Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) by Jennifer Paetsch Read Free Book Online Page A

strong enough to keep it. Shoving Wolfgang hard against one of the bridge's lampposts with a resounding clang, the doppelganger claimed the artifact as his own and drew it back to strike. A concrete slab crumbled from stress beside them as a troll bigger than them both together launched itself up from under the bridge and clutched at the first person it saw: The changeling. Forgotten in surprise, Vogelfang fell away to the edge of the sidewalk and dangled precariously over the water.
    The troll shrieked unintelligibly in rage; the changeling, still in the form of Wolfgang's father, struggled as it lifted him high over its head like a rag doll. With his back throbbing and still unable to move, Wolfgang could weakly make out through the haze of pain the form of swords or knives sticking from the troll's massive back, swords perhaps from those who had tried but failed to resist becoming a meal. The doppelganger reached for one of those.
    "Don't! It's a trap," Wolfgang shouted, his senses returning enough to remember what he knew of Doors and its denizens. "Those swords are cursed." He was proven right as, moments later, the doppelganger drew forth one and returned it to the monster's chest, but the troll didn't react in pain; the doppelganger did. The swords would injure those who used them, not their intended victim. As the troll ambled away to carry the doppelganger back under the bridge, Wolfgang saw his chance to escape but his body, for long moments, would not respond. Finally finding his strength, he scrambled awkwardly to the motorcycle after pausing to scoop up Vogelfang.
    But he wouldn't leave his doppelganger to his horrible fate. Mounting and revving the motorcycle, Wolfgang held Vogelfang in one hand and steered with the other. He jousted with the artifact against the fleeing troll, severing an arm at the elbow. The half-an-arm and the fae prize fell together into the river Spree, both sinking quickly out of sight.
    "You're welcome," he muttered and sped off to rejoin his friends.

Chapter 4

    J OHNNY MERRIWEATHER DID NOT BELIEVE in humans. That is, he did not have enough faith in them to trust them. He used to. But he had seen enough jealousy, greed, and betrayal to change his mind. True, he was a creature who did not know hunger or thirst--the restrictions of all animals--nor the need for companionship and how those needs could warp a person. But he did have feelings, no matter how much he kept them to himself, and he knew which side he was on. That MOON grew in record numbers of late only proved his point. Humans were the larvae of monsters, nothing more.
    So what he saw in the street that afternoon from his vantage point high above as he left the Schäfers’ neighborhood did not entirely surprise him. Disgusted with Wolfgang, Johnny had joined the summer sky with every intention to report back to SUN HQ to get new orders. Disgusted with himself, he sought a distraction in the streets below to keep from reflecting on the regretful things he had said and done. He still believed that he was right, but he didn’t know how to fix the problem, how to take the neighborhood, a neighborhood that had belonged to SUN ever since there had been a SUN to claim it, back. The streets of Doors were a web, each highway, road, and alley circling out from the center, buildings filling the spaces in between. Movements of creatures and vehicles drew his eye, and one vehicle in particular, one which he had often admired, Dr. Schäfer’s black Touren-AWO, raced as if to a fire (when Johnny knew he was racing from one) back to HQ. But the driver was not Dr. Schäfer, so Johnny moved in closer for a better look: His halberd held straight up like a flagpole on his back, it was clearly Wolfgang.
    Figures , Johnny thought. Would it kill him to die just once for what he believed in? He wondered where Wolfgang’s shadows were, Dapplegrim and Marie, when his thoughts were interrupted. Johnny’s sight from afar rivaled binoculars, and when