Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) (24 page)

He reached out what seemed an impossibly long way into the darkness and grasped the door, its handle cool to the touch, scintillating with the colors of the stars, his father's halo, and Wolfgang's own shadow as it slipped across its painted surface with his movement. "I'll make them pay for what they did. Don't worry, dad, you and mom will be free. I swear."

“It’s not for lack of wanting that I am not free,” his father warned. “The way out is not so easy.”

“What can I do? I won’t leave you like this.”

“Your step mother sleeps. I can’t awaken her.”

“Does that matter?”

“If I cannot awaken her, then you must find the stone that holds my body and set it free, so that I may be free.” Wolfgang’s spine chilled, the realization that things have been going on behind his back in plain sight, unnoticed, for a long time—that the meaning had been there all the time, but he hadn’t seen it. Trust had blinded him. Trust that the world as he knew it was all there is. He must have looked uncertain, for his father continued to explain. “The stones in the city are not accidents, my son. The stones with faces.”

His heart broke. His father thought he was teaching him but he held the real secret. How could he tell him what he knew? Markus had thought his body in a grave, when it wandered instead in perpetual night, doomed to hunt what it could never find. Wolfgang finally understood what he hunted: His other half. His soul.

“I will find your body, father. I will bring it back to you.”

Hiding his wet eyes in his sweat shirt sleeve, he slipped through the doorway, passed from one world to the next like the journey from light to dark, from life to death. The daylight on the other side of the door was like moonlight when compared to the glow from his father's soul. As his eyes adjusted, he had to admit his lack of surprise when he walked into the trap that had been so elegantly and obviously laid out for him. Trusting Raphael had been a big mistake. Yes, he was grateful to have finally found his real father, but he should not have so naive to think that it would come without a price.

Chapter 18

T
HE MIDDAY AIR HAD TURNED
hot and dry. Wolfgang thought he might melt into a puddle on the sidewalk right then and there, as if magic were the only thing holding him together, and maybe it was. Trembling unconsciously, uncontrollably, he found it hard to reconcile what he had learned, as if his brain was rejecting not just the revelation about his father, but everything about him as a human being and who he was because it went against everything he believed. His mind had given up on the whole of it, satisfied that dwelling on it was only tearing him apart, and desperate for something, anything, completely different, an escape from any and all thoughts. It was all he could do to regulate his breathing, his cognizance shrinking until there was only the basics of life, mainly breathing, then standing upright, and finally, consciousness.

When he saw Marie approach, he was at the same time grateful and concerned. Something didn't seem right, but he was too distraught to consider what. In Doors, that was a fatal mistake. "What's wrong?" he asked. The look on her face bordered anger, but hid some other emotion he could not place, having never seen it in her face before. She was alone, and that was not a good sign. "Where's Leonie?"

Her knife whipped out in a flash. It was only because luck was on his side that Wolfgang dodged the blow, or perhaps because her anger ruined her aim. Armed with Vogelfang, he managed to deflect her weapon instead of being slit open, and the instant that his halberd struck he realized that she wasn't Marie at all. Wolfgang saw himself crumple to the ground, his doppelganger on fire with a rage that kept him going in spite of the fierce rebuff, and he recovered much faster than any human could.

"Where's Marie?" Wolfgang shouted. "Where's Leonie?" He held Vogelfang at the ready over his shoulder. "What did you do to her?"

"Maybe you should see for yourself.” Was she already suffering the same fate as his father? Would he be able to stop it from happening to himself? Wolfgang knew he wouldn't be able to fight his twin one on one for long. Maybe he could distract him long enough to run for it. "Oh, no. I can see it in your eyes. You want to run. You're not getting away this time. Don’t even try."

“Why do you want to kill me anyway?”

The soul stealing weapon, drawn from a coat pocket, now faced him in his doppelganger’s hand. Wolfgang froze. "If I use this, how would anyone know I'm not you? With your soul, it would be the best of both worlds. I would own you, be you. I would always know that I had you right where I wanted you.”

"And then what? You think things are so great being me?” Wolfgang spread his hands out wide. “Look around you. This city will eat you alive as soon as you serve your purpose. They won’t let you leave, either. You’re just a slave to MOON. Can't you see that they don't care about you?”

“Who said I worked for MOON?”

Wolfgang almost dropped Vogelfang. His mind reeled as the last puzzle piece fell into place. SUN had brought his twin to Doors. Since Wolfgang wouldn’t turn and wouldn’t work for them, they wanted him dead. And his twin apparently accepted their help because he had trusted whatever lies they told him, but the reality was that SUN was using both of them. “Well, guess what? Your real mother is trapped with my real father. So if it’s SUN you’re working for, they lied to you.” His doppelganger stopped his subtle pacing for a moment, his eyes narrowing in uncertainty. “You think you know all there is to know about this place? You just got here. And let me tell you, they only tell you what they want you to know. SUN is lying to you just like they lied to me.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“You don’t have to believe me.” Wolfgang gestured to the Farseeing Tower not far behind them. “The beauty of it is you can go see for yourself.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” his twin said, taking aim. “Right now, I’ve got you where I want you. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just put you in storage for awhile.”

“What if you can’t get me out? Who’s going to help you save her? Raphael?” That earned him a sour look. “At least I have a stake in this. I want to see my father alive again. Like it or not, you kill me and you’re all alone.” The steely gaze drifted away for one brief moment, and Wolfgang thought he had gotten through to him. “If you care at all about her, you’ll help me free them.”

“I’ll have to take that chance.”

And then everything went white.

