by Minda Webber
Staring hard at her, Moody conceded gruffly, "You were doing an okay job at that podunk station, but being a weather girl is not hosting your very own show. Think what you can accomplish here if you cut back expenses. You are doing important work, showcasing the supernatural!"
And she was killing all hope of any progress or of the more elite of the professional paranormal world to appear as her guests if the show didn't focus on more serious—or at least believable—issues. Well, as believable as any issue could be in a world where people could turn into bats or chomp your leg off if they got hungry on the night of a full moon and all the local takeout restaurants were closed.
"My fans love me," she said. For a long time, she had wanted to be famous and respected like Oprah or Ellen. Now she was. And while those two women didn't have fans who wore black lipstick and stuck pins in dolls, fans were fans, and those fans provided almighty ratings. That was something.
It was funny. Lucy had always had something to prove to the world and to herself. Middle school had been a nightmare. She had been short, fat, and in eighth grade her skin had broken out. It was also in eighth grade that she'd learned what fear was—and that people were a lot like animals.
Chicks would peck and peck the runt of a litter, until they pecked it to death. The popular crowd had done the same to Lucy. She had been tormented and made fun of not once or twice, but daily for the whole of her eighth-grade year. Lunchtime had loomed, a hulking, menacing presence to be endured on a day-to-day basis, and Lucy had hid in the girls' restroom, hoping no one would find her. That had saved her from death by peckers.
In high school she had fortunately blossomed, losing her baby fat while her skin cleared up into a peaches-and-cream complexion. The ugly duckling became a pretty girl with an infectious laugh, and she had been head cheerleader, most popular girl, and most beautiful. But the earlier scars remained, and they influenced her life to this day. She had a driving ambition, a deep-seated need to be successful and famous; famous enough to show those hometown girls that she'd always been worth knowing and always would be—something they had been too superficial and self-involved to notice.
"Fans. Well," Mr. Moody said, hating to concede anything good about his most expensive employee. "You do seem to have a following. That's why you're still working, in spite of the exorbitant costs you incur."
"I'm always signing autographs," Lucy added, stretching the truth a bit. She had signed autographs now and again, but most people who came up to her told her how funny they found her show. If her show was a situation comedy she would have been a bit more flattered.
"Well, maybe you are. But if they knew the high costs that you run up…" Moody trailed off, mentally calculating the accidents, the destruction of property, the raise he was probably not going to give her this year…
"There was that Monty's python show. That was hard to swallow," he recalled grumpily. "I had to pay a fortune for that Harry Wizard fellow's warty, potbellied pig. He went potty! His grief counseling sessions—what hogwash!"
"I did try to keep that python from eating his pig."
"It was a disaster. In fact, I don't think I can ever look at bacon the same way," Mr. Moody went on, staring at Lucy. Shaking his head, he said, "Still, you do seem to have that loyal following. Despite the sliming and the leaf sprouting."
Lucy groaned silently. He wasn't going to bring this up now, was he? She recalled well enough the time when an enraged Druid warlock had put a curse on her, causing tiny leaves to sprout from her scalp. She had been doing the show for a little over six months, and had been wearing new high heels with wooden spikes—all the rage with the female vampire hunters on her show that day. Unfortunately, the spiked wooden heel had broken, and Lucy had fallen into the lap of the Druid warlock, Monsieur Chestnuts, causing her to squash monsieur's chestnuts along with his warlocky wand.
Mr. Moody rubbed his hands together gleefully, remarking, "The ratings shot up by six points. We should do that again."
"I… don't think so." Lucy declined with great conviction. It had taken her two days and numerous phone calls to find a hair-dressing hedge trimmer who could deal with the leaves until she found a witch to lift the Druid's curse.
Glancing at her watch, she remarked, "Is that all? My date is waiting."
"All right, all right," Mr. Moody said. He watched her stand, his face craftily thoughtful. "But you do know Tuesday's show is dealing with witches and warlocks?"
