Ghost of Doors (City of Doors)

by Jennifer Paetsch

  “Listen. I…I love you, Marie,” he said. “I love you. I was wrong. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But it’s true. I love you, and I ruined everything. Not just for us, but for the whole city. I could have helped you as you’d always helped me. Maybe we could have figured out SUN’s plan sooner. I don’t know. Now we’ll never know. But I love you, I always loved you, and I’m sorry.”

  She blinked. The opening of her eyes shone light into the darkness, the burning glow from two new suns shone as she exposed them to the void. The glow swallowed his sight, but he basked in it, because it meant that she was awake. She was alive. “I love you, too.” The words rumbled toward him, her promise like the rolling of waves on the sea, just as deep and constant.

  “I know. I know, and I’m sorry, Marie. I should have told you long ago.”

  She reached out to him, long, slender arms made of night, and he instinctively reached toward her, longing to embrace her. It was all instinct, something he didn’t need to control and couldn’t control if he had tried. It was the soul’s deepest desire, or only purpose, if you will: He could not fight the desire to be born. The weightless flight of the soul brought him to her, and he felt himself guided not just to her but through her, deep inside her to a place where there was nothing, but that nothing was its purpose, a space eager to be filled. He seated himself there, his essence settling into it like water finding its level, not taking over or taking from her, but creating a partnership of form, an empty vessel filled. And then they were whole, the two of them, seeing through the same aqua eyes and pushed, stumbling, a lamb finding its feet, toward the street outside the glowing door. Once on the other side, the door shut behind them. Looking up, they saw a stone face—what had once been Marie’s face—above the door crumble and fall away. “I…feel strange.” She said. Or thought. He could hear her thoughts equally as well as hear her speak. Both sounds came from outside of him, both the exact same hushed tone of a person talking to herself.

  “I feel strange, too,” he replied to her in thought, “but better than I’ve felt in a long time.”

  Their heart raced in a communal excitement. “What are we going to do now?” she said. “Everywhere I look I see blue doors. SUN must have done what they did to us on a massive scale.” She turned invisible and ducked into an alleyway to keep from being noticed by the zombies wandering the streets. “We have no army to fight back with. We’ll be killed.”

  “We have to find Pilgrim,” Wolfgang told her. “We have to find my father’s body and bring it to Doors. There’s got to be a way to put the souls back in their rightful bodies and free the trapped monsters. Or we die trying.”

  “Speaking of bodies—where is your body, Wolfgang?”

  He remembered the last thing he saw before being trapped in the door: his doppelganger sneering with unbridled hate. “My twin…he had it. He took my soul. My body might be…lost.” He didn’t want to think about it, but murder was the only realistic conclusion he could draw, knowing his twin. "And he's surely got Vogelfang, too."

  “Oh, Wolfgang. I’m…I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I do something for someone other than myself for once.”

  She reappeared, her back against a vacant building that seemed safe enough for the moment; disappearing wasn’t something she could do for very long. “Where do we go to look for Pilgrim? Do you think they did to him what they did to us?”

  Wolfgang wasn’t sure, but he was interrupted by a familiar stirring of wind above them, a gust that said it was alive, a howl rushing through the buildings, through the trees.

  "Hey, it's cool, don't freak," said Johnny as he descended upon the sidewalk beside Marie, dust devils swirling away from him as his foot settled on the stone. "I'm not—I won't hurt yah. I just want to talk."

  Wolfgang could feel Marie's heart speed up. It was a part of him, but distant, his awareness almost a dizziness, as if he was above or behind her, in spite of the fact that he saw everything from inside of her, her body acting as his. "So talk," Marie said. She moved as far back against the wall as she could, ready to grab her knife as if it would do anything against the wind.

  "I didn't...I don't wanna... Look, I was wrong. Okay?" Johnny stayed where he was and scratched his head. "I know you probably don’t want to talk to me no more. But I'm sorry I attacked you guys in the subway."

  "You mean you'd rather have attacked us above ground?" Marie said in the strange dual voice she had now that she was in possession of a soul.

