Play With Fire Read online

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  About the Author

  PLAY WITH FIRE

  A MORRIS AND CHASTAIN INVESTIGATION

  Justin Gustainis

  Praise for The Morris & Chastain Investigations

  “Smart, sexy, and supernatural – Black Magic Woman goes for the throat and doesn’t let up until the very last page. I wish I’d written this book; it’s a hell of a ride.”

  Lilith Saintcrow, author of Working for the Devil and To Hell and Back, on Black Magic Woman

  “A very good book, and I’ll look forward to reading another one in the series.”

  Charlaine Harris, author of the True Blood series, on Black Magic Woman

  “Gustainis does well in keeping the outcome shrouded in doubt, right up until the very end.”

  Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review on Evil Ways

  “The story’s fast pacing is guaranteed to hook readers in while an interesting selection of supporting characters gives the story depth and makes it more than just an action driven fantasy thrill-fest.”

  Love Vampires on Sympathy for the Devil

  “A tremendously enjoyable mash-up of political thriller and urban fantasy, intelligently written and full of tension.”

  Green Man Review on Sympathy for the Devil

  “Keep an eye on Justin Gustainis. You’ll be seeing more of him soon.”

  Jim Butcher, New York Times best-selling author of the Dresden Files and Codex Alera series

  Also by Justin Gustainis

  The Hades Project

  Black Magic Woman

  Evil Ways

  Sympathy For The Devil

  First published 2012 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: (epub) 978-1-84997-474-5

  ISBN: (mobi) 978-1-84997-475-2

  Copyright © Justin Gustainis 2012

  Cover Art by Pye Parr

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of he copyright owners.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  For Linda

  and a rainy night in Salem.

  “If you love God, burn a church.”

  – Jello Biafra

  “Deliver me, O Lord, from eternal death

  on that awful day,

  when the heavens and the earth shall be moved:

  when you will come to judge the world by fire.”

  – Catholic prayer for the dead

  “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

  – Alfred the Butler

  One

  Author’s note: the events in this story take place shortly after those described in the most recent Morris and Chastain novel, Sympathy for the Devil.

  ON THE DAY that Quincey Morris got out of jail, Libby Chastain was waiting for him.

  Gate four of the Metropolitan Detention Facility in Brooklyn is nothing more than an iron door set in a big stone wall. There is a small parking lot nearby; Libby sat there, behind the wheel of a black Lincoln Town Car. She kept the engine running for the heat, and waited for that door to open. There was nothing to look at apart from the wall, the door, and some paper cups and other trash that blew around in the erratic wind.

  Monday, January 16th, Morris’s lawyer had told her. Eleven a.m. And here it was eleven sixteen, and still no Morris.

  Libby had noticed on her way that the parking lot adjoining the intake gate was much larger than the one in which she now sat. It’s as if this place is eager to lock people up, but in no big hurry to let them go.

  Still, things could have been worse. Federal prisoners awaiting trial, like Morris, were kept here, but those under the jurisdiction of the city were sent either to the Tombs (the Bernard B. Kerik Detention Complex in lower Manhattan, which earned its morbid nickname a long time ago), or, even worse, Riker’s Island – an overcrowded hellhole that has generated more horror stories than Stephen King.

  Morris had been incarcerated since July, following certain events that took place at the Republican National Convention, which had been held in the city. Given the charges against him, a list which even John Dillinger would have found impressive, Morris’s judge had denied bail.

  Libby had heard that Mal Peters, who had been arrested along with Morris, was also due for release today, but later. She wondered if Peters would be met by someone called Ashley, who looked like a beautiful woman but was in fact something else entirely. The word was that Father Paul Finlay, who had also conspired with Morris and Libby and some others to save the world, would be sprung tomorrow, or the day after.

  Libby had not visited Morris in jail – at least, not officially. As a known associate of the prisoner, she had been fairly sure that both the Secret Service and the FBI were interested in talking to her. They had no evidence to connect her with the dramatic business at the Republican Convention, but she might well be held for questioning – maybe for days. So Libby had kept a low profile. She temporarily moved out of her apartment, leaving behind some faked correspondence to show that she was going to be hiking in the Adirondacks for an extended period, exact location unknown.

