It Was Only on Stun!

by Declan Finn

  Ryan smiled, remembering those incidents. I wonder if I could ever get a spot on one of these things…

  When it came to a question about improvisations on the set, Andreas Sarantakos answered it for everyone: “Improvisations? As the Mad Russian said, ‘I am God, and I don’t want no stinking actors messing with my script.’ Heck, who am I kidding? Mira and I are the only ones who read the scripts, everyone else just read their part.”

  Erin Green agreed and added, “When you disagree with a writer, and you will, be sure to do it in such a way that doesn’t drive him into a temper tantrum.”

  At five to seven, the missing actors finally arrived. The audience booed, on cue, and they replied by giving the audience two very enthusiastic middle fingers. Once everyone settled down, Steven Cartier said, in a thick French accent, “We expected that. Fucking Americans.”

  At that, Andreas Sarantakos left, timing it just right to make it seem as though he were insulted, not that he needed a smoke—he had endured the Frenchman for long enough on the set of G5, and could take anything he could dish out.

  Someone from the audience raised a hand. “A question for Mr. Cartier, a hard one.”

  The Frenchman smiled. “Give it to me hard.”

  “If you had a time machine, would you go backward or forwards in time?”

  He smiled. “I’d only go back in time twenty years if I could put money in a savings account and then come back to today.”

  Another question: “What was the weirdest piece of fan mail you ever received?”

  Erin Green laughed. “Someone foresaw my doom based on the alignments of the planets and a medicine chart I didn’t know I had.”

  Cartier shook his head. “There was a woman who wanted me to sign her stomach once, and she said that her boyfriend was coming back that night; my autograph would look like ‘Steven Cartier was here.’ ”

  Mira rolled her eyes. “That is almost as bad as one man who wanted me to sign his forearm. He had the autograph tattooed over that evening.”

  Lee Kristof laughed. “Everyone has signed flesh at one point… I may even have autographed that particular young man.”

  Another question: “Is there any part you never got to play?”

  Cartier jumped on that. “I wanted to play Jesus once, but I realized I already did. My character on G5 walked around in robes, carried a staff, gave his life for another, and was a 35-year-old virgin. I told the Mad Russian I wanted to have them open the cryogenic freezer and have it empty! Then he said ‘I am God, and you’re not my son.’ ”

  The final segment of the studio also mimicked the real Actor’s Studio with a list of questions. What is your favorite curse word?

  Erin Green: “Fuck…it’s also my favorite activity. Look, there’s my son in the back row; he’s so cute when he’s embarrassed.”

  Cartier merely said, “Fuck is such a useful word.”

  Mira blushed a moment and said something in Croatian and refused to translate.

  Lee Kristoff leaned forward into the microphone and said, in a deep reverberating voice, “God damn,” and leaned back.

  “What turns you on?”

  Cartier: “Mountain climbing, because I’m a hard man.”

  Lee gave Mira a glance, smiled, and said nothing. She blushed. Erin Green merely looked from Kristoff to Cartier with a twinkle in her eye.

  “What is your favorite sound?”

  Mira: “The sound of my baby.”

  Cartier: “The rustle of money.”

  Ryan smiled. The bad guy screaming as he sees me coming.

  “If there is a Heaven, what do you want God to say when you get there?”

  “Oh, that myth!” Cartier scoffed. “Come on in!”

  Erin Green said, “Welcome back.”

  Lee grinned. “I’m going to take a vacation, would you like to take over?”

  Mira smiled. “There are some people I would like you to meet.” Her eyes twinkled darkly. “I’d also like you to see the list of who aren’t here.”

  Ryan smiled. That’s the sort of attitude I like to see in my clients.

  The cameras turned off, and he relaxed, even though there were rules about such things, but he didn’t know what to do; he had been so sure the entire evening was going to end in utter devastation with a shootout of unknown proportions and now…

  There were other things to worry about at the moment: that vague force he had called the third party, not to mention the gunman who had nearly killed him just the night before, as well as the body found in the zocalo room that morning.

