Third Trimester
Third Trimester
Chain smoking, Zelda paced outside of Lilith’s room where the witch had been in a coma for almost three weeks. Hooked up to an IV dripping saline and pain medication into her veins, a feeding tube down her throat kept her and the Devil’s spawn satiated with liquified human flesh and blood, and a catheter ensured all of her bodily functions were being attended to. After her collapse in the kitchen, Lilith was unresponsive and the Spellman’s decided to set her room up as if it were a hospital; in the time she’d been comatose, her belly continued to grow exponentially and she looked like she was almost to term. It tortured Zelda to see her lover like that, a live incubator for Lucifer’s murderous child - she felt nothing but rage towards the innocent demon child for putting Lilith in this position.
Her anxiety over whether Lilith would survive this pregnancy was making her impossible to be around; she’d given her Directrix duties to Ambrose for the time being, and Hilda was taking care of anything else the students at the Academy may need. Zelda had set up a cot in Lilith’s room and was alternating between pacing the hallway and sitting at her bedside monitoring her. Every morning the Spellmans came together to place their hands on the Queen of Hell’s belly and sing the demon back to sleep - they learned quickly that they needed to keep her asleep or Lilith suffered. A table and chair had been set up outside of Lilith’s door for when Zelda needed a cigarette so she didn’t aggravate the demon spawn with the smoke and awaken her; snuffing out her cigarette, Zelda breezed back into the room.
As it did every time she saw Lilith, her heart clenched and she felt a flop in her belly. The Mother of Demons was a pallid grey colour, tubes rudely marring her beauty. Zelda’s worried gaze took in the empty saline pouch and she moved to the desk that had been set up with medical supplies. Hanging a new saline pouch to keep the demoness hydrated, Zelda brushed the hair from her face, searching for signs of life but Lilith’s expression remained neutral. She replaced the drainage bag attached to Lilith’s catheter, the clear urine telling her the witch was getting enough saline. Then she prepared a sponge bath.
Tenderly, the eldest living Spellman took the Queen of Hell’s limbs in her hands and rubbed them with a soft sponge and warm water. When she got to Lilith’s face, Zelda paused, wringing out the cloth and slowly dragging it along the sharp lines of the witch’s face. Her mind wandered to how she could have possibly allowed herself to love the ultimate wild card, the Mother of Demons, the First Woman, a demoness who didn’t recognize or accept love when it was right in front of her.
“When it’s changing her damned drainage bag.” Zelda muttered to herself with a snort, shaking her head at herself.
With a snap of her fingers, the sponge bath tools vanished and she moved herself to sit at the head of the bed. Gently lifting Lilith’s head, she gathered her dark tresses and ran a comb through them, brushing until they shone, before laying them around Lilith’s face. Stroking her lover’s cheek, Zelda leaned down and kissed her firmly; “Come back to me Lily….” The Queen of Hell made no response.
Sighing, Zelda rose and walked to the balcony, shutting the doors behind her and lighting another cigarette. Resting her right elbow on her left hand, her arm crossing her torso, she leaned against the doors and smoked pensively. Her thoughts ran rampant, going through the plan the Spellmans had decided on; according to the revealing spell, St. Peter’s Basilica appeared to be the most likely location for the Spear of Longinus. When they had come together with maps of Italy, Austria, and Armenia the glass jar acting like a planchette had moved to cover Rome as the location of the spear. Ambrose, ever the realist, reminded Zelda that it was a good first step but that it was possible that the spell revealed Rome as the most likely place out of the three they offered, which meant it was possible it could still be anywhere else. The trouble with magic is that if the spear had ever been at St. Peter’s Basilica, the spell would indicate that even if it wasn’t still there.
“But it’s a start…” The High Priestess muttered to herself, taking a long drag from her cigarette, Zelda’s eyes fell on the two graves in the cemetery where Lucifer and Blackwood were buried. Her eyes flashed emerald green and she snapped her finger, instantly transporting herself onto Lucifer’s grave.
Kneeling down, Zelda sank her hands into the ground covering Lucifer’s Damascus steel coffin. Her nostrils flared as she felt her rage surge through her, the energy crackling off of her, borrowing energy from her own centuries on this Earth, pulling from all the heartache and sacrifice she’d suffered to drive her voice through the ground, into the depths of Hell. Lightning flashed in her green eyes turning them a brilliant silver. In desperation, the High Priestess combined two killing spells, driving their power through to the Fifth Circle of Hell where Lucifer suffered under the Wrathful.
