“Yes you can. They’ve got to realize how ridiculous this all looks.”
“Well, I mean, yeah, I’ve told them, but—”
“But what?”
“I guess I’m used to doing what I’m told.”
“Then maybe you should learn to say no. When they act surprised that you’ve said no, tell them it’s for their own good. You’ve basically been enabling all their snotty behavior, right?”
“Maybe . . .”
“Because if they had to start talking to each other they might actually solve some of their problems, right?”
“Or rip each other’s throats out. They’re not exactly human, remember.”
Taking a deep breath and trying not to sound chronically frustrated, I said, “I may very well be the only person in the supernatural underworld who feels this way, but I don’t think that should make a difference. Crappy behavior is still crappy behavior, and letting yourself succumb to unsavory monstrous instincts isn’t a good excuse. So, stand up for yourself, okay?”
“O-okay,” he said, not sounding convinced.
“Call me back and let me know how it goes.”
“Thanks, Kitty.”
The producer gave me a warning signal, waving from the other side of the booth window, pointing at his watch, and making a slicing motion across his throat. Um, maybe he was trying to tell me something.
I sighed, then leaned up to the mike. “I’m sorry, folks, but that looks like all the time we have this week. I want to thank you for spending the last couple of hours with me and invite you to come b
ack next week, when I talk with the lead singer of the punk metal band Plague of Locusts, who says their bass player is possessed by a demon, and that’s the secret of their success. This is The Midnight Hour, and I’m Kitty Norville, voice of the night.”
The ON AIR sign dimmed, and the show’s closing credits, which included a recording of a wolf howl—my wolf howl—as a backdrop, played. I pulled the headset off and ran my fingers through my blond hair, hoping it didn’t look too squished.
The producer’s name was Jim something. I forgot his last name. Rather, I didn’t bother remembering. I’d be at a different radio station next week, working with a different set of people. For the better part of a year, most of the show’s run, I’d broadcast out of Denver. But a month ago, I left town. Or was chased out. It depended on who you talked to.
Rather than find a new base of operations, I decided to travel. It kept me from getting into trouble with the locals, and it made me harder to find. The radio audience wouldn’t know the difference. I was in Flagstaff this week.
I leaned on the doorway leading to the control booth and smiled a thanks to Jim. Like a lot of guys stuck manning the control board over the graveyard shift, he was impossibly young, college age, maybe even an intern, or at most a junior associate producer of some kind. He was sweating. He probably hadn’t expected to handle this many calls on a talk show that ran at midnight.
Most of my audience stayed up late.
He handed me a phone handset. I said into it, “Hi, Matt.”
Matt had worked the board for the show when I was in Denver. These days, he coached the local crew. I couldn’t do this without him.
“Hey, Kitty. It’s a wrap, looks like.”
“Was it okay?”
“Sounded great.”
“You always say that,” I said with a little bit of a whine.
“What can I say? You’re consistent.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Tomorrow’s full moon, right? You going to be okay?”
It was nice that he remembered, even nicer that he was worried about me, but I didn’t like to talk about it. He was an outsider. “Yeah, I have a good place all checked out.”