Doors: Twilight

by Markus Heitz

Genres: Epic Fantasy; Sword & Sorcery; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

When his beloved only daughter goes missing, millionaire entrepreneur Walter van Dam calls in a team of experts - including free-climbers, a geologist, a parapsychologist, even a medium - to find her . . . for Anna-Lena has disappeared somewhere within a mysterious cave system under the old house the family abandoned years ago. But the rescuers are not the only people on her trail - and there are dangers in the underground labyrinth that no one could ever have foreseen.

In a gigantic cavern the team come across a number of strange doors, three of them marked with enigmatic symbols. Anna-Lena must be behind one of them - but time is running out and they need to choose, quickly. Anna-Lena is no longer the only person at risk.

The team knew their mission would be perilous - but how do you defeat your own demons? Trapped in their own nightmares, their only hope of escape is DOOR X, which leads to a threatening vision of the future . . .

DOORS: THREE DOORS, THREE DIFFERENT ADVENTURES. WHICH DOOR WILL YOU CHOOSE?

Release date: March 4, 2021

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 288

Sample

FIRST DEAD END

 

 

Trepidation.

Trepidation and a sinking sense of hopelessness were all she could feel in the darkness as she wandered endlessly through the stone labyrinth, refusing to succumb to fear.

The smell was one known only to ancient buildings, of cold stone, damp dust and the millennia of abandonment. The leather soles of her high-heeled shoes scraped over rocky ground and slipped on the loose stones rattling around her, but there was no chance of her giving up.

She knew this place; she had heard plenty about it and now she had to find a way to leave – or remain there for ever. Death was coming for her more quickly than she could have imagined: she understood that now.

She tried to keep her breathing as quiet as possible as the LED light on her mobile phone glimmered into life for a promising second, before immediately switching off again, as if out of spite. It continued to flicker on and off, emanating a frantic, cold glow like a stroboscope.

The young woman swiped and tapped the display with her broken fingers again and again, but to no avail. The indifferent message remained: No Service.

If she had been less afraid, she might have felt the energy all around her, as pervasive as the air she was breathing. It was not electrical, nuclear or even thermal, but rather the sort of energy that might accumulate at a spiritual site: churches, monasteries and sacred places in the middle of forests were full of this kind of energy.

As her phone continued to flash on and off, the young woman swore quietly to herself. ‘Stay on!’ she whispered, infuriated.

Then the little light lit up and illuminated her face, tearing it out of the darkness. Her features were striking: pure, bright, freckled skin with a light layer of make-up, her coppery hair artfully arranged in a weather-beaten up-do. She wore a small stud in her left nostril and a pair of expensive diamond earrings that glittered in the light as if she were seeking to impress a congregation of the great and the good.

But there was no one around to be impressed by her distinctive appearance.

Dazzled by the light, the young woman screwed her eyes shut and her phone slipped out of her usually well-manicured fingers: the last few hours had clearly taken their toll.

As the mobile fell to the ground, the beam of light passed down her body, briefly illuminating her dark green silk dress, now torn and flecked with mud. It revealed scratched and filthy forearms, the shattered glass of her eye-wateringly expensive watch, a small handbag clutched under her right arm and, finally, the black evening courts, the soles and uppers now covered with scratches. There was nothing practical about this attire for such an environment: her visit here was entirely unplanned.

The phone skipped across the floor and the cold white LED beam brought the stony, dusty ground out of the darkness and illuminated several empty cartridge cases, for use in a modern military weapon. The sound of the impact echoed around the room, the full size of which was beyond the reach of the small light.

After one final rattle, the phone settled on the ground with its light facing downwards. Blackness descended.

‘Kcuf.’ The young woman quickly bent down and picked up the device. ‘Gnikcuf lleh!’

She was fully aware that words were coming out of her mouth backwards: she’d discovered it was just one of the many idiosyncrasies of this place. At first she had doubted her own sanity, then gradually she’d managed to suppress that fear. There were worse things down here.

She picked up the mobile and flashed the light all around her, illuminating walls made of grey concrete and reddish-brown brick that receded into the distance. Eddies of whirling dust danced their way through the artificial brightness like tiny moths attracted to the glow.

Then the beam passed over a series of doors made of stone and weathered wood. Three of them bore wrought-iron knockers and two were bare. The ring that should have been held in the mouth of the beautifully crafted creature adorning the second door was missing. The doors were embedded in the rocky wall as if their existence in this godforsaken place was entirely natural.

