“There.” Zel stood back and squinted at me, casting a critical eye over her workmanship. “You’ll do.”
I gazed at myself in the mirror, amazed at how Zel had turned me into some kind of ethereal beauty. But sudden anxiety suffused me. “Will everyone know who I am tonight?”
“Without a doubt.” Zel paused in the act of putting lids back on the makeup we’d used. “Lucifer doesn’t look at other women the way he looks at you.”
The words sent a shiver of pleasure-laced apprehension down my spine as they confirmed what I already knew. What Lucifer had told me. Still, it was nice to hear it from someone else, someone who was a… I paused, considering. Was Zel a friend?
I studied her closely, noting the slightly red skin on her legs, barely visible under her tight leather skirt. She’d mostly healed from the attack, but the traces of it were still there. A reminder that she’d protected my life over and over. “Zel, were we friends in any of my past lives?”
Her movements stopped as she stared off into space. When she finally looked up at me, it was through the mirror, her mouth set in a grim line. “Sometimes, yes.”
“And the other times?” I touched her arm lightly.
Her face became hard as stone. “It’s hard being friends with someone you know is going to die.”
With those words, she walked out of the bathroom, preventing me from asking more. I sighed and stared at myself in the mirror, at the hair and makeup Zel had so carefully done. She must have been close to me in a previous life when I was also human. Compared to demons, our lives are short, our bodies fragile. I could understand why she’d be hesitant to get close to a mortal, only to lose them a few years later.
Did Lucifer worry about that too?
How could I be in a relationship with an immortal, knowing I would grow old and die, while he stayed exactly the same?
I left the bathroom and found Zel sitting on my bed, to my surprise. She was staring at nothing, and I wondered if she was distant with me because she wanted to protect herself against the pain of losing her friend again to the ravages of a mortal life.
She stood as I approached and went to the closet. “Let’s get you dressed.”
I nodded as she helped me step into the gorgeous, shimmering black gown with the crystal stars and moons on it. The fabric fell about me, lying softly over my skin with the lightest of pressure, skimming my curves and making me feel beautiful. When I turned, the cloak flared behind me, like something from a dream.
Zel pulled a matching mask out from behind her back. It was also black and covered in crystals, like a starlit night. As she tied the ribbon and wove it into my long ringlet with her dexterous fingers, I asked one last question.
“Can humans be made into demons? Or Fallen?”
She snorted. “No. Impossible.”
Damn.
She handed me a tiny purse that seemed to be made entirely of sparkling crystals, and turned me toward the door. “Go. Lucifer is waiting and the ball is starting soon.”
I hesitated, overwhelmed at the idea of attending a demon ball. “Will you be there too?”
“Yes. I’ll be guarding you the entire time from the shadows.”
I reached out and rested my hand on her upper arm, giving her a warm smile. “Thank you.”
She shook off my hand, scowling without meeting my eyes. “Just doing my job.”
I stepped out of my room and entered the living room, then paused to take in the man in front of me. Tonight was October 30, known as Devil’s Night, and if any man looked like he deserved an entire night named after them it was him. In his shiny black tuxedo every inch of him radiated power, charm, and dark, dangerous masculinity. He looked like a sexy supervillain that people on the Internet wrote fanfic about. No mask, though. I supposed when the masquerade ball was in your honor, you were the only one who didn’t need a mask.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered. “Absolutely stunning.”
“Thank you.” I did a little twirl, the fabric swishing around me. “You look pretty incredible yourself.”
He held out his arm. “Shall we?”
I walked with him out of the penthouse and into the elevator. Was I ready to face a ballroom full of ancient demons?
No, I really wasn’t. But what choice did I have?
The elevator kept going down, down, down, as if we were descending all the way to Hell. I hadn’t seen which button Lucifer had pressed, but we traveled past the underground parking garage, and when the doors finally opened, an enormous ballroom was revealed in front of us. The room was dark, with only roaming spotlights and bright stars on the ceiling illuminating the room, making it feel like we were outside under the night sky. I glimpsed many people in masks and gorgeous clothes moving about the room, and a large silver throne at the other end, but otherwise much of the room was a mystery to me. Unlike the demons here, I couldn’t see in the dark.
“The Devil’s Night ball is always designed to look like Hell,” Lucifer explained, as he watched me gaze across the room with an expression that probably looked a bit baffled.
“I thought Hell was supposed to be all fire and brimstone.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Only because of angel propaganda. Hell is the realm of night and darkness. It only burned when the angels set fire to our world.”
As we stepped into the room, people started noticing he’d arrived and began to bow. Within seconds, the entire ballroom full of masked demons sank to their knees or bent at the waist, honoring the King of Hell in respectful silence. I tried not to widen my eyes too much behind my mask
