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

he saw something floating in the river, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing was real. Doors had warped the minds of humans before, but not in the case of Wolfgang. Wolfgang was one of the most stable humans he had ever met, not that that was saying much. And here he was, stealing his father's motorbike and leaving his father to drown.
    Johnny felt rage rush into the empty hole in his stomach. Dr. Schäfer was a good man and a SUN besides. As much as Johnny wanted to make Wolfgang pay, he could not let the doctor die alone in the river. Johnny was a force for retribution, not mercy, but that wouldn’t keep him from rescuing a desperate comrade. He summoned the gentlest of winds through his fingertips to collect the body from the river before the sirens could get to it and lifted it up in a stretcher made purely of air. The weather above him changed. A moment ago it was darkening as he called in his heart for Wolfgang’s blood, but now clouds hung in a gray haze, blocking out the sun, swaddling them and whatever watched nearby in a gray cloak of fog. Saved from the river, Dr. Schäfer laid coughing and sputtering on the cut stone sidewalk as Johnny knelt beside him.
    “You okay, Doc?”
    “I don’t know what happened,” Dr. Schäfer said, his voice struggling. “He’s…changed.”
    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.
     
    ☽☉✩
     
    T HE 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,