by Tim Waggoner
"Cute," she said sarcastically.
We disturbed the layer of ground mist as we walked, but it closed right up behind us, leaving no evidence of our passage. We found the front walk by accident more than anything else and we continued along it until we reached the porch. The ravens roosting on the property made no sound as we approached, but they kept their beady-eyed gazes upon us as if they were trying to determine whether we were up to no good.
A quartet of cracked stone columns held up the roof over the porch and spiders had spun elaborate webs between them. Something was caught in one of the webs and I took a closer look.
"Help meeeeeee!" came a tiny voice.
I reached out and with a thumb and forefinger carefully plucked the human headed fly from the webbing.
"Get on back to the Foundry, you slacker," I said.
I flicked the human headed fly off my fingers and his wings began to buzz. He circled our heads a couple times before straightening his course and making a beeline – or rather a flyline – in the general direction of the Boneyard.
"A little guy like that needs to be extra careful when he decides to take a flight on the wild side," I said.
I stepped up to the large front door – black, naturally – took hold of the thick iron ring knocker, lifted it, and let it fall once, twice, three times, then I stepped back to wait.
"Let me guess," Devona said. "The door will creak open and a scary-looking butler will poke his head out and say, 'Good evehu-ning' in a sepulchral tone."
"Exactly what does a sepulchral tone sound like anyway?" I asked.
The door opened then, and true to Devona's guess, it did so with a creaking sound. But instead of a scary butler an ordinary human man stood there. He was tall, in his early to mid-thirties, with a round face, thinning straight black hair, glasses and a neatly trimmed black mustache. He wore a navy-blue polo shirt, jeans and running shoes.
"Can I help you?" he said, speaking in a pleasant deep voice that was sonorous rather than sepulchral. He paused, frowned as he gave me a closer look, then he smiled.
"Matt!" I didn't recognize you in your new get-up." He turned to Devona. "And you must be Devona." His frown returned. "Funny, I thought you had blonde hair."
"She normally does," I said. "We're traveling in disguise right now."
The man nodded. "Of course. I should've realized." He opened the door wider and stepped back. "Come on in. My House of Mysterious Secrets is your House of Mysterious Secrets."
He smiled as his joke while Devona and I walked past him. Once we were inside he closed the door and entered a code on an electronic keypad on the wall next to it. There was the sound of locks engaging and I knew the manor's impressive security system was now activated.
Devona had of course seen the keypad and had no doubt noticed how out of place it was with the manor's outside appearance. But that was nothing compared to the place's inside. We now stood within a pleasant looking foyer more suited to an upper middle class house on Earth than a haunted mansion in Nekropolis.
Devona turned to me with a questioning look.
"Allow me to introduce you to the master of this forbidding edifice," I said. "The enigmatic and eldritch being known only by the sinister appellation of… David Zelasco!"
David gave Devona a smile.
"Hi."
David led us through his tastefully furnished home to a workroom toward the back of the manor. It was a large room with long tables lining the walls, a dozen computer monitors with keyboards resting on top of them. With the exception of a half empty liter bottle of soda and a crinkled bag of nacho chips near one of the monitors, the tables were clear and free of clutter. It looked like a normal enough office space, except each of the monitors had a raven perching on top of it, the birds standing motionless, connected to the monitors by wires plugged into the backs of their heads. Images flashed across the monitor screens in fastmotion, scenes from all five of Nekropolis's Dominions.
A wheeled office chair sat in front of one of the monitors and David went over to it and sat down.
Devona stepped closer to one of the ravens and examined it more closely. "These things are some kind of machines, aren't they? And I bet the ones outside are too."
David nodded as he turned the chair around to face us and sat down. "They're partially robotic. They were specially designed for me by–"
Devona held up a hand to stop him. "Victor Baron, right?"
David smiled. "Who else? I've got about a hundred or so working at any given time. They fly all over the city, recording video and audio. When their memories are full, they fly back here and I download the information they've gathered into my mainframe. That's when the real work starts."
Devona reached out a finger to prod one of the ravens. The bird gave her an angry squawk, startling her. It seemed to glare at her, as if to say, Do you mind? and then became motionless again.
Devona turned to face David.
"Real work?"
He nodded again. "I go through the hours of video my ravens collect, looking for something useful."
Devona gave me a mildly frustrated look which I interpreted as meaning Would somebody just tell me what's going on here?
But before I could say anything, an electronic tone sounded from the monitor closest to him.
"Excuse me for a moment."
