“This Guardian—your dragon must have hired her to steal you from me,” Magoth said, his face clearing. “I suspected he would do something like this, but it is easily stopped. I will simply tell him that if he tries it again, I will torture you.”

I ignored the word “torture” (not to mention the light of enjoyment that suddenly dawned in Magoth’s black eyes) and confined myself to the important point. “Oh? And how do you expect to tell Gabriel that? It’s not possible for you to leave Abaddon—you don’t have the power or ability to do so—and Gabriel is certainly not foolish enough to come here and place himself in your power.”

Magoth’s jaw worked for a moment. Sally, who had plopped herself down in a chair and was browsing through my journal, looked up. “You know, one of the things that they taught us at the Carrie Fay Academy of Allurement and Attraction was to never say something was impossible. Surely there must be some way you can leave Abaddon, Magoth?”

“Hmm.” Magoth stopped looking like he was about to rain down death and destruction (not in the least bit unlikely) as he thought that over.

I wondered what the penalty was for throttling a demon-lord candidate.

“I could have sworn—if you’ll forgive me for chiming in here when you haven’t asked my advice, and Bael only knows that you have far, far more experience in this field than I have—but I could have sworn that I read something in the Doctrine of Unending Conscious about methods of leaving Abaddon.”

Magoth stared at her as if she had suddenly sprouted a halo and a pair of wings.

“Aren’t you familiar with the Doctrine?” she asked, shooting a confused look my way before returning to him. “It’s a set of laws governing Abad—”

“I know what the Doctrine is.” He interrupted her with an abrupt gesture. “I wrote the chapter on suitable methods of punishment for unruly minions, a fact my sweet May seems to have forgotten.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I said with blithe disregard. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“I can’t imagine anyone thinking that time spent with you is a punishment,” Sally told him with a smile that really did seem to have more teeth than was humanly possible. “You’re by far the nicest of all the demon lords I’ve met.”

Magoth all but shimmied over to her, both hands on her boobs as he undulated against her. “And you have much insight and a true understanding of what it is to be such a sublime being as myself, but alas, until my sweet May consents to being my consort, I cannot bed you as is your due.”

“Where on earth did that come from?” I asked, astounded by that little tidbit.

He shrugged and reluctantly stopped fondling Sally’s boobs. I noted acidly to myself that she didn’t protest the groping at all. “I am wooing you to be my consort. Until you agree to that, I must concentrate my full energies on you. But if you consented, then we might have a deliciously wicked threesome in which one of you—”