San Francisco Night

by Stephen Leather

  “Maybe, this guy Dukas is well informed. A member of his family was involved in something similar a hundred years ago. The killings have all been part of a greater plan, Joshua. It’s about a Coven storing power, by human sacrifice. Murdering virgins in the manner of the deaths of the original Disciples. Then there’s apparently a final ritual which involves the sacrificing of two kids. That’ll be the two kids who’ve gone missing here.”

  “But why? There’s no power to be gained from all that blood.”

  “It’s not about power, it’s about freeing a demon. Bimoleth.”

  There was a short pause. “He said that? He said Bimoleth.” Wainwright’s voice had gone down an octave.

  “Yes, and it’s all going to happen on Wednesday, the night of the blue moon.”

  “Can you stop it?”

  “Maybe. I’m pretty sure I know where it’s going to happen. At the very least I can call the cops and get them to stop it.”

  “I’d be happier if the cops were kept out of it, Jack.”

  “Yeah, and I’d be happier if I was a couple of inches taller and a few million richer.”

  “I’m just saying, the cops will ask questions.”

  “If they get the two kids back alive, that’s all they’ll care about. They’ll put the Apostles down as serial-killing nutters and move on. Now what can you tell me about this Bimoleth?”

  “I can tell you that a Prince of Hell loose on Earth is bad news for everybody, Jack.”

  “I would have thought you’d have been in favor of it,” said Nightingale. “Don’t you serve the Lord Of Misrule? Wouldn’t chaos be right up your street?”

  “You’re trying to simplify things you have no understanding of,” said Wainwright. “Those who serve The Lord Of This World would never want to bring about the End Of Days by themselves. It’s too much, too huge a catastrophe. It has to be stopped.”

  “Look, Joshua, I’m just an ex-cop,” said Nightingale. “How about some help here, you know a lot more about this world than I ever will. What should I do?”

  “Jack, I have no idea,” said Wainwright. “This is so far beyond anything I’ve even heard about, much less experienced. My best guess is that you need to stop this on the Earthly plane. Stop the Ritual before it’s complete, don’t try to deal with a demon once it’s been let loose. I’m going to ask a few questions, look at some books, but I’m not hopeful I’ll come up with much. This is something from the Old World, not the new.”

  “So it looks like I’m on my own,” said Nightingale. “Surprise, surprise.”

  Wainwright ended the call and Nightingale put his phone away. He walked down Nob Hill while he finished his cigarette and then flagged down a passing taxi and asked the driver to drop him at Haight Street. The Written In The Stars shop was shut. There was a sign in the window saying CLOSED. Nightingale peered through the window but there was no one inside. He pulled out his phone and called Starr’s number but it went straight through to voicemail. He put his phone away and lit a cigarette. He had a bad feeling about the shop being shut on a Monday afternoon.

  The shop next door sold framed prints and maps. Nightingale pushed open the door and a bald middle-aged man with a spreading beard frowned at him over the top of pince-nez spectacles. “No smoking,” he snapped. “Absolutely no smoking.”

  Nightingale stuttered an apology, threw his cigarette into the gutter and went back into the shop, holding his empty hands aloft. “Sorry,” he said.

  “Disgusting habit,” said the man.

  “Absolutely.”

  “My mother died of lung cancer.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And she wasn’t even a smoker,” said the man, pushing his spectacles higher up his nose.

  “Right,” said Nightingale. “Sorry.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Can I help you?”

  “The shop next door is closed. Written In The Stars.”

  “Is it? That’s unusual.”

  “He’s normally open on a Monday?”

  The man nodded. “Regular as clockwork.”

  “I saw Gabriel on Friday,” said Nightingale. “Is there any reason why he wouldn’t be here today?”

  “It’s unusual,” said the man again. “Very unusual.”

  “Has he been open at all today? Was he there when you opened up, for instance?”

