'Let me guess,' Devona said. 'The door will creak open and a scary-looking butler will poke his head out and say, 'Good eve-hu-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 middleclass 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 fast-motion, 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, videogames… 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 house, 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.
