Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) (5 page)

"I know, Marie, I know." He patted Pilgrim gently. Lost in thought for a moment, Wolfgang scanned the empty streets. His father would be several minutes. Cars and motorcycles, mere status symbols here, always traveled slower than the fae, who could by nature move much faster, some faster than a human could think. "My mom should be at home. I wonder why she hasn't shown up yet." Shrugging, Marie put out her cigarette. Looking up at his parents' apartment building, he said, "Let's go find out."

Chapter 3

T
HE DOOR TO HIS FAMILY'S
apartment building and the door to the apartment itself were just normal doors. There were, of course, many like them in the city, maybe more of them than the enchanted kind. Wolfgang got a strange feeling before entering his family's apartment. It had been set on fire and burned to a cinder on the other side of that door, everything inside burnt to a charred, black mess, and the front was a facade. The door gave way to his trembling key easily enough, and after that sickening premonition, he was relieved to see that it all looked perfectly pleasant, his mother bustling about in the kitchen just to the right of the entrance. "Hey, mom," he said, stepping inside and making way for Marie. The place even smelled of the tell-tale freshness that said mom had been cleaning, a weak combination of old stone walls, vinegar, and lemons. What had made him envision a blackened shell of death? For once, he was grateful he was wrong. When he had premonitions, they were usually right. "What are you doing? The block is turning. We have to go."

She laughed at that, but Wolfgang didn't know what was so funny. "Oh, that's nothing to worry about," she said. There was something creepy and unpleasant about her smile, as if she was holding back a great deal of pain. "You have a lot more to worry about right here." Gun in his face, he started as her voice deepened to a snarl. "I'm really going to enjoy this."

Before Wolfgang or Marie could react, Lorelei pulled the trigger. The gun made a slow whine, then nothing. Eyes wide, she sputtered at the gun, "But-- what--"

That was all she got out when Wolfgang struck with Vogelfang, knocking the gun swiftly from her grip after connecting with her fingers hard. Using more than enough force against a fellow changeling taken by surprise, Marie slid forward and shoved her to the floor.

"Hey, be careful," Wolfgang scolded. "That's my mom!"

"Out," Marie said, shoving Wolfgang through the open door. As they darted into the apartment stairwell, she added, "She might be your mom, but I think she's trying to kill you. Shut the door." Pulled hard, the door swung fast when something blocked it at the last moment. A scream followed, and as Wolfgang struggled, he felt himself losing, Lorelei on the other side pulling back with a strength only the Fair Folk were capable of.

Marie took over. After pushing the door hard inward to knock Lorelei off balance, she pulled with all her strength. The scream that burst through the door was deafening. Inhuman. Demonic. But no one saw what had dropped from the door and now laid on the welcome mat.

It was a finger.

Grabbing Wolfgang's arm, Marie tugged him along, almost carrying him as she fled down the stairs. "Are you crazy?" he howled at Marie. "My mom--"

"That's not your mom," she whispered and tugged him until they reached the bottom of the stairwell. Marie cursed under her breath, then looked up toward the apartment. "We didn't lock the door." Once outside, she yanked against the handle of the apartment house door until it wedged itself in the doorjamb with a groan. "I guess that's the best we can do."

"Are you sure," he interrupted, his anger turning into confusion, "that's not my mom?"

"Wolfgang," Marie panted as she looked him in the eye, "I shoved him when closing the door. He didn't expect it. He lost his focus, went blank. He took his true form. That form is you."

"I don't follow." He got what she meant about "going blank." She'd used that term with him before. Lesser changelings used the phrase to refer to their "null" form, the shape their body uses when at rest, sleeping, or unconscious. The first form they take after birth is the one they use all their lives as their null form. But why would his mom's true form be him? Wouldn't her form be...her?

"He must not be that skilled yet in taking shapes. Listen," she said, then chose the carefullest of words after taking Wolfgang again by the hand and leading him quickly from the front step and onto the sidewalk where Pilgrim stood. Her blond hair danced on the wind between them, and she combed the locks behind an ear with her fingers. "That is a changeling, but it is not your mom. That changeling is you." She paused only briefly to let that sink in. "I know why he's here. If you think about it, I'm sure you know why, too. I think, if I were in his place, I'd do exactly what...anyway, he obviously knows that you are still alive..." She didn't explain anymore, but she didn't have to.

