Luckily, for certain definitions of the word “luckily” that Liam really wasn’t feeling, he didn’t have long to think about the horrifying thing he’d just done to that dude who might’ve been repugnant, but he didn’t deserve to get disintegrated.

There was more crashing all around him. It felt like the world was ending, and he didn’t know what to do.

No one else in the bar looked like they had any idea what the fuck to make of what was happening. Some were clapping like they thought this was all part of some crazy show, while others were grabbing their food and getting the hell out while the getting was good.

“It’s a good thing that was set to teleport,” the voice in his head said.

“Wait, what?” he asked, looking down at the gun and then back up.

When he looked up he jumped. Because his mysterious rogue was standing there, but something was wrong.

“Why do you look like a Force ghost without the glow?” he asked.

She cocked her head to the side. “A Force ghost?”

She looked down and took in her condition, then looked back up at him.

“I see what you mean. This is weird. I admit I’m not sure how to deal with this.”

“What are you?” he asked.

“I’m being held captive, is what I am,” she said. She sighed. “And like it or not, you’re my best hope for escape.”

She reached out and touched his arm. Which was usually the kind of thing that would’ve sent a thrill running through him, but in this case it felt weird.

She was solid, but only partially. It was difficult to describe. Almost like her touch was causing a tingling sensation like his arm had fallen asleep where her hand met his skin.

“Let me guess, I’m your only hope?” he said.

“Unfortunately,” she said.

“Hey!” he muttered.

“You can barely fire a blaster without looking like you’re about to piss yourself,” she said. “And you had it set to teleport, which is not what you should be doing if you want to end an enemy.”

“What does that even mean?” he asked.

“There’s a little knob on the side,” she said. “Twist it from the orange light to the purple one and you’ll really be blasting.”

“The purple setting is more deadly?” Liam asked, hardly believing he was having a conversation with an ephemeral woman.

“Disintegrate,” she said, speaking in a tone that sounded like a Dalek using its favorite word. “There’s also a setting that just punches holes in things if you turn it to the blue light, but what’s the fun in that?”

“Disintegrate will do nicely,” he said in a reverent voice, his eyes darting to the vampire vixen fighting Katie.

“She’s one of the vampires holding you captive?” he asked.

She turned and growled as she saw the vampire vixen.

“A Galactic Enforcer being here is good,” she said. “She might be able to help you find me.”

“But where are you?” he asked.

Only when he turned she was gone again. He shook his head. He definitely wasn’t losing it, clearly she was as real as all the other craziness surrounding him, but he wished he could find out why she kept appearing and disappearing like that.

He almost thought he heard a sound like she was still trying to speak to him, but it was like a faint echo coming through a bad telephone connection from the ancient days. Then she was gone.

He felt like a putz, but he was holding a weapon that could stop the craziness.

“Motherfuckers,” Liam said, figuring if this was really happening then he was going to do his best to take control.

Good, bad, he was the guy with the gun.

The vampire had gotten the best of the fight while he was preoccupied. She was on top of Katie and had a clawed hand up, her fangs out, like she was ready to do some serious damage.

“What did you do to me?” Katie asked.

The vampire hesitated. Her eyes darted towards the bar. Luckily that darting view didn’t include Liam sneaking up behind her.

He followed her gaze. She was looking at the glowing green shit. He’d bet good money, or credits, or whatever the fuck it was they used out in the wider galaxy, that the concoction had something to do with whatever the vampire had done to Katie. Especially considering how quickly he’d sobered up when he accidentally touched the tip of her blaster.

That screamed vampire vixen fuckery.

“You have to be careful what you drink on these primitive planets,” the vampire said, bringing her clawed hand down closer to Katie and caressing her cheek. “I’m going to enjoy this. It’s been too long since I’ve enjoyed the taste of a Galactic Enforcer.”

Liam swallowed. On the one hand he had the feeling this was serious. That if he didn’t do something this was going to end with Katie getting killed.

He well remembered the cheesy vampire attacks that didn’t end in sex in Vampire Vixens from Planet X!, and he got the feeling this was about to turn into one of those messier scenes.

Only.