"Yes," she replied. To be honest, she was a tiny bit uneasy. "The two covens have promised to behave themselves. We got their John Hancock on the agreement. No bespelling, no curses. None. Nada." And there'd be no wooden-spike-heel shoes for her, either.
Escaping Moody's office, she rode down in the elevator with her head leaned against the wall. She was tired and wondering how her date was going to go with Desmond. Maybe she would be pleasantly surprised and have a really good time—or at least an okay time. The way her dates had been going lately, she would settle for harmless.
And she didn't want to think about that vampire from her past…
Chapter Three
Close Encounters of the Cheating Ex Kind
There was no way that Lucy could have known what little trick fate had in store for her that night.
I should have just gone home after my meeting with Mr. Moody, she thought in irritation. Why had she agreed to the stupid rendezvous with Desmond Tribideux? Maybe because she was lonely, and perhaps she really had wanted to see the art gallery's new exhibits. The show on The Art of Paranormal was supposedly excellent.
Lucy narrowed her eyes at her date, thinking that next time she was lonely she would stay at home with a good book and a glass of wine. Women, she mused thoughtfully, were such suckers. They had an intense need to connect, which meant they were constantly setting themselves up for disappointment, even when instincts warned them to beware. And Lucy had more reason than most to be unhappy with her lacking love life. She had been reminded of it this very evening. Once, she had been loved and cherished by the very best. How could anyone else ever compare?
Shaking her head slightly, she decided ruefully that some southern nights the only things worthwhile were old dogs, children, and dandelion wine.
"This painting reveals man's need to dominate and control his woman," Desmond remarked, winking at her.
Looking at the painting, which held shapes vaguely resembling human ones, also with a pair of large red eyes and a long black chain, Lucy smiled vaguely. "Really?" Actually, the painting's eyes seemed to follow her movements, making her uncomfortable.
Desmond seemed put out. "Come now, Lucy. I should think you would know a bit more about art than this," he remarked, his eyes dancing upon the cleavage revealed by her short blue beaded dress. The garment had been a definite mistake, Lucy thought regretfully. I should have worn a turtleneck sweater—a baggy turtleneck sweater. Except it was too hot in New Orleans for heavy-duty date camouflage like that.
"I'm not really into more abstract art," she protested politely. Desmond was ruining the art exhibition for her, just as he had ruined dinner with his prosing about the wine, his work, and his rudeness to the waiter. Not to mention the amount of touching he'd done all during dinner and their walk to the art gallery in the French Quarter.
Smiling suggestively, he motioned to another abstract painting. "I see my work is cut out for me. I'll be happy to tutor you in abstract art—and in anything else, for that matter. I'm quite an expert," he announced pompously, a leer on his face, "in pretty much everything."
You're an expert sleazy troll, she decided, brushing his hand off her bottom for the seventh time. Her date, this human octopus, had more moves than Chuck Norris. She was almost considering inviting him on her show as a guest freak. "Oh, I wouldn't impose. I've always thought ignorance is bliss."
But her stratagem didn't work. Ignoring her words, he began explaining the next painting, which was a series of bright blue circles with dark golden slashes and a faint distorted hum
anlike figure. "This painting represents woman's wish to be dominated by her passions and by her master. The woman's longings are evident in the work. She can hardly wait for the forceful thrust of his—"
Lucy interrupted. "I see." Her date had sex on the brain, there was no question. She needed to put the kibosh on that.
"The woman is in need—extreme need," Desmond continued. "Note the powerful brushstrokes around her thighs."
Lucy let his words flow around her and disappear. But he continued to talk, no doubt in love with the sound of his own voice.
Chalk up another dud evening and another date from hell. Again, she wondered why she even bothered. Four years of being constantly assaulted with unwanted sexual passes, listening to men moan about their work, their ex-wives or girlfriends was getting to be much too much. And the men believed that after two or three dates she would be happy to hop into a bed with them, because this was dating etiquette for the twenty-first century!
