SECRET OF THE WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  Fenris the monster was gone indeed. Now she heard the voice of the boy he had been, callow and immature, desperate to find some meaning in his hellish existence.

  Begging to be loved.

  It wasn't cold reason Fenris needed, but intimacy. Not animal lust, but true caring. Like Quentin. Like herself.

  She had to love Fenris as she loved Quentin in order to set him free.

  She closed the space between them and lifted her hand to his cheek. "When I see you, Fenris, I don't see Boroskov. I see Quentin. I see what both of you share. I see the man I love."

  He stared at her. "You're lying."

  In answer she did as she had done with Quentin not so long ago. She drew his face down to hers, and kissed him.

  The kiss was given, not taken. And it was devastating. Fenris froze in shock. Johanna pressed against him, and he felt the heat of his rage drawn from his body through the gentle parting of her lips.

  Without the rage, he didn't know who he was. Johanna had summoned him forth against his will, against every instinct of self-preservation he had learned in childhood.

  Something was happening inside him, an unfamiliar transformation he couldn't comprehend. It frightened him. He didn't let Johanna see his fear, but lifted her high and kissed her in return, hard enough to remind her who was master.

  Even in that he lied to himself.

  He put her down and looked around the room. Boroskov was coming, he could sense it. But he had Johanna. He could still win.

  "I'll save you," he told her. He threw his weight against the door, and the rotten wood cracked. Another blow tore it from its hinges. He seized Johanna's upper arm and pulled her out into the hallway. "Boroskov won't find us again."

  Her weight dragged against his arm. "We can't leave, Fenris. You know we can't, for May's sake."

  He spun about and snarled at her defiance. He could force her. He was so much stronger than she was. But she was strong in a different way, and he'd never seen it until now.

  "You know everything Quentin knows," she said, making no attempt to free herself from his grasp. "He has been running all his life, and you've helped him by hiding his own darkness away where he's never been forced to face it. Now he must recognize you, Fenris, and you must help him make a stand against Boroskov. For the sake of you both."

  "Not for me—"

  "Yes, Fenris. For you." She turned her hand to cup his arm in a tender touch. "Quentin needs you, but not in the way he once did. He needs you to be whole, as you need him. Your division was never meant to be. It's time for the rejoining. Time to begin living again."

  He didn't want to hear her. "You love me," he insisted.

  '"Yes. As I love Quentin. But I can't choose, Fenris. Not if you are both dead. Neither one of you is strong enough to defeat Boroskov alone. You and Quentin must confront him as one, or he will win."

  "Quentin will win."

  "Trust me, Fenris. Look into my eyes, and know that you can trust me."

  "No." He yanked away from her, but she caught him and held him fast.

  "Let Quentin out, Fenris," she said, her cheek pressed to his chest. "Let him share your body, just for a moment, and I'll show you that there's nothing to fear."

  He closed his eyes, feeling Quentin within him. Quentin was aware, already sharing Fenris's consciousness. But he could not come out unless Fenris let him.

  Fenris knew how to take control from Quentin, but not how to release the Other without losing himself.

  "Let me help you," Johanna said. She took his hand and began to speak low, like a mother to her child. He hardly heard the words. But in his mind a door swung open, and his rival, the weakling, the one he'd always despised, walked through.

  They stared at each other, reflections in a distorted mirror. Quentin was smooth and handsome and refined, everything Fenris was not. He flinched and crouched as if he might flee at a whisper.

  "You're afraid," Fenris said contemptuously. "You're always afraid."

  "Yes," Quentin said. He held up his hand. It was trembling. "But you're afraid, too."

  "I'm stronger than you are! I'll win. I'll take Johanna."

  "Maybe you could. But you won't win her heart, Fenris."

  "She loves me!"

  "She has a great heart. And she loves what we can become. Together." He smiled raggedly. "I could have met you long ago, Fenris, but I was a coward. Johanna taught me to be brave. She has shown me that you are a necessary part of me, as I am necessary to you."

