Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) (28 page)

“Where’s Vogelfang?” Wolfgang asked Pilgrim about Aar, the ancient weapon.

“You didn’t have it when I found you.”

“My doppelganger,” Wolfgang said to Marie. “He must have it.” That was a disturbing thought, to fight through the city without his weapon, but he would have to make do. Perhaps something would turn up along the way, and in the meantime, he still had the formidable knife that False Markus had given him. Wolfgang turned to watch his father, a tall shadow in the darkening city, and the undulating of his cloak reminded him of Leonie’s raven hair. “We’ve got to find Leonie. We can’t forget about her. She doesn’t deserve this, either.”

“She’s probably trapped in a door just like every other human,” Marie said. “How will we find her?”

“I can find her,” Pilgrim said. Wolfgang had no reason to doubt him. Pilgrim had always found anyone before with no trouble whatsoever.

“Good. Then you go with Pilgrim, Marie. I’ll return to my father that which belongs to him.”

The great horse tossed up his head and focused on something at the end of the street, something bright and fast approaching against the overcast city. “Look, Le Ying’s finally come back,” Pilgrim told the group. “He went to get some allies.”

“Who?” Wolfgang asked.

“The little foo dog,” Marie reminded him. “The one who took you to Lady Welt.”

“Oh, him? He’s going to help us?”

“He had a great idea,” Pilgrim said, “to wear a new symbol so we know who stands against SUN. It’s a star.”

Wolfgang took a moment to think about this. A new symbol would be helpful. They would start a new faction, and anyone who kept the original tenets of SUN alive in their minds and actions could join. “That really is a great idea,” he said. “I guess we all belong to STAR now.”

“You, Wolfgang? Join a faction?” Marie said. She looked so beautiful in the dimness, her eyes wide and glowing with a rush of adrenaline that only the war in Doors could give. He never wanted to take his eyes off her again.

“I think my life depends on it,” he replied. “It may be impossible to be factionless after this war. I don’t think people will have any more patience for anyone riding the fence.”

After leaping around Wolfgang, the little dog set down on the ground before him a bag full of clanking metal about as big as he was. “Good to see you again, whelp. Did the big guy tell you about his plan? To make a new faction? I brought some things to mark us with for now and I told as many people as I could. They’ll pass it on. And some are following me. They’re just down the street, coming to join us.”

“I think it’s a great idea. We need a new faction to make our feelings known,” Wolfgang said. He searched through the bag and began passing out scraps of fabric and cans of paint to make the symbols. They wouldn’t be as powerful as a brand or a tattoo, but it was all they had. They didn’t even have a faction color because they hadn’t yet claimed a door, but that didn’t matter. They were united in their desire to live in peace, and that was what mattered. After he and Marie decorated each other with arm bands, Wolfgang took a can of spray paint and reached up on the nearest wall as high as he could to mark it with a five pointed star and the words:

STill ARound

“We’re not going anywhere,” he told the group. “We have as much right to Doors as anyone.” He started to understand why people marked the buildings and subway cars in that other world. It was a way of doing what he just did, a way of saying that he was here and that he belonged, that this was his part of the city. He had never felt as if he belonged in Doors before, but as he looked at the people gathering around him, the feeling swelled within him that they were a part of him, and he was a part of them. Their show of support told him they wanted him here. And when Lorelei came to him—False Lorelei, for the real Lorelei was still trapped in a door with his father’s soul—and took his hand from her place in the crowd, he finally understood what she and False Markus had been trying to tell him all these years: They needed him because they loved him. She was a part of STAR now, as her crude armband showed.

“Your father would be so proud of you,” False Lorelei said.

“You mean, the man pretending to be my father,” he said as gently as he could manage. “I know that you and the man who raised me are not who you say you are.” She held his hand even tighter as if afraid he might try to walk away before she could make her peace with him.

“I’m sorry. I know if he could be here he would say he’s sorry, too. Your doppelganger hurt him pretty badly and he needs some time to heal.”

“Where is he?”

