Johnny remembered their argument earlier that day, in SUN’s fallen neighborhood. “Yeah, I know.”
“Can you stop him?” His look of concern for his son conflicted so much with the outrage in Johnny’s heart that he almost felt guilty. Almost.
“Yeah, don’t you worry, Herr Doktor.” Johnny clamped a reassuring hand on the old man's. “He won’t get away with this.”
The rage gave way to an unfamiliar feeling. If he could describe it at all he would have called it a softening of the heart, like pity, a regret that he could not undo this wrong. He would help Dr. Schäfer back to SUN and his lab.
Then Wolfgang would pay.
☽☉✩
THE MOTORCYCLE WAS A ROCKET beneath him, thrusting Wolfgang through the streets unchallenged. He needed to get to the outskirts of Doors soon, or he would have no chance of breaching the Hindernis before dark. He didn't want to be wandering around in the No Man's Land after darkness fell. One thing he and his companions all had in common: The three of them were daylight beings. Daylight was their time, was on their side. It gave them strength, helped them to see and think clearly. At night, living shadows came out to feed, to grow, to destroy for the fun of it.
In the Hindernis, night was eternal.
He had just emerged from the tall and modern buildings of downtown and slipped into an alley when a familiar face formed ahead of him in the street. But the golden locks shone a bit dingier, the sun not quite reaching the ground in the valley formed by the great buildings. His ball cap drawn down low, only a hint of the gleam from his eyes shone as he said, "You don't need to go any further. This ends here." Wolfgang had never seen that look on Johnny's face before--at least, not directed at him. It was a cold and disturbed look, one befitting a child of the wind. At the same time, Wolfgang hated to see that look on his face, because it meant he was beyond reasoning with. His mind was dead-set at this moment against him.
"Hey, Johnny," he offered, but he knew that weak greeting in friendship would do nothing. Calling out to the storm wouldn't calm a hurricane. "What ends here?"
Johnny didn't need to look around. A zephyr has eyes on the back of his head. He didn't use the wind; he was the wind. But he looked around for the sake of Wolfgang, to better dramatize his point. "The road. Everything. Whatever. For you."
Wolfgang did not doubt him. His expression had spoken volumes, and Wolfgang was ready to take flight the only way he could, on the motorcycle. He gunned it and sped off down the street, back the way he came, but it was useless. How could he outride the wind?
Just up ahead, Marie and Pilgrim had stopped. Since bridges narrowed the traffic from one side of the city to the other, they had to come this way and so did Wolfgang, and since the sound of the Touren was unique in Doors, Pilgrim certainly would have heard it and recognized it. Wolfgang raced toward them, holding nothing back and hoping for their aid.
Johnny made good on the promise he'd held in his eyes: the burst came, like a shock wave, a gust so strong and sudden it could have broken his bones if it had been more focused. Wolfgang knew this. He had seen it in action before. But Johnny's intention this time was to stop him, and the gust did so elegantly, with a practiced and perfected swoop against the motorcycle as easily as a child throws a ball.
Friction lost, the motorcycle weaved into and against the wind, and Wolfgang did his best to keep it upright, but failed. It spun into a grassy median where Wolfgang could no longer hang on; it flipped several times alone and crashed in loud metallic thunder against a lamppost.
"I guess now we know which side Johnny is on," Marie said, after helping Wolfgang to his feet and asking him if he was all right. He wobbled helplessly and leaned heavily on one leg.
"Damn is he strong," Wolfgang said. "Where did he get all that power?"
"I hate to guess," she said. "Can you walk?"
"I think so," he said, hoping that his leg was only badly bruised where the motorcycle had skidded upon it and not, as he at first thought, broken. He lifted up the leg of his jeans and studied the proud flesh above his boot. It was swollen, yes, the color fast changing from red to purple, but nothing about the leg's angle was amiss.
"It doesn't look broken," she told him.
"It doesn't look good, either. I just hope it holds together because I don't think that's all he has planned." Wolfgang followed Marie's eyes to where, high above the rooftops, they could see the haloed shape of the zephyr in the distance as he bent light and air to his will. Electricity shocked the air around him. He grew steadily in their sight, speeding toward them, returning for another attack. Wolfgang nodded to her in understanding and imagined it would be easy to run on his injured leg when he thought of what might happen if he stopped. They scrambled onto the horse as bicycles and garbage cans skidded past, flipping end over end before slamming into buildings ahead of them. "We have to get underground," Marie said, desperation and exertion threading her voice. "He'll kill us out here."