  "I don't need you."

  "You can go on living half a life, Fenris. You might even take my half away from me. But Grandfather will have won. Grandfather and Boroskov. They created you as much as I. More than I. They made you into a killer. You were helpless, just as I was. But you aren't helpless any longer."

  Helpless. Fenris choked on a howl.

  "Make your own choice, Fenris," Quentin said. "Let us defy Grandfather and all his schemes. Let us do battle… together." He held out his hand. "You are my strength, the part of me that survives and goes on fighting. Without you, I can't defend the woman we both love."

  "I don't… need you!"

  "You don't know how to love, Fenris, or how to stop hurting people. I'm the side of you that can live in the world and search for a little happiness." He breathed in and out, his face very pale. "You are me."

  A sound like thunder crashed between them. The air in the no-place where they stood filled with the scent of the Enemy.

  Boroskov.

  Reality rushed in like a great ocean wave, slapping Quentin back to consciousness. Fenris disappeared from his inner sight, and he found himself standing in the center of the main room, his hand extended.

  Empty.

  Johanna wore a look of dazed startlement, her gaze moving quickly from him to the door. Boroskov was coming. Quentin could smell him, as Fenris had done, but there was no time to prepare. Shoes drummed hollowly on the outer porch, accompanied by the clanking of metal.

  "Fenris?" Johanna whispered.

  He shook his head, and then Boroskov stepped inside. He bore in his hands a pair of manacles and a length of chain.

  "I trust you have come to the right decision," he said, closing the door behind him.

  "Where is May?" Quentin demanded.

  "Are you ready to submit to me?"

  Quentin stared straight ahead. "Yes. Let them go."

  Johanna made a wordless sound of distress. Her scheme hadn't succeeded. Fenris had refused the joining Quentin proposed, and Quentin knew why.

  He hadn't wanted it enough. His words might have been steady, even sincere, but his heart and his mind were screaming denial: Don't let the monster in. How could Fenris not recognize his imposture?

  "You must realize that I can't simply accept your word," Boroskov said. He lifted the manacles. "You will wear these until we are securely on the next ship bound for Russia. The girl is in the hands of my associates, and will be released in twenty-four hours. Doctor Schell may leave now, with the understanding that May pays with her life if she visits the authorities."

  Quentin stared at the chains, his tongue thick in his mouth. "Why should I trust you?"

  "Because the alternative is immediate death for those you profess to love. Oh, I know you can break these chains as easily as I, but you won't do so. And when we are back in Russia, it will be my pleasure to complete the instruction your grandfather abandoned."

  "No," Johanna said.

  "Hold out your hands," Boroskov commanded.

  "Let Johanna go first," Quentin said.

  Boroskov jerked his head toward the door. "Go."

  Johanna didn't move.

  "Go!" Quentin shouted. His head seemed to split apart. "Get out!"

  "You have five seconds," Boroskov said.

  Johanna grabbed Quentin's rigid arm. "Fenris! Will you let yourself be put in chains all over again? Will you submit to Boroskov's torture? Who will save you, Fenris, when the pain begins?"

  Quentin tried to shake her off, b
ut the agony in his head redoubled. The smell of Johanna's skin intoxicated him like a drug.

  "I love you," she said.

  Boroskov pushed her aside. Chains rattled. The absurdly smooth kid of Boroskov's glove touched his wrist, followed by the rough chill of metal.

  Senses dimmed. All he could see was red, within and without, and he knew he wasn't alone inside his skin.

  Fenris had arrived. Like a hot wind, he swept everything before him. He controlled, but he allowed Quentin to share what he knew and saw. The two of them no longer faced each other in some zone of truce created in his mind, but looked out from the same eyes.

  They met Boroskov's gaze and smiled.

  Boroskov stepped back, as if he sensed the change. His nostrils flared. He snatched at Johanna, but she scrambled out of his way.

