“What is it?” I asked.

“There’s something else in the portal,” Nathaniel said, his eyes wide. “I can’t close it.”

A ghostly hand as large as my head emerged from the portal. It looked like a special effect from a movie, a huge groping appendage.

“It’s Lucifer,” I said, and that was when my body finally laid down the hammer. I fell to the ground, the contractions so close and painful that I couldn’t think about anything else.

“Close that portal!” Beezle shouted. He fluttered to the ground next to me, putting his little clawed hand in mine. I squeezed his fingers so hard as the contractions came that he pulled away from me. “Ow! Jeez, what are you trying to do, break my hand?”

Nathaniel and Samiel were facing the portal, straining together to close it. Jude changed back into a man and came to kneel at my side.

“Put some clothes on,” I said weakly.

“You should see yourself right now,” Jude said, taking my other hand. “And even though I am naked, I say this in a completely nonsexual, nonthreatening way—you have to take your pants off.”

“Yeah, the kid is going to come out at that end,” Beezle said. “You don’t want him to strangle on your Eeyore pajamas.”

“My pajamas are ruined,” I said, glancing down at myself. I was covered in blood and birthing fluid and dirt from rolling on the ground.

Another contraction came, and I rolled to my back. J.B. had joined Nathaniel and Samiel to help try to push Lucifer’s magic into the portal. I felt something huge approaching, and realized that Lucifer himself was following the grasping, ghostly hand.

“He’s coming!” I shouted. “You have to close it and seal it, now!”

I pushed some energy out and into Nathaniel, and it was just enough to help snap the portal shut. Nathaniel and J.B. hurriedly poured their power into an incantation to seal the portal so Lucifer couldn’t reopen it from inside. He would have to go out again, make a new portal to our location, and then try to come through. Assuming he was able to figure out where we were. I didn’t even know where we were. It looked like a forest clearing. We might not even be on Earth. I could hardly think anymore. My stomach felt like it was going to split open and I had to push. Only pushing would make the pain stop.

As soon as the portal was closed, Nathaniel was with me, talking, murmuring encouragement, helping me take off the unnecessary garments and get into the proper position for the birth. He kneeled before me, ready to catch the baby when he emerged.

J.B. moved behind me and put my head in his lap. My hair was wet with sweat and I could hardly breathe. Samiel sat opposite Jude, holding my hand, totally unaffected by my death grip on his fingers. He looked worried, and I tried not to let it worry me. He was a guy and the whole birth thing probably seemed strange and frightening to him.

It was strange and frightening to me, too, but I would never admit it. I was a woman and I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of this.

I suddenly realized I didn’t know where Jack was. I looked around and saw him holding a smartphone up, filming the whole thing.

“You had a phone this whole time?” I shrieked.

He looked at me over the top of the screen. “Of course. Lucifer trashed my camera but I’ve always got some kind of backup. I filmed that whole battle on the lawn at his house. It’s going to be awesome when it goes live on the net.”

“Do you not remember that I wanted a phone when we were trying to get out of the basement?” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said. “I don’t know. I was kind of out of it and you didn’t seem to be making a lot of sense. You were talking about pajama pants, not phones.”

“And if video of this birth ends up online—” I began, but I didn’t even need to finish. Nathaniel looked at the phone and it caught fire in Jack’s hands. He dropped it to the ground with a howl.

“Dammit! How much of my equipment are you people going to destroy?”

“All of it until you stop taking pictures of Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “Sooner or later the lesson will sink in.”

Beezle landed on Nathaniel’s shoulder, glanced where Nathaniel was looking, then immediately clapped his hands over his eyes.

“Well, the good news is that it looks like a human head and not a freaky spider-thing,” Beezle said, his eyes still covered. “The bad news is that it looks like it’s stuck.”

“It is not stuck,” Nathaniel said calmly. “Madeline, you just need to push. Once the shoulders are through, the rest of the baby will come easily.”

“Who died and made you the obstetrician?” Beezle said. “Have you done this before? It looks like she’s losing a lot of blood.”

“It is perfectly normal,” Nathaniel said.

“How do you know?” Beezle said.

“Beezle, you’re not helping,” I panted.

“Don’t worry about him,” J.B. said, stroking his fingers through my wet hair. “He’s acting like a nervous grandpa.”

“Who are you calling a grandpa?” Beezle said.

“Yes, who are you calling a grandpa? That is my right alone,” a silky voice said.

I looked toward the voice, and there stood Lucifer, flanked by Alerian and Puck. They were just on the edge of the clearing.

“Did you think you would be able to stop me with this feeble attempt at escape?” he said.

I’d never seen him so angry, but it was that terrifying kind of still anger, the kind that doesn’t seem obvious until the person suddenly snaps and lunges at you with a knife.