Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) (29 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Paetsch

Tags: #urban, #Young Adult, #YA, #Horror, #Paranormal, #fantrasy, #paranormal urban fantasy

BOOK: Ghost of Doors (City of Doors)

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In the time it took for Johnny to get Pilgrim and in the time it took for Pilgrim to save Wolfgang from certain death, Markus Schäfer had climbed the steps to the door and reclaimed his soul. Markus and Lorelei stood at the top of the steps like the king and queen of the Land of Youth. Marie appeared beside Wolfgang.

“You were right, Wolfgang,” Marie told him, her eyes red, her hair wild. “You were right. It worked.”

His twin still crumpled in a heap, he turned his burning eyes to Marie. “Did you save Leonie?”

Marie nodded. “She’s with Raphael. They’ve agreed to join us.” She took his hand to hold his attention a moment longer. “When Johnny said you needed help, Pilgrim and I came as fast as we could. Everyone’s trying to hold this block, but I don’t think we can. Many of the freed are still fighting for MOON, and the doors are going red.” Marie didn’t have to ask. He could see the question in her eyes: “What do we do?”

Then his father was hugging him, and for the moment Wolfgang couldn’t think about anything else—not about their fledgling, failing faction, not about Pilgrim’s death, nothing. For one brief, happy moment he had his father back. His real father. But that bittersweet moment would be short-lived. Perhaps the shot had been meant for Wolfgang, but one second, Markus lay limp in his arms, the next, the widerganger had returned. Wolfgang’s doppelganger wasted no time running for the Farseeing Tower door to escape with his prize—Markus’ soul.

“DON’T!” Wolfgang screamed and rushed at his doppelganger, but he wasn’t at all fast enough to catch the changeling. “You can’t get out that way.” The now red door opened for him, and he passed through, shutting it behind him. Wolfgang looked from Lorelei to Marie, and both wore expressions just as appalled as he felt. They cautiously approached the door.

Inside, Wolfgang found his father just as he had left him only hours ago, a brilliant, pure soul glowing bright. But this time, it was his doppelganger who lay in peace like an ocean below him instead of Lorelei. “It is better this way. I didn’t get to really remember how it feels to be whole again.”

“Father…” Wolfgang began, his eyes involuntarily filling with tears.

“Listen to me, my son. I know what you and your friends are doing. I can see all the doors, everywhere. I touch everything now.” Wolfgang swallowed his sadness and listened very carefully to what his father said, so that he would not forget. “You are doing what needs to be done. Your new faction must fight against SUN and MOON. It’s the only way all humans can be free from the fae and those who would use us and all we are as nothing more than building blocks.” Wolfgang didn’t want this to be true. He wanted there to be another way, any other way. He wanted a way that would set his father free. But he agreed that, for now, he would have to accept that what his father said made sense. Right now, he had no other answer, and STAR needed all the help they could get. “This place will be a safe haven for you. Go back to your faction. You will see my gift to you. The only one that I can give. I love you, son.”

“I love you too, Dad,” Wolfgang said. With that, he left his father once again alone in darkness.

On the other side of the door, Wolfgang greeted Marie and Lorelei with hugs. Like a beacon, the Farseeing Tower glowed with a strange light, a bright violet that Wolfgang had never seen before. The door that housed his father’s soul glowed with the same color. “This…this will be our color,” Wolfgang told them. “This is our door.”

Chapter 24

T
HE CHANCE THAT SHE WOULD
still be living in the same apartment some twenty years later was small, but it was a place to start. One of the names on the apartment building's register read “Schäfer”. Wolfgang’s heart raced. The city looked a lot like Doors, but not exactly. It wasn’t hard for him to find the address Victor had given him. Wolfgang opened the old birth record. His birth record. Beside
Vorname
under
Mutter
was the name “Heidi”. Schäfer, he knew.
Heidi Schäfer
. That’s who he would ask for.

A woman almost as tall as the door answered it. Her blond hair was pulled back severely as if she lacked either the time or desire to care for it properly, or both. High cheekbones and an oval face said she had been pretty once but had traded smooth cheeks for deep lines of worry and regret. But her first words to him were a big surprise: “I thought I told you to get out of here,” she said.

Her voice carried so much venom that Wolfgang almost dared not ask. “Are—Are you Heidi Schäfer?”

She gave him a funny look. “Let’s not play games, Wolfgang. I don’t know what you’re in trouble for this time. I just…I can’t take anymore. No more.” She kept the door mostly closed so she could shut it fast if need be, with just enough of her face showing to talk. “I don’t know what I did wrong, but—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. Mother, I…” What could he say? Should he tell her who was, that he was her real son and she had been raising a changeling the entire time? Would she believe him? “I know that life has been difficult for you after dad left. And I’m sorry about all of the horrible things that happened. But that’s not the person that I am. I need you to believe me. To give me a chance.”

Her eyes were pleading with him to make this easy on them both and give up. “I’m sorry, Wolfgang, but I just can’t deal with all this anymore. I’m done. After what happened to your step father…” The tears came easily. “He was a good man, Wolfgang. I’m sorry that that didn’t matter to you.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“No. No, I know you didn’t. But the things you did contributed to his death. And for that, I don’t think that I could ever forgive you.” He hadn’t expected this. He knew that his twin had been a monster, but somehow, Wolfgang thought he could convince her to give him a chance. That seemed well nigh impossible. “If you weren’t so young when he left, I might think you had something to do with your father’s disappearance.” Everything she’d said up until this point he completely understood, but now, after she said this, he couldn’t look at her the same way anymore. To him, she was no longer special, no longer the shining light in his heart that he had hoped to one day meet. In fact, she was worse than any monster he knew, even his doppelganger. At least Anders had given him a chance to prove he was telling the truth.

The failings of the human world came crashing down around him then, destroying the model of perfect peace and harmony that he had built up all those years in his mind. It was just like Doors, in fact, this city that Wolfgang had thought held more forgiveness and truth and love. It was just as much an empty shell where people warped the world around them, skewing it to meet their thoughts, their dreams, their desires. But they did it with the little powers they had, changing only their perceptions and those of the people around them, whereas in Doors, the fae changed reality for everyone.

“I…well, I’m sorry to bother you, then,” he said, stepping away from the door and backing into the stairwell.

Heidi Schäfer had no problem shutting the door.

Back out on the street, Wolfgang opened the old birth record to study it one last time. He threw it on the sidewalk after crumpling it up with all the strength in his hand, the shape of his fingers molded deeply into the paper so that it resembled a knife handle. “That was quick,” Marie said. She appeared beside him, her cold weather clothes keeping up the appearance that the winter affected her.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Marie,” he said.

She nodded silently, took his hand, and walked with him arm-in-arm through the Berlin streets, back to the door that would spirit them away. Like alarm bells in the distance, a faint clamor welcomed them, the clashing of swords and weapons of old carried through time to herald a new era. A new order fell upon them, a blanket of snow cleansing their city beneath white depths, burying the past in icy dust.

Wolfgang was home.

Table of Contents

Ghost of Doors

CONTENTS