Read San Francisco Night for Free Online Page B

Abaddon?”
    “She knows what she’s doing, Jack.”
    “Where did you park? Same place every time?”
    Mitchell nodded. “A Rite Aid on Hillsdale Boulevard. They picked me up and put a hood over my head. Then dropped me back there when it was over.”
    “Tell me about the first time you went to the mansion.”
    “Like I said, I only saw the changing room and the temple. Big place, all the Satanic decorations you’d expect. Candles, herbs, chanting in a language I’d never heard that they had to teach me phonetically.  Musical instruments. Drums. Bells. Tambourines. Then they dragged in some fat frizzy-haired girl, naked, tied her to the altar and some guy shoved a spear into her a dozen times, finally in her throat. He took his mask off and drunk the blood.”
    “And you recognized him?” asked Nightingale.
    “Pure chance...Kent Speckman. How about that?”
    Nightingale looked at him blankly.
     “You’ve never heard of Kent Speckman? The Specter?”
    Nightingale shook his head.
    “Shit, Jack, don’t you read the papers? The Specter, the fastest and most elusive running-back the 49ers have ever had. Nobody can lay a hand on him. The guy’s a living legend.”
    “You’re sure it was him?”
    “No question.”
     “They took you out after the sacrifice?” asked Nightingale.
    “Yeah, I wasn’t allowed to see them pay their Service to the Temple.”
    “What’s that?”
    “If you’re a woman, it means giving yourself to any man who wants you in the coven. If you’re a man it means having your choice of any woman there.”
    “Sounds like being a man is more fun,” said Nightingale.
    “Usually is,” said Mitchell. “Anyway, that was the first time.”
    “Tell me about the second time.”
    Mitchell slumped down onto a bench and stared out to sea.
    “Oh God. It was awful,” he said. “It was a nun, or so they told us. Tied her to a cross upside down, then one of them hammered nails in her hands and feet, shoved a cross backwards up her. Then slit her throat and drank the blood. They called her Peter, but it was a woman. A woman did that for pity’s sake. And looked like she loved every minute. Hell.”
    “And you recognized her too?”
    “Anyone would,” said Mitchell. “Lucille Carr.”
    “Who?” asked Nightingale.
    “Lucille fucking Carr, where have you been, man? The fucking actress.”
    “Take it easy, Lee,” said Nightingale. “You’ve been through a lot, but you’re nearly out of it now. Guess I’m a little out of touch with Hollywood these days.”
    “All the way by the sound of it, but anyway she started on TV. That Blood Network show. How does someone that famous get involved in shit like that?”
    “Perhaps it’s getting involved in shit that brought the fame?” said Nightingale. “Why did you get in touch with Joshua?”
    “Because I realized I wanted out and I figured I couldn’t just walk away,” said Mitchell.
    “You knew they were going to sacrifice people, right?”
    Mitchell’s face screwed up as if he was about to cry. “I knew, but I didn’t know,” he said. “It’s like I got sucked in and the more I got sucked in the less horrific it was. But when they killed the nun…”
    “You wanted out?”
    Mitchell nodded.
    “Do you know who they wanted you to sacrifice?”
    “They were going to get the victim for me. Two of the Apostles are experts at abductions. Don’t ask me how, but they can abduct people to order, pretty much. All they told me was that I would have to saw the victim into pieces while they were alive.”
    “Did Abaddon tell you how many sacrifices are left?”
    Mitchell shook his head.
    “But I was told these sacrifices are just the beginning. A way to store up power inside their circle, and bind each of them to this leader, Abaddon. But it’s all building up to something much bigger, and that’s coming up real soon. When they first started, the Sabbats were on the full moon. But they’re coming quicker now. Every week. And