Play with Fire

chapter Fifty

OVER THE NEXT several days, there were a number of conversations between and among those who had been involved in the desperate effort to keep the gates to Hell firmly closed. The good news was that they had apparently succeeded. The bad news was that none of them could understand how success had been wrested from the jaws of a defeat that seemed poised to devour them all.

That the Eighth Street Mosque had been the target of Theron Ware’s crew there was little doubt. In the wreckage, fire investigators found the remnants of incendiary devices that were identical to those used in the four other recent arsons involving houses of worship. Also found among the ruins was the charred body of a man whom dental records identified as the mosque’s Imam, Dr. Muhammad Faisil.

There was no shortage of theories among the group members to explain what had happened – or rather, what had not happened.

Malcolm Peters: “Ashley and I had figured that the ‘magic number’ of church burnings was five, or a multiple of five – since that’s a very important number in black magic. I thought that Ware would go with five, because every new sacrifice put him and his crew at risk of being caught. But maybe he’s an arrogant bastard, and he’s gonna keep going until he hits ten, or fifteen, or whatever f*cking number he has in mind. Maybe he’s making more than one pentagram – who knows? I think we’d all better keep an eye on the news – if there’s another church burning with the same M.O., it shows that Ware is still in business – which means we’re still in business, too.”

Ashur Badaktu, aka Ashley: “I think the stupid bastard’s f*cked it up. The fifth sacrifice must not have been enough to open the Gates of Tartarus. There was some additional sacrifice, or ritual, or spell necessary before the Big Barbeque, as I like to call it, could happen. Ware attempted it, and failed. And there are no do-overs in black magic. If he blew it, the chance is lost – unless he wants to start all over again, with five more sacrifices. Personally, I think he’s dead and gone. When Ware screwed up, whatever major demon gave him flesh and sent him over here probably got disgusted and yanked him back home. My guess is, we’ll never hear from him again.”

Special Agent Dale Fenton: “I’m no longer convinced that any of the people behind this are demons, or even magic practitioners. Maybe the black magic that Colleen sniffed out the first time has another source. This could be simply a group of vicious lunatics traveling around the country, randomly killing clergymen and burning their churches. Serial killers, in other words. I grant you, the Bureau has never seen serial murder carried out quite like this, but there’s a first time for everything. Or maybe the killers have read too many comic books, and they really believed that creating a pentagram with the locations of their crimes would open the gates of Hell. If so, then they were clearly mistaken – thank Heaven.”

Eleanor “Ellie” Robb: “What we may have here is an example of divine intervention. I think it entirely possible that Theron Ware and his cohort did everything right – from their own evil perspective, I mean. They carried out a bloody, depraved ritual that would really have opened the gates to Hell. I understand that there are some among the Infernal, such as Astaroth, who feared that such a catastrophe would bring on Armageddon, the final battle between Heaven and Hell. But what if God, or the Goddess, or however you wish to call our Creator, decided that it was not yet time for Armageddon, and simply forestalled the spell by saying, ‘No – this will not be permitted.’ I think it’s as good an explanation as any, and better than some I’ve heard.”