"Where's the subway?" Wolfgang asked. Disoriented from the attack, he glanced fervently around. Where had they ended up? "Next block," he told them.
"I see it," Pilgrim said, lunging forward. "Heading for cover." The street felt like it was the longest Wolfgang had ever been on. It felt like it was growing longer as they rode on it, like some kind of sick treadmill stretching out further before them with every stride Pilgrim took.
"He's got to go back up to the sky sometime to keep his powers," Marie told them. "If we could get him underground, we could take him out."
"Hey, nothing personal, aight?" Johnny's voice showered down on him from above along with a hail of ice and rain from his building storm. "We both gotta do what we gotta do." Through the sleet, Wolfgang could see the friend he barely recognized turning steadily darker with tempestuous might, his eyes on heavenly fire. Wolfgang thought it might be the last thing he would ever see.
"Never thought of you as a turncoat, Johnny," Wolfgang shouted back.
"Likewise," Johnny said just loud enough for Wolfgang to hear. Maybe that meant he was regretting this, but Wolfgang wasn't sure. Maybe he was just concentrating and didn't know what he was saying. Wolfgang dared to look up just as a funnel of air caught him and lifted him several stories above the street. When Wolfgang looked down for Marie, she was no longer there, and Wolfgang didn't blame her for using her best defense, stealth, against this massive offense. It was a chance for her to escape, and she took it. They would meet up later--hopefully not in the hereafter.
Wolfgang looked down the center of the tunnel and saw that he would have a clear shot. There was no wind in the middle of the funnel, but he would have to act fast and his aim would have to be true. Drawing Vogelfang from its sheath on his back, he threw it dead center down the hollow corridor of wind. Johnny shouted as the halberd hit home, and the tornado lost its momentum. Wolfgang began to fall.
He wasn't as close to the rooftop as he would have liked to be, and he hit the ledge that ran along the peaked roof hard. But he was aware enough, in spite of the blow, to remember that falling to his death would be worse than a bump to his head, and put all of his effort into clutching at the ledge in order to hang on. The snare gun from his parents apartment that had managed to stay tucked in his jeans came loose and slipped away, smashing to pieces on the sidewalk below. Finding some support from a nearby tree that he could push off with his feet, and he managed to get a grip and slowly pull himself up onto the roof. He vaguely wondered where Johnny was, and why he hadn't come back at him by now. Until he looked around.
He saw himself on the ground, running for the alley that Marie had pointed out to him, with Johnny in pursuit, apparently not satisfied with using his gift of the wind anymore, but ready to tear Wolfgang apart with his bare hands. Except of course, that wasn't Wolfgang. It was Marie, taking Wolfgang's form to lead Johnny away. Wolfgang ran along the rooftops to the alley, hoping to do what he could to help Marie. All the running made his leg feel as if it was falling off where his boot started below his knee, as if i
t was only attached by a thin band of flesh that tore every time he pulled himself forward. Johnny was still flying, and if he went up just a little higher, Wolfgang was sure he could land another attack on him, or even grab him by surprise, if he wasn't noticed first.
Wolfgang tried to leap across a gap between two building ledges when his leg gave out on him. He was sure he told it to move correctly, but that message got lost between his head and foot, and the wounded leg buckled uselessly at the crucial moment. He reached out to grab something, anything, but there was nothing to grab.
Then, suddenly, there was. Something solid was against his hands, and they gripped automatically. "What the frick?!" Johnny shouted, and rolled with the weight of Wolfgang as he weighted him down lopsidedly. Pretty soon, all Wolfgang was holding on to was a mist as Johnny drifted upward and everything that had been on him--clothes, jewelry, Wolfgang--all fell through him and away. Luckily, between Wolfgang and the ground this time was a tree, and he spread out his arms and legs to catch hold of the branches and slow his fall. It worked well, except for his leg, which screamed bloody murder to his brain. Pilgrim caught him as he landed, the stallion's broad back providing a softer landing than the concrete below. His twin was nowhere to be found, and Wolfgang figured that Marie must have made it to the underground thanks to his distraction. Would he be able to make it there himself?
