SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  It hadn't been easy to lie to the patients, especially to Harper. Harper guessed that Quentin had taken May, but he didn't know that Fenris existed. She'd told him that she was going to meet Quentin in San Francisco and arrange for May's safe disposition. Mrs. Daugherty and the patients had been given a much simpler story. None of them knew the complexity of May's situation with her father.

  But Harper wasn't satisfied. He'd held May's book, his brow creased in worry, and told Johanna that Quentin and May were in serious danger.

  She could hardly refute him, and she respected him too much to offer comforting platitudes.

  She pulled Fenris's note from her coat pocket and read the scrawled address once more. She wasn't familiar enough with San Francisco to recognize the location, but someone at her hotel would be sure to know. She suspected that the place was in a very bad part of town.

  She had no doubt that Fenris was waiting for her.

  Squaring her shoulders, she flagged down the nearest hired hack and gave the driver the address of a modest but respectable hotel on Market Street, where she'd stayed for the lecture nearly three weeks ago. Once there, she strode to the desk with her single bag and waited impatiently behind another woman who was completing her registration.

  After an interminable period, the woman turned from the desk and bumped into Johanna.

  "I beg your pardon," the woman said, echoing Johanna's apology. They broke off simultaneously, and the woman peered into her face. Johanna felt a jolt of startled recognition.

  "Dr. Schell?" the woman said. "Dr. Johanna Schell? It is you, is it not?"

  Johanna took an involuntary step backward. "Mrs… Mrs. Ingram?"

  "Yes. Oh, it is you!" She beamed, and Johanna thought back to the last night she'd seen this unfortunate woman, haggard and terrified for herself and her daughter. "What an amazing coincidence to meet you here, of all places! And I was just making the arrangements to come to the Valley to see you."

  She extended her gloved hand, and Johanna took it, praying that her trembling was not too obvious.

  Mrs. Ingram. May's mother, who had disappeared for a full two years—communicating only through the occasional letter—who had trusted Johanna with her daughter's well-being when she could trust no one else. Her most recent letter had promised her return in the very near future, and she'd been as good as her word.

  She had greatly changed. Her cheeks glowed with health and confidence; her eyes sparkled with genuine happiness. The happiness of a mother about to be reunited with a beloved child.

  "I understand your hesitation in greeting me," Mrs. Ingram said, becoming serious. "I must have seemed a terrible mother to you, leaving my child as I did. My letters were hardly adequate, but I had reason for hiding my whereabouts."

  Johanna found her voice. "Mrs. Ingram—I knew, when I accepted May, that you faced great difficulties."

  "And I knew you would care for my girl and make her well." She squeezed Johanna's hand. "I knew the moment we met. But everything has changed. It has taken me two years, but I have the means of making certain that my husband can never threaten us again. I can pay you for all your good work, and May and I can live together in peace."

  "I am… glad to hear it," Johanna said.

  "I'm sure you have a great many questions, and I shall be happy to answer them soon. Are you in town on business? Perhaps you will allow me to accompany you back to the Haven." She smiled self-consciously. "It will be easier for her to meet me again if you are with me. I'm sure she's grown to love you, and I've been gone so long. Perhaps she blames me for leaving her."

  Johanna swallowed. "Mrs. Ingram—"

  "Forgive my chatter. My life has changed so, and it doesn't quite seem real as yet." She glanced toward the clerk behind the desk. "I must be keeping you. Please tell me—how is May? I can't wait to see her."

  "May—May has improved, Mrs. Ingram. She has made friends at the Haven, and reads constantly. She's becoming a young woman."

  Little truths to cover the big ones that could not be spoken, truths no better than lies. Lies would not protect Johanna, or undo her many mistakes. They would only spare this woman more suffering.

  Mrs. Ingram closed her eyes. "I knew it. I have felt all these months that everything will be right at last. Thank you, Dr. Schell."

  Johanna cleared her throat. "It seems that we are staying in the same hotel."