>   But she had visited Morris secretly, using a spell for spirit transference. She had appeared in his cell on several occasions, her translucent form looking like a stereotypical movie ghost, while her body remained, behind locked and warded doors, in the bed where she had lain while casting the spell. Morris was familiar with the phenomenon and so had not freaked out when she showed up.

  Her last visit had been four nights ago.

  “You’re looking more cheerful than usual,” Libby said to Morris. “Considerably moreso, in fact. And I bet I know why.”

  Morris grinned at her. “Gloomy Gus paid me a visit yesterday.”

  Gustav Volmer, attorney at law, was known by that nickname because of his perpetually lugubrious expression. Volmer tended to take on cases that no other attorney would touch, and consequently rarely had good news to deliver to his clients.

  “The old bastard was smiling so broadly when I walked into the visitors’ room, I thought he was having a stroke,” Morris said. “Turned out he had good news for me. I figure the last time something like that happened was when he told Sir Thomas More that Henry VIII had decided to forego the drawing and quartering, and just have him beheaded.”

  Libby, or rather the projection of her spirit, nodded. “The government’s dropping all the charges,” she said. “Lack of evidence. All a big misunderstanding. Turns out that Stark had actually been abducted by a bunch of terrorists, who escaped in the confusion. You and the other two guys were just caught in the middle.”

  “I assume you had something to do with that,” Morris said.

  “Well, not directly. The orders came straight from the Attorney General, I understand. He in turn, was acting on very specific instructions from the White House.”

  “So our new President decided I had no involvement with the conspiracy to kidnap his former political rival, Senator Howard Stark? What led him to that happy conclusion?”

  “Stark did, actually. He’s mostly recovered from the bullet wounds, you know. And no longer being possessed by Sargatanas has done wonders for his morale, even if he didn’t get to be the Republican nominee this time around. He paid a call on President Leffingwell the day after the inauguration – and brought a couple of friends with him.”

  “And those friends were...?”

  “Me and Ashley,” Libby said. “Of course, there was no way we were going to get official clearance to visit the President – especially Ashley. So we made ourselves invisible. At least, until we were in the Oval Office.”

  Morris shook his head slowly. “Damn, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that little meeting.”

  Libby nodded, smiling. “Stark led into it pretty well, but, still – the expression on Leffingwell’s face when we appeared out of thin air...”

  “Priceless doesn’t describe it, I bet.”

  “A bet you’d win. Up to that point, things went pretty much as you’d expect. Stark told the whole story, beginning with the night he was possessed by Sargatanas, right up to the point where Mary Margaret Doyle put two bullets into his chest. Naturally, Leffingwell decided that Stark had gone completely insane. He was about to ring for the Secret Service when Ashley and I made our rather dramatic entrance. That lent Stark’s account a certain verisimilitude, you might say.”

  “So I get to walk,” Morris said. “Peters and Finlay, too? Gloomy Gus doesn’t represent them, so he didn’t know anything about their cases.”

  “Yep – their charges are being dropped, too, with apologies all around.”

  Morris was quiet for a moment, frown lines creasing his face. “It just occurred to me – why just drop the charges, instead of a full pardon for each of us?”

  “I looked into that,” Libby said. “It seems a President can only pardon somebody who’s already been convicted of a crime. Your trial’s not even due to start until March at least. Anyway, we figured you’d rather not have the conviction on your record.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that, for sure.”

  “Anyway, pardoning the three of you would lead to a lot of embarrassing questions – the kind that Leffingwell would really prefer not to answer. Telling the truth about what happened would be out of the question, of course.”

  “Isn’t it always?” Morris said.

  Two

  THE DOOR THAT constituted gate four swung open, finally, at eleven twenty-four. Quincey Morris walked through and Libby caught a glimpse of the uniformed corrections officer who pulled the door shut again after Morris was outside. Morris hunched his shoulders against the cold – unsurprising, since he wore only the lightweight suit he’d been arrested in last July.

  Libby blinked her lights once to be sure he saw her, and then put the big car into gear. By the time Morris reached the end of the sidewalk that led to the parking lot, Libby was parked there waiting for him.

