Play with Fire

chapter Sixteen

IT WAS JUST past midnight when the Dodge Caravan rolled past the sign that read, “Welcome to Decatur – Alabama’s Friendliest City!”

“Wonder how friendly they’d be if they knew what we had planned for them?” Jeremy said from the passenger seat. After taking part in two sacrifices, he had lost any uncertainties that had plagued him in the beginning. He was a true member of the team now.

From the rear seat Mark began to breathe loudly and rapidly and a moment later groaned, “Oh, my God!”

Jeremy glanced at the driver. “Does it piss you off, hearing him say that name?”

Ware gave a small shrug. Without taking his eyes off the road he said, “In other contexts, it very well might – which you would all do well to keep in mind. But it seems to be almost universally uttered at the point of orgasm. Atheists and agnostics say it, too. Hell, even I say it.”

There was a spitting sound from the back, then Elektra appeared, wiping her mouth and chin with Kleenex. “How come we always have to travel at night, Theron?” She was careful not to say that in anything like a whining tone. Polite questions were permitted, but whining was punished.

“We can hardly have you back there performing fellatio on one of the boys in broad daylight, can we, Elektra? Some righteous citizen might see, and tell the police – and we are carrying things in the back that I would rather not explain to the authorities.”

“The thermite bombs, you mean?” Jeremy said.

“Those especially, yes. Besides, I enjoy the night – it seems to give me strength, whereas I often find daylight saps my energy. It’s psychological, I’m sure – since I haven’t joined the ranks of the bloodsucking undead.”

“Vampires are real?” Elektra asked.

“Most certainly.”

“I always thought it was just one of those things they use to scare kids at the movies.”

“Elektra, my dear – how can you believe in the power of black magic, which you have seen with your own eyes, and doubt the existence of other dark things?”

“Well, when you put it that way...”

“Are we gonna be stopping soon?” That was Mark who had apparently recovered from Elektra’s oral ministrations.

“As soon as I find a motel that looks small enough for the clerk not to process my credit card if I show him a great deal of cash.”

“What good is a credit card, if you never use it?” Jeremy asked.

“I do use it, frequently – but not on this trip,” Ware said. “I don’t want any record of our passage through town to appear on some database. It’s possible that the FBI might have seen a pattern in our sacrifices, and one of their tactics is to see if the same credit card has been used in the vicinity of more than one so-called crime scene. I don’t want to make things easy for them.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jeremy said. “They do stuff like that on TV all the time.”

“I don’t plan to be as careless as those morons in the cop shows. Although I suppose it’s possible that someone, official or not, might get on our trail, eventually.”

“You don’t sound too worried about it,” Elektra said.

“I’m not. I have various contingency plans to deal with interference, if and when it comes our way.”

“How about this place?” Jeremy pointed to a large neon sign coming up on their right. “It says ‘Vacancy.’”

“Looks like it might be suitable,” Ware said. He turned into the motel’s parking lot. “Let’s see if anybody is still awake at the registration desk – yes, I believe I see a light. Good.”

Ware parked their vehicle and slid out from behind the wheel. In five minutes he was back and handing Jeremy a key with a big plastic tab attached. “This is your room. I’m next door.”

He started the engine and drove slowly down the line of motel rooms, peering at room numbers as he went. “When the three of you are doing whatever it is you do in bed tonight, try to keep the noise down. I want to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, we got a busy day tomorrow,” Mark said, with a snigger.

“Exactly,” Ware said. “A town like this ought to be just full of Baptist churches. I’m sure we’ll have no problem finding exactly the right one.”