"I'm in the hospital for three days and get home to find you're the codevil?"

"To be fair, you only needed to be in for two d-"

Her glare cut me off cold. "Did you squeeze two humans out of your body under conditions that can be best described as fucked up?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then I advise you to shut your undead piehole."

"Yes, ma'am." And so it began, the thing I'd been dreading since I came home from a long day of changing the timeline to find my best friend pregnant. The 'you're not a parent so you will never be able to know my torment/angst/pain/hilarity/agony/insanity' thing. The irony was, I should have known. I was BabyJon's parent, dammit. And now that I was going to help run Hell, what was that gonna do to our already-iffy mother/sister/brother/son relationship? Did I now have the power to implement Take Your Child to Hell day? Hmm. Maybe that wasn't as nuts as it sounded.

"And Laura went along with that?"

"Laura was delighted to go along with that." Laura was delighted about everything. Me, not so much, but it wasn't as though I'd been sent to Hell (like the millions of souls I'd now have partial dominion over). I'd volunteered. "It wasn't a coup, Jess."

"It's pronounced 'coo,' like 'your breathy coo made the Antichrist think running Hell with you was a great idea,' not 'coop,' like 'but you'll end up turning it into a chicken coop of the damned.'"

"Thanks. Besides, it was a suggestion she was free to-"

"Yeah." My friend, who looked a thousand times better than she had when I'd last seen her in her bedroom, let out an elegant snort. (I know. But she pulled it off!) "Like she'd turn you down after bitching about how awful she had it since her mama bit the big one? Also, are you gonna hold a funeral in Hell for the devil?"

"Nooooo. Maybe?" I was appalled and didn't bother hiding it. "I never thought of that. Please don't suggest that when Laura comes over for supper."

"When's that?"

"Tonight. Sinclair's picking her up at the church in Hastings."

Jess shook her head. She'd been going back and forth between her room and the nursery, the bedroom next door she was converting for her purpose. The babies were asleep in their cocradles downstairs in the kitchen. Fur and Burr were also in the kitchen; they'd frisked about the cradles, ate their weight in puppy kibble, then collapsed into puppy food comas. Tina was keeping an eye on all four of them while running a spreadsheet, God help that poor bitch.

Jessica, ever practical, had wanted to hire a nanny. Tina, ever practical, had suggested that with the varied sleep schedules of so many in the house, hiring a nanny was unnecessary at best and a potential security risk/headache/lawsuit at worst.

It also helped that Not-Nick told (told, mind you) the Minneapolis Police Department that he was taking six months of paternity leave. They reminded him it would have to be unpaid. He reminded them that he was rich and his wife was richer. They congratulated him on the marital coup (apparently you don't pronounce the p) and on the twins.

"Your hub really likes that church."

I had to smile. "After all this time I think he'd like any church. But apparently First Pres burned down in 1907 and his grandpa raised the money to fix it."

"That's so cute." She'd been folding baby clothes and had stacks of them all over her bed, which had been made with clean sheets. I assumed the old ones had been burned, or shot into space. I also assumed "so cute" had applied to my husband, but since she said it to a pea green onesie, it could go either way. "What'd he say about you running Hell?"

"The usual 'if you want to work outside the home I'll support your decision' stuff. Which is an improvement over a couple of years ago." Before we were married, he'd actually stomped through Macy's and forbidden me to work. I'd laughed so hard I almost fell down. "But he knows I'm going to be coming to him for advice about every eight minutes, so that's all right."

"Speaking of jobs, has Dick talked to you about this shoe design website thing?"

I was startled and let it show. "He didn't drop that? We were in my room a couple of days ago, before I went to hellfog in a handbasket, and he was saying I should get in the shoe-designing business."

"He told me. He's got this idea where people come to your website and pick out what kind of shoe-suede, patent leather-and style-pump, sandal, flat-and color and such, and your staff artists crank them out to order. You could run it on your vampire schedule."

I couldn't believe it. With all the insanity going on, with Jessica's belly and the ensuing babies, he'd found time to look into his idea to help me cope with the loss of the genius Louboutin?

"Are you okay? You look like you just smelled something awful."

"If you must know, I'm trying not to cry," I said with what little dignity I could manage. "I can't believe he's been working on that."

"He feels bad that Christian guy is no mas. He's been trying to think of how to cheer you up."

"I'm just not used to him liking me." It wasn't the first time I'd had the thought that the addition of a well-adjusted Dick (heh) and a happy Jessica more than made up for the lack of Christian Louboutin, but it was the first time I'd had it and not felt like an utter traitor to my first love: designer shoes.

"We should have hired a nanny," Jess replied, which made no sense. Another thing I dreaded about her impending mommyhood. Except since Naw and Other Naw were here, it wasn't impending anymore. You could be having a perfectly normal conversation about Hell and former timeline boyfriends hating me, and the mommy in question wouldn't be thinking about anything but her spawn. "We'll need it."

"I think Tina had a good point about everybody's schedules-" I began.

She finished folding her thousandth onesie and looked at me over her shoulder. She'd magically shrunk; it looked like she would be one of those annoying moms who get their prebaby body back about a week and a half after giving birth. "Not for that," she said. "But between the twins and BabyJon, we're running an honest-to-God nursery here, a day care! And who knows what the future holds?"

"You probably meant that to sound hopeful, but it just sounds terrifying."

She chuckled. "Now that's too bad, Bets." She started stacking piles of baby stuff. "Wait'll they find out the new coruler of Hell has no imagination."

"Not only that, I've seen too much. Also, I'm kind of hoping Laura's gonna let me phone this in. With any luck, pretty soon someone will stage a coop and overthrow me."

I made it out the door in time to hear a pile of li'l baby T-shirts patter against the door. Ha! Motherhood was slowing her down.

Then I heard the knob start to turn, and fled in terror. Maybe it wasn't too soon to start winning the babies over to my side. We could form an alliance: Naw, Other Naw, and Betsy Taylor: vampire queen and co-overlord of Hell.

Things had come to quite a pass when this was my plan! Was it too soon to win them over with pureed peaches? How long was Jess planning on breast-feeding? I should probably read a book about babies or something. Maybe applesauce? I'd be their Fun Aunt Betsy!

Jessica had gotten me thinking, and I didn't appreciate it at all. But she had a point, and it wasn't a minute too soon to introduce them to BabyJon. He'd be the oldest, kind of their big brother. As they grew they'd form alliances against the adults in the house. Survivor: Bad Babies! Outthink, Outlast, Outdrool. Already I could see how Marc would always be the one to take their side, the softie parent. Sinclair and I'd have to be the disciplinarians, along with Jess. Not-Nick would be another softie. Tina would be what she'd been to Sinclair all his life, the kindly old auntie with spectacular legs.

If my mom was home, I could go pick up BabyJon right now! Filled with new purpose, I bounded down the stairs.