  The man put a hand up to his chin, then shook his head. “Now you mention it, no. He wasn’t. And usually he pops out for a coffee at least once each morning and asks me to keep an eye on his shop. He didn’t today.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a key have you?”

  The man shook his head. “Do you think we should call the cops?”

  The last thing Nightingale needed was a run-in with SFPD’s finest, especially if Starr was lying dead in his shop. He feigned indifference. “He’ll turn up, I’m sure,” he said. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Nightingale left the shop and phoned Chen. “I’ve just been around to see the astrology guy, Gabriel Starr, and he’s vanished.”

  “Vanished?”

  “Closed up his shop and he’d not answering his phone. I think something bad has happened to him.”

  “Why were you going to speak to him?” asked Chen.

  “I need help,” said Nightingale.

  “With what?’

  “With the Apostles, what else?”

  CHAPTER 62

  “Wake now, Sharonda.” John had brought food and drink on a tray, and Sharonda woke in response to his command. She opened her brown eyes wide, looked at the food, then at him.

  “I want to go home,” she said, close to tears.

  “You won’t be here much longer.”

  She sat up. “It’s wrong to keep somebody locked up when they want to go home. I don’t think you’re a nice man at all. I want to go home.” She folded her arms, the way she’d seen her mother do when she didn’t get what she wanted.

  “Eat.”

  He turned and left, locking and bolting the door behind him.

  Sharonda was hungry and thirsty and her back was still very sore, though she couldn’t see or feel what was causing the pain. Still, she couldn’t manage more than a little pizza and half of the Coke. She picked up the remote, pressed Power then Play. SpongeBob. She liked SpongeBob, especially Patrick, but it wasn’t as funny here as it was at home with Timmy on her lap. The thought of her little brother brought more tears to her eyes, but she blinked them back. She wasn’t going to cry anymore, she promised herself. Her mom would want her to be strong, she always talked about how important it was to stay strong.

  Her Grandma would want her to be a big girl too. Grandma took her to church every Sunday and she stayed for Sunday School afterward She liked to hear the Bible stories that Mrs. Jackson read to them. The big flood, Jonah and the whale, Moses parting the Red Sea to lead his people to freedom. She liked to hear about Jesus too. Born in a stable, died on a cross. Jesus loved the little children, that’s what Mrs. Jackson always said. Sharonda was a good girl, and always said her prayers, but she’d forgotten since she’d been taken. Maybe Jesus could help her.

  She knelt down by the side of the bed. Hands together, eyes closed.

  “Jesus, this is Sharonda. Sharonda Parker. I guess...I guess I need some big help. I don’t even know where I am, but they won’t let me go home. I miss my mom, and Jonas, and Timmy and Grandma. Please Jesus, help me get back home, please...real soon. Amen.”

  Nothing happened. Sharonda lay back down on the bed to wait for Jesus to answer her prayer.

  CHAPTER 63

  Nightingale saw the Mustang come around the corner and he tossed what was left of his cigarette into the gutter. She pulled up next to him and he climbed in. Her hair was loose around her face and it looked as if she had just applied more lipstick, though he seriously doubted that was for his benefit. “A couple of hours at most, that’s all I can spare,” she said. “I’ve an interview for a case that I have to do at five,
and there’s a another case meeting I have to attend at six.”

  “Got it,” said Nightingale. “We need to go to a Rite Aid on Hillsdale Boulevard first.”

  “If you need a pharmacy, there are plenty closer.”

  “We need to drive from the Rite Aid to The Elms, to check that it’s twenty minutes away.”

  She pulled away from the kerb. “Because of the guy you spoke to. The one with your credit card?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did you say his name was again?”

  Nightingale hadn’t told her Mitchell’s name or what had happened to him. But he figured that everything they had been through, she deserved the truth. “Amy, I’ll tell you about him and I’ll tell you what happened, but I don’t want you to get angry.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she flashed him a look that suggested she was already angry. “What haven’t you told me, Jack?”

