Set to Kill, Chapter 12 Excerpt

Yup, another excerpt for Set to Kill. Sorry about that. I guess you'll just have to lived with it a little. Yes. I would have done another article, but these took the wind out of my this week.  I just broke 46,000 words on the book in the last two days, as well as wrote the large blogs.

So I'm moving as fast as I can. 

With any luck, you can probably finish It Was Only On Stun!, perhaps the Pius Trilogy, before I'm done with this. 

Enjoy.

* * * *

Mercenary and part-time assassin Michael DeValera looked through his telescopic site at the body of Sean A.P. Ryan. The target was down, one solid impact in the chest. Cracked sternum? Check. The bullet should have punched a hole in him big enough to see from there, with enough blood spatter to look like a mosaic, but the traffic swarmed around Ryan, blocking DeValera's view.

Everything was according to plan.

Obviously, it was far earlier than he had expected. He had spent hours last night putting up the arrangements, killing the right guards, cutting the hole in the window. Ryan had to come to the Weston sooner or later, and the decided lack of traffic comparative to the other hotels, together with its one good main entrance, made it inevitable that the target would wander into his sites sooner or later. Though he had expected it later, in the evening.

A door smashed in behind DeValera, and he smiled.

“Release your weapon, fiend, or die.”

DeValera looked over his shoulder. It was the elf, swathed in black silk, almost ninja-ish. That would at least explain how he got there so fast. The blond freak seemed to appear and disappear at will.

DeValera dropped his rifle in the extended window sill flower planter at his feet, then stood, turning to face the thing calling itself an elf.

DeValera looked the blond up and down. “What are you?” he asked in his perfect diction. “Dressed for Halloween?”

The elf's eyes narrowed. “You shall pay for what you have done, villain.”

DeValera smiled. “Come and get me, little man.”

The elf took one step forward, and stopped when he heard the click of a land mine under the carpet.

DeValera raised a perfectly black eyebrow. “Really? You caught that? Oh well, better luck next time.”

The elf's mouth tightened. He reached behind his back and flicked a knife right at DeValera's head. It bounced off of the sheet of bulletproof glass cutting them off from each other.

“I did my homework on you people,” DeValera gloated. “I don't get caught.” He pulled a Zippo from his pocket, light it, and dropped it in the ledge flower pot with the sniper rifle. The thermite in the pot burned bright and hot in an instant. “Ciao.”

DeValera started for the wall, tapped a button in his pocket, and the breacher explosives he put on the wall blew up, creating an easy opening for him to step through, leaving the elf to die.

After all, his mines came with a 30-second timer delay. The elf would either step off and die, or stand there and die.

He was three floors away when the mine finally exploded.

At least Ryan stayed in one piece when I killed him. This one won't be so lucky.