☽☉✩

S
O THIS, ALL ALONG, WAS
what SUN had been planning
. Raphael wondered how long it had taken for them to capture this many humans for their souls, when he realized that this had perhaps been the plan from the start. Every human had a purpose for SUN, true, but it was not the one they imagined for themselves, working side by side with their monster compatriots. That meant that all their propaganda of humans being equal to fae had also been a lie.

A glut of bodies filled the streets. Mindless shells of what once were people wandered, not dead but not as alive as they had once been. Doors that had once been red glowed an eerie blue, the color washing over each face making it colder, the streets chilly and foreboding, the loss of life marked by the shift in the color spectrum as if witnessing this mass murder hurt the sun itself. Raphael did not hold out hope that Wolfgang had escaped this. One of these walking graves must be Wolfgang, just as one held Wolfgang’s father, but which one? He could be in any one in the city. Raphael wondered if he could command these undead as he could any other zombie. Maybe one of them would know where to find him.

He took the lock of hair from his pocket that he had stolen in the night from Leonie as she'd slept. It shone a lustrous blue against the glamour, and his honed senses caught from it the scent of her sweat and perfume. She was somewhere in this city and he would find her. Now was the time for her to decide which side she was on.

As fast as a sparrow darts through the twilight, Raphael slipped through the city, past the crowds in thrall, through buildings and doors that carried her scent, that marked her path. Through it all, Raphael noted one important fact: Wolfgang was not with her. Hopefully, he was looking for his father as he had sworn to do. Raphael had wanted to follow him, but this was more important, and he could only follow one of them. Wolfgang would have to take care of himself.

In the shadow of a church, its copper green roof a deep blue in the glamour that had taken over the city, the scent trail ended. Before him lay a basement entrance, and, at the bottom of the cracked concrete stairs, a locked door. Kicking it in was easy enough, and his eyes scouted out the room to find the crouched form of the girl he sought cowering against the intrusion. “How did you get locked in here?” Raphael asked as he approached her slowly, ready in case a trap should spring.

She turned to the sound of his voice, perhaps the only familiar thing to her in the midst of the chaos outside. “Oh, it’s you. I was kidnapped by Wolfgang’s double. But I’m not so sure that escaping is such a good idea.” She stood where she was and didn’t back away but didn’t come to meet him, either. “What’s going on out there?”

“Armageddon,” he said.

“So, is this church safe or something? Like against—” His presence inside the church made the answer clear, so she cut herself short. “Uh, never mind.”

“This building holds no power here,” he explained. “It’s just an empty shell.”

“Like the people,” she replied.

“No.” His steps were slow and careful as if approaching a skittish animal. “Not everyone here is empty.”

“You are. At least, that’s what Wolfgang told me.”

He didn’t know if they had the time to discuss this but he really didn’t want to regardless. However, it was worth it to try to help her see things his way to regain her trust. She had to trust him in order to survive. “I’m still the same person I always was. I think Wolfgang just never knew who I was in the first place. He had this concept of family that I never quite lived up to, nor wanted to. That’s his mistake.”

“Is it a mistake? To want a family?”

“It’s a mistake to not trust that people know who they are. Just because he’s confused doesn’t mean that I am.”

“Maybe it’s better to be confused sometimes. How can you be so sure that you’re right?”

“Never claimed to be right. I just know who I want to be.” He looked out through the narrow windows of the basement prison to see feet shuffling by with increasing frequency. “We have a bigger problem than family matters at the moment.”

“What exactly is going on here?” Moving to stand beside him, she followed his gaze out the stained and fractured window. “Wolfgang told me about the stones. That they used to be people.”

“True. The magic of the land claims souls. The powerful fae do it, too. Often slowly, over time.”

“So then why are all these zombies coming out to wander the streets?”

“They’re not ‘coming out,’” he told her. “SUN did this. They’ve taken the souls who trusted them and betrayed them. Every one. It is no accident that every door is turning blue and that every living human has suddenly become a mindless husk. I don’t know exactly how they did it. I am not privileged enough to know. That’s one for my betters to know. But I do know that what I see before my eyes is not a lie.”

“How do you find this out?”

“It was…explained to me. No, proven.”

“By whom?”

The name caught in his throat. He didn’t want to tell her. That might make her trust wane, and he was struggling to build it up through this discussion, not erode it. “A colleague.” She waited, wanting more. Expecting more. She had every right to be wary and he had no plan to assuage those fears. “He told me on strictest confidence what the higher-ups had found: SUN had developed a device to take over the doors. And that it used human souls, trapped them in the doors. He warned me it would be put in use soon, so I tipped off Wolfgang in an effort to get him to join me. I…told him where he could find proof to see for himself. If you don’t believe me, look around you. That prediction has come true.”

Raphael turned to her then and took her hands in his. They were soft and warm in the cool basement air, her warm blood sweet through her flesh and throbbing with life. “It’s time that you claimed the job that you came here to assume.” Even in the dimness, Raphael could see her pale. “In the event that you haven’t noticed, SUN is taking over this city. If you don’t join me, you’ll become one of them, a wandering husk with your mind trapped elsewhere. A zombie—or worse. Unless you want your spirit to wander for all eternity.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she snarled.

“It’s for your own protection that I turn you, you realize,” he said. “If you become one of us, you join us, you join our fight.”

“Against Wolfgang.”

“Not necessarily,” Raphael countered. “Not anymore. When he sees what I sent him to see, he will join us. That, I promise you.” Leonie did not look convinced.

“I’m beginning to think he’s right.” She struggled to avert her eyes from the zombies who drew her attention and disgust as a gruesome accident scene might. “What made you look at those things and think, ‘I want to be one?’”