Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) (14 page)

"Why wouldn’t I come back? A boy needs his father." The thing in Wolfgang’s skin kissed him on the top of the head. The thing wasn’t ready to kill him yet. It was waiting for something. But what? "And I am in no way a man. But you noticed that, didn’t you?"

Oh, my son. What did you meet in that wood?

"Except for one small problem," the thing continued. "You’re not really my father."

Surprised, the man pretending to be Markus Schäfer took a shaking hand and used it to push up his eyeglasses by the bridge. What did the thing know? Nothing, probably. It was just his own insecurities haunting him. The thing just meant that he wasn't
his
father, wanted to hint that he wasn't really Wolfgang. He decided to use the safest response he knew, the non-response that he fell back on when he had to buy himself time: "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Sure you do," the thing said between hugs that became tighter and less comfortable each time. The false Markus felt sure the thing would have broken his back had he not been as strong as he was. Even the thing seemed a little surprised at that, that he had not cried out in pain. "Look into my eyes. What do you see?" False Markus looked up. Something unholy gleamed in the ice of his pale blue eyes.

"Myself," he said, realizing that the thing had changed when he saw his own eyes staring back at himself. "You’re a changeling aren’t you?" No skinwalker could shift that fast. He had to be a changeling. So, who was he really?

Now the thing who looked identical to the false Markus Schäfer said, "Yes. Clever,
Herr Doktor Schäfer
. You must know a lot about monsters, but I guess that’s your job. I’m a changeling. And I am here to take your place because I expect your son will come by."

"You're too late," the first false Markus said. "He's not coming back."

"Why not?"

"He’s going to the human world."

The thing shook his head. "That's what you think."

"How do you know?"

"I’ll keep that to myself, if you don’t mind." His smile was angry, evil, more like a baring of teeth than a smile.

"Tell me. What do you have to worry about? Aren’t you your own man? Who are you afraid of?"

"I’m not afraid of anything."

"Then tell me. Why are you here? Who are you working for?" Even though this thing appeared proud, he apparently had his secrets to keep, even though False Markus could probably guess who brought him here: MOON. Doubting that he would get anywhere this way, he resorted to bribery. "I’ll pay you. You can have anything you want. Take any weapon here you like. Bring it to your boss, or whoever or whatever you work for. Just please, don’t hurt my son."

"It doesn’t work like that, Herr Doktor. I WANT to kill him. And no amount of money or begging will change that."

False Markus continued to talk, hoping to buy himself time or that this thing would trip up and tell him something useful. "But why?"

"Because…" the thing said, changing back into a perfect copy of Wolfgang, "He’s me. There can be only one me."

"Oh my God," False Markus stammered. "It’s you. You’re my wife’s child."

Wolfgang’s doppelganger nodded. “I sure am. Everyone forgot about me, I guess. Didn’t think I’d come back home.” He tsk-tsked and moved away, seemingly confident that he would have the upper hand in this fight. Little did he know that this Markus Schäfer was not the human everyone thought he was.

But False Markus couldn’t kill him—this was Lorelei’s boy. What would she say? How would she feel knowing that he'd killed her baby? He would have to subdue him until he could figure out what to do with him. Using a sweeping move he had taught Wolfgang when he was just a boy, False Markus flipped him as hard as he could, meaning to throw him onto his back. But this Wolfgang recovered quicker than False Markus thought possible, righted himself and sprung up onto the bookshelves bolted to the walls on three sides of the room. Laughing, the changeling slipped his foot onto the ladder that rolled along the bookshelves and, with a push, slipped away. “You’re stronger than I thought. Human? Not likely.” He swung slightly, his coat a dark, tattered flag on the rail of the ladder, a pirate mast, his leering face the skull and crossbones. “And yet, that boy I fought yesterday was definitely human. So what does that mean, then?” The changeling’s face became alive as an idea burst into his thoughts. “Wait…you're really NOT his father, are you?” He laughed hard at that. “Oh…wow. And he doesn’t know, does he?”

False Markus glared. He had been able to keep the secret so long mainly because he'd never had to fight before. Where were the guards? He had pressed the panic button a long ten minutes ago. There should have been a pair stationed just outside of his door. He couldn’t believe this punk was capable of taking out two fully grown fae no matter what the type. Something was wrong.

“Well, I know one thing for sure," the false Wolfgang said. "I guess I don’t have to hold back.”

From his vantage point on the bookshelves, the young changeling sprang onto his prey, delivering two swift blows before retreating to the ladder on the bookshelves, a decidedly advantageous perch. False Markus knew he couldn’t handle another attack like that one. This changeling was in his prime, and he, though not wholly human, was still human enough to age. He had to carry out his plan now or never, but the weapon could only be fired once. He had to be sure. However, the changeling attacked so quickly and then retreated so fast again that he wasn’t sure he could react in time. It had to be almost point-blank to be certain it would not miss, but before he suffered another blow—before his spine was broken, or before he got knocked out.

Lunging for the weapon, False Markus saw his fingers about to close on its shaft when another set of hands beat him to it. Backing away, he looked up into the face of his son and not his son, this soulless creature who embodied the worst traits of changelings, chaos and cruelty. “Another one of these guns. I know what this does. Watch!”

He held it the wrong way, and shot himself, disappearing into the nearest reflective surface, a glossy black tabletop designed for chemical experimentation. False Markus could barely read the obscenities on the lips of the changeling trapped in the tabletop, so white hot was the monster’s rage. The discharged weapon clattered unnoticed to the floor while he watched his captive in disbelief, then in relief, and finally triumph. “Couldn’t have happened more perfectly if I had planned it,” he murmured to himself, his spoken thoughts making his victory seem more real. Triumph turned to horror, however, as inside the mirror and just behind the changeling, he saw a familiar figure waving, frantic for his attention, then struggling to back away. He even turned around, just to make sure she wasn’t actually behind him, but of course she wasn’t. She was trapped inside the mirror with the furious changeling: His wife, Lorelei.

