Page 20 of The Midnight Frequency

“Oh, hey, Rupert.” I turned back to look at the ghost who’d been haunting the radio station since the fifties.

He’d been an arts and culture commentator back then, known for his merciless takedowns of every book, movie, record, fashion line, or restaurant that didn’t meet his exacting taste. He’d died on the air. Then… never left. He was always haranguing someone about their clothes, makeup, lunch choices, and the literature they were reading. On occasion, we couldn’t use one of the studios because Rupert sat down on the seat and put on a three-hour-long show… to nobody at all.

Rupert’s nose curled as he turned to me, still in the perfectly pressed single-breasted, loose-cut beige suit he’d died in, complete with a bowtie and a lilac-colored pocket square.

He’d been just past middle age when he’d passed, and he could often be found in the bathroom looking at his reflection and claiming that if he had to stay on this plane for the rest of his existence, at least he didn’t have to look at a wrinkled face with liver spots and sunken eyes.

He was incredibly vain.

And no fan of mine.

Even if I kind of had a soft spot for his surly self.

“Have you met the new host?” I asked, deciding that I wasn’t quite done screwing around with Silas after all. “I think you two would get along really well.”

“I don’t see why some vampire would appeal to me.”

“Maybe not. He’s almost annoyingly handsome to look at anyway,” I said, waving my hand in the air.

“Well,” Rupert said, straightening his bowtie, “it would be rude of me not to welcome him to the station, I suppose. And you know me, I’m nothing if not well-mannered.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

His gaze slipped pointedly down my body, then back up. “Those shoes are tragic.”

With that and nothing else, he was gone. Off to, I hoped, spread his charms to the new vampire.

Shaking off the chill from having the ghost move through me, I made my way down to the vending machine, slipped in some money, and hit the button for the cheese puffs.

I watched the little metal rings turn.

But my cheese puffs stayed stubbornly in place.

I was about to try to hit another code when something dropped down into the catch at the bottom.

Curious, I reached in and found one of those round things like I used to get out of gumball machines as a kid, with jewelry or stickers or little sticky toys inside them.

Only it wasn’t a toy inside.

It was a note.

“Huh.” I popped it open to find a note scrawled in sparkly purple ink.

You are the moment. Unfortunately, so is the problem.

Was that… was that a fortune?

A vending machine fortune?

A little laugh burst out of me as I flipped over the paper. When I turned it back, the fortune vanished.

“Of course.”

I paid a dollar for a fortune that went away.

I reached for my notepad in my pocket, scribbling a note about the vending machine being out of order except for vague fortunes and stuck it to the glass. If people wanted a fortune, they were welcome to it. But I wanted them warned.

I jotted down a note to track down the witches the next day so I could have them undo the spell. Or at the very least, relegate it to one spot, not the whole machine.