Serenity Hills

Waking I could feel my imp powers had returned.
How some might ask? For one thing I could hear the buzz of hundreds of imps checking in with one another in the back of my head as the demon/imp network came back 'online'.
Without opening my eyes yet, I sent my own individual 'signal' into the mix letting Weirdbard and my other brother imps know I was alive and well.

"My tiny mental voice is one in a mix of hundreds and yet I still feel alone and isolated." I gave into self pity for a moment before turning my head to the right and opening my eyes to face the day.

To see Karen lying next to me in my bed, her eyes closed with a blissful look on her face as she slept. She looked like a little angel.

I blinked a few times, thinking I was seeing things and then turned my head to the left...

To see Lisa lying on the other side of me in my bed with just as peaceful and pleased look on her face.

Returning to staring directly up at my ceiling I said out loud. "I really hope either Victor or Miki know a good lawyer. Cause I think I'm going to need one."

I woke up with a splitting headache, but not just a headache, someone had sneaked in while I was asleep and coated my tongue with dog hair and dust, at least that is what it tasted like.

Stumbling of the top of my dinning room table, which by the way I had no idea how I got there or why I was sleeping there instead of my bed. I staggered, swayed into my living room and spied Miki and Victor sprawled on the couch with Victor's arm around Miki's shoulder.
Even through the pain I smiled at how cute they looked together. Walking to my front door I opened it wide... And nearly cursed at the blinding light that stabbed into my brain through my eyes. When did they replace the sun with a arc wielding light?

I bent over to pick up the paper and discovered two things. One, it is not a good idea to put your head lower than your butt when you are hungover and two, the newspaper dateline said that two days had gone by since we had gone to the cafe.

I blinked and suddenly it struck me. Victor and Miki were at my house, they were together on the couch and two days have gone by without me talking to Bardy so he was bound to check up on me soon, I was surprised he hadn't yet!

Oh and I suddenly realized for some reason I couldn't recall at the moment that I was wearing a skimpy yellow bathing suit and was leaning over in my yard staring at a paper I hadn't picked up yet.

Dear Weirdbard:

We would like to inform you of a magnificent housing community located in the nexus. Your belief in community and family values make us believe that you are a perfect candidate for our development. And please don't be concerned about your ex-demon status as the founders of our development are aware of your past and in no way hold it against you or your 'children'. We will be having an open house for you and a few select others that we would like to encourage to move to our development this weekend. We hope to see you there. A packet of information and an address is enclosed. Thank you again for your time.


Weirdbard sourly looked at the paper in his hand one more time before glancing at the crowd he was currently sharing space with as they examined open houses at a gated community.
It wasn't the fact that the letter found him. With Washu's mail forwarding system he was used to letters finding him where ever he went. Although it was unusual to have any directly addressed to him personally. Most of them simply said, to the founder of Weirdbard Academy and were sent to the school.
No this letter had been addressed directly to him and with his real home address. And that was impressive in itself.
The last time he had received a letter addressed directly to him and with the correct address had been a letter from Ed McMahon telling him he might have already won millions of dollars.
A remarkable feat but considering it was McMahon, not so surprising. The ability of that man to find someone to send them junk mail like that was legendary throughout the multiverse and was only rivaled by agencies tracking down people with overdue student loans.

No, someone not only knew of him and where he lived but also that he was a demon. And that concerned Bard but what worried Weirdbard the most was the fact that his imps 13 and Susan had also been singled out to receive almost identical letters as well.
That they, whomever they were, knew Weirdbard and that he was a demon was worrying. That they knew his imps and what they were as well was deeply troubling.
And of all of his imps why send letters to just 13 and Susan?

Still Bard was more likely to ignore the offers and shrug off the who and why of it, if it hadn't been for Susan.
She was enamored of the idea of having her own place. Susan was hundreds of years old in demon terms but in human terms she was just reaching what could be considered 18 or 19 so the idea of her own place was highly appealing to her.
Bard didn't really understand why Susan wanted a whole house to herself though. She had her own room back at Cragmore Mountain so why could she want a place away from it?
But Susan with much tears and blatant manipulations on her part had finally convinced him to at least accompany her to the open house and keep an open mind about her getting her own house there.
Susan could afford her own place with the wages she made working at the Academy and various other odd jobs she held and although Weirdbard himself couldn't understand he accepted her pleas that she wanted to live above ground, with room for a garden.

And 13? He was around here somewhere too. In his case he didn't care one whit about gardens or open air but Bard had heard him muttering something about desperate housewives and Wisteria Lane, any more after that Bard had to admit that he had tuned out.

Weirdbard discretely sniffed the air once again. He was currently in his human form and to deeply breath in the air to sample it as he wished to do would have looked out of place on a human so he resisted the urge. There was something about this housing complex that set his nerves on edge. The grass was cut a little too perfectly and it was a little too perfect a shade of green. The houses were all beautiful with classic lines. A little too beautiful. Everything humans or humanoids did always had a tiny flaw to them but Bard's eyes he could find no such flaws with the houses or grounds of this gated community.


Weirdbard having been one of the 'true fallen' as in an angel kicked out of heaven had memories of the perfection of heaven and like anyone who had been there, he yearned for such perfection again but having experienced Hell and having lived among mortals, he knew the adage of something looks too good to be true, it probably is. And this place looked far too good to have been created by mortal hands, yet there was nothing of it that Bard could detect as being divine or even demonic either.

Bard's wanderings were interrupted as Susan, also in her human form came running up breathlessly to him. She was wearing a skirt that Bard felt was far too short and a blouse far too tight to be decent but having discussed it over and over again with Mavra and Reiko he had been informed he was being too overly protective of her and finally agreed not to comment on her clothing.

"Isn't it gorgeous here?" Susan gushed. "Look at the flowers! Have you ever seen more perfect flowers?"

There was that term again. Perfect. The only problem was Susan was right. Demons, even in human form, had eyesight much better than a human's. Flowers had colors that humans simply could not see. Those vibrant colors were usually reserved for bees, some birds and demons to see, but these flowers were as vibrant and alive to normal human vision as they were in 'bee or demon sight' and frankly that should have been impossible.

"You don't like it here?" Susan asked almost pouting when she noticed the slight frown that cross her 'father' demon's face.

"I cannot find a single thing to find fault with." I honestly answered her.