  The temporary confusion was enough for Quentin and Fenris. They struck fast and hard, snapping Boroskov's head back with the force of their blow. Before he could recover, they leaped onto him, pinning him to the stained floor.

  Boroskov gaped. "Quentin?"

  "I'll win this time, Boroskov," Fenris said, holding Quentin mute. "Do you submit?"

  "Who are you?"

  Fenris prepared to roar out his name. Quentin, feeling his identity slipping away, resisted with all the desperation of his most ancient terrors. His revolt froze the body he and Fenris shared. Boroskov kicked up with his legs like a bucking horse and threw them off. They stumbled and fell.

  Who are you ?

  Quentin—Fenris—Quentin. The time of decision had come at last. Two wills locked in implacable combat, forsaking their brief and tenuous alliance. Only one would survive.

  Distantly, through the din of their clashing thoughts, they heard Johanna's exclamation of alarm and warning. They smelled the new intruders just before they burst into the room: Harper in the lead, bearing a wooden beam like a club; Oscar right behind him, fists raised; and then Irene and Lewis Andersen. The Haven's residents crowded through the door, and Boroskov lunged out of their path.

  "Harper!" Johanna cried.

  The former soldier advanced on Boroskov, beam at the ready. "You all right, Doc?"

  Irene forced her way past the wall of Oscar's bulk and stood before Boroskov, her face bare of paint and her body drawn up high.

  "You," she hissed. "You betrayed me. You deserted me—"

  "Get back!" Johanna shouted.

  Boroskov sent Irene flying across the room with one blow. Lewis Andersen ran to tend her crumpled form.

  Harper lifted the beam, and Oscar came to stand beside him.

  "You bastard," Harper said. "You aren't going to hurt anyone else."

  Boroskov laughed. "Rescued just in the nick of time," he said. "Your mad humans, dear Johanna, have more fortitude and resourcefulness than I would have suspected." He snatched the beam from Harper's hands as if it were a twig. "A few more deaths on your conscience will make little difference, will they, Quentin?"

  Unable to act, to move, even to breathe, Quentin saw the end of everything he had come to love. He was incapable of speech, but it didn't matter. Fenris would hear him.

  If only one of them could have this body for the years to come, it must be the one who could save the others. If Quentin—if all he knew as himself—must die, so be it.

  His fear vanished.

  "My life is yours, Fenris," he said. "Take it. Stop Boroskov."

  His heart—Fenris's heart—jarred to a stop and then started up again at double the pace.

  Free.

  Quentin felt what Fenris felt as he charged at Boroskov, ripped the beam from his grasp, carried him with the weight of his body up against the wall.

  "You… won't… win," Fenris panted, his hand grinding into the Russian's throat. But he did not strike to kill.

  Give me your strength, he asked Quentin. And Quentin gave it, all he had, even to the last shred of his identity.

  Fenris took it. And this time, miracle of miracles, the sharing was complete. Together they knew the fierce joy of a new power filling muscles and organs, flesh and bones, mind and spirit—a sense of completion they had blindly sought all their lives. They knew courage blended with hope, strength matched with restraint, anger channeled by discipline and resolve.

  Fenris stared into Boroskov's eyes and summoned up the mental gifts of the werewolf breed, the gifts Quentin had never been able to find within himself. He drove into Boroskov's mind.

  Boroskov met him, will for will. But Fenris stepped aside with animal cunning, let Boroskov's mental counterattack slide past, and plunged deep into the Russian's memories.

  All the memories. Pain. Torment. Darkness. Punishment for disobedience, pleasure for cooperation. Day after day, night after night. Father's face. Grandfather's. Masks of sinister purpose and merciless brutality.

  Kill. Kill. Kill.

  Chapter 25

  Boroskov screamed. Quentin felt the jolt of sudden abandonment as Fenris left his body.

  His body.

