Set to Kill: A Sean AP Ryan Novel (Convention Killings Book 2)

by Declan Finn

  The problem was the people taking the pictures as they cluttered the walkway.

  Sean pushed his way through, finally getting through to the smaller meeting room on the other side of the atrium.

  Oy. That wasn't insane or anything.

  Sean took a position by the door, nearest the platform. The room was a small conference room, big enough for about a hundred people. There were only a few standing in the back. It was at least bigger than the last one, over in the International Tower.

  “Hi, I'm Matthew Kovach, and I am the author of The Pius Trilogy, where I review the UN assault on the Vatican last year. I'm the author of Catholic vampire novel Honor At Stake, and I'm currently writing the sequels to those books.”

  Jesse James, still in a tan kilt, seemed to start awake from a sleeping position. “I'm Jesse James. And I've written a coupla books.”

  Next to him, Rachel Hartley poked him with her tactical umbrella. “Oh stop it.”

  James laughed. “Well, I've been writing since 2000, and I've done,” he paused and thought it over a bit. “Actually, the anthology I did last month, makes it 53 books. And it also makes me … an editor… dun dun dun!”

  Next to him, Gary Castelo chuckled, and rolled his eyes. “Hello, my name is Gary Castelo, I write the Creature Killer Global series—”

  He was cut off by a thunderous round of raucous applause. Jesse James kept clapping after everyone else had stopped.

  Castelo laughed. “Thanks, Jesse, your check is in the mail.”

  “Who's that guy?” someone from the audience asked, pointing to Sean, standing off in the corner.

  “The man behind the curtain,” Hartley said, “pay him no mind.”

  “I don't,” Kovach joked, “and I know him.”

  After Rachel Hartley introduced herself, the first question was on creating magic.

  Hartley was the first one to answer. “One of the things with magical powers is that there are always three archetypes. From the Almighty of some sort, from nature and from without, or from within the person themselves.”

  Kovach nodded. “Yeah, And in the cases where the authors try to explain the source of the magic, it's usually just an attempt to not violate the first law of thermodynamics. Some don't even try to explain.”

  Jesse James took the mic. “Something I picked up while editing is that there are different paradigms of writing. Fantastic realism is what most people consider fantasy. It doesn't go into the details of the magic, like where it comes from and if it has rules. Very little in horror, for example, has rules.”

  Castelo sighed. “Yes, but if you have no rules, then it's too easy to cheat. In Doctor Who, they have the sonic screwdriver, which seems capable of doing practically anything. It's a magic wand.”

  James shrugged. “The classic example that everyone still likes, but drives me insane, is JK Rowling. She pulls stuff out of her butt every book. They talk about how 'Oh, we do X or Y event or thing every year,' when you're writing about the third and fourth year and no one has ever heard about it?”

  Hartley wobbled her hand back and forth a little. “Yes, but Harry Potter is very much like a murder mystery, you only use what is needed for the narration.”

  James leaned forward, “Well, as far as rules go, if you look at fantasy from the later 1800s to the early 1900s, there were no rules … except for Lovecraft, where Cthulhu will eat you …everything else was Calvin Ball, and make it up as you go. After World War II, you had J.R.R. Tolkien and Lord of the Rings, and it has rules all over. Now, I don't have an IQ of 195, and I'm not an IT guy, but my one claim to geek cred is that I have read The Silmarillion, twice, and trust me, there are rules. And there are rules for rules.”

  Hartley: “If you take a genre like Urban Fantasy, it better have rules, because it has to fit in with our everyday life. If vampires and werewolves are running around, why don't we see them? It would all fall apart without rules. In Lord of the Rings, the rules make the world.”

  Gary Castelo nodded. “Even when they don't spell it out, you can see the rules in action. They never implicitly say that wizards are meant to inspire and heal instead of manipulate and conquer, but you just watch Gandalf against Saruman, and you know this.”

  Kovach leaned forward into the mic and added, “There, it's largely from the point of view of the Hobbits, who have no magic, so the rules are all mysterious, so they have to be explained to the Hobbits, and to us.”

