“Hey now, I don’t appreciate that sort of blasphemous tittle-tattle, young lady,” the Mayor said with cruel eyes and a smile. Anya found his expressions even harder to parse than the average human’s. Probably because of the sorcerer thing. Sorcerers were just extra-fancy warlocks. Slippery flimflammers that would do anything for the smallest increase in power. If she had been in possession of her magic, she would have snapped her fingers and sent the Mayor to an alternate reality where there was a sorcerer more powerful than him around. Just one. She bet he would tear himself in half rather than be second best. The idea cheered her. Another thing to look forward to when they finally got the Marnoxon gem away from the slayer.

“I only look young. I’m the oldest demon here,” Anya said tightly. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she’d been exacting vengeance since long before the Mayor had sold his soul. Before he’d even had a soul to sell. “And do we all need to go in? The new protector of the Black Flame flag isn’t going to want to talk to a bunch of random demons—plus Andrew and Jonathan—are they?”

“If I know her, she’ll prefer an audience,” the Mayor said ambiguously. Flapping his hands in the air, he ushered the group onward. “No more dillydallying. Everybody inside. The temple is public property, so no invitation needed for our vampiric friends.”

Anya’s legs protested climbing the stairs, but she held in her pained groans, mostly so that she wouldn’t get lumped in with Andrew’s whining. The bags strapped to his back were dragging his shoulders into humps. Jonathan didn’t appear to be breathing at all as he labored over every single step, keeping the jar full of hellfire perfectly level in his hands.

Anya frowned over at him. “I thought the warlock said the urn was unbreakable?”

Beads of flop sweat ran down Jonathan’s forehead and into his eyes. He blinked hard. “With my luck, I’d find a way to break it right before we got it somewhere safe,” he said. Lowering his voice to a nervous quiver, he added, “I don’t want to give the vampires any reason to kill me.”

“What if we kill you for being such a nerd?” Willow asked, swiveling her head to glare down the steps at him. “Hurry up! She’s vicious when she’s been kept waiting.”

“Who is she?” Andrew asked Anya in a whisper.

Anya didn’t like having to admit that she didn’t know.

Unlike the other new buildings under the sunshade, the temple didn’t smell like magic. Not common magic, anyway. Whatever had built this was more powerful than anything Anya had ever seen.

Gold glittered from every surface: The floors. The ceiling. The vases and the bouquets of roses contained within.