Although she wasn't a virgin, not at the age of twenty-eight, she certainly wasn't easy, being a two-fingered-hand kind of woman. Meaning she could count her lovers on one hand—holding up only two fingers.
No, she didn't want to sleep with someone on a schedule, nor did she want instant sexual gratification. She wanted to love, or at least to feel deeply about her sex partner. She didn't want to sleep with someone she couldn't trust or respect, and therein lay the problem.
Supposedly time healed all wounds. But not, of course, if they were made by a vampire. After four long, cold, bitter years, the ghost of a memory was still tormenting her. Five years before and to her eternal sorrow, Lucy had fallen deeply in love with an amoral immortal. She had been working on her last sixteen hours of graduate study in broadcast communication when she'd met Valmont Frances Pierre DuPonte. He had come to San Antonio, where Lucy was attending the University of Texas.
Val had been born in a time when women were put on a pedestal—before women had all jumped off like sky divers with no parachutes. He had been born when kings and queens ruled, and he had been a French count. When being a count counted for something.
Valmont now was a law enforcement officer, and he had come to San Antonio to teach the police force some newer methods in restraining and incapacitating dangerous preternatural predators. One night, the vampire had gone to the Riverwalk to drink in the view—and probably from a willing pretty neck or two in the shadowy alcoves of the riverbank—when he had met Lucy.
He had immediately knocked her off her feet—quite literally, since she had bumped into him and fallen into the river. But love was moving in the shadows that night, and romance had bloomed in the dark. Twenty minutes later they were having drinks in a pub that catered to vampires and other supernatural creatures, and Lucy had stared into the vampire's deep blue gaze and realized that this amazing male was going to be someone very special to her. She had wanted to waltz across Texas with him in her arms, never letting go. Fortunately, Val felt the same way, because he had begun courting her in an Old World fashion. Lucy had found it both delightful and unsurprising; he was over 360 years old.
She'd thought it would last. When his lectures at the police academy ended three months later, they had conducted a passionate long-distance love affair. For eight months Lucy had felt more alive than ever before, and all because of a man undead. She had begun planning weddings and her happily-ever-after—which was very possible with a vampire for a husband. Unfortunately, Lucy had decided to visit Val one weekday, and had flown in to surprise him in New Orleans only to discover that her true love was in reality a liar. She had found him with another female vampire, his fangs in her neck, the two-fanged four-flusher! Which proved another thing her mother always said: "Once a bloodsucker, always a bloodsucker."
She had called him every name in the book and then some. She had never really loved before Val, and at his loss, she was stripped to the bone, with nothing left for a long, long time. No, Lucy had never forgiven Val. Nor had she forgotten him.
"Lucy, pay attention! I feel as if I'm talking to the wall."
Drawing herself out of her bleak thoughts, Lucy focused back upon Desmond. He continued: "As I was saying, this painting here depicts fierce raging desires and man's responsibility to have sexual conquest wherever he can."
Why Desmond—who was an insurance administrator for necromancers and wizards—thought he knew beans about art was beyond Lucy's comprehension. Cocking a brow, she glanced at her date and then at the painting in question. At least she recognized the subjects. The painting was of a kitchen table with a giant swordfish lying across it, and a swath of white was a female form lying beside the swordfish. A bigger swath of a brown male stood next to the table, with an enormous purple penis.
"Can you feel the power radiating from it?" Desmond asked, staring at her, a look of what could only be called horniness on his handsome features.
"I can certainly feel something," Lucy muttered.
And it was true; suddenly the back of her neck was tingling. She felt like someone was staring hard at her, possibly someone she knew or had interviewed on her show. Everyone and their dog was here tonight at the gallery opening.
Turning around abruptly, she almost bumped into a drop-dead gorgeous female vampire dressed in a slinky red number. The vampiress had a cool narrow white face with fat red lips the color of ripe pomegranates, and was sporting a choker with a diamond the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.
"Pardon me for being so clumsy," Lucy apologized, then caught her breath as she glanced over to see the vampiress's escort. Speaking of dogs! Or rather, undead monsters, Lucy corrected in stunned recognition.
