They didn't want to know. They were so sure their own world was vastly superior.
The end result was tragic. Female Vamps had no idea how poorly they were treated. They simply accepted their lot as normal. Darcy had told the harem ladies about the brave women who had suffered in order to obtain the vote. Her passionate tribute had been dismissed as ridiculous hogwash. No one voted for coven masters in the vampire world. How dreadfully plebian.
But this was the world she was stuck with. And since DVN was the only television net work in the vampire world, it provided her only chance for the type of job she desperately wanted. And the independence she craved. So she had to be polite to Mr. Bacchus. Even if he was a sexist pig.
"Come on in. Don't be shy." Mr. Bacchus lounged back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk. "And shut the door, so we can have some privacy." He winked.
Darcy's eye twitched, and she prayed it hadn't looked like she was winking back. She shut the door and approached his desk. "I'm delighted to meet you, Mr. Bacchus. I'm Darcy Newhart, a professional television journalist." She removed the resume from her portfolio and placed it on his desk. "As you can see—"
"What?" He lowered his feet to the floor. "You're Darcy Newhart?"
"Yes. You will notice on my resume' that I have—"
"But you're a woman."
Her eye twitched again. "Yes, I am, and as you can see" — she pointed to a section on her résumé—
"I worked several years at a local news station here in the city—"
"Goddammit!" Mr. Bacchus pounded a fist onto his desk. "You were supposed to be a man."
"I assure you, I've been a female all my life."
"With a name like Darcy? Who the hell names a girl Darcy?"
"My mother did. She was very fond of Jane Austen—"
"Then why didn't she name you Jane! Shit." Mr. Bacchus leaned back in his chair to glower at the ceiling.
"If you could look at my résumé, you would see that I'm more than qualified for a position on the Nightly News."
"You're not qualified," he muttered. "You're a woman."
"I fail to see how my gender has anything to—"
He rocked forward suddenly, pinning her with a glare. "Have you ever seen a woman on the Nightly News?"
"No, but this would be an ideal opportunity for you to rectify that error." Oops. Poor choice of words.
"Error? Are you crazy? Women don't do the news."
"I did." She tapped a finger on her resume.
He glanced down. "That's the mortal world. What the hell do they know? Their world's a mess." He crumbled up her paper and tossed it aside.
Darcy's heart fell into her stomach. "You could hire me for a month on a probationary status, so I could prove my ability—"
"No way. Stone would tear this place apart if I tried to pair him up with a female co-anchor."
"I understand. He's an excellent news anchor." Dull as a rock was more like it. "But Stone does all the stories, droning—I mean, talking for the entire thirty minutes."
"So?"
"The Nightly News would be more exciting and faster paced if you included reports from correspondents in the field. That was my specialty, and I would be delighted to—"
"I was considering doing that. And I was thinking about hiring you, but you turned out to be a woman."
Her heart dropped a few inches lower. "I fail to see—"
"News is serious business. We can't have females doing it. People would miss something important, 'cause they were looking at your perky little breasts."
Her shoulders slumped, taking her perky little breasts with them. This was it—the impenetrable wall of male vampire chauvinism, and once more, she'd slammed right into it. If only she could take a sledgehammer to it. Or a baseball bat to Mr. Bacchus's egg-shaped head. "I could work behind the scenes. I used to write my own—"
"You can write?"
"Yes."
"Can you be entertaining?"
"Yes." Her reports had been considered humorous.
He studied her. "You strike me as somewhat intelligent."
Her eye twitched. "Thank you."
"We're flooded every night with the flashy ones who want to be in front of the camera. Finding someone with intelligence and experience to work behind the scenes is a major problem."
"I'm very good at solving problems."
"Are you? Then I'll tell you what I really need at DVN." He leaned forward. "I need a big hit."
With a baseball bat? "You mean a new show?"
"Yeah." Mr. Bacchus stood and wandered toward a dry-erase board on the wall. "Do you realize that since DVN has been on the air, our lineup of shows has never changed?"
"Everyone loves your shows. Especially the soap operas."
"It's boring! Look at this." He pointed at the board where DVN's schedule was displayed. "Every freaking night, it's the same thing. We start at eight o'clock with the Nightly News with Stone Cauffyn. Then, at eight-thirty, it's Live with the Undead, our celebrity gossip magazine."
"With Corky Courrant. I saw her a few weeks ago at the Gala Opening Ball."
Mr. Bacchus pivoted toward her, his eyes wide. "You were invited to the ball?"
"Yes. I… used to be associated with Roman Draganesti."
"How?"
"I worked part time at Romatech." She'd refused to take an allowance from Roman, so Gregori had arranged for her to work in a back room at Romatech a few nights a week. Roman had okayed it, as long as no mortal ever saw her.
"Draganesti is one of our top sponsors." Mr. Bacchus watched her, scratching his beard. "How well do you know him?"
A blush crept up to her cheeks. "I… lived in his house."
"Really? You were in his harem?"
"I—you could say that." But she never would.
"Hmm." Mr. Bacchus's heated gaze wandered over her body. Clearly, her non-writing abilities were being reassessed.
She lifted her chin. "You were describing the schedule?"
"Oh, yeah." He turned back to the board. "In the nine o'clock slot, we have As the Vampire Turns, starring Don Orlando de Corazon. Then at ten, we have All My Vampires, and at eleven, General Morgue. But what happens at midnight?" He jabbed a finger at the dry-erase board. Darcy frowned. There was nothing there. What did come on at midnight? By then, she was usually at Romatech, immersed to her ears in boring paperwork.
"Nothing!" Mr. Bacchus yelled. "We start over again and repeat the whole damned schedule. It's pathetic! The midnight hour should be our greatest show ever, the piece de resistance. But we have… nothing." He trudged back to his desk.
Darcy took a deep breath. This was her chance to show her true worth. "You need a new show, but not another soap opera."
"That's right." Mr. Bacchus paced behind his desk. "Maybe a cop show. A vampire cop. We could call it Blood and Disorder. That would be different. What do you think we should do?"
Gulp. She racked her brain. What had been the rage before her world had fallen apart? "How about a reality show?"
He whirled around to face her. "I like it! What could be more real than vampires? But what would be the premise?"
Her mind went completely blank. Damn. She sat in a chair and arranged her portfolio across her lap to buy herself some time. A reality show. What was real? The harem's new dilemma? "How about an expelled harem in need of a new master?"
"Not bad." Mr. Bacchus nodded. "Damned good, actually. Hey, wasn't Draganesti's harem just kicked out?"