  “Then Peter Jackson screws Faramir again,” Jesse James griped.

  The next question was simple: “What about when there are cheats built into the magic system?”

  Jesse James: “Like Signs?”

  Kovach frowned. “There are occasions where you can have something that doesn't fit into the magic system; you can explain it over the course of the book, figuring out why that happened. It has an element of the plot.”

  James looked at Kovach. “Or it becomes sparkly?”

  “Not in my books,” Kovach muttered. “Anyway, I always have two lists. One is the rules of magic—in my case, with vampires—and the other is what is known about magic within the universe.”

  “But that's until you get to Quantum physics,” James corrected. “It's freaking weird. Observed, something is a wave; unobserved, it's a particle. If you look at magic in a scientific manner, it disappears.”

  “There are occasions when it looks like cheating within the story, but it isn't,” Castelo interjected. “There is a scene in the movie Dark Crystal, where a boy has, for the first time, met one of his own kind, a girl, and they are trapped at the edge of this cliff. Suddenly, she spreads her wings and flies them to safety. At this point, I'm thinking That's a cheat right there. When they land, though, the boy says How come I don't have any wings? And she says, Of course not, you're a boy.”

  Rachel Hartley laughed, and added, “Also, magic can be changed by anything you like to be: different regions, age, soil, sex; change any of that, and you can get different magic.”

  “Also by their actions,” Kovach added. “Like the way I do vampires in Honor At Stake—people are formed by their actions, and thus warps their abilities. Also, I stole it from a Star Wars videogame.”

  James laughed. “Knights of the Old Republic?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thought so.” He looked back to the audience. “By the way, for the writers in the room, if you explain too much of the magic system too fast, you can't write yourself out of a corner later on. Magic is like a gypsy dance, if you start out too fast, you can't finish it, because each iteration is supposed to be faster and faster.”

  Kovach said, “I agree. But if it's an easy system, like the three laws of robotics, that's one thing. If it's longer and more complex, you have to remember that character comes first.”

  “Could be worse,” said someone in the audience, “It could be that midichlorian bull—”

  “Actually,” James interrupted, “it's not. Travis Taylor is a quantum physicist who discovered that microtubulin associated proteins in neurons really do have an effect on the universe. There really is the power of positive thinking. Our thoughts really do shape the universe. The book is The Science Behind The Secret.”

  “Where do you get your ideas?”

  Gary Castelo groaned and slammed his head against the table.

  Rachel Hartley looked at him, flinched, and said, “Okay, fine. I'll go. I love food and wine. Someone suggested I just make a magic system based on that. It came easy to me.”

  “It's like a supersaturated solution,” Kovach said, very mad scientist, “just waiting for that last crystal to make the whole thing explode! BWAHAHAHAHA.”

  James looked at Kovach oddly, then said, “Yeah, I started writing because I was bored. I was an overpaid security guard, and I spent twelve hours in a room. I got so full of reading I regurgitated it onto the page … It was regurgitated because it was regurgitation. But when I started to detail the magic system, it became science. And that was the start of my first fantasy series
. You see, I start with a scene or with a character, and the world, and magic and rules come up around it.”

  Castelo looked up from the table and said, “Yeah, that's when you discover that the throwaway line you wrote three pages ago actually means something and everything fits together.”

  When asked about rules and maps, Jesse James was again the first to answer: “I had one guy tell me that he spent months on maps, and that one covers a wall. I said 'Really? You're pulling my leg, right?'”

  Rachel Hartley laughed. “No, it's not. I've seen it.”

  James nodded “When I started my book on the Anabasis, which is about a march across an entire planet, I needed a map. So I downloaded a map of the Cretaceous period, and rearranged it with Photoshop … and I was good. I did this one because, after my first book, they wanted me to write one with The Lord of Missile Barrages.”

  Sean only thought Who?