‘On erom,’ she whispered in frustration. ‘Please, no more doors!’ Her prayer was purely rhetorical.

She walked forwards slowly and cast her light over the five doors. She had realised long ago that she was not the first visitor to try to unlock the secrets of this mysterious place. There was more than a kernel of truth to her ­mother’s stories after all.

That knowledge was of no help whatsoever.

Markings both old and new were carved into the stone and wood; some had been scratched in, others added in pen, and they were mostly written in languages the young woman did not understand. Some of the characters might have been decipherable by archaeologists or experts in ancient and pre-history; some might even have been of interest to cryptologists or etymologists or those with knowledge of Eastern studies.

What stood out. however, were the thick red question marks on the first three doors, drawn on in lipstick and clearly new.

‘Pull yourself together,’ she whispered to herself, wiping a dirty strand of hair from her green eyes. Her forehead glistened with sweat and her deodorant had long since given up on her. It was not at all cold in the maze and running had become increasingly more of an ordeal with each futile escape attempt. She was ravaged by hunger and thirst and she could feel the blisters on her feet rubbing with every step she took, but she dared not walk around barefoot. ‘Come on now!’

She tried to slow her breathing as she stepped up once more and withdrew a red lipstick from her handbag.

As she walked off the step, the now familiar feeling of a world being turned upside down grabbed her from behind her navel and flipped her over. The first time it had happened, she’d panicked and injured herself on the wall next to her. The second time the world turned on its axis, she found herself half drifting and had managed to manoeuvre herself so she was half pressed up against the wall in an attempt to offset the worst of the damage when gravity reasserted itself. This time she carefully raised her arms in order to remain upright.

She floated, waiting for her inevitable painful return to the stone floor.

Everything loose on the ground started to rattle and clatter around; fine particles of dust swam through the lamplight, accompanied by pebbles, bones and pieces of metal and fabric that had belonged to previous visitors.

After ten seconds, everything crashed to the ground.

She scrambled to her feet and took a few steps, stopping in front of the furthermost of the five doors: the one made from weathered oak. Instead of a knocker, it had a sliding bolt and a box lock. Her grandmother had once told her a story about this door, but she couldn’t remember any of the details. The metal was thin, with inlays of gold, tarnished silver and some sort of copper alloy. Using her mobile light as a guide, she pulled out her lipstick and painted a large exclamation mark on it.

A noise suddenly erupted from the surrounding darkness. All she could hear was the pounding of heavy paws and the grinding of claws. She didn’t even notice smearing lipstick on her palm as she instinctively covered the light with her hand. The beam scattered through her fingers, framing her face and eyes as if she were in a silent film. She didn’t dare turn off the light, in case she couldn’t make it turn back on again.

Listen. Hold your breath. Just one more time.

She hadn’t yet caught sight of her pursuer, but she knew this creature was on her tail. Perhaps it was there to guard this place? Or perhaps it was just a being who had heard her moving around and wanted to put a stop to it.

She inched towards the fourth door, which was made of stone with a knocker in the centre, the only one without a marking, and stood silently with her back against the wall, so as not to be ambushed in the darkness.

The quiet scuttling stopped abruptly.

Almost there, she thought as she placed her hand carefully on the latch and tried to push it down. Nothing happened.

She tried the door again while she carried on looking around her, before stopping to listen once more.

All was quiet.

‘Kniht,’ she muttered, taking a chance and illuminating the door knocker. ‘Emoc on, think!’

A heavy silver ring with a bulge at the bottom could be seen in the elaborately carved ebony wolf’s mouth resting imposingly on the metal plate in the centre of the door. The stone was dark grey with black grain, with inlays of white marble and onyx forming incomprehensible symmetrical symbols.

She hesitantly stretched out a hand, grabbed the ring and knocked hard against the stone, leaving behind some of the red lipstick that had stuck to her hand.

The noise was metallic, hollow and far too loud, filling the entire room with a deafening boom, as if someone had simultaneously played all the notes on an organ in a cathedral. An iridescent flickering accompanied the eerie yet welcoming clamour above the door. All the worlds and planets and creatures of the known and unknown universe now seemed to gather to witness her arrival.

The flickering light leaped to the other doors, illuminating them briefly, the markings on the walls gleaming as if they’d been written in gold and giving off a warm light that betrayed the presence of a fine vein in the rock. It was visible for no more than the duration of a heartbeat. A crackle and a crunch flew through the room before mutating into a whisper and a rustle.

