Page 3 of My Big Alien Bodyguard

Lyric makes for the door again. I see that coming a mile away. I had only stepped slightly away from it to allow Simon Scowl to leave, and now it takes close to no effort on my part to hold it shut. I could keep her in this suite with one finger, if I so chose. I test the theory by holding the door shut with the index finger of one hand and using the same finger on the other hand to gently but firmly hook in the collar of her shirt and pull her away. The theory holds.

“I thought I told you not to touch me!” she huffs, before storming off to the bathroom. So she’s one of those. A sulker. That does not bother me even slightly. Sulkers are the easiest to deal with of all the brat types. This might turn out to be an easier assignment than I imagined after all.

I take a seat in a chair near the front door. There’s still some chance she’ll attempt to sneak out when I’m not looking. The first day is always the hardest, and it’s most important that I win the first battle. If she gets one over on me today, a little bit of a bratty handful could turn into a complete nightmare. I might not seem like I’m paying a lot of attention, but I miss absolutely nothing.

I can hear water running in the bathroom, and the sound of female tinkering and muttering. She’s not happy. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she had the kind of temper that made hercome storming back out here to give me another piece of her mind.

Awaiting her choice words, or perhaps the indefinite prolonging of a very good sulk, I smile to myself. I do enjoy a good battle of wills. Though I intend to prevail, this is still a pleasurable part of our association for me. I have to admit, if she is in a foul temper, it is partly of my provocation. I could have introduced myself in a less obstructive fashion. I could have beenfriendly.The very thought makes me shudder, but it was technically an option.

I learned long ago not to make friends with my clients. Starlets are flighty, fame-obsessed, and usually so busy once the tour starts they barely have a moment to think, let alone give me any trouble. My job isn’t to be liked by the talent. It’s to make sure they’re safe.

While I’m thinking, I note that she’s been in the bathroom for a very long time. I’ve known many starlets to take upwards of three hours to install their makeup though, so that alone is not of concern. What does get my attention is the sudden increase in volume of the shrieking fans below. They’re suddenly a lot louder, even from dozens of floors away.

If there’s one thing I regret more than anything, it is not being able to duplicate myself. There’s only one of me, and I can only occupy one place at one time. It’s a limitation that I absolutely wish I could overcome. As I’m not likely to overcome it in the next three seconds, I am left with rushing to the window like any other limited physical creature.

I am used to seeing large, screaming, sometimes seething crowds. It’s not uncommon for my charges to draw so many fans that the streets around various hotels are blocked for, well, blocks. This being only the beginning of the tour, and my client’sfame being much less extensive than it one day will be, the crowd is relatively small and is only shutting down the intersection directly in front of the hotel.

Their screams are absolutely feral, and I soon see why. My client, the human female I have been assigned to protect at all and any costs, is clinging to thesideof thebuilding. I am briefly stunned by the incredible audacity and stupidity of what I am seeing. To have climbed out the bathroom window is almost unthinkable. The fall from this height is lethal. I have never lost a client before, but right now I am forced to confront the very real possibility that I am about to lose this one, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I am furious at her for doing this to herself, and for doing it to me.

And then it gets worse.

I see my human charge drop the last half a story or so down into the midst of a bunch of strangers who grab her and break her fall. I watch with a growing sense of horror as she more or less disappears into the crowd, intermittently obscured from view. The neon pink and yellow jacket, which might have made her easy to find, is immediately removed and then she is nothing but a human in a sea of humans.

I tear out of the room and run as fast as I can down the stairs, clearing them entire floors at a time. The bare concrete pads of these access stairways crack here and there as I land with a thud, my four-hundred pound muscular frame crushing each landing.

What an absolute little shit she is. I thought she’d be easier to contain thanks to being a little older and maybe a little saner, but apparently not. I’d heard humans get less troublesome with age. Maybe nobody has given this one the memorandum.

I get down to the lobby within two minutes, but that is two minutes in which she has had the chance to be mauled, molested, or worse by any number of unhinged individuals in that crowd.

Lyric

LYRIC! LYRIC!

They’re screaming my name. I can hear their shrieks and shouts getting louder and louder as I climb down. I guess what a lot of people don’t know about me is that I’ve been working my whole life. I haven’t been sitting in a studio since I was six years old like the intergalactic starlet Sparkle who preceded me. Starlets are usually born and bred. I know I don’t really fit the mold, and frankly I’m afraid this isn’t going to go as well for me as it should. But it also means that my previous life experience is useful to me. One of my old jobs was as a lines-woman. I have been up and down power poles for the last six years, and I was an avid climber before that. The side of this building is absolutely nothing to me. It has more grips, handholds, and hangout spots than the beginner wall at a climbing gym. Yeah, it’s a long way down, but I take it one step at a time and I get there while my fans cheer.

The lower I get, the louder the voices become. I feel the love of my fans wrapping around me from below. When I let go and drop, I feel dozens of hands catch me. These are the people I owe my life to. These are the people who will not let me fall.

I am surrounded by love and positive energy. The first thing I do is take my jacket off and let it flow into the crowd. People take it and immediately begin to share it among themselves,each taking a piece and passing it on until there is no jacket, just dozens of bright yellow scraps.

“LYRIC! GET OVER HERE.NOW!”

A voice booms like literal thunder over the crowd. It’s not just incredibly loud, like the volume of your average fighter jet taking off, it’s that it goes all the way through each of us, immediately destroying the good vibes and replacing them with mad dad energy.

The crowd freezes and then starts to scatter. People shriek and flee at the sight of Zayne. We’re still not really used to aliens on Earth, even though Earth is technically an alien colony at this point. We’re trying to adjust to the strangeness of discovering that the universe is full of life and music and money. It’s an exciting time, and a scary time.

Zayne inhales deeply, opens his mouth, and breathes a stream of dragon fire over the top of the crowd. It’s a warning shot designed to make those who are not yet fleeing, flee. And it works.

Even the bravest and most open-minded of my fans lose their nerve as the air above their heads turns to roiling fire, singeing the tops of hair and wigs and threatening to barbecue anybody who decided to climb on top of anybody else’s shoulders.

No matter how cool humans are, when a massive, potentially fire-breathing beast appears out of the front doors of the hotel lobby, we very quickly become very much not cool with any of this. We don’t like aliens anymore. We’re afraid of aliens, and we all want to run.

The only problem is, the people at the very back of the crowd haven’t seen him yet, because they’re almost a block away. Andthat means there’s suddenly a surge of people in a direction they cannot go. This idiot is going to get us all killed.

“STOP!” I yell at Zayne.

But he doesn’t care about any of the other people in this mob. He only has big, glittering eyes for me. Zayne is several feet taller than anybody else, and he comes wading through the crowd, scattering people in front of him like an icebreaking ship through Arctic waters.

I am So. Fucking. Pissed.

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