  Step one, secure Mira…then call in Murphy and Athena; I’m sure they could use a break from the monotony. Step two, visit the vampire’s ball and collect information on our dearly departed. Step three, visit zocalo room, see if I missed something. Step four, open on Broadway, and before you can say “step five”, we close on Broadway…too many viewings of The Producers.

  ***

  Luan Mulliqi looked at the man in the tin suit, and wondered how fast he could kill him and Mira. He looked at his watch. His men had indeed wired the building to explode, but, alas, the others had not put the final explosives in place.

  He sighed, and looked at all the TV cameras, his heart nearly breaking at the lost opportunity. He had even had friends of his set the VCR to record the assassination live, you could never trust the infidel news to show something gruesome unless it was an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

  Oh well. He settled back and popped some caramels into his mouth. Gee, those were good.

  Chapter 9: Blood Suckers

  The Vampire’s Ball had been arranged in a hall on campus, inside of a building that hadn’t been clearly marked. Even in the schedule, it was the only part of the layout not named specifically by location; there were only directions on how to get to the ball, not the building.

  Once inside, however, Sean could see why—no one wanted the guests to be able to know the campus actually held such a place.

  The main hall was essentially a very large box—walls, floors, and ceilings had been painted a high-gloss black, and he was only able to tell that from the occasional flash of strobe lights, whose intensity threatened to blind him, and they were set to the fast-moving beat of a modified “Strangers in the Night”, meant for the heavy-metal set. The situation was not helped by the artificial fog, created with lots of dry ice placed at the windows, located high enough off the ground so the normal student body couldn’t escape through them.

  As he scanned his surroundings, one thing was perfectly clear: he was dressed for the wrong occasion. The entire room was dressed in black suit jackets, capes, and some of them in full tuxedos, dressed in the fashion of the original Bella Lagosi vampires of the old films.

  And they’re all dressed mysteriously like our corpse…I have this feeling I know where he meant to be tonight. Sean looked down at his Borg outfit and sighed heavily. He would have to change, but the only thing he had was the Spider-Man outfit under his Borg armor.

  He looked up and spotted the bar menu posted on the wall. Bloody Marys, blood wine—Isn’t that Klingon?—and something called “I do not drink…Wine.” Don’t ask.

  “I think you’re in the wrong place, buddy.”

  Sean turned around, and then he looked up so high his neck ached. The deep, cavernous voice had belonged to a man that made Goran Nikolic look small. His hair was raven black, his eyes a deep blood red, and he seemed to blink in and out of existence with the flashing of the strobe lights. But the most notable feature were the glistening silver horns and the matching set of fangs, dripping with saliva.

  “No, I’m not. Do you know Juan Alvarez?”

  “No.”

  “He had a stake driven through his heart this morning. Unless you want to join him—”

  The thing that everyone knew as “Goliath” raised one giant arm and swung down. Sean raised the Borg arm and grabbed him at the wrist with the pincer. Goliath grinned evilly and pulled back and up, r
aising Ryan off the ground.

  Ryan smiled. “Why don’t you learn some manners, watch a Dracula movie or something? He, at least, had better English.” Using the stun gun built into the arm, Ryan shocked him. Goliath stumbled back, but was still strong enough to hold Sean in the air. Ryan shocked him again, holding the button down until his feet were on the floor, hoping the large vampire-esque person would back away. He stumbled backwards a little, but seemed to straighten on his feet. Ryan was about to hit him with the tazer darts, but someone grabbed him from behind. He twisted away and leveled the arm at the new arrival, right before he swung at him. Ryan fired a dart into the man’s shoulder, delivering a thorough charge, knocking him back a bit, but he was still standing. He fired yet another set of darts, but these had no effect at all.