At the same time he couldn’t help but admit the whole “vampire threatens helpless victim” thing was fucking hot. It was touching something deep and primal in him.

“Motherfuckers,” he growled, ignoring those feelings and pressing the blaster to the vampire’s head.

He hated to interrupt the fun, but this was life and death. The vampire noticed the moment the blaster pressed against her head, and she stopped just short of drawing more than a small line of blood from Katie’s cheek.

That small line of blood was green instead of the red he expected. Katie breathed heavily and stared up at the vampire with a look that almost approached desire.

Okay then. Maybe he was interrupting a good time after all.

If this situation was anything like the movie then that sort of look was to be expected. The vampires were supposed to have strange abilities many would consider to be unnatural, after all, including mind control that kept their victims happy as they were led to the slaughter.

The dude who’d seemed happy as his neck was being ripped out was living proof of that. Or more accurately he was dead proof of that.

“By Grabthar’s Hammer, you’re going to regret even thinking about moving,” Liam hissed.

“By what?” the vampire asked, turning to regard Liam.

Which was technically the kind of movement he’d just told her not to do, but he didn’t pull the trigger because she didn’t make any violent moves.

She still looked cool and collected, but there was something new there as well. He’d seen her cool and collected earlier when she was hitting on him and Katie at the bar, back before she’d realized Katie the Galactic Enforcer was an actual Galactic Enforcer and not someone dressing in a costume for a primitive celebration.

There was a slight nervousness to her cool and collected look now. Like she’d realized she was in the shit. It was there in the twitch of an eye. The way she seemed tense rather than loose.

“It’s from a movie,” Liam said. “Which I have a feeling you don’t know anything about because you’re not from around here.”

“I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” the vampire said, twisting around and subtly raising her hands.

That hand raising stopped when Liam pressed the tip of the blaster against her forehead. It sizzled as she went cross eyed. He held his finger on the trigger which meant that ominous hum was back, because what was a good blaster without a little ominous hum to let anyone you were pointing said weapon at know you meant business?

He wasn’t sure where that strange ghostly woman had come from, but he was glad she’d showed up to tell him the difference between the teleport and disintegrate setting.

Liam raised his voice as he turned to the crowds still hanging around. They weren’t quite running around in a panic, not now that it looked like he’d gotten things under control, but they were staring with interest.

“If I say by Grabthar’s Hammer, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

The crowd stared, dumbfounded. A couple of them looked at him like he’d lost it. Others shook their heads like they couldn’t believe he was throwing out a dated movie reference in the middle of the world going to shit around them.

But a couple of people were in on the joke, which was all he needed. One guy shouted “you will be avenged!” and a pretty girl at the other end of the room said “what a savings” in a deadpan voice.

He turned back to the vampire and smiled. From the way she glared at him, particularly at the barrel of the weapon pointed at her forehead, she thought her end was coming at any moment.

“There you go,” he said. “You’re at a convention with a bunch of geeks who know the dorky lingua franca, and the fact that you have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about while you’re dressed in a costume that elaborate tells me you aren’t in a costume at all.”

The vampire licked her lips and hit him with those eyes that were like deep pools filled with rushing stars. As he stared into those eyes he couldn’t help but think maybe there was something to the idea of putting the gun down. It’s not like he wanted to hurt her. Maybe he should give her the gun. She’d know what to do with it.

All those thoughts ran through his mind, but he didn’t feel any desire to follow through on them. It was like he was getting the signal, but it wasn’t connecting in the way vampire lady here was hoping for.

She was obviously trying to use her mind mojo on him, and he tried to clear those thoughts out by pushing them away, mentally speaking. The vampire stumbled back like she’d been hit by a physical blow. Which was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.

“You’re welcome,” the strange ghost woman whispered in his brain.

He shook his head and pressed the tip of the blaster against the vampire’s forehead again. Again there was a sizzling sound, and he thought he smelled something burning.

“Do that funky mind control thing one more time and you’re going to seriously regret it. Are we clear?”

The vampire nodded, and for the first time she looked terrified.

“Now stand up and take a step back. I have a pretty good idea how fast you can move, and I don’t want any trouble.”