The young woman suddenly felt as if a giant were pressing down hard on her shoulders, the gravity in the room becoming overwhelming, forcing her to her knees and compressing her vertebrae and joints so hard that she cried out in agony – but it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

The darkness returned; the weight was lifted.

‘What on earth . . . ?’ she muttered, rising to her feet.

She put her hand gently back on the latch, which this time offered no resistance.

Relieved, she slowly opened the door.

She was met with the presence of a soft, silvery light, accompanied by the sound of owls hooting and foxes barking, intermingled with the peaceful whoosh of falling leaves. A fresh, cleansing wind began to dance through her coppery hair. It felt as if she were being offered the freedom she had been hoping for the whole time she had been wandering through the maze.

She wanted nothing more than to step across the threshold into a world that could soothe her ills – then the growl of a predator cut through the idyll like a knife, stopping her in her tracks. It was followed by the lingering, mournful howling of a wolf: a pack was being summoned for the hunt. She drew her foot back carefully: this was a freedom she would pay for with her life. She knew she wouldn’t stand a chance against such skilled hunters.

The silvery light lit up the area behind her, revealing an empty cavernously high room with only one entrance: the one she had come through. As well as the scribbled inscriptions, notes and memos from previous visitors, the brick and concrete walls were also decorated with rusty brown splodges and ancient flecks of spilled blood. Some had used it to write a final message or curse before succumbing to their anonymous deaths.

The broken ring of the destroyed door knocker lay on the ground, alongside all manner of broken grey bones and the scattered remains of skeletons.

The light also revealed something else.

A man – a dead man – could be seen just at the edge of the light’s reach, through the haze, where silver became ghostly grey, crouching in an unnatural position. He was wearing grey-white camouflage gear with a Kevlar vest over the top; in his right hand he clutched a sub-machine gun. Empty magazines and dozens of bullet casings littered the floor around him. His throat had been slit and the blood that had poured out of it had dried and plastered his body.

Panting, the young woman quickly shut the door and using her phone, once again the only source of light, saw a large red X marked on it. ‘Not there,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t . . .’

The sound of heavy paws could be heard again, coming ever closer, accompanied by a scratching noise, as if there were several beasts approaching, all manner of beings who, in her imagination at least, would do all manner of terrible things to her if she ever found herself in their clutches.

‘Go away!’ The young woman shone the light all around her as if its weak glow suddenly had the lethal cutting power of an industrial laser. ‘Evael em enola! I’ve got a gun!’ she lied. ‘Stay yawa morf em!’

For an instant, an enormous shadow could be seen in the trembling cone of light – then everything went dark.

‘Kcuf! Fuck!’ She frantically pulled on the door knocker and the gleam of the wood lit up the room. With a cry of anguish, she yanked the door open again.

The silvery light struck her once more as the wind blew through her hair as if to welcome her in.

The young woman hurriedly crossed the threshold and entered a world she knew would not offer her the freedom she desired. Perhaps she had merely exchanged a quick death for a slow one.

Giving up was out of the question, however.

She armed herself with a branch from the ground and ran off into the unknown.

Chapter I

Germany, Frankfurt am Main

Viktor headed straight through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ doors. The white duffle bag slung over his right shoulder and his casual sporty attire rendered him utterly inconspicuous amid the throng in the arrivals hall.

The plane had been stacked for more than an hour as a result of bad weather, turning what ought to have been a forty-minute flight into a two-hour débâcle as they waited for a runway to become available. It had made Viktor’s mood somewhat sub-optimal, and it was only exacerbated by the rumblings in his stomach.

He looked at his phone and read the message from his prospective client once more:

 

DEAR MR VON TRONEG

LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU AND GLAD TO HEAR YOU’RE WILLING TO START SOON. MY CHAUFFEUR MATTHIAS WILL PICK YOU UP FROM ARRIVALS. KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR HIM THERE.

REGARDS

WALTER VAN DAM

 

Viktor looked around.

There were several people milling around at the exit holding pieces of cardboard, mini whiteboards or tablets bearing the names of the passengers they were waiting for, although his name was nowhere to be seen.

He decided to carry on through the hall to track the man down. His blue eyes were concealed behind a pair of sunglasses and on his head he wore a white baseball cap. He was in his mid-twenties, in excellent shape, and hardly seemed to notice the weight of his waterproof bag; one of the reasons it had taken him very little time since leaving his previous job to become one of the finest potholers in the world.

