When Lucy cocked a brow, the girl added, "You know, that horrible chamber music? I prefer Zydeco and hard rock, not some classical crap my ancestors listened to because they had nothing else."
"Of course," Lucy said.
"That harp music made me, like, bonky—along with all that yucky chanting."
"Chanting?" Lucy asked politely. The assistant producer of the show held up his fingers, indicating she had less than two minutes to close. Thank God.
"You know, the fee, the fi, and the blood-smelling stuff."
"Ah yes, the fee, the fi and the foing." Lucy nodded kindly. Was it really possible, or had Carol Carroll simply watched too many reruns of The X-Files?
"And did I tell you that overgrown ogre dropped beans on my head?" Carol Caroll asked, her eyes wide. "Beans! Over and over. That doesn't sound like much, but let beans get dropped on your head when you're trying to sleep!"
Lucy patted the girl's hand. "I imagine it's like Chinese water torture." But when the black-haired, tattoo-faced abductee looked blank, she added, "Never mind."
She wondered what the students of today were being taught: Spells in Sixty Minutes? Which witch is which? Where was all the classical Cold War history stuff? Lucy supposed that the Red Scare was now seen as the possibility of being sucked dry in the dark by a hungry vampire.
Giving a nod to her young guest, Lucy turned to smile into the camera. "Well, that's all for tonight. I want to thank our guest, Carol Carroll, for coming on and revealing her ordeal at the hands of her ogre abductors."
On cue, the audience applauded. The camera zoomed in, focusing entirely on Lucy Campbell, capturing her all-American good looks—blond, blue-eyed, and classically beautiful.
"Be sure to tune in to tomorrow's show: 'Voodoo priests who have fallen in love with their dolls,'" she continued, secretly cringing at the subject. How had she fallen so low? She wanted to do serious subjects, with prominent paranormal guests.
If only she could get real-life werewolves or vampires on the Twilight Zone, instead of wannabe bloodsuckers and men with hair-growth problems. Not to mention the less respectable witches and warlocks she'd booked, lesser shapeshifers, and the occasional troll or goblin. She had once almost gotten a demon to be a guest, but his price for appearing had been her soul. Lucy had quickly and quite firmly declined his offer and gotten herself out of the hot seat.
If only she could get a good guest, or break a good story. If only.
Chapter Two
The Lucy Show
The elevator opened on the seventh floor, where the office of the owner of WPBS—the Paranormal Broadcasting Station—was located. Lucy walked across the plush gray carpet and announced herself to Mr. Moody's secretary. "The boss wanted to see me?" she asked the plump matron.
The secretary nodded, then added in a low, warning voice, "He's on the warpath."
Lucy thanked her; then, steeling herself for the meeting, she walked inside, wondering what burr had gotten stuck under the man's saddle now.
Glancing toward Moody's massive mahogany desk, she noted that the old crab was on the phone. Short, gruff, and about twenty pounds overweight, in broadcasting he was a force with which to be reckoned.
Mr. Moody hung up the phone and took in what Lucy was wearing, a cornflower-blue dress with a low-cut back and beaded bodice. "You must have a hot date planned tonight," he remarked.
Lucy shrugged. Her date was a first date, and she suspected it would be anything but hot. The man in question was handsome, but in a spoiled good looks kind of way. She wasn't sure why she'd agreed to the date.
She fought back annoyance at Moody's comment. What bad luck that he'd noticed. Usually she didn't date after her show, which was on weekdays and started at 9:00 p.m., an hour before primetime. Since the supernatural world had barged into the mortal world with much more bite than bark, most nations had revamped their workdays. The average shift now started at 11:00 a.m. and finished at 8:00 p.m., and many stores stayed open all night. This enabled paranormal clients and customers to shop 'til they dropped—unless they got home before sunrise.
"Is he a paranormal?" her boss asked curiously.
Lucy knew her personal life was just that, but what could she do? This was the boss, even if he was a nosy busybody who liked to point his pug nose into everything.
"No," she said.
Moody looked put out. "Damn! You need to make some better connections. You'd better start poking around in some coffins and loup garou dens."
Lucy frowned. She wasn't the type to sleep her way to the top, especially in coffins. Not after her past. Deciding not to reply, she sat down in a green plaid chair as Mr. Moody pointed his finger at her.
"I'm not happy with the cost of your show, Lucy Campbell. No, missy, I am not," he warned, his thick brows drawn together in a frown.
Lucy rolled her eyes. Her boss's name fit him like a perfectly tailored suit. He was cantankerous, contrary, cheap—and alternately creative and charming. One night he was as high as a kite, and other nights he was channeling Satan.
"So, I'm in the soup again, am I?" she said.
"I had to replace our specialty chair and the coffee table this week alone," he growled with firm displeasure. "And the show was a flop."
This was definitely one of his moody nights. Lucy grimaced as she recalled the Great Appalachian Troll. Over seven feet tall and massively built, the creature had flopped down hard on the specially made chair designed for guests who weighed more than three but less than five hundred pounds. There had been a loud creaking noise, and then suddenly both chair and troll had collapsed. Naturally the troll—never the calmest of species in the best of circumstances—had gotten angry and had smashed the matching coffee table as well, scattering cups and food everywhere. The guests had shouted and cheered, but Lucy had been left with coffee and egg on her face. And now this bill. Dang! Moody would bring up the troll episode.
"Who knew that Appalachian Trolls weighed over five hundred pounds?" she asked, her eyes wide with innocent indignation.
"Perhaps if you had researched a bit more about this particular guest?" Mr. Moody retorted.
"I did! But the troll must have been embarrassed about her weight and lied. She was a female troll, after all. And I apologized until I was blue in the face, but she was still surly. We also didn't have another chair sturdy enough to accommodate her, so she had to stand through the rest of the interview. I guess I have to admit the whole show went downhill from there."
Scowling, Mr. Moody made a face that made his thick brushy brows meet in the middle of his forehead, the look clearly saying the troll mess was all her fault. Dang, she had seen that look before. And so Lucy added, "I did stand up with her so she wouldn't feel out of place."
"You know she'll tell all her troll buddies about us. We'll probably never get another troll on our show again—at least, not on this side of the Appalachians!"
That would be a loss, Lucy thought snidely. No more egg on her face? But she said, "I'm sorry. Accidents do happen."
"You can say that again. You're accident-prone, Lucy. I tell you, accident-prone."
Lucy kept a straight face, neither accepting nor denying the statement. Just because she had been bitten by gremlins, slimed by ghosts, and cursed by warlocks, that didn't mean she was any unluckier than other people were. Other people just didn't spend their nights with the Amityville horror or wacked-out witches. Of course, there was one encounter in the past that made her feel unlucky. A vampire. One who…