Pilgrim had recovered Vogelfang, had it in his mouth. Wolfgang took it from him as he ran to the webbed steel and glass design of the train station. The thought rushed through his mind of what that other world must be like--the one his father came from, the one that this place only copied, this shadow city where the buildings were more like props in a play than buildings that humans actually used, played and worked in, lived and died in. The buildings in that world were all built with a purpose; the ones here were more like a fly trap, copying the shapes and forms of a real, living world, making something recognizable only as a web, lying in wait to catch its prey, but not for the fae to develop and enjoy or destroy as humans might. The fae did not create so much as copy.
"We'll have to split up," Pilgrim said. "I can't fit on the trains."
"Go to the No Man's Land," Wolfgang told him. "We'll meet up there."
"Gotcha."
He dismounted and patted his friend before running off. Neither of them doubted that Pilgrim would find him again. Like most fae, he could smell his blood, see his soul. He could hear immensely better than Wolfgang, too. Finding Wolfgang had never been a problem; keeping him in one piece was. The street by the train station was busier than the last. Train stations were neutral. At least, supposed to be. Wolfgang heard a voice in his ear whispering his name. It was Marie. She bloomed from nothing to run beside him. He could tell by the slow rhythm of her pace just how much behind her he was lagging. "You're going to have to do better than that," she said. "We're not underground yet."
"What about the crowd?" he asked. "Do you think he'd risk hurting MOON just to kill us?"
"I don't know," came the unpleasant but realistic reply. Marie straightened her armband so that the symbol of SUN was clearly prominent. "Not if he can kill us without anyone noticing. If he takes us out fast enough, no one might react at all." This was true. But surely, Wolfgang thought, Johnny wouldn't be bold enough to attack us in the train station. Subtlety was not Johnny's style. As he said himself, he was a force of nature. If he damaged the station to the point that it ceased to function, or injured enough people, MOON could be in deep trouble. What would hold back any of the other factions from attacking MOON members anywhere, then, in retribution? Unless they were arrogant enough to believe that they already owned all of Doors to do with as they saw fit.
Thunder shook the panes of glass overhead as they ran into the train station; of course, Johnny could easily see them from his birds eye view, these two little rats scurrying below him in the maze. Crazy thoughts raced through Wolfgang's mind as he began to panic. He felt no better than a rat in the city. When wasn't he running for his life from something? When wasn't he having to defend himself? He slipped his hood over his head to shield his face and blend into the crowd of weak, common monsters and lesser fae, the foot soldiers of Doors. The stairs leading underground to the subway seemed to grow bigger and closer in his mind as he focused on them with all his might and plodded one foot in front of the other as fast as he could, in spite of the numbers of people, in spite of the pain. He was so close, just another few steps, when a part of the ceiling collapsed just in front of him, not closing off the stairs entirely, but enough that he could no longer make his way. "Damn it, Johnny!" he shouted. "Why?!" He wanted to look up, to find him, to curse him with his eyes as well as his lips, but the thought of a mouthful of glass made him shudder. In spite of the pain, Wolfgang kept his speed up and changed direction, running back the way he came until he reached the bottom of the street train platform. Johnny might be a spirit of the wind itself, but even the wind needed time to pick up things and gather the strength to do something with them. If Wolfgang could keep moving, he might get away.
As Johnny darted back out through the broken glass and up to the sun, Wolfgang took the opportunity to make a run for the partially-blocked stairs that led to the subway below. Just before he scrambled under the wreckage, he looked back to see that Johnny had spotted him. He would be on him in a second. Wolfgang felt his foot slipping over the hard metal shafts when a grip was upon him--the slippery yet unyielding grip of the wind, drawing him back through the scaffolding. He held tight to it and kicked behind himself like a mule, but it felt like he was striking nothing. His foot would reach something that didn't give only to feel it melt away beneath it. Panic gripping his heart in the same way as the ghostly hands held his foot, he almost let go when a scream belted out behind him. Finally freed, he shot forward like a coiled spring, and turned back to see Marie with her knife out in one hand clambering toward him through the wreckage. He lunged back to pull her through, relieved that she must have caught him in a moment of solidity, and also grateful that she didn't go through Johnny's grip and into his foot. "Thanks," Wolfgang said.