  “Now, when you work with David Krake,” James continued, “it's a fill in the blank outline. But this guy? He gave me a 35,000 word outline. And some parts were basically They are attacked by hordes, and there are revolutions, and stuff happens. At that point, I was jammed. After three months, I still had nothing. I was literally on the floor, pulling my hair out, How am I going to do this? I knew I needed one little spark. I was in my little office, in my chair, spinning around … and I saw my DM manual for D&D. I took the random table, my dice, and I would use that to dictate the terrain: jungle, roll, jungle, roll, jungle, roll, ooh, swamp … with a plus-six adjustment. The short version—”

  “Too late,” Kovach quipped.

  “—whatever it takes.”

  Castelo added, “Also, keep in mind that your goal is to write a story, not a magic system. Though when you're doing something like a media tie-in, like Star Wars, you are playing with other people's toys. Just keep that in mind, you have to play by their rules.”

  “Unless you're George Lucas screwing up his own universe,” Kovach muttered.

  This continued round and round for a bit, until Sean's phone beeped. He frowned, stepped outside, and glanced at his phone. It was a warning: Cryomancer Arrives.

  “Oh nuts. Did I forget that?”

  Sean tapped his earwig. “Hi. Everyone … we planned an escort for Cryomancer, right?”

  “Yup. Been there and back again,” Athena answered. “Just we planned a week ago. She's now walking around with two Stormtroopers for protection.”

  Sean's eyebrows shot up. “Huh. Odd. I'm looking at my schedule right now and … oh, it's written down, but no alarm was set. Sorry about that. Guess I missed it. Okay. Is she planned for anything this afternoon?”

  “In 90 minutes,” Athena answered. “She's working on a GamerGate panel with a Papa Warhog.”

  “That's … either ridiculous, or ridiculously awesome. I can't tell with some handles these days.”

  Sean slid his phone away and leaned up against a wall, looking at the joyous, endless, ever-moving chaos of the convention. There were enough weapons around that he was glad he didn't try to restrict every area to “peace bonded” weapons—putting guards on every door to check for zip-ties on every random object that looked like a gun would have been an endless task. Since everybody at the convention had something that looked like a weapon, it was a waste of time.

  Hopefully, requiring weapons to be zip-tied, to see guests up close and personal, will at least highlight any schmuck who does pull a weapon. Then again, I've got armed Stormtroopers at every conceivable problem area. Now do I want to trust that I've put in enough redundancies that I can relax and investigate Friedman's death, or sweep everything like an OCD nutcase?

  Yeah, like that's gonna …

  Sean stopped, and saw something odd. Two people had walked past him, twice, in counter motions. One crossed from the right, the other from the left. The one on the left dressed like an Internet critic—T-shirt, tie hanging loose around the neck, with a suit jacket, jeans, and a baseball cap. The other one was dressed like a wizard from the Potterverse. The “wizard” held a wand low and next to his thigh … the way Sean would if he were covertly carrying a knife. The “critic” was wandering around with his hands behind his back.

  Oh, this isn't going to be fun, is it?

  Sean didn't even wait for the fun to start, he burst forward, into a roll along the ground, coming up right at the critic.

  The critic had his gun out the moment Sean dove for him, and had it cupped in both hands as Sean reached him. Sean grabbed the gun with both hands, twisting his body around so the gun pointed off towards the nearest wall, then twisted the gun itself, clockwise, and out of the critic's hand.

  As Sean pushed back, bringing the gun with him, the critic moved with him, slamming his fist into the gun, knocking it from Sean's hands. Sean kicked the weapon off to one side, leaping away from the critic so he didn't stay that close.

  Sean got some room from the critic, only to have the wand of the “wizard” come at him, point first. Sean deflected the knife with his left hand, sending the blade past his face on his right side. His right arm came up so his forearm met the wrist with the knife, and his right hand came down, holding the knife in place, as Sean's left hand shot out in a hammerfist, crushing the killer's nose. He slapped his hand down into the elbow of the wizard, and used it to guide the blade into the man's own chest. Sean followed that up with a kick to the balls and a shove, pushing off of him as well as pushing him away.

