by Declan Finn
***
Middle Earth’s Most Wanted Elven Assassin raised an eyebrow. Something was wrong, and the Ranger—he simply had to be a Ranger—had caught it almost as quickly as he himself would have. It had been a subtle attack, avoided only because as an Elf Lord, an assassin, and as a soldier, he never drank.
So, everyone got what they deserved for drinking, ha!
He blinked. If he never drank, why could he swear he knew what wine tasted like? He shook his head. No matter…
He slipped out of the room a moment and into the hallway. Given the powers of deduction from Ranger Ryan, he was half surprised he hadn’t been spotted. Granted, he slipped on a black wig and inverted his uniform to show a royal blue on the outside; but still, disguises can’t cover everything. The elf went outside the hotel, enjoying the fresh air.
Unfortunately, that was disrupted by a loud roar almost next to his ear.
He whirled, reaching for one of his knives, when something over six feet tall pounded out of the woods, charging right at him. It was covered in gold plastic armor, its face painted blue.
He paused and cocked his head as it continued its rampage. Maybe it’s harmless.
It stopped, spotted him, pickup up a fallen branch about the size of a small tree, and hurled it at him like a harpoon.
The elf dropped to a crouch, his forehead touching the asphalt. Then again…
He briefly debated if he should use his knives or his arrows, then didn’t care as he felt the Earth tremble from the approach of another giant. He leapt to one side as the creature stormed past, carrying a large, ugly-looking sword. This one wore black armor and green face paint.
The one in black kept charging, directly into the dining hall. The one in gold stayed behind, carrying a broadsword and charging at him, fast.
The elf left his weaponry alone and broke to his left, moving perpendicular to the attacker, moving for another corner of the building. The gold-plated beastie followed, charging blindly around the corner of the building, skidding to a stop. The elf was gone.
Actually, the elf had climbed up a drainpipe, and hung just inches above the giant’s skull.
He dropped on the armor-plated thug and slammed the pommels of both knives down into the base of his neck, driving them into the nerve centers where the neck joined the shoulders.
The giant slammed his head back, causing him to crash into the side of the hotel. The elf landed on his feet, and leapt forward before the giant could turn on him. He slashed and hacked away at the plastic armor, doing figure eights on the plastic, shredding it. When his attacker faced him, all he needed to do was kick, and the breastplate fell off. The giant paid no mind to this and hacked down with his sword.
The elf sidestepped the simple swipe and stabbed the giant’s solar plexus with the handle of his knife. All of the air went straight out of the larger fellow, and he crashed to the ground.
He shook his head and sheathed his blades. The Orcs just get bigger and dumber. I wonder what happened to the other?
***
Luan Mulliqi smiled as the bodyguard made his announcement about the antabuse salad dressing—being a good Muslim, he had not taken a drink in years.
He looked around and nearly laughed at all of the fools trembling in fear of their wine. Now they knew something about fear. He would have to teach them something a bit more detailed when he decided to end the whole affair.
He glared at Mira Nikolic. There was, of course, the problem of getting to her. Every attempt he had seen or heard about thus far had been smoothly intercepted by Sean Ryan. Bottle-throwers, one joker with a fake dagger, and he managed to quell an entire riot almost single-handed.
Then again, he sniggered, those infidels in Styrofoam cannot compare to one trained warrior like myself. How could I compare a man like me to these fools? I ethnically cleansed half the Serbians in Kosovo after the NATO troops arrived. I think I can get to that whore soon enough.
He smiled. And after that, we can continue to demolish the rest of the convention. He glanced at his watch. The explosives were most likely all placed by now. Once she died, there would be nothing left of C-Con.
***
Sean Ryan skipped off the stage and calmly walked back to his table, noting that half the room had emptied out, and the other half were calmly placing the carafes of wine on the floor, along with their wine glasses. And a fun time was ruined for all.
“What happened?” Mira asked.
“Eielson decided to be mean and scared away the illegals on staff.”
She sighed. “Yes, I have heard it is often like that with him.”
“This is your first convention with him?”
She nodded. “It is the first time I’ve seen him since G5 went off the air. Hopefully, it will be my last.”
“Well, your luck couldn’t hold out forever.”
Five minutes into the costume judging ceremony, Sean blinked, looking at someone who had come wearing a 4x4x4 Borg cube over himself, exposing his legs only below the knees, and the rest of his body only above the neck. Looking closer at the guest, Mira and Ryan realized that Mitchell Scholl was the guest in question.
“I guess I know what he’s been up to.”
He shook his head firmly and turned back to his meal, only a few minutes later to be disturbed again. It was obvious someone was having a bad reaction to the drug-laden salad when he stumbled from his chair, tripped his way across the floor and fell to the ground, gripping his chest. Sean was the first to his side, and checked for a pulse.
“In severe reactions, there may be...cardiovascular collapse…myocardial infarction…congestive heart failure…convulsions, and death.”
“Damn it; not funny. Call a doctor! 911! In that order!” His hands moved to the guest’s chest, and he was thankful CPR was in the bodyguard manual.
