Darcy turned to face the reception desk. It seemed a mile away. Clutching her portfolio to her chest, she weaved through the crowd with Maggie close behind. The Vamps had gathered into groups, chatting and gesturing wildly with their hands. Darcy passed one group, noting the heavy makeup and clothes that showed too much skin. Sheesh. Whatever happened to manly men? She turned to check out the females instead.
"What happened to Gregori?" Maggie looked over the crowd, her eyes wide with worry. Her short stature made it easy for her to lose people.
Darcy spotted him with a group of women, each with hair dyed an unnatural color. They arched around him like a rainbow. When he smiled and spoke to them, they tittered with laughter.
"He's fine." Maybe those women thought green, blue, and pink hair was wild and wicked, but Darcy thought they looked more like a cuddly clan of Care Bears. Hi! My name is TenderHeart Vamp. Do you need a hug? She suppressed the image with a shudder. Good God, she'd been cooped up for way too long.
The receptionist was painting her fingernails a glossy blood red to match the highlights in her hair. "If you're here for the auditions, sign in and wait your turn." She pointed a wet nail at a clipboard.
Maggie studied the clipboard, her eyes growing wider. "Sweet Mary, I'll be number sixty-two."
"Yeah, it's like this every night." The receptionist blew on her fingernails. "But you won't have to wait very long."
"Okay." Maggie added her name on the bottom of the list.
"What about you?" The receptionist wrinkled her nose at Darcy's conservative business suit.
"I have an appointment with Sylvester Bacchus."
"Yeah, right. If you're here for an acting job, you'll have to wait your turn." The receptionist pointed at the clipboard.
Darcy pasted a smile on her face. "I'm a professional journalist, and Mr. Bacchus is expecting me. My name is Darcy Newhart."
The receptionist snorted to convey how underwhelmed she was, then checked a paper on her desk. Her mouth fell open. "No freakin' way."
"Excuse me?" Darcy asked.
"You're on the list, but..." The receptionist narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure you're Darcy Newhart?"
"Yes." Who else would she be? Darcy's smile withered away.
"Well, that's freakin' weird. I guess you might as well see him. Third door on the left."
"Thank you." Not a good start. Darcy squelched a feeling of doom. She rounded the desk and strode down the hall.
"You'd better knock first," the receptionist yelled in her nasal voice. "He may be in the middle of an audition."
Darcy glanced back. The receptionist was lolling back in her chair, wiggling fingers in the air while she admired her nail polish. Maggie gave Darcy an encouraging smile. She smiled weakly back, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
"Come in," a gruff voice hollered.
She entered the room and turned to close the door. Behind her, she heard a curious sound. A zipper?
She pivoted to face Sylvester Bacchus. He looked about fifty in mortal years, though there was no way she could estimate his age as a vampire. Mostly bald, he had embraced the condition by keeping the rest of his hair buzzed short. His moustache and beard were closely cropped and well-groomed, dark hair sprinkled with gray. His brown eyes immediately checked her out, focusing on her chest for far too long.
She lifted her leather portfolio to block his view. "How do you do? I'm - "
"You're new." His gaze drifted to her hips. "Not bad."
Her face heated up as she debated the long-range ramifications of starting a job interview by slapping the prospective employer in the face. Her dilemma was cut short when she noticed a blond head slowly rising from behind the desk.
"I'm sorry." Darcy retreated toward the door. "I didn't realize you were busy."
"No problem." Mr. Bacchus glanced at the blonde. "That'll be all, Tiffany. You can... polish my shoes another day."
She tilted her head. "You want me to do your shoes, too?"
"No," he grumbled. "Just come back in a week."
Darcy realized the zipper she'd heard was real. Good God, if this was how auditions were conducted, she needed to warn Maggie. She'd always been under the impression that vampires preferred vampire sex, a purely mental exercise that was considered superior to sloppy and sweaty mortal sex. Obviously, Mr. Bacchus possessed a more open mind. And a more open zipper.
Meanwhile, Tiffany had jumped to her feet and was pressing her hands to her plump br**sts. "You mean I'm being recalled?"
"Sure." Mr. Bacchus patted her on the rump. "Off you go."
"Yes, Mr. Bacchus." Tiffany executed an amazing walk toward the door, managing to sway her hips and jiggle her br**sts all at the same time. She leaned over to turn the door knob, jutting out her derriere and arching her back as if the act of opening a door could spiral her into fits of orgasmic ecstasy. She paused halfway out the door to toss a seductive smile back at Mr. Bacchus, then slithered down the hall.
Darcy kept her face carefully blank so her simmering anger wouldn't show. She should have known the Digital Vampire Network would adhere to archaic, chauvinistic rules of behavior. It was the same way throughout the vampire world. Most of the female Vamps were at least a hundred years old. Many were centuries old, so they didn't know about the advances mortal women had made. 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 network 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."