“Safe. For now. I’m sure he’ll join us when he can.” Wolfgang could understand why she didn’t want to say more. No doubt SUN would not be happy to lose their best scientist. They might decide to kidnap him—or worse—if they knew where to find him, and here in the middle of the city, any open discussion could easily be overheard by anyone. “We never wanted to hurt you. We did what was asked of us.”

“By SUN.”

“By Lady Welt. We thought it was the right thing to do. And we love you very much, like you were our own son.”

“Can I ask what your real names are?”

“My name is Adelaide,” she said. “And your father is Victor.”

Wolfgang nodded. “Thank you,” he said.

“What for?”

“Everything.” And he hugged the woman he had called Mother all his life. “Can I still call you Mom?”

Adelaide hugged him back as if she planned to never let him go. “I would like that very much.” But the situation demanded that she let go, and she did so slowly, stroking his hair and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Good luck. Please, be careful out there.”

Wolfgang addressed the ready crowd with hope in his voice for the first time in years. “If I may be so bold, I have a plan,” he said. “Let’s be honest: We can’t take a door. Yet. There are too few of us and too much to do before we try anything like that.” He climbed upon Pilgrim’s back to be better seen and heard. “But we can free the souls trapped in the doors, and maybe convince them to join us. Maybe the fae they are trapped with will join us, too.” He pointed to the patiently waiting elegant monster on top of the nightmare steed. “There is my father’s widerganger. I’m going with him to free his soul so he can live again as a human was meant to live, safe with his family. Take as many wandering zombies as you can and put one inside each of the doors that SUN took. The door should reject them and free them both, the human and the trapped fae.”

“What if we put them in the wrong door?” Le Ying asked.

“Once they come back to Doors, the souls should sort themselves out,” Wolfgang said. “Even if they’re in the wrong bodies.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know,” Wolfgang admitted. “But mine did.”

The fae talked among themselves briefly, splitting themselves up into small groups to better complete the tasks they had been assigned. “I’ll come with you,” Johnny said to Wolfgang. “If Marie goes with Dapplegrim, you’ll need a partner. It’s not a good idea for you to do this alone.”

Slipping off of Pilgrim, Wolfgang nodded his consent. “Father,” he said after he regaining his footing. “Let’s go save your soul.”

Chapter 23

A
LL THE HAIRS ON WOLFGANG'S
arms stood on end. There was an electrical charge in the air that he could feel, taste, and smell, an ozone that convinced him destiny was hard at work and about to be fulfilled. His father led him and Johnny to the Farseeing Tower as if he remembered the way. The reality that he would finally see his father restored to his true self was almost more than he could bear; his hands shook uncontrollably as the tall widerganger slipped from his mount and lumbered toward the door. At the top of a set of stairs embraced by two wide, wing-like walls that served as part of the huge, white pavilion surrounding the tower, it glowed brightly as if it expected him. It opened well before he reached it. Out stepped Wolfgang's twin. “What are you doing here?” Wolfgang shouted and moved before his father to shield him. He doubted the wisdom of his actions after noticing the long halberd that had come through the door with him.

“Glad to hear you didn’t forget me.”

Johnny looked as if he wanted to fight, but Wolfgang held him back with a gesture. He didn’t know if Johnny knew what he was really up against with Vogelfang, nor if his doppelganger knew how to use it, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Not yet. Maybe he could reason with his twin. After all, the doppelganger had given him a chance by letting his body remain alive while he went to see if what he’d said about his mother was true. That meant something, didn’t it?

“If you’re here to stop us, you can’t. My father is going to be freed. He deserves it.”

The doppelganger smirked, the white glow of the door, belonging only to his father and not to any faction, behind him. “How do you know what he deserves? After all, he created a weapon that basically murdered all the humans in the city. I’d say that he deserves prison and should stay right where he is.”

Wolfgang decided against arguing with him. The changeling held more power then he knew in wielding Aar, and Wolfgang did not want him to learn what it could do. “Fair enough. But you’ve been in there. You’ve seen
her
,” Wolfgang said. “You know your mother is in there. I told you the truth.”