  "No, what I mean is—I was—I thought Wolfgang was trying to kill his dad, but then I saw Markus later and he said there was a guy pretending to be him and Wolfgang. He said the guy was trying to kill them both. I didn’t know. Anyway, just wanted to say sorry. I guess I just got a little carried away.” That was an understatement, but his apology was certainly sincere enough to accept. Besides, they needed all the help they could get. “I really want to apologize to Wolfgang, too. You seen him?” Blond wispy locks, part real, part imagined, curled and wafted around hopeful eyes. “Did he make it back home?”

  “He’s in me, Johnny,” Marie explained. “Wolfgang’s soul is inside me.” Johnny’s slack jaw was his only response to that, so Marie took the opportunity to continue, “We need your help. SUN did this to us. SUN is killing all the humans and putting them in doors. That’s why they’re winning.”

  Johnny didn’t look surprised anymore. “Yeah…about that. I kind of figured something was up when I saw all the zombies in the streets. And Pilgrim said that you guys needed my help. That’s why I went out looking for you.”

  “You know where Pilgrim is?” Wolfgang’s voice overwhelmed Marie’s. “Where? Where is he?”

  “Last I saw him, he was in SUN HQ. Some gargoyles were escorting him someplace.”

  Thunder shook the sky overhead as SUN operatives assembled high in the air and in the streets below. They would begin locking down the rest of the city soon, cleaning up stragglers, tying up loose ends. Wolfgang and Marie agreed they had to get out of here.

  "Johnny, apology accepted, but even more than that, we need you to help us, or we'll never make it."

  "Yeah sure. Whataya wanna do?"

  "Go to the Hindernis," Wolfgang-Possessing-Marie said with all seriousness. "Can you fly us there?"

  Chapter 20

  FROM THE AIR, THE NO Man's Land surrounding the city looked as if it had no end. A sea of fog billowed below them before engulfing them; Johnny flew as high as he could and the fog still followed, blocking their vision in all directions the deeper they dared go. "I can't fly right around here," Johnny admitted, his voice colored with fear, as if he knew they were not alone. "I'm not too sure which way I'm going anymore."

  "Then take us down," Marie replied, her voice ringing with a strange dual tone, high and low, male and female, human and fae. "We should be close enough. We're wasting time just flying aimlessly."

  "How will we find your dad?" Marie thought to Wolfgang.

  "He'll find us. It's like you said before: My soul burns like a flame. He'll see it. He'll come to me."

  Johnny brought Marie-Possessed-By-Wolfgang to the ground more abruptly than any of them would have liked: She tumbled painfully on the mulchy ground before righting herself like a cat. There before them in the crooked wood hunched the little spider of a dark house, its garden with one lone tree spreading its branches protectively over its roof. “How did he get us so close to the crone’s house?” Marie thought.

  “I don’t think he did,” Wolfgang replied. “I think the Hindernis knows what we want to do and wants to help.”

  “Maybe you're right. It seemed to know an awful lot about us before,” she said, plucking a fruit from the tree. It blinked at her in wonderment while a familiar form waddled from the house.

  "You again?" the old lady cawed. "For what do I owe the pleasure?"

  Wolfgang smiled through Marie. He was beginning to understand his father’s plans and his father’s work after being on the
same journey he had been—he was beginning to see this world through his father’s eyes. “You have a powerful gift. We ask that you use it once again. To save us. To save Doors.”

  The crone scowled. “’Tis no gift. ‘Tis a curse!” She spat forcefully. “And let Doors rot. ‘Tis a hell hole and nothing good ever came from it.”

  “You didn’t choose your fate, did you?”

  “What do you know about it?” she eyed possessed Marie warily.

  “You are a door. You can send me anywhere you want. And after he met you, my father wanted to copy what you are. He wanted to create more doors just like you. And he tried to do it to himself, but failed.”