The moment seemed frozen in time, with the past interceding into the present, everything blending together in shades of betrayal, pain, and the ever-present hope of lost love becoming found again. Lucy felt a sense of dislocation, as if she were underwater where everything was slow and wavy, for she stared at Valmont DuPonte, now the detective superintendent of the Supernatural Task Force for New Orleans.
The vampiress smiled slightly, her smile widening as she took in Desmond. Lucy's date might be a tad conceited, a tad kinky, a tab obnoxious, but he was handsome. Lucy sighed.
Val, on the other hand, wasn't smiling—although he too looked wonderful in his black jacket and black jeans. He was still going for the austere look, Lucy mused, her long-suffering eyes drinking him in.
His dark black hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung to slightly below his broad shoulders. His dark blue eyes were staring down at her from his wonderful height of six feet three—eyes that always had reminded her of the icy North Atlantic.
He looked great in those tight jeans. He had a good seat for riding, and rode hard and hot for somebody that wasn't a cowboy. Dang him! He just oozed sex appeal, and Lucy couldn't help thinking cattily that his date looked like she'd been around the block a few times—on her back.
"Lucy Campbell," Val remarked casually.
Lucy inclined her head, trying to regain her breath.
Her body was heating up, her legs slightly shaky and her stomach doing somersaults. "Val."
What should she say next? She needed mundane words for this extraordinary situation. Finally she managed, "Long time no see." Four years, two months, and a week to be exact, with the exception of the times she had seen him featured on some news story about an exceptionally hard capture, like that charmingly lucky leprechaun who'd turned out to be a serial killer.
"Has it?" Val commented dryly.
Lucy fumed. Four years, two months, and one week might not seem like a long time to Mr. Immortal, but to her human mind it sure as heck was.
"Cherie, you must introduce me to your little friend," Val's Bourbon Street vamp said.
Lucy fumed harder. Little? She might only be five feet four, but it wasn't like she was one of the seven dwarves.
"Certainly, ma jolie fille," Val remarked. He placed an arm around his date's svelte waist. "Beverly Perrogeut, this is Lucy Campbell, an old…" Here, Val
seemed to hesitate. "An old acquaintance of mine."
Even though he made her sound like an old shoe, Lucy held her smile firmly in place—likely resembling a deer frozen by headlights. Why couldn't she be nonchalant like Val was being? Well, she supposed she didn't have three-plus centuries of practice with meeting ex-lovers.
Her heart cried out with every cell of her body that had once known Val's body intimately. Once, he had cherished her like she was made of rare stone. They had been both lovers and friends. Now she was relegated to a position of "old acquaintance," which hurt.
Tearing her eyes away from Val's, she heard Desmond introduce himself to the vampiress. She in turn introduced Val.
"Have you been dating long?" Val asked, speaking to Desmond. He kept his expression deadpan, which was actually quite easy for a vampire like himself. Poor deluded male, he thought. Lucy was a hardheaded and hard-hearted female. She was also impossible and immature, with her idiotic twenty-first-century lack of understanding of what exactly honor meant to a man, and most especially to an Old World vampire.
"Tonight is our first date," Desmond confided; then he leered at Lucy and pulled her closer. "But we are becoming acquainted very quickly."
In your dreams, buster, Lucy thought with irritation. Wanting to shove the jackass away, she instead resisted the impulse, hoping to spark a little jealousy in the old ex-boyfriend. Her mama had always said: "A skinny worm might be worthless to a cat, but if you're trying to catch a bird, watch out." And she recalled as well her grandma's sage advice for every situation: "Remember the Alamo."
Val kept his expression relaxed as he watched Lucy let Desmond hold her hand. The man was a randy goat with absolutely no savoir faire whatsoever. Even now, the idiot was trying to flirt with both women while also trying to stare down Lucy's dress—a dress that was too revealing for public viewing, low-cut and short, showing those muscular slim legs that had been made so remarkable by years of horseback riding. He fought back irritation.