Lydia appeared a few seconds behind me, flashing back into her human costume, still carrying a box with her heart in it.

I just wanted to go home, but I couldn’t leave an open portal to Hell sitting less than a mile from my front door, even if this was the Zone. A fresh green cloud of miasma was surging up around me as Lydia came through, like Nergal was welcoming me home.

The cloud stretched out like it was reaching for her until I said, “It’s cool, man. She’s with me.”

The fog retreated and I pointed at the portal. “Hey Nergal, can you close this for me?”

A surge of churning green fog rose up around the portal, obscuring it until it disappeared.

“Thanks, man. Why couldn’t you do that before?”

The fog surged at Lydia, like it was pointing at her somehow. “The demons had a way to interfere with you? Was Baalphezar holding it open?”

The fog seemed to nod, and I felt a surge of guilt. There had been layers to this fight I had been completely unaware of, involving friends and enemies I never even saw.

* * *

I trudged home through the miasma. Seemed much thicker now, but it still stopped across the street from my front door.

I went straight to the bathroom, just to wash the blood off my face and brush my teeth. My stomach was still churning, trying to digest three pounds of demon meat.

I had to brush my teeth three times, scraping and gargling until I finally stopped spitting up black tar. Lydia was standing in the hall, watching like she was waiting for me to say something, but all I wanted to do was take a shower and sleep for a week.

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I spent another ten minutes cleaning my face, until I remembered that mirror was my enemy. It might even still be connected to Hell. I grabbed a hammer from my junk drawer, but Lydia stopped me before I could smash it.

“Wait!” Lydia ran to the kitchen and came back with a half-eaten tub of ice cream. She put her hand to the mirror, did some kind of demon thing, and suddenly I was looking at the portal room I had just left, lit with dim purple light from the torches, now that the big red portal was gone.

Lydia tossed the ice cream through and ran back to the fridge again. She yelled, “Help me!” and started passing food to me from the doorway as we tossed every damn thing we could find through the mirror.

Once we were done with the easy stuff, I followed her to the kitchen and helped her carry bundles of vegetables and big bags of fruit that we tossed haphazardly through to the other side. We even gave them the frozen stuff, assuming they could warm things up with torches or magic.

Lydia levitated to the ceiling and grabbed something that had been on top of the cabinet before throwing it down to me. I caught the bag and started to laugh. “You were hiding candy?”

Lydia yelled, “Just pass it through!” and went back to digging in the fridge. We stopped selecting items and just started throwing everything through as fast as we could. Bags of frozen fruit, bottles of tea and juice and soda. Then I decided they needed stuff to cook with and started throwing saucepans, bowls, paper plates, and the giant collection of plastic utensils that every single man collects for some reason. I even remembered to give them a can opener.

Azael let me watch from the other side as a dozen oranges rolled through the portal and broke out of their bag. Then I got to watch Gloria eat the first piece of fresh fruit she had tasted in eight-hundred years.

A few minutes later, our cupboards were empty, and I was able to see the fuzzy shapes of grateful succubi through the mirror, getting a little taste of Earth.

Lydia handed me my hammer. I said, “Together,” and we took turns smashing it, until the mirror was a crunchy pile of glass in the sink, and our last connection to Hell was gone.

I stumbled as I headed for the shower and Lydia had to hold me up, as she peeled my ruined clothes off and helped me step in.

She stepped in with me, and we showered together. I could barely stand, but Lydia held me up and kissed me as her Master’s blood swirled down the drain.

I looked in her eyes as the water rolled down her cheeks. “Lydia, I… I’m sorry I shot you in the face.”

“I forgive you,” Lydia said. “Just don’t let it happen again.