He didn’t know how fast she could move, but he figured if everything else from Vampire Vixens was coming true then the superspeed was probably also real. He figured it’d look a hell of a lot less cheesy in the real world than the obviously sped up footage in the movie.

The vampire stood and took an obliging step back. Katie stared up at him and blinked a couple of times, like she was confused about what was going on.

“What’s happening?” she asked, talking in a dreamy singsong voice.

“What’s happening is you almost lost a fight with a vampire vixen from Planet X,” Liam said, trying to ignore how ridiculous it sounded talking about Planet X like it was a real place and not an abstract idea in science fiction.

“You mean that pretty lady?” Katie asked, still speaking in that dreamy singsong voice as she stood, looking a little wobbly on her feet, and brushed herself off. “You’re really pretty, you know?”

“Oh I know, Enforcer,” the vampire said, her voice suddenly sultry and dripping with seductive potential.

Though that seduction routine stopped as Liam wiggled the gun in her face, reminding her what was waiting if she kept that shit up.

“I’ve already seen what this thing can do, and you’re going to regret it if you try that shit again,” he said.

The vampire hissed. Oh yeah, she didn’t like someone telling her what to do, but she could go fuck herself if she thought he was going to be intimidated by that hissing routine.

“Try it again,” Liam said.

He looked Katie over for any other injuries besides that obvious cut on her cheek, but there was only that one little green line.

“Are you okay?” Liam asked.

“I’ll be fine as long as you let me go with my new friend,” she said, that vampire worship still in her voice.

Liam groaned. This was not how he wanted this to go. If there was one person in this room who needed to have her shit together right now it was the Galactic Enforcer who knew how to fight these things in a professional capacity.

“I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to feel great,” he said, remembering his own experience moments ago and the lessons he’d learned from watching Vampire Vixens on repeat when he was younger.

“What are you… Ouch!”

Liam pressed the tip of her blaster against her cheek. There was a slight sizzling sound, and when he pulled away he thought he could see a small burn healing up.

Even the bruise seemed off. It was a sickly greenish color rather than the black and blue he was used to, but then it was gone just as quickly as it had appeared.

“Right. Y’all can heal up like Wolverine,” he said, thinking back to everything he’d learned from repeatedly “studying” the movie back in his misspent youth. “What about that cut, though?”

“The cut of a vampire is death,” the vixen said.

“What she means is they have nasties in their claws that don’t heal as easily as a simple bruise,” Katie said, suddenly sounding a lot more normal. “But that’s not a problem for an Enforcer with nanoreinforcement. What happened?”

She looked around the room in clear confusion, taking in the destruction. Then she turned to where the vampire had been, but she was gone when Liam turned back.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, tracking the blaster across the room in case the vampire was hiding in the crowd, but he saw nothing.

Nothing but a smattering of applause, that is. He figured the people who stuck around had decided this was all part of the show, though there were a few tenaciously clinging to their overpriced bar food who looked more annoyed than anything.

He figured people could convince themselves just about anything was part of the show if they really wanted to. Especially when it meant not admitting that vampires and aliens were real.

“Maybe you should give that back,” Katie said, putting a hand on his that sent an electric shock running through him.

“What if the vampire comes back?” he asked, scanning the bar again.

“It’s okay,” she said, taking the blaster and putting it at her side where it attached to her hip even though there was no obvious holster or way for it to clip to her side. “You did well. Far better than I would’ve thought one of the locals would. How did you learn how to change my blaster from teleport to disintegrate?”

She looked over his shoulder again. As though she was seeing something there. And this time when he looked where she looked he almost thought he could see something flickering there. An intricate swirling symbol, and then it was gone.

He frowned, not wanting to get into the whole conversation he’d been having with a ghost woman talking to him telepathically.

“So this is all real?” he asked, looking to change the subject.

The smile she hit him with was enigmatic. Maybe a little seductive, even, from the way she looked him up and down. He quite enjoyed that smile, and it made him want to head back to his hotel room with her so they could work out some of the leftover energy from all the seductive mind mojo that vampire had been hitting them with.

