“Okay, fair.” I could hear the grin in her voice.
The sky over the Valley of the Damned was a hard, glassy blue. I lifted Annie in my arms—she scoffed at first but then clung to me with both arms and both legs the second her feet left the ground, which was exactly what I hoped for. I took her straight up, wings beating until the world dropped away beneath us and the lake shrank to a blue coin. She shrieked once, then started laughing, the kind of wild, unstoppable laugh that people sometimes mistake for terror but is closer to prayer.
We cut straight through the heat shimmer, the wind flattening her hair against her skull, but she didn't let go; she didn't even try to pretend she wasn't loving it. I wanted Annie to see every inch of the Valley, to know the rim of it the wayI did—the scar of the old mine, the smattering of the human neighborhoods, the way the roads circled the town like a noose. While this town was filled with demons, there were a fair few humans who chose to live in the Valley of the Damned, who liked the quiet, living off the grid without entirely living off the grid.
I banked low over the Devil's Throat, dropping altitude until the wind whistled through my ears. Annie whooped, hair streaming behind her, and when I looked down, she was grinning so hard I worried her face might split open.
"You're a maniac," she screamed, and I tucked my wings and let us fall, just for a second, before catching the air again and skimming along the canyon edge.
I pointed out the landmarks as we went—the abandoned casino, the old stone amphitheater, the solar array that powered the town and also half the demon-run coffee shops. My house waited at the far end of town, past the last run of tract homes and the grid of paved streets that only barely belonged to the desert. The land rose here, sloping up to a bluff where the wind never stopped and the view took in the whole valley—lake, casino, playground, cemetery, all the stuff of both afterlife and real life crammed together. I landed on the flagstone walk, Annie still clamped around my waist, her laughter trailing off as she looked past my shoulder at the house itself.
“This is it?” she said, twisting in my arms to get a better view.
I set her on her feet and let her take it in—two stories, adobe and black timber, long lines of smoked glass windows that reflected the sky so completely that you could never tell if they were looking out or looking in. The front door was dark, thick wood, carved with symbols so old they’d stopped being threatening and started looking like someone’s grandma had taken up whittling. The roof was sharp and slanted, with a row of solar panels along the southern edge—enough to power the entire grid, which I did, and billed the HOA for the surplus. I’dhad forty years to make the place mine, and every inch of it bore the stamp of someone who’d never really expected to show it to anyone else.
Annie stared for a second, then turned to me, eyebrows jacked up to her hairline. “You built this?”
I shrugged, a little sheepish. “I had help. Demons don’t get weekends. But I wanted something that… lasted.”
She ran her palm over the doorframe, feeling the relief of the carvings. “You have taste,” she said, and there was something in her voice I hadn’t heard before—respect, maybe, or the first edge of curiosity that wasn’t just about fucking or fighting.
Inside, the house was cool and shadowed, even with the afternoon sun pouring through the windows. The floors were broad, dark planks, worn smooth as river stone. The walls were lined with books—thousands of them, old and new, some imported at criminal expense, half of them annotated and dog-eared and spilling from the shelves like they’d outgrown their bounds. There were couches big enough to sleep on, battered leather armchairs, tables made from slabs of local wood with the bark still attached. The kitchen—my favorite room—took up half the main floor, with black marble counters, an island the size of a pool table, and racks of copper pots that gleamed in the filtered light.
The only real decor was art—dark, brooding oil paintings in heavy frames that somehow made the space feel larger rather than smaller. One wall held a triptych of a storm-churned sea at night, all blacks and indigos with just a hint of phosphorescence where the waves broke. Another featured a charcoal landscape of what might have been Hell's Valley before humans arrived, the canyon rendered in such deep shadows that the eye had to adjust to see the details hidden within. There were no photos, no old trophies, no weird infernal memorabilia. Just the layers of a life lived with the assumption of solitude, now abruptly exposed.
Annie did a slow circuit, trailing her fingers along the spines of books, the backs of chairs, the curl of a lamp cord. She paused at the kitchen island, then turned to face me, arms folded loose over her chest.
“You ever throw a party?” she asked, genuinely. “Or is this just for you?”
“Mostly just me. Most demons are terrible guests—eat all the food, start arguments, never leave before dawn. Humans never make it past the first drink.” I watched her scan the room, looking for signs of life, and wondered if she’d ever lived in a house this silent.
She picked up a battered copy ofThe House of the Seven Gables, thumbed the margin notes, then put it down and wandered into the kitchen, where she immediately rifled the fridge.
“You cook in here?” she said, like she’d need proof. “Or is this just for show?”
I grinned. “Open the freezer.”
She did, and a cascade of vacuum-packed steaks and tubs of homemade pierogi nearly avalanched onto her toes. “Oh, Jesus. You meal prep.”
“Forty years in exile,” I said, “you figure out how to feed yourself.” I watched her take it in, the scale of my hoarding, the little ways I’d tried to make a space that was mine, and felt strangely proud. Not many people got to see this part of me. Fewer stayed long enough to remember it.
She grabbed a bag of frozen gnocchi and eyed me over the rim. “You ever make these for someone else?”
“Not yet,” I admitted. “But I’d try if you asked.”
“So this whole place, just for you?” She eyed the giant kitchen.
“Mostly just me. And Fluoxetine.”
She cocked her head. “Is that… a human?”
I stooped by the woodstove and scratched at the seam underneath, whistling once, sharp and low. Out from the shadows came a shape—sleek, black, with a tail like a bullwhip and eyes that glowed green in the light from the window. She stalked across the slate in perfect silence, then hopped onto the counter with all the confidence of someone who’d paid the mortgage herself. She eyed Annie, then me, then Annie again, before winding between her ankles and rubbing her skull against Annie’s shin.
“That’s Fluoxetine,” I said. “Stray. Wouldn’t leave, so now she’s head of the household.” I watched Annie try to hide a smile, but the cat had her number. “Mara came by to feed her while we were at the lake. Otherwise, she’d have staged a coup.” I reached out, let Fluoxetine butt her head into my palm, then watched as Annie scooped her up with careful hands and forearm support. Fluoxetine melted, a heap of purr and indifference, and Annie’s eyes went soft in a way I’d never seen.
“You have a cat,” she said, like it was the punchline to a riddle. “A demon with a cat.”
I shrugged, feeling silly. “In Hell, the only pets you get are things that can survive you. Here, it’s a little easier.” I watched the cat settle in Annie’s arms, kneading the air and purring loud as a motorcycle. “Honestly, she owns most of the furniture. I just pay the bills.”