Kill. He had to kill Wolfgang, because there has never been a changeling who replaced someone permanently without murder. Born mostly featureless, a changeling can only do one shapeshift, at first: The form of a human baby, the first baby it touches. The null form. That leaves the changeling parent with a grisly task, one which, normally, they all too eagerly perform. Wolfgang knew that, everyone knew that. It was even a legend in the human world, or so his father had told him.

"Wait, am I hearing right?" Pilgrim asked with a snort. "Wolfgang's changeling? You mean, Lorelei's baby? He's here?"

Lorelei's baby,
Wolfgang thought.
Even Pilgrim knew him.
"I never really thought about it before," he told Marie. "No one ever brought it up before."

"Well, he's bringing it up now," Marie said, pointing toward the apartment door.

Enraged, Wolfgang's doppelganger exploded through the door that was only wedged shut and almost ripped it from its hinges. "Go," she shouted, pointing to Pilgrim.

"No. I'm not leaving you." Sure, this changeling could crush his skull like an egg, but this was his problem, not Marie's. He leapt up Pilgrim and slid on while reaching for Marie to pull her up. "We'll fight him on Pilgrim, if he's stupid enough," he told her, gesturing with Vogelfang. "We can take on one changeling."

Then the doors on the block that had turned red burst open as if they had been holding back a flood, a rush of monsters pouring into the streets as quickly as the doorways would permit, trampling each other in the fever of war. Wolfgang's father pulled up in the same moment, the roar of the motorcycle drowned out by the screeching of the bloodthirsty crowd. "Wolfgang! Your mother?" his father shouted, though Wolfgang only knew because he had seen his approach and read his lips. Where was his mother? He had no idea. Though now he had to go back in and find her before MOON overwhelmed them. Was there enough time?

"Wolfgang?! Where are you going?" Marie screamed while Pilgrim whinnied after him. But the sounds all came to him faintly as he found himself running up the sidewalk back to the apartment building. He searched for a sign of his twin but saw none; he had disappeared from sight in the distraction and was lost.

Leaping up the stairs two and three at a time, Wolfgang ignored the straining of his heart and the tiredness of his legs, adrenaline forcing his body to work, to come together and outperform itself as he all too often demanded of it. The apartment door thrown wide, Wolfgang entered and called for his mother, searched every room starting with the kitchen, but saw no one. The snare gun that his doppelganger had tried to use laid on the ground and he knelt to pick it up and examine it as Marie came up the stairs.

It had been used before; that explained the whine it had made and the burning smell. "If he did use it on her, she could be anywhere," he said, looking up at Marie. Her aqua blue eyes, normally his source of inspiration, were uncharacteristically bowed with sorrow.

"Wolfgang, I'm sorry to say this, but we could look forever and not find her. He might have even left with her. She could even be held captive at MOON HQ." She bent down to rest a hand on his shoulder. He could feel her soft touch through her black glove and his hooded sweatshirt like a dove resting on his arm. "We've got to go."

"No..." Wolfgang did not want to hear this. He wasn't going to abandon her. She had not abandoned him. What kind of a son was he, if he just gave up on her? Especially when she needed him? "No, I can't. I can't go now."

"Yes," Marie said. "You have to. If you die here, your mom would never forgive me." With her other hand, she brushed her fingers against his cheek. He wasn't used to seeing Marie so expressive. Her sorrow had given way to fear. It reminded him of the feeling he got when he saw his mother cry for the first time. "I could never forgive myself. I'll take you to the Hindernis and get you through that door. Then come back, and help your father find your mom, okay?"

No,
Wolfgang thought.
It's not okay.
Standing up, he took her hand and squeezed it gently. The air had cleared, and he could only smell her, so sweet and warm, like summer rain. "I can't do it, Marie. It's just wrong."

"She might already be dead, Wolfgang," Marie said quietly, reluctantly. "I'm sure she would want you to be safe."