“Out of the way!” barked Mitch, leaping from the stage. Ryan rocked back on his heels, allowing Scholl room to break the Borg cube open; Scholl dropped to his knees, reached into the cube, and whipped out a defibrillator. He tapped it to the man’s chest, barking, “Clear!”
The electrical charge made the man jump and his clothes start to smoke a little. After throwing a tablecloth on the small flames, Ryan ripped the man’s shirt off and Scholl shocked him yet again, bringing him back to life.
Ryan nodded, looking from the newly resurrected to the defibrillator. “Why the hell did you install that into, well, that thing?”
“The defibrillator in the cube? Given your penchant for shooting people, I figured it might be nice to bring someone back from the dead if need be.”
Sean Ryan blinked. “You have so little confidence in my ability to throw myself in front of Mira?”
Scholl shook his head. “I have lots of confidence; that’s why I brought it.”
Ryan’s next sentence was interrupted by the arrival of the house Physician's Assistant, checking out the patient’s heart rate. Sean was about to say something else, but Scholl had already turned to repack the defibrillator, and the appropriate atmosphere for his intensely sappy sentiment had evaporated like Irish mist.
He rose and moved back to the table, lest someone decide to use the moment as a distraction. He knew there was supposed to be a balance between his work as a bodyguard and a security consultant, but one of these days, he’d figure it out.
When it came time for the dancing, most of the clientele had returned to their seats, figuring that they had paid good money and they’d rather not start an argument with the head of security in the room—besides, everyone wanted to fill their heads with fun in order to expunge any memory of recent problems. The incredible shrinking attention span of New Yorkers did not hurt, either.
Goran tried to hand Marko off to Sean, who held the child very stiffly, only relaxing after a few moments, and frankly wanted to pass the kid off to someone else, so he would have access to his weaponry at any given moment.
“Why don’t you give him to me?”
Sean turned and he want
ed to hug Inna firmly. “Hey, you.” He transferred the child to her, kissing her forehead and both cheeks. “Why’d you come? It’s late.”
“Because I knew you would be going crazy.”
“You could say that. I lost Mira, had to put down a riot…this has been real fun.”
“Inna, I didn’t know you had a kid,” said a male voice from the side.
The couple turned toward the newcomer, a six foot blond male, slightly overweight, with silver-framed glasses unsuccessfully hiding a somewhat bemused look. His black T-shirt had a drawing of a wizard’s library, complete with a wizard sitting at his desk, and a brilliant red-scaled dragon coming out of the wizard’s Personal Computer.
This guy has to be a writer, Sean thought.
“Hey…there!” Inna said, not trusting herself to call him by the right name.
He smiled, nodded toward Sean. “He your stuntman?” She affirmed it. “Then you can call me Matthew, I wouldn’t want you to have any secrets from him. After all you two have been through, it would be a shame to start because of me.”
Sean looked from one to the other. “Someone let me in on the joke?”
The writer offered a hand. “I use a pen name at these professional functions; my real name is Matthew Kovach.”
Ryan shook hands, making several quick connections. “So your books are about you, or are you just using your real name as a character?”
“They’re about my interesting endeavors thus far. Trust me, I’ve got several stories to tell you won't believe when they finally come out; so I changed my name, and those of most of the principals, to avoid being sued.”
“Where’s Moira?” Inna asked him.
Matthew Kovach smiled. “Parking the car. If you’d like me to hold the kid, be happy to. What’s his name?”
“Marko Lav Nikolic.”
Matthew blinked, recognizing the last name, then looked out at the dance floor at Mira and Goran. “Let me guess who your client is, Mr. Ryan…” He smiled. “I’ll hold onto the baby; you two, go dance. You need to be near your client, and, frankly, from what I recall, you don’t get enough time together as it is.”
Inna raised a brow. “And Moira…?”
Kovach’s eyes lit up. “We dance all the time, vertically, horizontally, diagonally. We can sit one out.”
Sean nodded, trying to decode “diagonally” when Inna took his hand and dragged him to the dance floor.
There was, of course, something wrong. As he danced with Inna, he felt amorous enough to take her to the hotel room and not emerge for a week—always a sign of approaching danger, in his experience of Murphy’s Law of Mating.
This problem came in the form of another, very large individual—or maybe he only appeared large, after dealing with so many super-sized persons wearing Godzilla outfits. The large man wore alien makeup from a science fiction media outlet unknown to Sean, carrying what looked like a bowie knife—maybe a machete, he could never tell without close examination of the blade. Then again, all big knives look the same when you see them from the business end. Had this been the convention, he would have broken off dancing with Inna and evicted him personally; however, peace bonds were not required within the hotel because the hotel staff were not smart enough to make it a law to have long, sharp objects bound to the individual in such a way it couldn’t be used.
Next time, maybe they’ll be smart enough to listen to me, maybe.
He changed the direction of the dancing to put him and Inna between Mira and this latest genetic anomaly. Thankfully, the anomaly glanced about the room, as though searching for something to break. Sean wanted to compulsively check his Ranger badge to see if the knife was properly loaded.
The Thing let out a roar and leapt toward the nearest table, slicing down on it with a loud “Hulk Smash!”