"Run," she urged. "It won't last." The pressure changed in the corridor at the bottom of the stairs and Wolfgang felt the wind pick up.
If Johnny went up for air again, out of the tunnel and the train station, then he would restore his power, but he would lose them. But Wolfgang knew him better than that. If he was angry enough to follow Marie thinking she was Wolfgang to tear him apart, then he was angry enough and close enough to his goal to keep following him now. He was still stronger than Wolfgang and knew it. But like a man trying to swat a fly, sometimes the fly, no matter how small, gets the better of him, gets away. Wolfgang relied on that chance, and knew how to make it into something more than a chance, to make into a real, honest-to-goodness possibility. Up ahead, trains were still pulling into and out of the station, their factionless zombie drivers uninterested in and undisturbed by the disaster above. Wolfgang could hear the trains running, hear the brutal screech of the wheels on the rails, and, without looking back and no time to read signs, he chose a tiled-lined hallway at random, hoping that a train would be there soon, or on its way. And there it was. One was about to pull out of the station.
The long, yellow train lingered, its doors tantalizingly open, when he heard the beeping that signaled the doors closing. Wolfgang thought he could dive for it, and prepared to take a spring forward off his good foot this time. Just as his foot left the platform, a breeze slammed into him, pushing him into the side of the train. Stretching all of his bones out on end, Wolfgang grazed his fingers along the edge of the door frame and clamped on. The doors wiggled hard, struggling to shut, but couldn't. All of them jerked open almost as fast as they began to close, sensing an obstruction at one door that couldn't be overcome. Focusing on drawing himself in, Wolfgang didn't notice Johnny swoop up beside him. When a punch fell on his kidney, he let out a scream and almost let go. But the thick sound of a knife diving into an over ripe melon sto
pped the punches almost immediately. A gurgled cry resounded in the platform and Wolfgang used the moment to slide himself into the train. The doors shut.
Marie hovered over him. "Can you stand?" she asked. Wolfgang took that to mean, judging by the way he looked or the way he lay there, that she was afraid to try to move him. He was afraid to try to move himself.
"I think..." he began, and slowly rolled himself over, just in time to cry, "Look out!" Behind her, Johnny had reformed, no doubt seeping into the train after Marie had stabbed him.
Johnny was trembling, now, visibly weakened, and pale. But, even removed from the sky and waning in strength, he could still murder them outright, now that he had them trapped. Wolfgang could feel the air in the car start to change. Breathing harder, he worked to fill his lungs but came up shorter with each breath. It wouldn't be long before darkness consumed him. Marie was out of sight now, probably already succumbed and on the ground.
He didn't want to hurt Johnny, no matter how corrupt he had become. He had been his friend, even though he turned out to be no more trustworthy than any other fae. Wolfgang had never given back the same he had gotten from the Fair--that was their despicable code, not his. If they wanted to live in a world where they destroyed each other, they were welcome to it. He refused to take part.
Each breath became more painful than the last, and Wolfgang knew he had to act before he lost consciousness. In seconds that seemed drawn out to minutes, in a tumble of images that almost made no sense anymore, Wolfgang could see through Johnny, realized he was dissipating, could no longer hold his form. Through him was a window to the dark tunnel of the underground, light flickering as they passed by markers in the long train tunnel. Gripping Vogelfang with all his might, Wolfgang focused as hard as he could like a drunk might focus on his house keys in the struggle to remember what they did and let loose a shot that flew through what remained of Johnny to smack open the jiggling train window. An emergency exit, the window popped free and Johnny rushed helplessly out through it, the air in the train almost immediately rushing back to normal again, as a tin can, once opened, flooded with air. His glasses slipped off, almost sliding across the floor, and for a terrifying moment, Wolfgang was blind. Reaching out in one desperate motion, his fingertips grazed the glasses, and he managed to slide along the car floor just enough to claim them and return them back where they belonged. Marie looked up from where she had collapsed on the floor, out of Wolfgang's sight. "Where is he?" she stammered, her loose hair spread out across her face like a golden veil. The air rushing past the train cooled off the hot car almost immediately. "Is he gone?"
Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) Page 5