  He got in, pulled the door shut, and turned to look at her.

  “How you doin’, cowboy?” Libby asked.

  A grin split Morris’s lean face. “Better now. A hell of a lot better now.”

  Libby touched the gas and headed the car toward the parking lot exit. After a moment Morris said, “Nice wheels.”

  “It’s rented, of course. You know I can’t afford to keep a car – especially one like this – in New York. But I thought the occasion warranted something a little special. In fact, I don’t know what happened to the brass band I hired. They were supposed to be here at eleven, and I’ve had them practicing ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ for weeks.” Libby shook her head in mock disappointment. “You just can’t count on anybody, these days.”

  As Libby turned into the street, Morris looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Libby,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there are a few people who can be counted on. Like your own self, for instance. Thank you – for everything.”

  “Heck, you’re the one who just spent six months in the slam – courtesy of an ungrateful nation, who doesn’t appreciate what you saved it from.”

  “You did as much of the saving as I did, if not more. Anyhow, you can’t expect gratitude from people who don’t know what really happened.”

  “I suppose. But a few people do know. And some of them actually are grateful.”

  Libby’s big purse was wedged between the bucket seats. After a quick glance down, she reached in and removed an envelope, which she handed to Morris. “This guy, for instance.”

  Morris looked at the envelope. The return address was listed simply as “The White House, Washington, D.C.” In the center, Morris’s name was written, in ink.

  Libby saw his look out of the corner of her eye. “A big envelope, containing that and another one with my name on it, was delivered to my place yesterday by a couple of large gentlemen in suits. They did not, I suspect, work for FedEx – although the ‘Fed’ part might well apply.”

  Morris opened the envelope to find a single sheet of expensive looking paper with the same simple address as the envelope. The letter was written by hand, in black, spider-thin ink.

  Morris looked at the sheet for a lot longer than it should take to read the brief contents. Finally he asked Libby, “Wanna hear what it says?”

  “Sure.”

  Dear Mister Morris,

  I used to think that I understood this world we live in reasonably well. But in the last few days I have learned some things that I once could never have imagined, let alone believed. However, the evidence I have seen is impossible to deny. It would seem that a small group of heroic people – led, I understand, by you and Ms. Libby Chastain, have saved the United States, indeed the world, from unimaginable catastrophe. You, and the others, undoubtedly deserve the Medal of Freedom, a ticker tape parade, and a generous pension for life. But if I tried to bestow upon all of you these just rewards, one of two things would happen. Our fellow citizens would not believe my reasons for doing so, and I would be judged insane. Or, perhaps worse, they would believe me, and the entire nation might well go insane.

  Having the Attorney General drop all
charges against you and your colleagues is the very least I can do. Your arrest records will also be quietly expunged.

  On behalf of a nation that will never know the invaluable service you rendered it, please accept my thanks.

  Sincerely, Robert J. Leffingwell.

  “Well, that’s nice of him.” Morris said. “Pity I can’t have it framed to put on the wall.”

  “I can see how that might cause awkward questions,” Libby said. “So what will you do with it?”

  “Remember that fireproof safe at my house – the one you put the aversion spell on, so nobody but me could open it?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Inside, there’s a good-sized metal box that holds what I think of as the ‘Morris Family’s Memorabilia Collection.’ Been in the family for something like eighty years. The letter’s going in there.”

  “Now that’s a collection I wouldn’t mind seeing, sometime,” Libby said.

  “I’d say you’ve earned the right, quite a few times over. Just remind me, next time you’re down in Austin. You might be interested to see that this isn’t the first presidential letter that’ll be in there.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised at all. There’s another one, huh?”

  “There’s two of ’em, actually. One’s got FDR’s signature on it. The other one’s from Lyndon Johnson.”

  “I can hardly wait,” Libby said. “But what would you like to do now?”

  “For starters, jail food being what it is, I’m lookin’ to get myself on the outside of the biggest, juiciest steak to be found in this town.”

  “I thought you might have something like that in mind. Our reservation at Peter Luger’s is for twelve thirty. We should just make it.”