“Let sticks and stones break the Dark Lord’s bones. Andrelamastro, matarastar, frocus!” A vision of Lucifer hanging above the River Styx with the Wrathful reaching up for him flashed before her silver-tinted eyes, her voice rose as she thrust her hands deeper into the soil. “Let sticks and stones break the Dark Lord’s bones! Andrelamastro, matarastar, frocus!”
In her vision, Lucifer screamed, throwing his head back but when it straightened again he was laughing and in her mind she heard his voice; “You’ll have to do better than that, witch!”
Zelda took all of that energy and released it in a scream that left her throat raw, the power of her rage cracking the tombstone in half and left a spider vein in between the words Queen of Hell’s and slave. Blinking tears of frustration from her eyes, the lightning silver fading, her chest heaving from the exertion, she stood. With another cry, she lifted her leg and thrust it against the tombstone, kicking it with her heel and watching as the crack in the stone forced either side to fall in opposite directions. Dirt flew in multiple directions as the former Directrix of the Academy of Unseen arts unleashed her fury on the earth.
Her furious gaze fell upon the High Priestess’ whore, where Faustus Blackwood was buried alive, his soul also being tormented by Batibat in the Circles of Hell and she sneered as she kicked at the earth on his grave, “I don’t have time to deal with you, Blackwood, but mark my words...I am biding my time...and when my Lily is safe and sound, you will be next.”
“AUNTIE ZEE!!” The second she heard Ambrose’ voice she was running; having used immense power to drive her spells to Hell she didn’t want to waste anymore energy transporting back to the house. Throwing the front door open and skipping every other step up the staircase, she rounded the corner to Lilith’s room and stopped short to see Ambrose and Hilda waiting for her. Out of breath, she motioned for them to explain.
“Lilith’s water broke and her cervix is dilated to five centimeters.” Hilda filled Zelda in as she marched into the bathroom to clean herself off.
“Auntie Zee, how will we get the baby out if Lilith isn’t awake to push?” Ambrose looked worried as he rolled up his sleeves and gathered some extra towels.
Zelda was shaking her head, trying to think, she motioned for them to leave her alone as she started to disrobe from her dirty clothes and change into leftover scrubs she had from her midwifery days. She’d never had to birth a child from the womb of a comatose witch - they were going to have to cut the Devil’s spawn out. With a snarl, Zelda muttered to Lucifer under her breath; “How fitting that even as you suffer at the hands of the Wrathful in Hell, you will still manage to hurt Lilith.”
Flinging Lilith’s bedroom door open, Zelda swallowed a sob to see the amount of blood already staining the bedsheets. Ambrose and Hilda looked up at her with questions in their eyes. “Ambrose, I need you to look after Lilith. Monitor her pulse, watch her face, make sure she’s still breathing. Tell me if anything changes.” He nodded and settled in a chair at the head of the bed.
“Hilda, when I say, I’m going to need you to apply fundal pressure, push downwards on the uterus, and that will help guide the baby out when I pull on her.” Zelda grimaced as she saw Lilith’s belly moving. “She’s awake. We’re all going to need to do what we can to settle her as she’s being delivered to limit the amount of damage she is causing Lilith’s body.” The other Spellmans nodded as Zelda took control.
Pulling blankets and sheets off of Lilith, with Ambrose covering her top half with blankets to keep her body temperature regulated, Zelda conjured the sterilized tools she would need from the basement onto a tray beside her. Picking up the scalpel, she hesitated, looking down at the rolling belly, frozen. Her eyes flickered up to the Queen of Hell’s face, peaceful in her endless slumber. “Zelds?” Hilda’s voice helped center her, she took a deep breath then ran her blade across Lilith’s stomach, slicing through skin, muscle, and fat to get to the uterus.
The bed looked a bit like a murder scene and it was getting to Zelda, she felt nauseous and nervous as she sliced open the sac and the rest of the water burst from the cut, spilling out over her hands. The Devil’s spawn moved with ferocity, blood pooled as Zelda watched, trying to determine where she could cut without cutting the creature. “Ambrose, how is Lilith?”
“Her pulse is weak Auntie, but nothing else has changed. I have some blood and plasma here if she needs it, it seems like she’s lost quite a bit.” His voice was shaking, everyone was staring at the roving being with just a thin membrane between her and the world.