He adjusted his glasses. "How can you be so sure I'll be safe in the human world?" he asked.

"I can't. But I'm sure your twin will keep looking for you here. He has no reason to think you could be in the human world. How would you get there?"

My twin...I wonder how much he knows about me and my...our...family,
he thought, digesting that for a moment
.
"True," he said. "No one is stupid enough to go to the Hindernis. Everyone else just turns."
Then they can go wherever they want,
he thought. He took in a deep breath. "I'm not a coward, Marie," he added.

"I know you're not. No one thinks that, you know."

"I don't believe that for a minute." He took the discharged gun still in his hand and put it in his jeans to take with him. It was useless until charged again, but he didn't want anyone else getting their hands on it.

"
I
don't think that," she said. He knew she wanted him to believe that she cared. And maybe she did, for now. But he knew her well enough to know that he wasn't the only one she cared for. Still, it was no reason for him to be cruel.

"I know," he said. He allowed himself a weak smile for her benefit but he found that he couldn't keep it up. It flew from his face almost as fast as birds flew from the sky. "Okay. Let's go." She gave him as warm a hug as she'd ever given him, unexpectedly soft arms and breasts pressing against him.

Pilgrim's scream snapped them out of their private moment.

Wolfgang would know that scream anywhere, something between a screech and a roar, the horse's battle cry.

Grabbing his leather jacket that hung upon the coat rack, he slipped it on for protection against the crowd in the street and whatever they might find in the Hindernis. Then he took Marie's hand and headed for the balcony. After flinging open the balcony doors and stepping outside, he whistled for Pilgrim.

The huge horse surged through the hedges below, throwing off any and all challengers for the moment, but Wolfgang knew he couldn't hold the throng back for long. "Where's my dad?" Wolfgang shouted.

"Not sure," Pilgrim shouted back. "I've been kinda busy." Dad probably took off the moment he ordered Wolfgang to look for his mom. At least Wolfgang hoped so. After Pilgrim stomped the ground hard and invoked the glyph painted onto his thighs, a shock wave pushed back all comers from sky, land, and below in a short radius. It wouldn't hold them, but it gave them something to think about for a moment or two. "Now or never," Pilgrim said. Marie leapt easily over the side and onto the horse's broad back. Wolfgang followed.

From his vantage point on top of Pilgrim's back as they rode down a main avenue, Wolfgang could see his father waiting far up ahead, straddling his motorcycle. They locked eyes and Dr. Schäfer's concern was palpable--there was no sign of Mrs. Schäfer, and the door, the one that had started this whole thing, had been surrounded by enemies, inaccessible, uninspected. "I've got to make sure he gets out okay," Wolfgang told his friends.

"Who?" Marie asked.

"My dad. You guys go. We'll meet up at
Treptower
park. I'll be there as soon as I can." Wolfgang sprung from Pilgrim to the street beside his father and, after climbing into the sidecar, ordered him to drive. With Vogelfang outstretched, he could clear a path before them, swiping away any foolish enough to challenge the oncoming bike, of which there were not many.

Seeing MOON occupy his neighborhood in the rear-view mirror made him feel helpless. Anger surged through him. Forget what his dad said. He loved his dad, but he wasn't always right. "I'm coming back, mom, I promise," he swore.

Meanwhile, in the apartment long behind them, the word HELP lay unnoticed on the entryway table, written backward as if in a mirror in a thin layer of dust.

☽☉✩

F
ROM THE SIDECAR OF THE
black Touren-AWO, Wolfgang studied his father as he drove them from their dying neighborhood to SUN HQ. He wondered how long it would be until he saw him again, and tried to commit him to memory; the swarthy bluish skin, yellowing eyes, and grizzled jawline, this gnarled tree of a man. Wolfgang drew his hood tighter against the wind as brown, gray, and white streets laced with summer green rushed past, carried away by the same breeze. The day waning, it seemed unlikely that he would reach the Hindernis by nightfall, but he would not leave his father’s life to chance: He would see him safely to SUN HQ, and then meet up with Marie and Pilgrim. He owed him that much.