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CHAPTER ONE

[“IF HE’S TEXTING you after 3 a.m., ladies, and he is not undead, dump him. He’s worse.”

- Hell & High Notes - Episode 231]

Maggie

Nights started the same way around here—with a ghost in the break room and a siren crying in Studio A.

I balanced two coffees, a stack of mail, and my will to live as I stepped around a circle of salt that someone had definitely spilled on purpose. It looked like that new “No Summoning Demons in the Hallway” sign hadn’t done the trick. Maybe I needed to make a bigger one. In a bolder font. With underlines. Because I was pretty sure those were scorch marks on the carpet at the center of the circle. They were small enough that the owners of the station likely wouldn’t notice, but I knew from experience that if you let a little thing slide, chaos was sure to follow.

Don’t even get me started on the time someone “saged” too close to the backroom and nearly banished the Wi-Fi.

Now, if you wanted to cleanse the energy in the station, you had to stick to the studios, sound booths, and the waiting room.

The witches grumbled but fell in line.

I stuck the coffees on top of the pile of mail so I could jot down a quick note to post the sign.

Finished, I exhaled hard and looked around, trying to figure out which fire to put out first.

One of the werewolf dude-bro podcasters from Alpha Mindset was stress-shedding all over the waiting room, the vampire was late on his first night, and someone’s spelled latte was singing a love song in the microwave, getting louder by the moment.

“Declan,” I called. I whipped a lint roller out of my back pocket (since shedding was a surprisingly constant issue around here). I tossed it toward the half-transitioned werewolf. “Shed in your studio, won’t you?”

“I’m waiting for our guest. She’s late.”

Big shocker.

Female guests on his podcast were often subjected to a lot of outdated and misogynistic rhetoric. Their whole ‘get back in the den and start pushing out litters’ mindset rubbed even most other male werewolves the wrong way.

“By that, I’m sure you meant ‘Sorry, Maggie, won’t happen again,’” I called as I walked past. I wouldn’t hold my breath for an apology from Declan. I’d suffocate first.

The glass of Sound Booth 3 vibrated as I passed, making me wince as I paused to watch it to make sure it didn’t shatter as the banshee inside went from tears to outright shrieks that were testing the soundproofing in the building.

Welcome to KPRN—Seattle’s first and only paranormal radio network.

Sure, while most actual radio stations had mostly gone the way of newspapers and landlines, KPRN managed to keep their traditional radio programming alive by renting out sound booths and studios to some big-name paranormal podcasters.

And me?

I was the only thing standing between us and the apocalypse… and FCC violations.

“Oh, Maggie, good!” a voice called. Footsteps rushed up behind me. The cloven kind, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“Hey, Steve. Can we walk and talk?” I asked.

Glancing over, I saw the demon sidling up beside me.

He looked mostly human. If you overlooked the horns, tail, and hooves. He was tall, fit, and handsome, with big reddish-tinged black eyes and a charmingly cleft chin. As always, he wore corporate casual that he had to have custom-made to accommodate his tail.

He hosted the radio show Working in Hell: Corporate Advice for the Damned and Underpaid.

“You’re not paid enough for what you do,” Steve said.

“Tell that to the overlords next time you see them.”

“I’m still trying to get them to include farriers in our health plan. I mean, my hooves are every bit a part of me as are my lungs and guts.”