Page 55 of Strike It Witch

“Because we know how to summonHim,” the men said in unison.

Kale pointed downward.

To Hell.

A fully-grown man thought Hell was literally under his feet. Probably thought Paradise was up in the clouds, too. Good goddess, these two had three brain cells between them, and one of the three was blinking out.

“Okay, one at a time here. You think you can summontheMictlantecuhtli?”

“Yes,” Denzel said, wincing. “Shh.”

I looked at Bronwyn. She looked at me.

We both burst out laughing.

“It’s true,” Kale yelled. “We can summonHim. We’ll show you.”

“All right. Let’s do it.” I walked onto the back steps of the house and opened the screen door with a flourish. “After the two of you. Not getting coshed in the head again.”

The men looked nervous.

“The ceremony must be performed at midnight in a cemetery,” Kale said.

“Or at a crossroads,” Denzel said.

Kale jumped in again. “Or on unconsecrated holy ground. A former mosque, temple, church—anything like that.”

“Isn’t a cemetery considered consecrated ground?” Bronwyn asked.

“Not if it’s secular.” I gave the rat shifters my best stink-eye. “You can’t do it. This is all a bunch of bull.”

“We can. We’ll show you. Meet us tonight at?—”

“Shut up.” I turned to Bronwyn. “We done here?”

She sighed. “I have to report this, Betty. I was given an order.”

“You can only report what you know. If you leave now, you won’t know the specifics.”

For a moment, she looked as if she might be stubborn about it, but after a long look at me, Fennel, and the two dorks, she released an annoyed breath. “Fine, I’ll go. Things would be so much easier if you’d just join the coven.”

“Not a chance in…” I exaggeratedly pointed down.

She didn’t smile. “The coven mother will want to talk to you.”

“Not going to happen. But I’ll let you know if there’s anything the coven should be involved with. That’s the best I can do.”

“Fine.” She shook her long braids over her shoulders and stomped out of the yard. “Destroy that bloody soil.”

“Thanks for the back up,” I yelled after her.

She gave me a hand gesture that told me she’d heard me, she was pissed off, and she was reporting everything to the coven mother the second she got back to her shop.

I tookcare of the blood-drenched soil and arranged things with the rats then hit a drive-thru Mexican restaurant and picked up a bean burrito for me and a container of shredded beef for Fennel. I parked in the lot of an abandoned video rental store, and we chowed down. We were both drained of magic and hungry enough to eat double what I’d bought.

“What did you think of Bronwyn?”

Fennel purred and lazily flung his tail from side to side.

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