Play with Fire

chapter Fifty-Four

TWENTY MINUTES AFTER speaking with Father Bowen, Morris was on the phone again, calling the people who had joined him in Austin just over a week earlier.

And no one answered.

Morris hoped it was simply a question of Libby, Elly, Peters, Ashley, Fenton, and O’Donnell all being away from their phones, and that he wasn’t an undeserving victim of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” syndrome. But all he could do, in each case, was leave a message – which is what he did.

“This is Morris. We were wrong – the gate to Hell didn’t open the last time because there’s one more sacrifice to go, in the center of the pentagram. This isn’t speculation – I just heard from a priest who translated book five. And it’s all going down Sunday, the day after tomorrow. Near as I can figure, the exact center is someplace called Oakley Kansas, a little burg in the northwest corner of the state. There’s no air service, so I’m flying to Denver and driving the rest of the way. I need your help. I’m not sure I can take this guy by myself. I sure as hell can’t sniff out black magic, and there’s a dozen churches in Oakley to choose from. I need you to meet me, as soon as you can get there, at the Buffalo Bill Motel, a couple of miles outside Oakley. Please do this. We fought the good fight – or tried to – in Austin. We need to do it again, one last time. Otherwise it will be the last time – for all of us.”