  “It’s…” He was about to say “complicated” but her lips practically disappeared into a thin tight line so he threw up his hands in surrender. “Amy, please, keep your eyes on the road.’

  She braked to avoid a pick-up truck that had slowed down in front of her to make a turn.

  “I’ll ask you again, Jack, what haven’t you told me?”

  “This was very early on, when I first started on this,” said Nightingale. “I couldn’t have told you then. For one thing you wouldn’t have believed me.”

  “You told me that they had taken a guy from this Rite Aid to the mansion.”

  “That’s right.”

  She nodded. “My fault for not following up at the time,” she said. “Who is he?”

  “A banker by the name of Lee Mitchell. He was lined up to join the Apostles but he was having second thoughts.”

  “How did he get in touch with you?”

  “He’d talked to Wainwright, the guy I work for.”

  “And why am I only hearing this now?”

  “Because it would have been too much to process before.”

  “Because you had been lying to me.”

  “More like just not telling the whole truth.”

  She shook her head. “No, Jack, you were lying to me, plain and simple. First you told me you were a journalist writing an article about missing persons. Then you told me you were looking into the disappearance of that priest because the family were after his money. That’s what you said, remember?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it. You weren’t bending the truth, Jack. You lied to me.”

  “I’m sorry, Amy. What do you want me to do? Open a vein?”

  “What I want is honesty. Why is that so hard?”

  “It’s not hard. It’s….” He stopped with the word “complicated” on the tip of his tongue. “Amy, I won’t lie to you again. I swear.”

  “I’m not sure how much weight to give a promise from you,” she said.

  “If I’d been honest with you up front, you’d have run a mile,” said Nightingale. “Child sacrifice, devil worship, demons from Hell, football players and movie stars attending Satanic masses.” He shrugged. “Even saying it now it sounds…”

  “Unbelievable?”

  “Yeah,” said Nightingale.

  “But having seen what I’ve seen, I do believe you. But can I trust you?”

  “I won’t lie to you again,” he said.

  “You’d better not,” she said. “Seriously.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “I printed off a Google map of The Elms.”

  Nightingale unfolded it and stared at the aerial view of a massive mansion in landscaped gardens. There was a swimming pool, two tennis courts, and a gazebo by a small lake. Part of the grounds backed onto a cliff overlooking the bay. It was much bigger than the mansions owned by Kent Speckman and Lucille Carr.

  “Here we are, Rite Aid,” said Chen, driving into a car park next to a squat, featureless building. The only windows were at the front.

  “Okay, so now we drive to The Elms and see how long it takes.”

  “You could have just Googled it,” said Chen. “There are plenty of programs that will do the calculation for you.”

  “I prefer the evidence of my own eyes,” said Nightingale, settling back in the seat.

  “It’s not rocket science, Jack,” said Chen, putting the car in gear and entering the afternoon traffic.

  Chen made good time driving to The Elms. According to Nightingale’s watch it took just under seventeen minutes until she pulled up in front of the massive wrought-iron gates set into a ten-foot high wall studded with spikes. There was a guardhouse just to the left of the gate, with at least two uniformed men inside. Video cameras were mounted on both gateposts.

  “Best we don’t dally,” said Chen.

  “Dally,” said Nightingale with a grin. “I like that. Dally.”

  “Fine. Linger, if you prefer. Either way, we need to go.” She drove slowly away from the gates.

  “We need to get inside, Amy,” said Nightingale as they headed down the road.

  “No problem. Hire yourself a truck, drive it through the gates, I’ll shoot the guards as we pass, Then straight up the drive, smash down the front door and go in shooting. Works fine, just as long as they have no security inside, no guns and no phones to call the cops on us. Tomorrow at dawn works for me.”

  “I read somewhere that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit,” said Nightingale.

  “Well, if you have a better plan, I’m all ears,” she said.

  “How about you get a warrant?”