“Yes, well…” He stroked the polished wood of the halberd’s long shaft in an eerily familiar way, as Wolfgang himself had done many times before. “I’ve decided I don’t care. Even if she’s not the person I thought she was, she still let me down. She still didn’t kill you. And now, I have to do it myself.” His blue eyes gleamed with a sudden bloodlust as Vogelfang reflected in them. “I came back to kill your body and find that you’ve put yourself back together. It doesn’t matter. I’ll just start from square one.”

The ancient weapon burning white hot inside his grip, the doppelganger swung Vogelfang in a wide arc and unleashed a surge of energy that blew them all across the wide expanse of concrete tile before the Farseeing Tower's pavilion. Johnny launched himself into the sky and disappeared, returning to the wind of which he was made. Wolfgang sought cover in the open space and found none. He grabbed his father’s lifeless hand and pulled him to hide behind a concrete barrier long ago taken over by bushes as his doppelganger approached. He didn’t know when Marie and the others would return, or if they could return, since they might get blocked by SUN or MOON. And even if they did show up, they might be returning only to face death by Vogelfang. Maybe if Wolfgang could get his twin back into his father’s door, his father could send him someplace far away. Or, at the very least, they could trap him in there until they decided what to do with him. It was the best plan Wolfgang could come up with, so it would have to do.

“Fitting, that I’ll take your place with your own weapon,” the changeling said with a laugh.

“I’m not dead yet,” Wolfgang answered and threw an easily deflected rock at his twin’s head. Maybe he could annoy him into making a mistake. It was worth a try.

“Throwing rocks, now? That’s pretty cheap.” Wolfgang picked up another, slightly smaller one from a broken slab of concrete that a bush’s roots had grown through. “I had expected more from—ARGH!” This time, the stone hit the mark, no doubt with help from Johnny Merriweather. One eye bleeding heavily, the changeling stumbled forward as Wolfgang rushed out to tackle him. The fight quickly devolved into a struggle over the artifact, a mess of arms, legs, hands, and feet smearing a bloody, a dark puddle on the light concrete that would never wear away. With a burst of rage, the changeling rolled the human over and wrenched the weapon free. Wolfgang sprang to his feet because his life depended on it--his twin had begun swinging the weapon with the ferocious hatred of a wild bear swatting a hornet. Wolfgang drew the knife Victor had given him and prepared for the impossible task of deflecting or dodging the killing blow which was sure to come. Out of the corner of his eye came a massive gray object that he barely noticed before it thrust him far from the fray, and Marie’s shriek told him something was horribly wrong.

Wolfgang was not prepared for the horror that presented itself in the middle of the bloodied square. The blow that had been meant for him had felled Dapplegrim, the great horse prostrated with Vogelfang, the weapon that Wolfgang had never used to kill anyone, deep in his side. For a long moment, Wolfgang couldn’t breathe. It felt like everyone and everything in the square had stopped, including his heart. He fell to his knees beside Pilgrim, his hands and tears sliding down his loyal friend’s silky mane. He couldn’t even speak, but it didn’t matter. If there were words to say that could fix this, he had no idea what they were. He didn’t think Pilgrim could hear him, anyway. The death had been immediate and, Wolfgang hoped, painless. There was no movement in the body, the eyes staring but not seeing. Wolfgang took out a handkerchief from his sweatshirt pocket and laid it over them.

In the haze of his anguish he could sense someone moving behind him. And then it hit him: He was about to join Pilgrim. He was about to die. He had dropped the knife to hold onto Pilgrim and didn’t care about what had happened to it. Judging by the pressure he felt, Wolfgang was sure the blade was now deep in his kidney, even though he felt no pain. He turned around to see a mirror of his own face, this one pale and soaked with sweat, a wide O on his lips and agony in his eyes while the bronze knife clattered to the sidewalk, unwanted. The knife that Victor had given him—the knife that Wolfgang had never used—was cursed. The pain he saw in the eyes of his twin was the pain he would have felt, had he used it on someone. His grief kept him from thinking of the implications, and his thoughts became lost in a fog of revenge. He reverently drew Vogelfang from his fallen friend and the halberd, unnaturally sharp as it was, slid easily out. It was then that he saw his father.