  Her eyes gleamed with an internal spark. “Ye got it half right, Missy. I be not what I be out of the greed or lust for owning men nor city.” The muddy, speckled pendant on her chest glowed with the same spark Wolfgang had seen in her eyes and, after returning his gaze to them, he saw the younger woman she once was still very much alive behind them. “I did choose me fate. Just as you now be choosin’ yours. Good or bad. Go to yer father and help him right his wrongs, that he may find peace.” She beckoned Marie and Johnny to follow her into the house, and as soon as they crossed the threshold, they entered a wood. Marie and Wolfgang recognized it immediately as the ancient forest where the Huntmaster—his father’s widerganger—ruled. Even though it was midday, the Hindernis was as dark as night. There was no moonlight now, but the sky glowed with a weak light from the clouds, as if each cloud hid a tiny moon.

  "I think it's better you handle this," Marie thought to Wolfgang, and took his shape. "Your father should recognize you. Anyway, it can't hurt."

  "Thanks," he thought. Then, to Johnny, he said, "You might want to disappear. Things could turn ugly fast."

  "I'm way ahead of you," Johnny said, his form and voice fading into the mist, into the wind. "Already making myself scarce. I'll be around in case things start to look bad. You can count on me from here on out."

  Silence. Then, wild howls echoed through the trees. An unholy throng of werewolves, monsters, and undead crashed like a train through the undergrowth around him, the hunt being driven through the Hindernis, a path that only they could sense unfolding before them, the path of their prey. Not long after they made their appearance, the skeletal charger came thundering from the depths of the wood, its iron hooves clanging a rhythmic dirge upon the unseen path which it tread. As soon as Wolfgang laid eyes on his father again, he knew: They were connected forever, father and son, and nothing in the universe could change that. Wolfgang had his chance. His father had found him yet again. The day would be theirs.

  "Father, hear me," Wolfgang cried. "It's me. It's me, your son. It's Wolfgang! I've come back for you." At the sound of his voice, the wolf pack turned on him, scores of glowing yellow eyes shimmering with rage. Wolfgang held his hands out to them in a peaceful gesture. "I don't want to fight you. Please!" He deeply wished he had Vogelfang by his side, but had no time for regrets. He would mend his father’s body and soul or die trying. The black and hollow horse upon which his father rode stopped dead. Smoke poured from each nostril as if a burning fire inside it kept it alive. The ribs and spine showed through holes in the rotten skin, clear that no innards remained to fill the gutted spaces. "The city has—the city is overrun. I need you, father."

  The widerganger's hood turned to face him, its dark and secret contents hidden from what little light there was so that Wolfgang could only guess at his reaction. But the wolf pack spelled it out for him. Punctuated by howls, the half-men half-beasts and whatever else snarled and barked their replies in madness and rage:

  "No one needs us."

  "They hate us. Fear us."

  "We are forgotten. Forgotten!"

  Wolfgang shook his head. The lies and the denial were going to end today. It was time for a new beginning, one which he would lead in, which he must lead in, because no one else would. "I didn't forget you. Look, here I am. I've come back. And I want you help you. I want to help all of you. Please, listen to me." The glowing eyes continued to circle him as if looking for a good opening in which to strike. He doubted they were listening to him at all, but he had to try. He wanted to free the trapped human souls, and he wanted his father healed. Both would require the return of his father’s body to Doors—if the hunt would let him.

  "I understand your anger. I understand they don't want you. I am not asking you to help them. I know that, if anything, you want revenge. I want that, too. But not just by destroying them. That is not enough. I want to right the wrongs that they have done. Wrongs to me, and to my family. And to you."

  One of the wolves decided to try him. Spittle frothing from sharp fangs, the werewolf lunged into the open air only to be blown back hard by a strong breeze into a tree. Two more tried their luck, but an unseen forcefield of air protected the changeling with a human soul. Then Wolfgang shapeshifted. Marie became as massive a form as her body would allow, a werewolf with powerful claws and as fierce a maw as she had seen here in the Hindernis. After howling loud and long into the forest, Wolfgang roared, "Hear me or die. Do you not wish revenge on those who have forsaken you?" The wolves paused, ears back, cringing and snarling but not advancing.

