Ghost of Doors (City of Doors) Read Online Free PDF

hair kaleidoscope colors and shapes, threadbare T-shirt, dirt-stained canvas sneakers, and ill-fitting fitting jeans. "Where you guys goin' on this beautiful day I made?"
    "Where no sprite has gone before," Wolfgang said.
    "Hey, I ain't a sprite," Johnny said, hovering easily alongside the horse. "I'm a zephyr, dude. A howlin' tempest; a force a' nature--"
    "You mean, 'freak of nature,'" Marie said.
    He grinned in spite of himself. "Yeah. And you like that, doncha?"
    Maybe he'd thought she was kidding, but her growing sneer was harsher than any slap in the face, at least to Wolfgang. "I like a guy who sticks with a plan best of all."
    The lanky cherub scowled. "It ain't my fault the city shifted, Marie. Pretty sure it was already too late when I got there." Short, pale yellow curls hovered around his head like wisps of summer clouds, breaking away and changing color as they went, giving him the incongruous appearance of a halo. The occasional St. Elmo's fire crackled through. "When all the doors on the block lock and go red, whatcha gonna do?" Wolfgang chewed on his lower lip. He knew that Marie had her doubts about a zephyr that couldn't get anywhere on time, particularly when her own life was at stake. More than once the word "double agent" had left her lips when talking about Johnny Merriweather, and, as much as Wolfgang didn't like where those thoughts led, he had to admit it was possible, perhaps even the only logical conclusion anyone could draw. "Anyway, I only sunk to your level because it looks like you could use some help with your sense of direction. A little bird told me you're headed to No-Man's-Land."
    Wolfgang grimaced. He felt exposed. Just as Marie had said, there was no place in Doors that was private. "Maybe," Wolfgang replied.
    "You guys got a death wish or something? Whattaya wanna go there for?"
    "Since you've been spying on us for at least as long as we've been here on the street, you should already know that."
    "Hey, it's kind of hard not to follow people when you're doing an eagle's eye view all the time. You see a lot up there. Trust me." Wolfgang didn't doubt this. And being nosy--Johnny's natural state--didn't hurt.
    "Listen, Johnny," Wolfgang explained, unable to put away his anger, "I'm trying to get to the human world and I don't want anyone to know."
    "Woah, ok." He held his hands up in mock fear. "What's with the friggin' mystery, Sherlock?"
    "The mystery is why no one's punched your pushy face in yet."
    "Yeah, yeah, okay, I hear ya." Johnny waved a hand at him in a sort of dismissive, weak salute. His eyebrows raised into his tousled hair-mist as he asked, "Yo, Marie, you got the feeling we're being watched?"
    Pilgrim slowed and stopped. They were back in Wolfgang's neighborhood, almost to the block where the door had imploded. A sudden cold wind fondled Marie's hair, pawed slick fingers through it and spread it out wildly, then pushed past her and Wolfgang. He could smell river water and dank leaves in its touch as the neighborhood darkened from the clouds it brought drifting past the sun. Johnny looked up, his eyes distant, seeing or feeling something in the wind that only a zephyr could. It was then Wolfgang noticed one of the doors at the end of the street was no longer blue. It had gone red, and Wolfgang was sure that when they had left, the entire block, all the way around, had been blue. Marie suddenly looked distracted, her eyes and head shifting slightly to one side, a listening posture.
    "Is the street--?"
    Marie had held up a finger to shush him and she listened, her eyes narrowing in concentration to slits of gleaming blue-green. "We can't go yet," she said.
    "What's wrong?"
    "This block is shifting," she explained. "All around us, it's red. It's only a matter of time before they assimilate the rest."
    Wolfgang cringed. Since before he was born, SUN had control of this ward. His family's apartment was on the adjoining block. How long would it be before the whole ward fell to