Though it wasn’t meant to be. No sooner had the thought occurred to him than there was a fuss over at the bar entrance, followed by hotel security streaming in looking like they weren’t sure they could handle whatever the hell was going on in here.

One guy who looked a little older than the others, with close cropped hair that screamed he was ex-military or an ex-cop, surveyed the damage and let out a long sigh that caused his bushy mustache to blow out.

It would’ve been funny if the situation wasn’t so damn serious. The guy had his hand on some pepper spray at his side, but something told Liam that stuff wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good against whatever Katie was packing.

He definitely didn’t think it would do a damn bit of good against a vampire.

“What the hell is going on here?” the security dude asked after he’d gotten a good look at the destruction. He looked directly at Liam and Katie as he said it, leaving no doubt who he expected to answer that question.

“Would you believe it was a fight between a vampire vixen from Planet X and a Galactic Enforcer?” Liam asked, shrugging because he knew it sounded ridiculous.

He figured best case scenario the security guard would figure they were a bunch of dorks role-playing and let them be. Worst case he’d kick them out and Liam would have to try and find a way to sneak back in.

The security guy regarded him for a long cold moment. Liam got the feeling the guy thought he was being fucked with. If someone had said the same thing to Liam and he was in this security guy’s position he would’ve thought the person spouting that line was fucking with him too.

“Listen,” the security guy finally said. “I know you probably had too much to drink today, but I don’t have time for this cosplay bullshit. Would someone please tell me what the fuck happened here?”

Liam looked to Katie, and then to the security guys surrounding them fingering their pepper spray like they fully intended to use the stuff. He wanted to get the hell out while the getting was good, and before they had to answer questions that might land them in more trouble with the authorities.

“Um, yeah,” Liam said, thinking fast. “That’s totally what happened here. Cosplay bullshit. I mean a cosplay demonstration.”

“This was a cosplay demonstration,” the security guard said, his voice flat.

“Didn’t the convention let you know about it?”

Liam flashed his lanyard at the security guy for the briefest of moments. He hoped it was long enough that the guy would think he was acting in an official capacity for the convention while also being brief enough that he wouldn’t see Liam was just another con attendee without a special badge.

“They were supposed to tell you about it,” Liam said when the security dude didn’t say anything else. “Like the one in the lobby earlier? It was a demonstration of the famous bar fight scene in Vampire Vixens From Planet X! Didn’t you get the memo?”

There was, of course, no such bar fight scene in Vampire Vixens From Planet X!, but Liam was banking on this guy not being all that familiar with genre movies of the late ‘80s.

It was a gamble. There was always a chance a dude like this had watched Vampire Vixens because it was a semi-respectable way to see boobs back in the day. The guard certainly looked old enough that he’d more than straddled the digital/analog porn divide.

“Are you fucking serious?” the security guard muttered, sounding very old and so over this shit. “These fucking conventions are always pulling stupid shit like this.”

“Better than the time we had a riot because they couldn’t pay their bills and offered people more time in the ball pit,” one of the other security guys muttered.

“Maybe,” the old dude said. He turned back to Liam. “The convention is going to hear about this. You can’t just destroy hotel property like this.”

“Oh, it’s all props,” Liam said, figuring he was already in this deep, so why not keep digging for an exit?

“Props,” the guy said, taking in the destruction.

“Come on,” Liam said. “It looks like Bigfoot just had a fight with the Incredible Hulk in here. Do you really think that happened to real stuff and not fake props meant to be easily destroyed?”

“Are those comic book heroes or something?”

“One’s a cryptid from the Pacific Northwest and the other is a comic book hero, yeah,” Liam said. “Though I guess technically Sasquatch is also a Marvel character who was a scientist trying to turn himself into the Incredible Hulk with gamma rays and instead he opened a portal to the beast realm accidentally but… You know what? It doesn’t matter that they tried to create the Canadian Hulk and couldn’t recapture the magic. The point is, do you think these ladies could really throw down like this if it wasn’t a bunch of props meant to be easily destroyed?”

The guy’s mustache bristled as he stared at the chaos and destruction, and then he looked at Katie and frowned. Liam could practically feel the dude’s misogyny warring with the evidence of his eyes. Then the guy finally let out a sigh that seemed long-suffering.

