assignment for no good reason, like a fast-food place mass shooting. Good thing he's gone too."
"Fred Fogelman is gone? Who's running the station?"
"Guy named Javier. Hah-vee-air. Like I said, the place has gone downhill. It's all happy 'news you can use' now."
"It'd be a wonder if the station hadn't declined with Undead Ted and Sheena taking over my beats," I said. "Ted is an empty suit and a lame pair of fangs, and Sheena is a lousy weather witch without one reporter's gene in her artificially supplemented body."
"A little competitive with our weather gal, Sheena? You had network written all over you, Delilah. Sheena sure had it in for you."
"Was it because I'd agreed to go out with Undead Ted that Friday? Didn't even happen. He acted up and I kicked him out. He must have gone sniveling back to Sheena."
"Maybe. Whatever bee got in her bonnet, it just sprung up, like a high pressure cell. While you were off for the weekend, she was in the general manager's office trashing you from that Saturday on through Monday. She tried to get our scoop footage from the cow pasture scene off the air, I know that. Then you and I were called back Monday en route to that dumb old-lady interview assignment at Sunset City the GM put you on. I think that was her doing too."
"Saddling me with that lame feature or getting us called back?"
"One, or maybe both," Eddie said. "It was just unprofessional, that's what it was. And now, Undead Ted, he just trots along on Sheena's leash like a vamp tranqued on blood thinners."
The conversation reminded me I'd spent that Saturday off taking my suddenly ailing dog to the vet, then finding he'd contracted blood poisoning and couldn't be saved. All from biting Undead Ted's ankle after the lech had tricked me into cutting a finger he wanted as an appetizer before mainlining on one of my major arteries after our dinner out.
I'd never heard of a vampire's blood being poisonous to house pets before, like some species of plant, but then, they seldom did the bleeding and the Millennium Revelation was still revealing unsuspected supernatural variations and species. A pang of anxiety about Ric hit when I wondered what losing all your blood to vampires could do.
"I don't know what went on that weekend, Eddie," I told him. "I not only wasn't scheduled to work, but I ... lost my dog that Saturday."
"That feisty white Lhasa? Too bad, Delilah. No wonder you were kinda down that Monday. You brought him in once. Akita or something."
Eddie's mistake saved me from a total emotional rerun. Reporters live to inform and correct. "An Akita is a breed of Japanese dog. My Lhasa's name was Achilles."
"Oh." As if he cared. Cameramen have seen it all and are a nonchalant breed. "Like the Greek hero with something wrong with his heel."
"Like the hero with the bum heel," I agreed, beating back the memories. As a pup, Achilles had always chased my heels, so the name was appropriate. I just didn't expect that the "hero" part would get him killed.
Eddie shook his head. "I don't know what was going on that weekend, or since, but it's been hell around here after you left. I'm thinking of quitting too."
"You're a great videographer."
"But who does traditional 'news' anymore? We're a dying breed. Whatcha doing in Vegas for a living?"
"Investigative work for a television producer, among other, er, major Vegas Strip clients."
"Cool. You've landed on your girl-reporter pumps. I don't wanta get you charged up about what's over and done at the station. Besides Sheena being Bitch Witch, it's a lot of management political correctness that's been coming on for years. Hire the minorities, like the Latino brass, and the anchor vamps and the weather witches. You know the news has been going to hell since the big flare-up after the Millennium Revelation. It's like, 'Hey, the aliens have landed,' but now they're coming up out of our caves and cornfields and They R Us. Anyway, you can download your piece on the cow mutilations to your cell off my backup flash drive."
"Great." I was glad simple computerized functions didn't need hookups now, just proximity. It was like zipless sex. In a second, his info was my info too.
"Hey, Delilah." Eddie chuckled like a TV cartoon ghoul. "I added some hilarious footage of Undead Ted and Sheena screwing up on camera. I even caught 'em actually screwing in the dead storage vault. I YouTube