False Markus helplessly watched as the monster in the shape of his son, having followed his gaze, turned around and assaulted her, grabbing her hair and winding it up around his hand. He drew her face to his, his evil smile returning, and looked out of the mirror with the promise of torture in his eyes.

“What have I done?!” He had to free them. He didn’t know how she had gotten trapped in the mirror, except now he had no choice but to free them both. He had little doubt that this Wolfgang would kill her, his own mother, in there. He was a monster in every sense of the word. Struggling to keep a cool head, False Markus ran to the back of his lab, to a series of locked cabinets which housed multiple projects in various stages of completion. His memory jogged after some searching—he’d used one in a test only a couple of weeks ago. Moments later, gun in hand, he returned to the table to release its prisoners and found in its murky depths two Loreleis: One conscious and the other not. Anger made his blood race, and no sooner had he pulled the trigger than a white light enveloped the table. Before him were two Loreleis, one of them sprawled out, unmoving, and the other standing, but both of them alive. “Monster,” False Markus said, and, dropping the gun, knelt to stroke the cheek of the unconscious Lorelei. Before he could react, he felt a sharp pain dive deep between his ribs. It was, of course, a trick. The Lorelei he had chosen to stroke changed back into his null form while the real Lorelei screamed.

False Markus fell backward awkwardly and was caught by his wife, who had knelt beside him. Wolfgang's doppelganger stood and watched them a moment. “I guess I’ll have to kill you both if I am to trick that other me, won’t I?” he said.

“Don’t care what you do to me,” False Markus warned while coughing up blood, “Don’t you dare hurt your mother.”

“It’s not like I want to,” he said, “but you’ve left me no choice. You’ve freed her. This is all your fault.” His upper lip curled in wolf-like disdain as he looked down on them. “Tell me, what would you do in my place?”

“Kill myself,” False Markus said.

“Funny.” A noise in the hall beyond distracted him. Cautiously, Wolfgang’s doppelganger snuck up to the double doors on one side of the room, opened one and peeked through. False Markus was barely able to catch sight of a white lab coat as the doppelganger changed shape and left for the hall, but he didn’t have to think hard to guess who he was impersonating this time.

Turning his eye weakly to Lorelei, he begged, “You have to stop him.”

“I can’t leave you.”

“You have to. Please. Get help.”

“What if you—what if you die while I’m gone?”

“Then I’ll say good-bye now.” He leaned up to meet her lips and kissed her good-bye. “Now go. I’ll try to be here when you get back.”

Wordlessly, she left, disappearing against the bookshelves, the door opening softly on its own the only sign that she had gone.

Chapter 10

T
HE WOOD AND THE NIGHT
stretched out before them like a miniature universe streaked with stars, rushing past even as they stood still. They were the middle point and everything spun around them. If there was a way out, they were unable to find it as every step kept them in the middle, and everything revolved around them to put them there. "This is just great,” Marie complained.

“Well, if we go too far one way, won’t the Hindernis push us back in?”

“Probably, but that doesn’t mean we’ll get anywhere.” Marie dug a boot against a stone under her heel in frustration. “We might just bump along the edge until we starve to death.”

Wolfgang looked up. It always seemed natural to him that an answer could be found in the stars. The fog parted somewhere along the treetops and let in the light of the sky, but in the Hindernis everything beyond a certain distance blurred. One needed a special perspective to see beyond.

“What the—” Marie didn’t finish. Instead she held up the stone she had kicked free. Wolfgang looked at it, suspended like a fish out of water dangling in Marie’s gloved fingers. With her other hand, Marie pointed down. Light spilled out of the hole she had made, so brightly that Wolfgang wondered why he hadn’t noticed it first. He began pulling rocks away from the earth, and saw that they stood in a ring of larger stones that they would not be able to move—polished dark stones sunk deep below the surface of mulch and leaves. His father had not left him without a way out. He had lured him to the middle of some ancient door, and Wolfgang lamented that it might lead to the human world, the place he longed to go to but now didn’t dare, now that he wanted to go back to Doors and find an answer to the question of his father’s fate. “Do you think this goes to the human world?” he asked Marie.

“Doubt it,” she answered with a bitter chuckle. “
That
door is probably inside of a dragon or something. You have to get eaten alive to pass through.”

Wolfgang considered this and figured she might be right, especially since, the more stones they cleared, the more familiar the light inside the hole became. When the hole grew large enough for him to enter, he recognized the scene around the familiar lamp post that stood outside his family's apartment house on
Wetterseestraße
and accepted that it led back to Doors as he had wished. Perhaps it had changed because he wished it to. When he suggested this to Marie, she looked off into the distance where his father had disappeared.

“No. The Hindernis wanted it.” She looked up into his face, her eyes shining with a fragile emotion. “What about Pilgrim?”

Wolfgang didn’t know how to get back to the wood outside of Marie’s family home where they had left him. He struggled to answer her as his eyes wandered, searching the door between the two places as if a solution could be found there. “We have to leave him.” He grimaced and mirrored her concern in his eyes. “We have to go this way. There’s no other choice.”

She nodded.

They arrived on Wetterseestraße as if they had entered through the door of a house on the block. Wolfgang felt anger and fear slide not for the first nor last time that night into his stomach: This street—his street, where his family had lived and where he was raised—had turned red.

“Quick, huh?” Pilgrim said. “Too bad we’re right back where we started.”