Play with Fire

chapter Sixty-Four

PETERS SLID THE rifle case into the trunk of the rental Toyota before joining Morris in the front.

“Nice shooting,” Morris said, and pulled back into traffic.

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure how best to help out, but when I saw those three heading right for Libby, with one of them carrying this big pig-sticker, I figured I ought to discourage them.”

“I’d say you did that, all right.”

A few minutes later, Peters pointed off to the west. “Wonder what that is.”

Morris looked and saw a large plume of gray smoke rising from someplace a few miles distant. “I wonder if that’s Ware’s diversion,” he said. “Bastard. Hope nobody else died – there’s been enough of that today.”

“It explains one thing though – no cops.”

“I hadn’t thought about them, but you’re right,” Morris said. “And speaking of things I didn’t think about – why didn’t you call?”

“When?”

“When you got my message.”

“You didn’t say to call – you said to haul ass way the hell out to Kansas, so that’s what we did.”

“I didn’t see you at the motel. Were they out of rooms?”

“Hell, we just got into town two hours ago,” Peters said. “Our flight out of New York sat on the tarmac at LaGuardia for over an hour and a half, and that made us miss our connection in Chicago. Ashley wanted to turn everybody in the control tower into toads, but I convinced her that it would only delay things even more.”

“Be kind of fun to watch, though.”

“I understood the impulse, that’s for sure. Anyway, when we found you’d already left the Buffalo Bill, we figured the action would all be in town, where the churches are. Guess we were right.”

“And just in time, too. Thanks.”

“Da nada. Stopping the end of the world was in our best interest too, you know.”

“You two are a good team,” Morris said. “And I meant to ask you – what have you and Ashley been doing since you got out of jail?”

“Living off the money and credit cards that Astaroth gave me when he sent me back to this side,” Peters said. “But Ashley’s starting to get restless.”

“Not a good thing.”

“She was saying that we ought to set ourselves up as occult investigators, kind of like you and Libby. I mean, who better to deal with the supernatural than a demon and a former damned soul, right?”

“Sounds like a perfect fit,” Morris said.

“You won’t mind the competition?”

“The way things have been going,” Morris said, “I’m pretty sure that there’s plenty of work for all of us, podner.”