‘Where is this chap?’ Viktor muttered, pulling out his phone again to give his client a ring, when he spied a man in a dark blue suit with a cap and black leather gloves. He was holding a printed card that read ‘Cave Tours’ and carried himself in a manner reminiscent of a gentleman’s valet.

Van Dam should have called him Jeeves as his work pseudonym, Viktor thought. He turned around and waded through the crowd towards Matthias; as he did so, he thought about Walter van Dam, about whom there was disconcertingly little information to be found online.

He’d been born in the Netherlands and was the head of a global import/export company founded for overseas trade in the eighteenth century. Very little was known about the man himself; he shied away from the public gaze and for the most part sent proxies to his official engagements. The van Dam family had allegedly branched out further, but Viktor had not been able to find out much beyond that. That was understandable, as there was quite a trade in kidnapping and ransoming the very rich. The less the public knew about you, the better.

It was ultimately irrelevant to Viktor, as long as the Dutchman did not attempt to drag him into any criminal activity. The first payment had already landed in his account and was substantially higher than anything the German state had paid him for far more dangerous jobs.

Next to the chauffeur stood a gaunt man about fifty years old, wearing a bespoke checked suit and highly polished brown shoes that made him look a bit like an Oxford professor. His foot was resting on an expensive-looking aluminium case, as if he were trying to stop it escaping, and he was reading a newspaper. The designer glasses gave him an arrogant demeanour.

‘Good afternoon, gentlemen.’ Viktor removed his own sunglasses, catching a glimpse of his three-day-old beard in the reflection as he did so. ‘Mr van Dam is expecting me. My name is Viktor Troneg.’

‘Welcome to Frankfurt.’ The chauffeur inclined his head in greeting. ‘My name is Matthias. The rest haven’t arrived yet.’ He gestured towards the other man, who was still absorbed in his reading and did not react. ‘May I take this opportunity to introduce you to Professor Friedemann, renowned speleologist and geologist.’

Viktor inclined his head and Friedemann, whose long grey hair was drawn up in a ponytail, nodded in reply without looking up from his newspaper; Viktor thought his angular face had more than a passing resemblance to a skull.

‘This is Mr von Troneg, a potholer and free-climber,’ Matthias said. ‘From what I gather, he’s got quite the international reputation.’

‘Very good.’ Friedemann turned the page and busied himself in the next article.

Viktor already knew which one he liked the least. ‘Were we all on the same flight?’ he asked.

‘You were indeed, Mr von Troneg.’

‘No need to keep the von. I’m not overly keen on my ancestral name.’ Then he broke into a grin. ‘Whatever would you have done if it had crashed?’ he asked.

‘The plane? Highly unlikely,’ replied Matthias. ‘In any case the clairvoyant wouldn’t have boarded.’ He laughed drily.

‘Clairvoyant? Well, that’s something, I suppose.’ Viktor lifted up his baseball cap and slicked his long black hair back before replacing it. ‘And what if she had got on?’

‘She’d have suffered a tragic death, and rightly so,’ commented Friedemann, without looking up. He carefully adjusted his glasses.

Viktor grinned and was about to respond when he noticed a particular woman out of the corner of his eye – and he clearly wasn’t the only one: practically all the passengers appeared to have turned their gaze in her direction.

She was dressed in a tight-fitting, cream-coloured designer dress and pushing a large, outrageously expensive designer suitcase in front her. With a fashionable handbag hanging artfully from her right arm and large sunglasses hiding her eyes, she had the aura of an haute couture model. She held a vanity case in her left hand. Her curly long blonde hair had a theatrically black strand at the front.

Viktor stood there, admiring her. ‘Impressive entrance.’

‘I hope you’re being ironic.’ Friedemann finally looked up from his paper and turned his eyes towards her. ‘Dreadful person. Sat behind me on the flight and kept ordering champagne. They must have wanted to drown her in it by the end.’

‘That is Ms Coco Fendi,’ the chauffeur clarified, raising his arm to catch her attention. ‘Our clairvoyant, gentlemen.’

‘Really? Coco Fendi?’ Viktor had to laugh. ‘Perfect name for a performer.’

‘Coco Fendi: a cross between a handbag and a fashion brand. I’m assuming she’s really called Sabine Müller or something,’ Friedemann added. ‘A double fraud, if you ask me. Only frauds need to dress up like that much of a cliché to be able to perform.’