  "As you see. I had planned to go to Silverado Springs tomorrow—"

  "Might you delay a day or two? I have certain business to attend here in the city before I return. I have very good and reliable assistants at the Haven, but I agree that it would be best if we see May together."

  Mrs. Ingram made a valiant try at hiding her disappointment. "Yes. I see. Of course I will wait on your convenience. A few more days can hardly make a difference." Her smile returned. "As it happens, it will allow me to put a few final details of my own plans in place."

  "Very good." Johanna thought of Mr. Ingram, and wondered what resources this revitalized woman had found to give her such spirit to face him again. She hoped it was enough to thoroughly emasculate him.

  But none of that mattered until she had May safely back.

  "I'm very glad that things have turned out so well for you," she said, despising herself.

  "Of course." Mrs. Ingram clasped her hand again. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

  Johanna averted her gaze and waited until the other woman had gone up to her room. Only then did she register, leave her bag in her room, and hail a conveyance that would take her to Fenris's rendezvous.

  "The Barbary Coast?" the hackney driver said, shaking his head. "Bad place for a decent woman at any time of day. At night—"

  "It is where I must go," she said. "Please take me there quickly."

  "As you say, ma'am. On your own head be it." He clucked his tongue, helped her into the coach, and climbed up to the driver's seat. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

  Johanna sank back into the seat and closed her eyes. The warning came too late.

  All he could see was fog.

  Quentin woke into his body with a sense of disorientation and icy metal against his fingers. He unclenched his fists from the ironwork bars forming a high, decorative fence that marked the boundaries of a landscaped garden. The garden of a large, handsome Second Empire house, with a slated mansard roof and lights burning in a pair of gabled windows on the second floor.

  His vision cleared further, and he saw that the fog was not so thick as he'd imagined. It swirled between buildings much like this one, the dwellings of rich and prosperous folk perched atop a hill overlooking the city.

  The city of San Francisco. Nob Hill, in fact; he recognized the neighborhood, though it was one he'd seldom frequented during his previous residence. He had no idea how he had come to be here—in the city, or at this particular place. He didn't know whose house this was, or why he'd been bent on trespass.

  The last memory he could summon to mind was one of Changing from wolf to man in the woods near the Haven, May gazing at him in shock while her erstwhile kidnapper scuttled away. He remembered surrendering to instinct. Raw emotion. Despair. Anger.

  He'd left the door open—

  To Fenris.

  He slumped to the ground at the foot of the ironwork fence and squeezed his eyes shut. How much time had passed? Hours, or days? What had this body done while it lay in another's control?

  He opened his eyes and stared at his hands. They looked the same. There was no blood on them. His clothing was unfamiliar, not what he would have chosen. But when he'd Changed, he hadn't been wearing anything.

  Fenris had dressed this body to suit himself. And come to San Francisco.

  But Quentin had control again, for no reason that he could fathom. If anger and irrational emotion gave Fenris the edge, what had made him flee? Why had he brought Quentin to this place? To what had Fenris come?

  And why?

  Quentin pushed his palms against his temples. Think. His own intenti
on had been to leave Johanna and the others and seek out some distant, isolated place where he could wrestle with his own demons—with Fenris—free of the fear of harming innocents. He'd delayed his departure long enough to scare off the mob and rescue May. He'd known that Bolkonsky or Ingram must be responsible for her abduction, but he hadn't thought beyond seeing her returned safely to Johanna.

  Fenris had taken his mind before he faced an impossible decision. But what Fenris wanted was more a mystery to him than it had been to Johanna.

  Johanna. She'd begged him not to go, to trust her to help him. Cure him. He couldn't think of her without an agony of desire and sorrow and love.

  Fenris didn't love Johanna…

  But he'd wanted her.

  Yes. Quentin slammed his head against the iron bars. That was what Fenris was after—he felt it in his gut like the dregs of a nightmare. Johanna had come to his bed because of Fenris.