  Could I be out of charge already? I guess I used more power on demon boy back there than I thought…speaking of which…

  Ryan pivoted, snapping the metallic arm directly across Goliath’s face. He delivered a right cross to his face, then threw himself back, into the stomach of the more recent arrival, and brought the weapon up, slamming into his face with the closed pincers. He fired an elbow into his solar plexus, and finished the job with a direct downward stroke of the armored arm.

  He rushed out of the room to the tune of “I’ve got you under my skin”, and entered in his Spider-Man suit as they sang “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.”

  Should I start singing “Angel of the Morning” and piss everyone off?

  Ryan looked over the room, finding it odd no one had yet noticed him in the bright red-and-blue suit, or that he had taken down two of their number.

  “We’re not done with you yet,” a voice said from behind him.

  Then again… “Come on, bloodsuckers, I’ve dealt with the IRS, I can take you!”

  Ryan dove sideways, slipping around two sets of dancers—he would have gone between them, but they were busy mating in a vertical position. He ducked and rolled toward the wall, then ran. He took one step up the wall and pushed off, intercepting Goliath’s face with his palm—only he had forced his palm farther back than usual, forcing the ammonia gun on his wrist to release a wide spray, catching Goliath’s face.

  Ryan landed, rolled to his feet, quickly spotted the man’s companion and fired around three sets of dancers and directly into his eyes with a narrow-focus blast. Their screams were lost in the howling from the Dances With Werewolves rock video.

  Unfortunately, he turned to the dance floor, and noted that, while the music still played, the dancers had stopped, staring at him, most of them with fangs and/or horns.

  He yelled, “Convention security,” only to discover he couldn’t hear his own voice for the banging music. He scanned the crowd, desperate to find Morrie, or anyone else he knew. Instead, he was lost in a sea of fangs, fog, and darkness, punctuated by blinding lights.

  I’m expecting one of these Count Chocula types to yell “The light, the light!”

  He glanced behind him for the way out, and saw a group of newcomers on approach. His first instinct was to rush them and break into the open hallway, but their eyes immediately fell on him as the most colorful object in the room.

  The next music video was set to the tune of “The Monster Mash.” Ryan smiled beneath the mask, thinking, I’m not going to die to music such as this.

  He slid back into an easy silat fighting stance, and hoped he had enough ammonia cartridges. Maybe it will last a little longer than the battery on Mitch’s stun toy.

  There was a tall vampire in the front of the crowd that seemed eager to make the first move, and dashed toward him. Ryan grinned and ran toward him, as well. The oncoming vampire slowed, but Ryan kept coming. Before he could slam into the vampire at full speed, he threw himself upwards in a back flip, the toe of his shoe catching the vampire under one of his double chins.

  As some of the obviously insane charged, Ryan let himself have fun, firing blows to the tune of “The Monster Mash” amidst the vampires.

  The next video involved taking the theme from the vampire soap opera Dark Shadows and turning it into a hip-hop version with lyrics by Will Smith. Ryan’s next assailant was a man holding a sword high above his head. Ryan blinked, wondering how he got that past security, and realized the sword was still fastened to the sheath, and the sheath to the belt—the vampire had merely taken off his belt. He chopped down, meaning to properly club Ryan into submission.

  Ryan answered by charging the attacker, his left arm raised straight into the air. His arm met the wrist of the attack, and his straight arm guided the attacker's arm past Ryan's skull. Sean Ryan dropped his arm to wrap around the attacker's, then fired a kick between the swordsman’s legs. While the vampire became cross-eyed, Ryan chopped him behind the ear with the flat of his hand.

  The sword was thrown aside, and Ryan backed up to the wall to make sure no one could outflank him. He felt something odd and felt the wall, noting cracks that were deep enough to put his hand in. He smiled. It was a wall of bleachers, meant to slide out away from the wall, hidden when unneeded. Ryan fired two brief bursts of wide ammonia spray to keep people back, and quickly scurried up the wall. He looked down once he was twenty feet in the air, and could barely make out the dancing figures beyond. Apparently, only a small group of people was even aware of his existence, and an even smaller body who cared.