David swiveled around to face the monitor and typed a few strokes on the keyboard. The video download on the screen paused, David minimized it and brought up a new window. This one showed a man in his early sixties with straight black hair, glasses and a friendly looking if somewhat long and rectangular face. The display showed him from the mid-chest up, revealing that he was wearing a black Ramones T-shirt. When the man spoke, he did so in a mild New England accent.
"Hey, David, how you doing? My publisher's breathing down my neck about the new book and I need something to send him real soon. You got anything good for me?"
"I've put together a few things for you, Steve. I'll email them to you right now."
David typed a few more keystrokes and hit SEND. A couple of seconds passed and then the man on the other end – who obviously was sitting in front of his own computer – said, "Got it! Thanks, David!"
"No problem. Take a look at the files and see if anything strikes you as interesting. If not let me know and I'll see what else I can dig up for you."
"You got it. Thanks again, man. From now on I'm going to start calling you Wint-o-green, because you're a lifesaver!"
The display went black as the man disconnected, and with a few more keystrokes, David closed the video chat window and resumed downloading the raven's information.
"That call," Devona said. "You have a direct connection with Earth?"
"Not exactly," David said. "I have to go through Nekropolis's Aethernet to connect to Earth's Internet – which isn't as easy as it sounds. The first thing you have to do–"
David's something of a techhead and I knew if I didn't cut him off right away we'd end up learning far more about Nekropolis – to Earth communication than we wanted to.
"You've just witnessed David in action," I said. "Horror is a way of life here in Nekropolis but back on Earth it's big business. Books, movies, comics, video games… The people who create them all need ideas, and when they run out, they get in touch with David."
Devona looked at the ravens with new understanding. "You go through all the video they collect, looking for ideas to pass on to your customers," she said to David.
He nodded. "The business has been in the family for a long time – almost since the founding of Nekropolis. Back then ideas had to be sent out by courier and carried to Earth through Varvara's mirror. But as you can see, we've updated quite a bit since then, which has made the whole operation a lot more efficient and has allowed us to expand a great deal." David smiled proudly. "These days, almost every horror professional on Earth uses our service."
"It's very impressive," Devona said, "but why all the secrecy? The faux haunted h
ouse, the robotic ravens… Why not just advertise what you do? You'd get a lot more people coming in to tell you their stories that way."
"True," David said, "but I'd also get a lot of people who aren't comfortable with the idea of their secrets being sent to Earth so that artists can create entertainment for humans. More than one of my ancestors found that out the hard way and ended up having to accept forced retirement, if you know what I mean."
"Of course, David doesn't get all his information from his ravens," I said.
"That's right. People drop by now and again to tell me their stories and I pay them for their time. That's how I met Matt, as a matter of fact."
Devona looked at me and I shrugged. "It's an easy way to pick up some extra darkgems when the investigation business is slow."
"I just wish you'd let me use your story, Matt," David said. "I know any number of people who'd love to get their hands on it."
I shook my head firmly. "No way. You know I like to keep a low profile."
David gave me a wry smile.
"OK, I admit that's something I haven't done an especially good job of lately."
"That's putting it mildly," he said. "I caught Acantha's broadcast."
"You and everyone else within range of a Mind's Eye," I said.
"You have to fill me in on all the details. You've told me some good stories before, but I bet this one beats them all."
"I'll have to take a rain check on that. Besides, the story's not finished yet. That's why we're here. I was framed, and in order to prove it, I had to get out of Tenebrus. But now that I'm free–"
"You can't go to any of your usual sources because you're a wanted man," David said. "Got it. I'll do whatever I can to help."
I briefly explained the basics of how my head was cut off and my body used to steal an object from Lord Edrigu.
"I'm hoping that one of your ravens might've recorded footage of either the attack on me or of my body entering and leaving the Reliquary."
"It's possible, I suppose," David said, "but I only have so many birds out at a time and Nekropolis is a big place. The odds aren't great that they collected the footage you're looking for."
"I know, but it's the best shot I've got right now at learning who did this to me and why."
David looked thoughtful. "Since my business is gathering ideas I program my ravens to wander the city randomly for hours at a time. It's more like fishing than hunting. I send them out and hope they manage to bring back something I can use. They don't perform systematic searches of designated areas. So even if they managed to record the real thief, it'll take me some time to search through all the most recent video and find it. Don't get me wrong: I'm happy to do it. After all, I have to review the video eventually anyway. I just want you to be aware of how long it might take – assuming I find anything at all."
"I understand and I appreciate it," I said. "In return I promise to come back and tell you everything that happened in as much detail as you can stand. Provided I survive, that is."
Devona swatted me on the arm. "Stop that kind of talk. It's defeatist."
"What you call defeatism, I call realism," I said.
In response she swatted me again.
"So what are you two going to do in the meantime?" David asked.