  Because Fenris had threatened her, and she wanted to give Quentin willingly what Fenris desired to take by force.

  If Fenris was everything Quentin was afraid to be, he would have remained at the Haven and seized what he wanted. He wouldn't have considered the consequences.

  Unless something had restrained him, redirected his desires. Someone. If that person had been Johanna, surely she would have brought Quentin back. She had the skill, the courage, and the stubbornness.

  No. The last he'd seen of Johanna was when she faced down the mob. He was sure that Fenris hadn't been near her since.

  But who else could hold Fenris in check… except his other self?

  Hope made Quentin catch his breath. Could he have been fighting without knowing it? Fenris had every advantage, with access to Quentin's memories, while Quentin remained in darkness. Until Johanna had told him, he hadn't known that Fenris existed. Now the implacable shadow had a name. A name was something to fight.

  "Somehow," Johanna had said, "you and I must find a way to communicate with him. Bring him into the light, and confront him."

  But this was not a matter of communication and confrontation. It was war. The battle was solely Quentin's—Quentin the coward, the ne'er-do-well, who had mustered up an inner core of strength to resist.

  And he had to make use of it while he could. He had to learn what Fenris was doing in San Francisco, and then find a way to stop him. Expel him for good. Take back his life.

  Win Johanna's love.

  She'd never said she loved him. This was his great chance to prove himself worthy of her—worthy of the life he might create when Fenris was gone. Salvation. A new beginning.

  Failure had only one consequence: oblivion. Death. That was the final act Quentin Forster would commit should Fenris win the battle.

  Do you hear me? he called into the depths of his mind. I'm not running anymore, Fenris-the-shadow.

  An answer came—not in a voice, but as a memory. A memory of emotion, a red haze of rage, the scents of rot and hopelessness, the view of a face.

  May's face. Quentin strove to grasp the memory and pull it closer. Like a weighted chain, it slipped from his hold.

  But not before the memory gave up one last clue: an alley, a sign, a familiar streetcorner. The Barbary Coast. That was a part of the city Quentin knew, a den of iniquity that Fenris had shared with him all those times he'd wakened with no memory of his recent past.

  That was where Fenris laired. And May was with him.

  May. What did Fenris want with her?

  Quentin pulled himself to his feet and swallowed the bile in his throat. Run, he commanded himself. Save her.

  A vicious presence stirred, reaching, tearing, laughing. You are Fenris. Save her from yourself.

  He stood very still, emptying his thoughts until his body and mind went chill and heavy. The presence fled. It could not survive—Fenris could not survive—where fear and anger were absent. Even love must be severed until Fenris was gone.

  Love he'd already lost.

  In cold-blooded dispassion, he turned and began to walk toward hell.

  Chapter 22

  "Johanna could almost imagine the stink of sulfur and I brimstone.

  The man who greeted her on the street corner where the hackney driver had left her was as seedy a character as any she'd met, wearing a patch over one eye and a sour, gap-toothed smile.

  "You the doc?" he asked, scratching his flea-infested rags.

  "Yes. Are you the man who is to take me to… Were you sent here for me?"

  "Aye. I'm to take you to him. He's put the word out that no one in the Acre's to bother you." He leered at her brazenly. "Good thing. You wouldn't last a minute."

  Johanna was not inclined to argue. Did Fenris have so much power here?

  "C'mon," the man said. He set off down the ill-lit street, passing dance halls and opium dens, groggeries and deadfalls by the dozens. Shadows scurried and staggered from building to building: cutthroats, drunks, prostitutes, and thieves of every description. Some of them stopped to stare, a few graced her with catcalls, but none approached.

  This was Fenris's kingdom.

  She thrust her hand into her coat pocket and felt for the gun. Using it would literally be a matter of last resort, if May had to be protected. And even then she wasn't sure she could kill.

  The person she'd be killing was the man she loved.

