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Copyright

Text copyright © 2018 Eris Adderly

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Valley of the Shadow

The windows of The Yellow Rose were a light at the end of a tunnel. So many floating lanterns above a night horizon in what had once been the southern panhandle of the American state of Texas.

Buckeye Wheeler shifted her mail truck into second gear and cornered onto the dirt road that led her to the house of Lust. It was the last stop on her route for the night and her shoulders drooped in relief. The Rose had a solid reputation; she could probably even leave her pistol in the cab.

A guard shack sat to the left of the drive, but the man inside shot her a wave without bothering to stop her or even stand. Her truck was a familiar enough sight in this part of The Vice.

Hers wasn’t the only vehicle in the cleared lot next to the two-story Victorian. There were two meat-haulers, both armored, which meant their owners had money. The larger passenger sedan looked like it might even have solar.

Alongside the fancier transports was a pair of horses hitched to the bare-bones chassis of a truck, well over a hundred years old. Fat fenders and a smiling grille amid a patchwork of paint, but those were the sort that held up.

Buckeye rolled up next to three more horses—these saddled and tied up to a rail—and cut her engine. A man sat on the tailgate of the horse-drawn truck, the orange firefly of a lit cigarette buzzing around his face. She didn’t recognize him, but he gave her a nod when she stepped out into the night.

Her boot soles gritted hardpacked earth on the way to the double doors on the back of the mail truck. People might have called it a ‘panel delivery’ back in the day, but that would have been before the Delineation. Nostalgia from her grandparents’ time. Another world.

Four variously-sized envelopes and a thin square package about the length of her forearm made up the last of her deliveries for the next three days. The moon was rising over a dust cloud in the east—she was exceedingly late—but after this, Buckeye could take a day of rest before she had to head back to the post.

Louder music than usual bumped and hooted from The Rose, its security shutters rolled up, windows open to the starry sky and flat nothing of the surrounding land. Laughter and boozy song—and a variety of other sounds from the upstairs rooms—bubbled into the mix as she mounted warped wood steps to the wide, wraparound porch.

Functional LED lamps flanked the front entrance, which stood ajar behind a screen door to reveal a brightly-painted entry. Buckeye made an impressed face at all this: The Rose had to be doing even better than she’d thought for fancy shit like that.

She rapped on the aluminum door frame with her knuckles and called out in a carrying voice over the music, “Maggie! Maggie B!” Tiny moths battered the porchlights while she stood, waiting.

From deeper in the house, a feminine voice echoed in relay. “Mags! Mags! Someone’s at the door yellin’ for ya!” There was a muffled crash, and a round of swearing from some other person. Buckeye snorted amusement.

An interior door opened, flooding even more raucous noise out into the hall that ran alongside the stairs. A familiar form swung into view and hollered back into the room she’d just left.

“You’re gonna be yellin’ for me in about a minute!” the woman lobbed back. “And get your feet off that fuckin’ table! It’s about a jillion years old. It’s gonna turn to dust if you even look at it funny.”

Attention and brassy voice turned to the mail carrier hovering outside the door. “Hey! Bucks!” A grin split the woman’s face. “Didn’t think you were gonna make it tonight.”

Maggie Bone, right arm of The Yellow Rose, came to the front door and pushed it open. Buckeye stepped out of the way.

“Overheated south of Plume Wash. It was either wait it out or waste water. And that was at noon, so …” She shrugged, letting the obvious speak for itself. Pulled the package out from under her arm and paired it with the envelopes before handing the lot off to the other woman.

Maggie’s bosom threatened a full attack from over the top of a grommeted leather corset while she flipped through the mail, gleaning whatever she could without opening anything in front of Buckeye. Dark reddish-brown hair sat half atop the woman’s head, and half hanging in ringlets onto exposed shoulders, the kind of fussy style a person could only get away with working in a house of Lust.

Rest of us gotta get filthy.

Fancy hair and fuck-me clothes were just a distraction, though. An affect the woman enjoyed. Anyone smart enough to survive in this part of The Vice knew better than to try pulling an ounce of shit on Miss Maggie Bone. Plump curves concealed an armature of wrought iron and fucking barbed wire.

“So what’s all goin’ on tonight?” asked Buckeye, nodding to the din in the background.

“Oh, you ain’t heard?” Maggie looked up from the mail, brows lifted. “Rhoda’s retiring. This here’s my first night in charge of The Rose. We’re havin’ ourselves a little celebration.” The woman’s smile curled.

“Miss Rhoda’s hanging it up?”

“Yup,” said Maggie. “Decided she was too old and too tired. Gonna go live in New Francisco with her family. And I don’t know if you know this”—she tilted her head forward, conspiratorial—“but Rhoda’s kids own the fucking Poppy, so she’s gonna be sittin’ fat and happy for the rest of her life.”