  Sean whirled on the first attacker, the critic, only to have a fist already flying for his face. Sean blocked the punch with the blade of his forearm, striking the inside of the critic's arm. At the same time, he shot a right cross for the critic's throat. Sean's punch was deflected, and the critic sent a backfist into Sean's face, sending him back a step on his right foot.

  Sean caught only a glimmer of motion in his peripheral vision. He didn't even think, but reflexively shot out his right palm, striking the incoming arm. He grabbed the wrist with both hands, and twisted, guiding the incoming attack into the critic's leg, cutting deep into the muscle. Sean threw a right elbow into the wizard's face, knocking him back.

  Sean shoved off of both of them, throwing himself back. He saw exactly what had happened in one sweep of his eyes. The “wand” had its covering knocked off, revealing that it was just a really long stiletto. And the knife wielder had armor on under his shirt.

  The critic was still upright, putting most of his weight on his good leg. He was relatively steady, and separating from his partner, circling out, obviously inching for his gun.

  “You guys know of the Tueller drill?”

  The knife wielding assassin smiled. The Tueller drill was a drill by police officers where it was gun versus a knife. The point of the drill was simple—it showed that if an attacker had a knife, and charged a cop within twenty-one feet, by the time the officer identified the threat, undid the holster flap, and drew the service weapon, the cop would most likely be shanked at least once, if not more.

  “Yup,” the killer said, hoping to keep Sean’s attention on him.

  Sean's right hand shot forward, and his left wrapped around it so fast, it looked like he caught his own punch. Sean smiled over his Kel-Tec P11, as he fired a nice, neat little hole in the killer's head.

  Sean swept the gun to his left as the critic leaped for his pistol, sliding across the floor in an impressive maneuver. Sean merely aimed for two feet away from the gun, and let the killer's slide bring him into his sights. Three shots into the gunman's chest stopped him easily.

  “They never tried it with a sleeve gun.” Sean shook his head. He was dressed like John Wick, did they not think he'd have a gun on him?

  Sean lowered the gun, and swept the area once more with his eyes. He expected screams, some yelling, maybe some stampeding.

  Instead, he found everyone on the floor staring at him.

  Without any preamble, a tall Cosplayer, wearing SWAT gear and a Cookie Monster mask, started clapping. Others were merely taking footage on their ph
ones and uploading it to YouTube, live. Because WyvernCon.

  The door burst open behind him, and Sean started, and was about to bring his gun up when he saw that Gary Castelo had charged through the door, tetsubo held high. The author, stopped, looked at the bodies, and said, “Sorry I'm late. I was caught up in a discussion about midichlorians. Jesse was particularly loud.”

  Matthew Kovach was right behind him, peeking his head out the door. “Show's over already? Nuts.” He took two steps out the door, and looked around. “They only sent two guys? What? They're figuring that their odds would have improved after the first four waves of douche bags?”

  “No idea.” Sean slid his gun away. “I'm just hoping they didn't follow me here, but I can't see any other way for them to have known where I was. I didn't really know until I checked the schedule.”

  Kovach rolled his eyes. “At this moment, we're the greatest concentration of Tearful Puppies in any one place, in public, at the entire convention. Where else would you have been?”

  Sean frowned. “Point.”

  “I'm just wondering why you didn't shoot them in the first place,” Castelo said.

  “I didn't want to get into a gun battle in the middle of a convention, duh.” Sean rolled his eyes. “I might have gotten the critic fan over here, but these guys are professionals. I prefer to close on the guys with the guns, and shoot the ones with the knives. Better than having a swordfight, that's for darn sure. Though I don't understand the film crew over there.”

  Castelo shrugged. “What happens at WyvernCon stays on YouTube.”

  Sean chuckled, and went over towards the critic. He patted him down and slipped out the wallet. He was a Reb Meluch. Moloch? Sean thought. I'm now being hunted by Carthaginian demons?

  “Sean,” Wilhelmina Goldberg said in his ear, “Overwatch. We've just got a bomb threat at the Westin hotel.”

  Chapter 14: Snipe Hunt

  Sean Ryan was already running for the exit when he asked, “Have any of the bomb detectors gone off?”