As Ms Fendi was walking through the hall in search of her welcoming party, the lock on her vanity case snapped open, scattering the contents all over the floor. Pendulums, crystals, tarot cards, bone cubes and runestones rattled and rolled around as if a magician’s box had exploded. All that appeared to be missing was a white rabbit, a black candle and a painted skull.

‘She didn’t see that coming.’ Friedemann looked back down at his newspaper. ‘Not a good sign at all, gents.’ The lenses of his glasses flashed in the light, as if to underscore his statement.

Coco Fendi swore so loudly that she could be heard from the other side of the hall: not the sort of attitude her initial appearance suggested. She let go of her suitcase and bent down to pick up her paraphernalia, which was made all the more difficult by her tight dress.

Viktor was about to walk over and help her when a thickset man in a tight jacket, baggy jeans and crumpled shirt approached from the magazine stand. He acknowledged her briefly before putting his own bag down and lowering himself to his knees to assist in the clean-up operation.

‘The white knight has come to rescue his fair medium,’ observed Friedemann, who had become a rather acerbic commentator.

‘By your leave, that’s Doctor Ingo Theobald,’ explained Matthias. ‘He’s part of the team as well.’

‘Ah, a doctor? Good.’ Viktor folded his arms, happy not to intervene now that Fendi and Theobald were doing such a good job of clearing up. ‘Still a shame, though. I’d hoped we’d have another young woman in the group.’

‘I bet you’d regret that almost immediately,’ barked Friedemann with the pomposity of a snobbish fifty-year-old. ‘There’s not much that can beat the wisdom that comes with age. Knowledge is power and this woman has neither years nor knowledge on her side.’

Viktor wondered how the man was able to see what was going on around him without moving his eyes. A master of peripheral vision, he thought.

Coco Fendi was so engrossed in the recovery of her belongings that she only belatedly noticed the helper kneeling beside her.

‘Thank you – that’s most kind of you.’ Her tight dress was hindering her movements somewhat, but that was the price one paid for beautiful, expensive clothing, which she could well afford. Her bright hair obscured her vision, the curls hanging like a curtain in front of her eyes. ‘A true gentleman.’

She positioned her enormous suitcase as a shield, preventing anyone from absconding with her possessions. The small group of people around the chauffeur disappeared behind it.

Coco turned towards her saviour, stroked her hair out of her face and recognised Ingo Theobald, a man in his early forties with greying blond hair falling down to his neck. A pair of youthfully nerdy nickel glasses perched on his unshaven face.

‘You?’ she laughed, kissing him on the mouth.

Ingo let it happen more out of surprise than anything else. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in astonishment.

‘Working,’ she responded curtly, bridling at his obvious discomfort at meeting her here. She picked up the tarot cards. ‘And you? Investigating a case?’

‘Working.’ He examined her, then looked over her suitcase at the uniformed chauffeur waving at them. ‘Don’t tell me . . .’

Coco raised her eyes and understood. ‘No! You as well?’

Ingo sighed and took her free hand in his. ‘Don’t do this, Beate. It’s going to be incredibly dangerous!’

‘It’s well paid,’ she retorted. ‘And don’t call me that. I am Coco Fendi, the acclaimed clairvoyant and medium, known for my work on the radio, television and online. Do you know how many followers I’ve got?’

She stuffed her scattered belongings back into the case; there would be time to sort everything out later.

Ingo had not expected to see Beate again, and certainly not to learn that they had been commissioned by the same company. He looked at her reproachfully, wanting to say something back – something cruel, like, being a clairvoyant, she must have known they were going to meet again at the airport. Instead, he said, ‘That outfit’s a bit much, isn’t it? You’re pretty much confirming every prejudice under the sun about people in your line of work.’

‘It’s all part of my brand. I’m like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Only more stylish.’

‘You do realise that Elvira was satirising the whole gothic horror genre?’

‘I don’t care. I’m giving people what they expect, and that makes them happy – people love clichés. You know I tried doing it differently before and how much of a failure that was. So now they’re getting the mother of all extravagant psychics.’ Coco kissed him again behind the suitcase and caressed his cheek. ‘Play along. Please. Once we’re upstairs you can fuck me like it’s going out of fashion, I promise.’ She looked at him intensely. ‘Please, Ingo – it was only your expertise that got me this job.’

‘We’re not talking about one of your shows where all you’ve got to do is entertain your followers,’ he responded, concerned.

‘Just . . .