“Hilda. Can you put her to sleep?” Zelda was struggling with how she was going to deliver a potentially winged-creature and take care of it while also trying to save Lilith’s life simultaneously.
Hilda began to sing the tender shepherd lullaby, Ambrose joined in, and the movement settled. Zelda took that moment to slice through the uterus and shove her hand into the wound she’d created, her fingers feeling for the head. Instead she felt a foot, she cursed - the baby was breech. It would be that much more difficult to deliver and coming out feet first left her mouth full of daggers coming out last. Zelda tried to grab onto a foot but the creature wasn’t quite asleep and it slipped away from her grasp, moving her hand again and pushing deeper into the uterus, she used her other hand to press the outside of the uterus through the belly.
“ARRGHHHHH!!” Zelda cried out and yanked her hand back, her glove was torn to bits and a large laceration beneath her thumb revealed white muscle-meat and the gleam of a bone. She looked at her family members fearfully, holding her wounded hand in the air, blood sliding down her arm. “How in Satan’s name am I going to get her out?!”
Spinning on her heel, she ran out of the room, coming back moments later in black leather gloves. “If you’re going to act like an animal, you’ll be treated like one you little beast.” Without hesitating, Zelda shoved both hands into Lilith’s belly, her fingers found the umbilical cord and, gripping the spawn’s jaw, forced the cord between her sharp teeth. “NOW HILDA!”
Hilda used both hands to press down on Lilith’s belly as Zelda gripped the demon baby’s hips and gently eased one leg out at a time, then twisting to free a shoulder and her right arm, her tiny dagger-tipped fingers clawed at flesh around her, leaving small but deep cuts on Lilith’s belly. Zelda grimaced and tried to work quickly, freeing the left shoulder and arm, whimpering as blood gushed out. Sinking her hand deeper, Zelda held the creature’s head to ensure her neck wasn’t damaged and then she pulled the writhing, shrieking demon-child out. Chomping down on her own umbilical cord, her daggered fingers and toes kicking and flailing, trying to connect with witch-flesh.
“Ambrose! Bring the bassinet and conjure a weighted blanket! Hurry!” Zelda held the newborn away from her, her leather-covered hands gripping tightly. She did a quick visual examination, the Devil’s spawn appeared healthy; she did not have wings, but her nails and teeth were well beyond her supposed developmental stage and far sharper than any witch or mortal. The spawn’s midwife worried about the state of Lilith’s internal organs after having housed and given birth to this.
Ambrose brought the bassinet with a heavy blanket and Zelda placed the baby inside; with the blanket on her, immediately the tiny demoness purred and suckled at the cord in her mouth. Zelda gently pulled on the umbilical cord, releasing the placenta from Lilith’s womb. “Auntie Zee? She’s….umm….” Zelda turned around to see blood dripping from the corners of the very happy baby-spawn’s mouth as she sucked at the umbilical cord. With the placenta in her hand, Zelda walked over to observe the babe.
“What in Heavens name….is she…..” Horror registered on Zelda’s face as she pulled the umbilical cord out of the creature’s mouth and she squealed, her claws reaching forward to grab at the flesh. “....Ambrose...is she feeding on her cord?” Offering the cord back, the Devil’s spawn squeaked and thrust it back into her mouth, sucking and nibbling on the tissue.
Zelda’s eyes widened as she looked at Ambrose who nodded in awe. “Dear Satan. Here. Process this. We’ll use it to feed her...I suppose.” She handed Cousin Ambrose the placenta and turned back to see Hilda wildly trying to pack Lilith’s belly with clean clothes to stop the bleeding.
Rushing back to her lover, Zelda pulled all of the soaked packing out and tossing it aside. Desperate, she pulled off her leather gloves and shoved both hands into Lilith’s body, her nimble fingers searching for damage. Blood and tissue filled Lilith’s uterus - it was too much - Zelda closed her eyes and envisioned white light streaming from her into the Queen of Hell’s body. That light traveled through veins, muscle, tissue, and blood itself repairing the damage that had been done by the creature’s claws and teeth. Lacerations, gouges, collapsed veins, sliced flesh; there was so much damage. Zelda pushed harder, putting the rest of her energy into the light she shone through Lilith. Slowly, flesh came back together, veins were held back up, blood oozed back to where it was meant to be. Zelda Spellman swooned, pulling her hands out of Lilith just as the world went black.