, Inna is in the city, and I’m exiled to Long Island. I don’t like it when a continent separates us, and I like it even less when she’s so close, yet so far. I just wanted to see two people…happy with each other.”
Mira smiled. “Some would take that to mean you are insecure about her.”
Sean shook his head, amused. “No; you can’t know this, but I’m quite affectionate… It’s hard when you have no one to touch. The closest I’ll have to reaching out and touching someone today will be my palm and someone’s nose.”
Mira looked at him a moment. After coming to a conclusion, she reached out and patted Ryan’s cheek, then drew him in for a kiss on the cheek.
Sean merely sat there for a moment, mildly confused. “I…have to get…um, going…dressed for the day.” He stood and flowed
to the door like a loose-limbed cat, and stopped halfway there. He turned. “Thank you.”
***
Middle Earth’s Most Wanted Elven Assassin walked along the path of Rockycreek campus, longing to head into the woods. He wore a simple gray hooded cloak to conceal his identity from any obvious features. His weaponry was secured and his first day of reconnaissance looked like it would go perfectly.
“Hey, freak!”
He stopped for a moment, then realized he should have put his hood up before even getting out of the car.
Four college-age students approached him in an attack vector. They all wore t-shirts for something called “hockey.” The leader called out, “You up for a little fun, ET?”
“I am not ET.”
“Really? Well then, you got pointy ears, you must be a Vulcan.”
“No. I am a Mirkwood elf, not a Vulcan elf…in fact, I’ve never heard of them.”
They laughed. “Which means you have no green blood.”
The Elf smiled. “No elf does, but it’s possible they may be so isolated that by now they are a mutated strain of the elf gene pool.” The elf turned and started to head toward the convention hall.
“You running away? I wanted to see what color your blood was, freak.”
He sighed. I am an elf. I am the master of my environment. I am in control.
One of them grabbed his ear. “Shit! These are real! He really is a freak!”
The elf had one of his blades out so fast the teenager barely had time to scream. The blade was sharp, with a silver handle to match its shining silver sheen. Technically, it should have been a knife, but it was somewhere between a bowie knife, a cutlass, and a short sword.
The blade cut the air with a sharp whistle, much like the noise a rocket made as it came in for a landing. The tip of the knife cut off the very tip of the fingers pinching his ear. His aim was so precise that the bones of both fingers weren’t damaged, and the quick of each fingernail was intact.