"I'm not sure," I confessed. "I need to find out as much as I can about the object that was stolen from Edrigu." I described the bone flute to David. "Does it sound familiar to you?"
He shook his head. "No, I'd suggest you pay Waldemar a visit at the Great Library, but that's probably out of the question right now."
"It's too bad my father and I aren't on speaking terms anymore," Devona said. "He's spent thousands of years collecting objects of power. There's a good chance he'd know what the flute is."
I started to reply but I paused as a new thought struck me. Could Galm be behind the bone flute's theft? There were all kinds of ways to build a collection, not all of them legitimate, and the Darklords were constantly plotting against each other one way or another. And Galm had no love for me. Perhaps it had amused him to use my body to steal something from a rival Darklord. Or maybe it had been Talaith. She'd had run-ins with Edrigu before and she absolutely loathed me. Maybe she'd decided to kill two birds with one stone and…
But then I derailed that particular train of thought. According to Quillion all the Darklords, along with Father Dis, were still sleeping off the after effects of the Renewal Ceremony. Unless either Galm or Talaith had woken up early, they couldn't be behind the theft.
"You could try asking someone else about the bone flute," David said. "After all, Galm's not the only collector in the city."
"You got someone else in mind?" I asked.
"Maybe. I hear a lot of things in my line of work. For a couple years now I've been hearing rumors about a Bloodborn who owns a used bookstore in the Sprawl – not far from where you two live, if I remember correctly."
I nodded. "The store's called Nosferatomes. Devona and I've been there before. What have you heard about the owner?"
"Nothing concrete," David said. "Just hints, really. But supposedly the owner – his name's Orlock – collects more than just old books. A lot of people come to tell me their stories and some of them are well connected to the seamier side of Nekropolis – or at least they like to make out they are: mercenaries, thieves, selfstyled adventurers of one sort or another…" He gave me a meaningful look at this point. "And some of them claim to have done work for Orlock. None of them told me what exactly they did for him, but it wasn't hard to read between the lines."
"You think they acquired items for his collection," I said.
"And if he's a collector then he might be able to identify the bone flute for us," Devona added.
David nodded. "But like I said it's only a suspicion. My ravens have captured video of some questionable characters going into Orlock's shop, but that doesn't prove anything."
"Maybe not," I said, "but it's a lead and it's more than we had when we came in here. Thanks, David."
"You're welcome. Let me know what you learn about Orlock. I might be able to use the information for one of my clients. In the meantime I'll start searching through my ravens' recent footage and see if I can't find any video of the attack on you. If I do, I'll give you a call."
I gave David the number of Shrike's vox, then we thanked him again and said our goodbyes. He offered to see us to the door but I told him to go ahead and get started reviewing the video. We'd show ourselves out.
As Devona and I stepped onto the front porch she said, "You know, those ravens of David's could have all kinds of security applications. You think he might be interested in doing some work for us on the side?"
"You mean for you," I said.
Devona frowned. "I don't understand."
We continued talking as we walked down the porch steps and headed across the mist enshrouded grounds toward the gate.
"The Midnight Watch is your business. I just help out from time to time."
Devona didn't respond right away, and I knew I'd said something wrong, though I wasn't exactly sure what.
"I thought it was our business, Matt. Something we did together."
Aw, crap, I thought. Out loud, I said, "Look, I didn't mean–"
She cut me off. "I understand that you're used to working alone… living alone, being alone. You lived like that for years after you became a zombie and probably for more years before that. But you're not alone anymore. I don't understand why it's so hard for you to get that."
Right then being alone sounded pretty good. When you're alone you don't have to deal with other people's expectations and feelings and you don't have to worry about saying or doing the wrong thing and hurting them. Being alone means freedom and no hassles. There's only one problem with it: it's damn lonely.
As we passed through the gate and onto the sidewalk, leaving the House of Mysterious Secrets behind, I struggled to come up with some kind of reply that might salve Devona's hurt feelings. But my
poor zombie brain was coming up empty, so instead I started looking around for a cab. It would take about twenty minutes to walk to Nosferatomes from where we were, but given my current fugitive status I figured the less I was seen in public the better. Our disguises had worked well enough so far but I didn't want to push it. The traffic was relatively light just then and there were no cabs for hire around. No real surprise there, since cabbies tend to frequent Sybarite Street, where the best clubs and restaurants in the Sprawl are located. Still, I'd hoped there might be at least one cab around, maybe even Lazlo, roaring up to the curb in his ramshackle machine, as he so often does when I need a ride. Riding with him would be a calculated risk, since I'm known to do it so often, but at that point I figured it would be one worth taking. But there was no sign of the demon.