Page 6 of Strike It Witch

“Three minutes.” I glanced at my watch then stared intently at the gateway. “Two more.”

“Is that enough time?"

“Yes." I hoped.

She glanced at the silver watch on her slender wrist. “Looks like you’ve accounted for everything.”

“Yes.”

But had I? I scowled at the opening, tapped one boot heel in the dirt. They were black, with a bit of a heel. Impractical? Yes. But I was an impractical shoe kind of woman. Besides, I'd once tromped through an alfalfa field in them and my ankles were perfectly intact.

The portal cinched inward with a creak.

Good goddess, it wasshrinking. I damn well had not accounted for that.

“Hey, you.” I indicated Gnath with a chin flick. “Who are you working with?”

“No one.”

“Bull.” I gestured toward the shrinking portal mouth. “You didn’t open this thing. If you can’t hold it for even this long, you don’t possess enough power to have opened it in the first place.”

“Make no mistake. I am powerful enough to open a gateway,earth witch.”

I halted.

There was no way he could have known my element.

Yet he did.

“Rendered you silent, have I?” Black blood dripped from his green brow.

Hardly. I stared into his bottomless gaze as I bent down to take off my boots and socks.

I was born a witch—an elemental. Witches like me had a special affinity with air, water, fire, or in my case, earth.

“Wait. Don’t come for me,” Gnath said. “It was just a guess, I?—”

“Mercurio.” I walked the perimeter of the outer circle, my bare feet scuffing the loose dirt. Magic rose from the soil and infused me. When I’d completed the revolution, I knelt in front of the demon, though outside the salt circles, and dug my fingers into the cool earth. Its power electrified me. I squeezed the soil and drew even more magic into my body.

The demon’s voice trembled. “Wait. What are you?—”

“Fuego.” A ring of liquid silver flames erupted, licking the salt but not crossing it. Quicksilver was one of the few things in the universe capable of permanently injuring a demon.

“Mercury’s poison?” The demon huddled in the center of the circle, terror etched into the harsh planes of his blood-streaked face. “Gods, no. Don’t. Please.”

I ignored him and sent the flames forward another inch. “Who told you about me?”

“Lucifer’s crown, I’m in trouble now.” He unfurled like a curled-up spider, one limb at a time, and fixed his gaze on the silver fire. “It’s just like Elaine always says. ‘Gnath,’ she says, ‘if you listened half as much as you ran your mouth, we wouldn’t have been chased out of Hades’s court.’”

There was a loud crack, like thunder when lightning’s close, and the edges of the gateway inched toward the center. I peeredthrough the opening, saw grass and trees and clean, flowing water.

Limbo, as I’d been told. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Hell vacillated between rivers of fire and ice, and nothing there was clean. Few things grew, and the things that did were terrifying. I never would’ve sent Fennel into Hell, no matter how well he could defend himself there.

Cats, particularly black ones, were the guardians of the underworld. As a result, they could travel in and out of Hades and Limbo without repercussion. They had power in the underworld, and demons were equal parts disgusted by and terrified of them.

I let the power of the soil flow into my voice. “Who told you about me?”

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