Sean glance at it as it destroyed the furniture. Whatever it was, it was definitely in the wrong costume, and, even worse, using the wrong weaponry—the Hulk was bigger, greener, and didn’t use weapons.
The song changed, and the speakers began to belt out the theme music from the TV show Trek: Enterprise. The Hulk thing didn’t seem to like the music, and, with an offended air, hurled the bladed weapon directly into the stereo system, buried into the speaker so deeply it came out the back.
“That’s what I call good taste.”
Sean saw several of his Orange Shirts look warily at it, then Sean, and back, as if trying to figure out how many cables it would take to subdue this possible party crasher and tie him down. Unfortunately, the number of brave Lilliputians was limited. He sighed, told Inna he’d be right back, and whirled out of her arms toward the thing.
Wait a moment, isn’t the Thing part of the Fantastic Four?
There was, of course, the slight issue of Ryan going up against something four times his size—twice as tall, twice as wide—but he decided to ponder the logic or illogic of it later, depending on whether or not he lived through the idea. He noted points of vulnerability, finding none evident; the immediate nerve centers—solar plexus, biceps, elbow, behind the ear, knee, nose, instep, groin—were covered by black plastic, and he didn’t want to see how long it would take to strip it all off, considering its arm span.
“Hello, sir, are you sure you wouldn’t like to try the service before you go about breaking things?”
It looked own at him curiously, as though examining a new life form.
“I’m not that interesting. It’s time to leave now, sir.”
After another brief roar, he sighed. “Fine, let’s do it the hard way.”
Try not to shoot the guests, shall we?
He looked down at the shattered table and smiled. He pointed to one of the waiters he didn’t like and said, “Hulk smash him.”
The thing blinked, looked at the waiter, and the thought of removing the waiter from this existence seemed to appeal to him. He slowly skulked his way toward the oblivious waiter, and once he passed Sean, the bodyguard took up the flat tabletop of the former piece of furniture and hefted it with relative ease.
You break it, let’s see if you can take it.
Unfortunately, as he hurled the broken piece of furniture, the thing turned just enough to let its arm take the brunt of the blow. There was a crack as something shattered, but Ryan couldn’t tell if it was a broken arm, or the plastic armor cracking; either way, the thing turned, glaring at Sean evilly.
So much for “when in doubt, hit it with something big.”
The second problem quickly became apparent—now, most people would simply lean back and watch, thinking the table was a prop, and this a floor show. By the time anyone figured differently, the sight of Sean’s battered body would discourage even the bravest New Yorker—not to mention he had already hit it with the heaviest object in the room. And even if I call in Murphy and Athena for backup, I’ll be dead by then.
And then a plate came flying out from nowhere, striking the giant directly between the eyes. The thing blinked, then looked at the thrower: Inna Petraro.
Sean’s eyes narrowed at the giant looked at her menacingly. Wanna bet, pal?
A hand came out and stayed Inna’s next throw. Matthew Kovach, baby in one hand, whispered into her ear. She nodded, and they both reached for carafes of water before throwing them before the giant. It blinked, and Ryan was just as confused. It stepped forward slowly, wary of what was happening, and it stepped in the pool of water.
Kovach looked off to one side at Mitch Scholl. “Now!”
Sean and the giant looked at the Borg cube, now open, and the defibrillator paddles flying through the air.
Landing in the puddle of water the giant had stepped in.
For a long moment, the giant stopped, vibrating as the electricity fried large parts of its synaptic pathways. Unfortunately, he was apparently filled with so many drugs, crystal meth, his synapses had already been fried. And once the batteries ran out, it staggered forward, blinking, but standing.
Damn it, Sean thought. I’m going to have to sh
oot him.
He reached for the small of his back, and leapt away from the attacker’s charge, drawing the gun anyway. The thing plowed into the wall and turned back, snarling. The bodyguard half-pivoted on the ball of his foot and sprang up onto the empty walkway, hoping to keep people out of his way. He heard a faint jingling above him, and spotted a chandelier still vibrating from the thing’s impact with the wall.
He grinned and looked down at the rampaging annoyance. At the last moment, Sean back-flipped, both feet catching the giant under his chin. Sean landed as the giant faltered slightly. Sean raised his gun as the giant shook his head clear.
“It’s Phantom of the Opera time!” he cried, and fired twice into the chandelier.
The creature stepped back before the chandelier fell. Sean beamed, took a running leap off the end of the stage, over the chandelier, and landed a kick directly into his combatant’s chest, crushing the plastic armor. Sean dropped to one knee as the attacker swiped at him. He pulled out his telescoping staff and hit the release button. The weapon sprang open. One end slammed directly into the plastic armor between the giant’s legs. It blinked, then its eyelids fluttered before the eyes rolled back into its head and it collapsed.
A moment of silence preceded thunderous applause. Mira and Inna appeared on either side of him, pulling him off the floor; the blond man who introduced himself as Matthew Kovach appeared on one side of the creature. On the other side a redhead appeared, wearing a tight black T-shirt with the image of a broadsword on the front, only it was wrapped in a vine which grew roses. Sean assumed this was “Moira” of the parked car.