  He took this opportunity to plead with his father. Whatever part of him had given Wolfgang the Ausweis could be reasoned with. It had to be possible, or else his father would not have had the clarity of mind to give him the Ausweis in the first place. "I know where your soul is, Father," Wolfgang said through Marie. "I can take you to it. You can be whole again." The loaned body turned back into a likeness of Wolfgang, the better to draw out some paternal love from his father, blood from a stone. "Please, trust me." He reached out the borrowed hand.

  The hood fell away. An older Wolfgang once again gazed upon his son with empty, shining eyes. But this time, there was a difference: A lone tear slid its way down the cold, gray cheek, the only sign of life in an otherwise corpse.

  "Yes, father. It is an all out war, now. SUN has trapped all the humans as your soul is trapped. I got free. Thanks to you. Thanks to what you told me. Now it's my turn to help you."

  With a dignity seldom seen among the living, the stoic undead reached out his hand to touch the one offered by his son. In a land without gods, that unholy corpse became imbued with life, the life he had given when he was but a man. Renewed, the corpse, once preserved by magic, breathed its first breath in almost twenty years, and Wolfgang looked out with new eyes upon the rabble of wolves, demons, and undead who, desperate for purpose, had beaten an endless track around that which cast them out, but that which they longed for: The city of Doors. It was finally time to return home, with Wolfgang leading them.

  It felt strange but good to have his own body again, and this body, though well preserved, was larger and slower than his. He hoped he would be able to react as quickly as he was used to—his life and the life of his father would depend on it. "Now is the time to prove what you are." Wolfgang's new voice boomed through the forest. "I know that you remember the wrong that was done to you. I know that you remember that every hour of every day."

  The skeletal horse beneath him shifted and stomped. It sensed the change in its rider, but it was not enough for it to disobey. There were no reigns to hold, no saddle. Wolfgang reached over the side and helped Marie up to sit behind him, and the sudden memory of her behind him on Pilgrim as she had been yesterday flooded over him. "I've got a thing for older men," she whispered, and when Wolfgang turned to check her expression, he couldn't tell if she was joking or not. She was an enigma, his enigma, and he was sorry because of all the love that he had rejected from her. He had promised that would change. Johnny hung above them in the air like an angel, ready to return to Doors and follow at a safe distance from the rabble. Not that they could hurt him, anyway. Who could stop the wind?

  "If my father can be saved," he told the throng, "then so can you. If you want to take back the things you once loved, then you must follow me. If your only want is to rampag
e, that can also be arranged," Wolfgang assured them with an evil grin. "There are lots of things in Doors to hunt. Come with me."

  Chapter 21

  "QUIET DOWN, YOU PRISONERS!"

  Pilgrim gave a quick look around the little dungeon, its bumpy stone walls here and there oozing with some sort of gooey lichen that shimmered in the dim electric light. As far as he could tell, he was the only one there. “I’m no prisoner,” Pilgrim snorted. “I’m a part of SUN, same as you.”

  “Pipe down.” Claws clicked and clacked on the grimy concrete floor. A tiny eye spied through the grated fence wall of the makeshift prison cell, a room that, in the human world, might have served to store gear for use by the subway workers. Whatever the room had been filled with was gone, and each meshed metal partition in a faded orange yellow made a room about the size of a stall. Pilgrim waited in one of these. The spying eye belonged to a little hairy dog no bigger than a cat, his reddish orange hue burning a fiery red at the ends. “I’ll decide who’s a prisoner or not,” he said.

  Earlier, Pilgrim had tried brute force to tear the wire walls down, but they wouldn’t give. The warding symbol painted on them was strong, correctly drawn where it mattered, and would not break. It would keep demons and fae imprisoned for much longer than Pilgrim could wait. Wolfgang needed him. He would have to find another way out. The giant horse bent down his great neck to the spying eye’s level and took a deep sniff. Maybe this little dog would help him. “Hey, aren’t you a friend of Marie’s?” he asked, blowing out his nose.

  The little dog squinted. “Aren’t you the horse of that boy’s?”