  “On the basis of what? You think I can walk in and tell a judge that a crystal ball told me that two missing kids are being held captive behind those walls and that tomorrow night a group of devil worshipers are going to kill them? My feet wouldn’t touch the ground, Jack.”

  “You could lie. Say you think there are drugs in there.”

  “And lying to judges works in merry old England does it?”

  Nightingale sighed. “Maybe not. Is there any way we can find out more about the layout inside?”

  “There’ll be architect’s plans lodged at City Hall going back to when the place was built. All in the public domain. The estate used to belong to a shipping family, old San Francisco money. I know King and Brook had a few run-ins with the neighbors when they filed their building plans because they wanted a helicopter pad and stuff.”

  Nightingale sighed again. “I really need to know if there’s a crypt in there,” he said. “You can’t hold these rituals just anywhere, they need to be near a large body of water, a river, lake or ocean. And on ground that was once consecrated. I need to know if that applies to this ceremony. We need to go back and see Dukas. He said he’d check his library and two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll be finished by seven, eight at the latest. Why don’t I drop you there and meet you later?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Nightingale.

  CHAPTER 64

  Chen dropped Nightingale in Steiner Street and headed back to her office, telling him that she’d call when she was done. Nightingale watched her drive away to reassure himself that she wasn’t being followed. He lit a cigarette and blew a couple of smoke rings before walking up to the front door. He rang the bell, but this time there was no answering clip of Conchita’s stilettos across the tiled floor. He tried again, with the same result. He took out his cellphone and called Dukas’s number. He could hear it ringing inside the house, but after a minute there was still no answer. He cursed under his breath. It wasn’t turning out to be his day.

  There was an alley that ran behind the back yards of Dukas’s street. Nightingale counted carefully until he was sure he had the right house. He’d hoped to find a dumpster to stand on and climb the wall, but in the event it wasn’t necessary, the wall was studded with wooden doors, and Dukas’s wasn’t locked. It looked as if the lock had been broken and Dukas hadn’t got round to hav
ing it repaired. Or maybe it had been broken more recently.

  The backyard was small, a square of neatly-trimmed lawn and a path leading to the back door. His housebreaking expertise was strictly limited, but he was expecting the place to be empty. He bent down and examined the lock. It had been forced open and the jamb had splintered. Nightingale cursed under his breath. The broken lock meant that getting into the house had suddenly gotten a lot easier, the downside was that something bad had happened. He stepped inside. The door opened into the kitchen. There was a wooden block full of knives by the sink and he pulled out the biggest. The silver penknife was still in his pocket but from what he knew about Elementals they didn’t need to break locks and force doors. If there was anyone still in the house they were probably human. He held the knife in front of him as he moved through the kitchen.

  Conchita lay face down, halfway along the entrance hall. Nightingale didn’t need to check her pulse, the angle of her head to her body told him all he needed to know. Nightingale stepped past her and moved on to Dukas’s study. The door was open and he walked in.

  The place was a shambles. Books and animals from the shelves lay all over the floor, glass cases had been smashed and trophies pulled from the walls and slashed open. Dukas’s carefully assembled collection lay in ruins. Then Nightingale saw what was on the desk and almost threw up. He’d seen death in many forms, and it was rarely pleasant, but he’d never seen anything as bad as what had been done to Basil Dukas.

  The tiny man lay naked on his desk, covered in his own blood. Nightingale forced himself to look at what remained of him. His ears had both been removed with a sharp blade, as had his nose. All the fingers of both hands were missing, and, worst of all, his genitals. The missing body parts lay in an unidentifiable pile next to the corpse. Dukas hadn’t simply been murdered, he had been tortured to death. Whoever had done it had gagged him at some point, with a strip of sodden cloth that now lay on the floor by the window. Something else had been shoved in his mouth, probably after he’d died. Something small and brown. A bird. Mimicus Polyglottis. The Northern Mockingbird. The American Nightingale.