‘‘ ‘Lucky’ isn’t quite the word I was going to—oh, gods.’’

Despite my hope that the ceremony was going to be as unobtrusive as possible, the sight of the room full of people didn’t depress me. After all, I reasoned, what did it matter if all the demon lords and their minions watched while—clad in a scanty outfit straight out of Magoth’s twisted sexual dreams—I formally agreed to be his consort? Once the ceremony was over, I’d return to the mortal world, give Magoth a lecture about behaving himself, and send him on his way before flinging myself into Gabriel’s arms.

That was the first thought that ran through my sorely abused brain when I saw the crowd. But then I got a better look at who stood on the far side of the room, and I stopped dead in my tracks, wanting to turn around and run back to my room. ‘‘That bastard.’’

‘‘Pardon?’’

‘‘Magoth. He invited the dragons.’’

She pursed her lips as she gave me a critical once-over. ‘‘Didn’t he say he wanted your dragon here?’’

‘‘Yes, but he was so damned happy about the prospect of getting access to the mortal world, he agreed to not invite the dragons for the ceremony. And just look—he not only brought in Gabriel and his two bodyguards; Drake is there with his men, and those guys in blue have to be the blue dragons. That bastard lied to me!’’

‘‘Well, he is a demon lord. Oh, one moment—let me just spritz you with a little bit of this delicious mist. We call it Sunset Afterglow, and it has the most wonderful iridescent sparkly things in it. You’ll love it. There! You’re perfect! Or as perfect as we can make you.’’

Sally stood aside with a pleased smile. I batted away the iridescent cloud and took a deep breath. No one had noticed us at the door of the oratory, the room being filled to capacity with demon lords, demons, and other minions of Abaddon. Across from them, the dragons stood together, warily watching the rest of the audience. My happiness upon seeing Gabriel dissolved into a horrified feeling of embarrassment and shame. ‘‘Magoth really is grinding my face in it,’’ I muttered. ‘‘It’s not enough I agreed to be his consort so he can finally access the mortal world; oh, no, he has to bring in every dragon he could find to witness this horrible event.’’

‘‘Carrie Fay always says that nothing is really horrible unless it eats away your face,’’ Sally said with sublime disregard.

That pulled me up short.

‘‘You have to admit, she has a point,’’ Sally said in answer to my look of disbelief.

‘‘Right. This promises to be one of the most humiliating moments in my life, but the reward at the end of it is worth it a thousand times over, so let’s just get this done, shall we?’’

‘‘When I was a corporate motivational speaker, I used to tell my clients that attitude is everything,’’ Sally advised as I pushed past her into the crowd of low-level demons. ‘‘If you believe you’re going to have fun, you will have fun! Unless, of course, Magoth requires you to undergo the ritual of burning flesh as part of the ceremony, in which case you’ll probably just writhe on the ground in the most intense agony you could ever imagine, but at least you’d be providing entertainment to others, so even that isn’t all bad.’’

The demons, most of which were in human form, refused to allow me through their throng until I elbowed them, poked them, or in a few cases, whapped them upside the head with my spiked necklace wrapped around my hand. Almost all of them were bigger than me, which made for slow going until I had the bright idea of shoving the larger Sally in front of me and letting her do the hard work.

‘‘My hair!’’ she squawked when I shoved her at a clump of level-five demons in dirty black leather jackets with ‘‘Satins Minyuns’’ scrawled in blood across their respective backs. ‘‘My dress!’’

‘‘Just pretend they’re a bunch of Microsoft yuppies, and give them your standard motivational speech. That ought to make them cringe and cower.’’

The look she shot me confirmed my suspicion that she would fit right in with this place, but I didn’t have long to dwell on her rightness with things demonic before she managed to beat her way through the demons to the raised stone dais where Magoth stood chatting with a smallish, ordinary-looking man. Gabriel, Drake, and the rest of the dragons stood just beyond them. I tried to keep my gaze averted from Gabriel’s, rather hoping to miss his expression upon first seeing me in my nearly nonexistent ensemble, but it was asking too much of my aching heart.

I caught the first expression of joy in his silver eyes before a form of indignation flashed in their depths as I cleared the crowd and moved toward Magoth. That was soon followed by sheer rage, but luckily, that faded and was replaced by a slight deepening of the indentations on his cheeks that marked his dimples.

I relaxed a smidgen, relieved that I wasn’t going to have to intervene in a battle between Gabriel and Magoth, and gave the former a small smile to let him know I appreciated him seeing the humor of the situation.

‘‘There she is!’’ Magoth said, springing at me. ‘‘How delightful you look almost wearing that outfit. My lord Bael, I should like to present for your approval my consort, the sweet and deliciously nubile May, a doppelganger who has been bound to me since the moment of her creation, and one who, I am delighted to say, has served my many and varied personal needs to my utmost satisfaction.’’

I thought about telling Magoth to knock it off, that Gabriel was going to see through such obvious tactics, but the presence of the premier prince of Abaddon kept my tongue behind my teeth. Bael gave me a thorough once-over as I made a little bow, but unlike Magoth’s, his visual examination was not the least bit sexual. Power sparked off him in a palpable corona, leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach as he seemed to strip away my facade and look deep into my soul. It was a nerve-shattering experience, but I drew comfort from the fact that Gabriel was there, and managed to keep from cowering before Bael.

He dismissed me with a gesture that indicated he was less than impressed. ‘‘Let the ceremony proceed. I have more important things to do than watch you preen.’’

Magoth didn’t like that, but as the lowest of all the demon lords, he knew better than to lip off. He simply nodded and held his hand out for me, his eyes on Gabriel as he paraded me around the perimeter of the dais. ‘‘Fellow demon lords, members of my legions, and minions of all sorts, today at long last I take a consort. Behold the sweet and succulent May Northcott, servant and doppelganger, whom I bestow with not only the pleasures to be found in my body, but all rights and honors due me. Venisti remanebis donec denuo compeltus sis, decus et tutamen, dulce et utile.’’