  Her guide turned down an alley and Johanna followed, alert to every movement. The place to which One-eye brought her was a boarded-up house with cracked and staring eyes for windows. Even rats must avoid the place. There was just enough moonlight, filtered through fog, for Johanna to make out the door.

  She turned to speak to One-eye, but he'd already slipped away. His services were no longer required, and she suspected that he had no desire to meet his master face-to-face.

  The steps leading up to the door were fragile with rot, and Johanna moved carefully. To walk in unannounced would not be wise. Fenris was unstable, unpredictable. He might turn on May if angered.

  Gott in Himmel, if he hurt her—

  She knocked. The door creaked open. A single brown eye peered through the crack.

  "Johanna?" May whispered.

  "May!"

  May pulled the door inward and rushed over the threshold into Johanna's arms. "You're here! You came to find me."

  Peering past May into the lightless room, Johanna couldn't see anyone else inside. She smoothed back May's unkempt hair.

  "Are you all right, mein Liebling?"

  "Yes." A shiver worked its way through her thin body. "I'm all right."

  "Let me look at you." She held May's shoulders and examined her. There were no signs of damage except a bit of dirt and a general dishevelment. Fenris hadn't hurt her—and he'd left her alone.

  To remain standing on the doorstep, in plain sight, was the height of folly, but Johanna didn't wish to be trapped within should Fenris return. She led May just inside the door and half closed it.

  "Where is he?" she asked, deliberately using the unspecified pronoun. She didn't know how much May had observed of Quentin's dual nature, or how well she had dealt with it.

  "He went out," May said. "To find my father."

  So Fenris's absence was not unmitigated good fortune. "Did he say why?" Johanna asked.

  "I think he wants to hurt him."

  Himmel! What unspeakable ordeals had May been through since Fenris had taken her? She'd seen the man she'd thought of as a friend, a protector, become something grotesque and evil. How could she do other than retreat into fits of hysteria or catalepsy?

  But she met Johanna's gaze steadily, her body straight and still. Trusting. Waiting. Expecting Johanna to make everything better again.

  She didn't understand that her physician had discovered the depths of her own weakness and folly.

  "We must leave, immediately," Johanna said. "Is there anything you need to take from this place?"

  May didn't move. "What about my father?"

  It was not uncommon for the children of abusive parents to ma
intain an attachment, even love, for those who had mistreated them. But May hadn't wanted anything to do with her father. Did she want to protect Ingram, or was she hoping he'd be removed permanently from her life? More likely, she was simply confused, torn by conflicting needs and desires. Who could blame her?

  Johanna could see May to a safe place and go to the police. It was a certain death warrant for those men who went after him, for Fenris was more than human. He'd kill without compunction. "I'll get you to safety," she told May, "and then I'll do what I can."

  May buried her face in Johanna's bodice. "Please don't leave me alone."

  "Oh, she won't leave you, Miss Ingram," said a familiar, masculine baritone. "At least not yet."

  Johanna turned, pushing May behind her. She knew that voice, though his face was in shadow.

  Bolkonsky.

  He walked through the door and kicked it shut with one well-shod foot. In the semidarkness, his pale hair flowed like tarnished silver to his shoulders. The gun in his hand had the same dull sheen.

  "I wish we had met under less unfortunate circumstances, Johanna," he said, tipping his hat with his free hand. "How was your trip to San Francisco?"

  Johanna reached into her pocket. Bolkonsky cocked his gun. "Please hold your hands away from your sides," he said. "I'd rather not be forced to shoot you."

  She obeyed, stunned at the hatred she felt. "You will not take her. I will not let you."

  "So you've said many times, in one fashion or another," he said. "When my man didn't arrive with the girl at the appointed time, I knew something had gone wrong. Eventually I learned why."

  "You went to a great deal of trouble to take May from the Haven," Johanna said coldly. "Did her father hope to spirit her away with none the wiser? Did you both think I'd give up so easily?"