  I’m so glad I like mountain climbing.

  Sean Ryan reached into his belt, ejected a throwing knife from the buckle, and used it to help his grip on the bleachers as he made his way across the wall, towards the stage. There was a somewhat large assailant glaring at him all the way.

  I draw the line at acting in character when I have to walk up walls.

  Once he reached the sound system, he climbed down, greeted by the red-eyed stares of fanged and horned vampires who thought he was a little odd. He strode over to the disc jockey and tapped him on the shoulder. He drew a line across his own throat indicating that he should cut the music. The jockey shrugged and shook his head. Ryan sighed, leaned over, and turned the entire sound system off.

  “I’m Sean Ryan, head of convention security.”

  The DJ glared, used to volunteers running security at these things. “So what?”

  Ryan’s gaze flickered to the man’s horns. “Are those implants?” Ryan grabbed a horn, twisting it, making the DJ jerk in pain. “I guess they are. Listen to me, you petty little Serf of Darkness, I’m looking for anyone who knew Juan Alvarez. Did you?”

  “No one knew Juan, he just dealt out a little powder to the Recovery Room, a little at vamp cons. He just came to make a profit. Let me go,” the vampire squealed.

  “You have a sample of his stuff?”

  The DJ dug into his pocket and handed him a little dime bag.

  Ryan turned the music back on and walked out to “Fangs for the Memories.”

  Once he stepped outside in the fresh night air, he slid off his mask and made certain the area was empty before taking out the packet of white powder. He opened the dime bag and dipped a gloved finger inside. He raised it to his tongue and felt the quick numbing of cocaine. He slowly closed his mouth and inhaled gently, trying to scent any of the cutting factors in the mix. He had learned from a DEA consultant how to narrow down the chemist by the chemicals used to decrease the potency and increase the amount.

  Bitter taste of Sweet & Low, the sweet smell of Equal, and just a hint of baking soda aftertaste. “Son of a bitch.” Ryan placed the bag on the nearest bench and pulled his cell phone from the small of his back, dialing the numbers from memory.

  “Find anything interesting?”

  Damn! Ryan looked to his right as Detective McGauren came from the direction of the vampire’s ball. The intimidating blonde wore a long raincoat against the evening chill, and her long hair glittered in the rays of the moon.

  He tapped the dime bag. “Yes, you can listen in on my phone call. I know exactly what’s going on. Remember Zorro from this morning?”

 
; McGauren nodded. “I heard. I figured he was the bottle thrower from yesterday.”

  Ryan grinned sheepishly as the phone rang. “So did I, but it couldn’t have been. Zorro’s eyes were brown; the bottle-thrower's were blue.”

  ***

  In California, the party had only just begun. There were the usual suspects: blondes, brunettes, heavy hitters, directors, drug dealers (only the respectable ones), and a few up-and-coming actors.

  As she towered over the guests wearing nothing but flats, the blonde Claudia Ryan felt exceptionally lucky to have made it this far. Granted, her contacts within the movie world were just as exceptional—her father was known by almost everybody, and then there was “Sean’s director,” Steven—but this was an actual Hollywood fundraiser, and you had to be someone to get into this.

  I only wish I knew what the hell it’s a fundraiser for.

  Her eyes caught the banner…it was a fundraiser to ban SUVs. She looked down at the Persian carpeting of the twenty-thousand-square-foot living room. It was inconceivable that this many people, taking so many limousines, wanted to put up a fight over a dead issue. First there had been the environmental arguments, then the argument that they tipped over, then “What Would Jesus Drive,” and finally, that they fund terrorism; however, it seemed everything destroyed the environment, every car tipped over at the right speed with a stupid driver, Jesus would drive something big enough to fit all His Apostles, and if gasoline funded terrorism via Saudi Arabia, then the simple solution was to buy from American and British gasoline companies … or from Iraq.