Again it was a gamble, but Liam hoped these guys wouldn’t look too closely at the stuff that’d been destroyed and realize it was way more solid than any prop. At least not until he’d gotten the hell away with Katie in tow.

“I’m going to expect a representative from the convention to get in here and take care of the cleanup,” he finally said.

Liam looked around the room. There were more than a few people staring at him like they couldn’t believe he was trying to pass this off as a demonstration. There was another contingent who looked like they didn’t care, or they desperately wanted to believe this was all part of the show.

And of course there was a smaller group still who looked like all they wanted was to finish their lunch and get back to the convention, and they didn’t care how weird things got as long as they were left alone to do that.

“Thanks so much,” Liam said, pushing Katie towards the door.

For a wonder she allowed herself to be pushed along, for all that she could probably stay rooted to the spot forever if she wanted to.

Liam breathed a sigh of relief once they were out the door.

“That was a close one,” Liam said.

“You were quite adept in avoiding the attention of the local authorities,” Katie said. “That skill would be of great use out in the galaxy.”

“Yeah, talking your way out of things is a good skill to have,” Liam said. “There were a few times I got out of a public intox charge because I managed to sling the right kind of bullshit with some campus cops who wanted to relive some of the glory days through me more than they wanted to hassle some college kid who was out drinking at the bars, big fucking surprise there.”

“I don’t know what any of that means, but I thank you for helping me to avoid a confrontation with the local authorities,” Katie said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

That touch sent another electric shock running through him, and he found himself wondering if that was because there was something about her alien technology that sent an electric shock running through him, or if it was simply the feel of a beautiful woman touching his shoulder.

He couldn’t think of a good reason for a Galactic Enforcer straight out of the movies to be into him. He thought it seemed ridiculous that her species could even be attracted to humans, for all that whatever species she came from mostly seemed to look at the same as humanity.

Minus the gold skin.

And the green blood, of course. Star Trek had been right about how aliens would look, bleed, and be attracted to humans, apparently. The kind of persnickety killjoys who complained about Hollywood sci-fi makeup being glorified humans with ridges on their foreheads were going to have conniptions when humanity finally got out into the wider galaxy and realized how close to the truth those makeup jobs actually were.

“And while I’d like to remain and show you how much I appreciate your assistance,” Katie said, smiling another one of those enigmatic smiles as she looked him up and down, which gave him all sorts of interesting ideas about exactly how she might show her appreciation. “But I do have to be going.”

“Seriously?” Liam said. “You’re going to leave me high and dry in a convention where there are real vampires lurking?”

“I do apologize,” Katie said. “But now that I’ve determined for certain that vampires are here on this world I have a great deal of work to do. It was very nice meeting you, though.”

She gave Liam’s shoulder a squeeze and his body a final once over. It was the kind of squeeze and up and down eye fucking he hoped meant maybe they could have some of that fun if they met again later under different circumstances where their lives weren’t in mortal danger.

Not that he thought circumstances were ever going to be very different with vampires lurking around this place.

“One more thing,” he said, a thought suddenly occurring to him.

She paused and whirled around. “What is it?”

“You might find a very pissed off slightly overweight dude in your spaceship holding area,” he said. “Or wherever it is you send people when you use the teleport setting on your blaster.”

She blinked, obviously surprised, and then glanced over her shoulder. Presumably in the direction of her spaceship, wherever she was keeping it hidden.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said.

He almost wanted to try and get her to hit him with a shot from the teleport setting. Then he’d go back to wherever her ship was, and maybe they could spend some quality time together, but he didn’t.

It was set to disintegrate right now, after all, and he really didn’t want her to get that wrong in the heat of the moment.

Then she was gone, leaving Liam standing in a random hotel hallway wondering if all that had really just happened.

A yell from the bar pulled his attention back in that direction. He saw the security dude stick his head out of the bar and look around. Liam figured that meant the guy had just figured out he’d been fed a line of bullshit, and he didn’t want to stick around to be there when the security guy looked in his direction.

So he got the fuck out of there.