Anya felt as though she’d plunged into a pile of riches. She liked the feeling. A lot. Possibly too much.

“You’re drooling,” Angelus whispered to her.

She quickly wiped her chin with the back of her wrist. “It’s my dream house,” she said, agog.

A throne stood at the center of the room, ten feet high on a gilt base. From the ground, Anya could only make out a pair of shapely purple legs dangling over one ornate arm.

Adjusting the knot in his tie, the Mayor whispered sharply for everyone to kneel. Willow obliged immediately, the leather legs of her catsuit screeching at the strain. Anya looked to Angelus, considering rebelling against this degrading posture. He shot her a shrug as he lowered himself to the floor and pulled Spike down beside him. As Anya’s knees reluctantly bent, a trumpet blared, scaring her the rest of the way to the ground.

The temple was suddenly teeming with dancers carrying batons sprouting white silk. The silks whipped and floated through the air as the dancers cantered soundlessly across the shiny floor. One of the curtain walls pushed outward, revealing a choir singing an exaltation in perfect harmony.

“Glory to Glory,” the choir sang as the dancers squiggled their ribbons through the air. Anya could see the giant legs swinging down. The purple calves were nearly as tall as one of the columns holding up the ceiling. “Glorificus the luminous. Glorificus the sublime. Glorificus superior!”

As the choir powered through its last note and the ribbon dancers sashayed to the sides of the room, a red carpet manifested out of thin air, bisecting the room with the throne as the focal point.

Two bare feet touched down at the base of the throne and strode the red carpet toward the group of vampires, demons, and human boys. Jonathan fumbled the urn, and Andrew reached out to catch it. Anya found herself a bit stunned. The legs belonged to a colossal naked purple woman with ice-white curls and pearlescent eyes. More shocking was the way the woman seemed to shrink with every step, strutting herself all the way down to human size. Tall-human size. Anya was pretty sure that if they’d been standing, the woman still would have towered over everyone. Except maybe Angelus.

The Mayor coughed, looking down at the red carpet with even more determination than Jonathan, which Anya considered a feat. “Now, Glory,” he stammered. “You know how I feel about speaking to you in this state.”