  He fell against Boroskov like a puppet with cut strings. The Russian continued to scream, clawing at the wall behind him. With sheer stubborn determination, Quentin worked his numb hands to life and pinned Boroskov's arms to his sides. He sensed Johanna very near, the others watching in astonishment. He didn't let them distract him. He held onto Boroskov until the Russian's flailing stopped. His screams faded to whimpers, and then nothing.

  The silence was so intense that Quentin could hear the sounds of people moving in the streets outside, drawn by the commotion. Cautiously he released Boroskov. The Russian slumped to the ground, blank-eyed. Spittle ran from the corner of his mouth.

  "Quentin?" Johanna said.

  "I'm here."

  Johanna knelt beside Quentin and touched Boroskov's throat. "He's alive," she said, "but unconscious."

  "Yes. And I don't think he'll be waking soon." Quentin closed his eyes and breathed out slowly. "Is everyone all right?"

  "Yes," she said. "I've already checked on Irene—she'll be badly bruised, but nothing is broken. She was very fortunate." The straight line of her lips promised a long list of questions for the Haven's heedless residents when this was finished. "We must find out what Boroskov did with May. She could still be in danger."

  "We'll find her," he said with absolute conviction. Real confidence, not the false bravado that had sustained him for so long. He reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. Boroskov couldn't have taken her far."

  "And Fenris?" she asked, for his ears alone.

  "He came when we needed him," he said. "You were right. He was the one who finally defeated Boroskov."

  "Was he?" Her eyes, so beautiful even now, demanded more from him, a deeper truth.

  Such truths were no longer to be feared. Quentin searched his heart and found all the fear shrivelled up and bereft of power. Just as the memories, freed from Fenris's mind, could no longer distort his life, though it might take him years to fully reconcile himself to him.

  "We defeated him," he amended. "Fenris and I. But only after I realized that I had to make my surrender complete. I had to trust him with everything I am. As I trust you."

  "You accepted him at last," she said, stroking his hand. "You let him out. And yet he did not kill Boroskov."

  "No." Quentin smiled—no bitterness or mockery, only a sense of peace, almost too new to seem real. "He used powers I lost long ago, if I ever had them. He met Boroskov on his own ground—on the ground we shared, all three of us. And then he—" He paused, trying to put the impossible into words. "He joined with Boroskov, and gave me back myself."

  "He… joined—"

  He touched his temple. "Fenris is gone, but he's not. What he was is still in me—the parts I needed, just as you said. The parts that make me a whole man again. But the rest—it's Boroskov's, now."

  He could see she didn't understand. He didn't truly understand it himself. Fenris had willingly flung his being into Boroskov's mind, and the two had become one.

  Fenris had not ki
lled Boroskov. He'd left him hopelessly mad.

  "Perhaps one day I can explain," he said. "Suffice it to say that Boroskov will not be a threat to anyone, human or otherwise. Fenris will stop him."

  Johanna shivered, her scientific curiosity left without answers, and she looked at the Russian. "I judge him to be in a cataleptic state. We cannot leave him here."

  "It will be necessary to confine him to some place where he can be cared for—and watched, in the rare event that I am mistaken."

  "An asylum," she said, sadness in her eyes.

  "But not the Haven."

  She glanced away. "I could not care for him, in any case. I am not sure if I am qualified to see patients again."

  He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her toward him. "Johanna—don't you know that I—we—couldn't have done this without you? I never would have found the courage to recognize the darker part of myself, or the memories that created it, if you had not shown me the way. You made it possible."

  "You give me far too much credit," she said with a faint, self-deprecating smile. "I have learned that we doctors do not cure our patients. We merely help them, just a little, to cure themselves—if we are very lucky."

  "You're wrong, Doc."

  Harper came to crouch beside them, looking from Johanna and Quentin to Boroskov and back again. "None of us would be where we are now, if not for you."

  Johanna's eyes sharpened. "How did you come to be here, Harper? What possessed you to put yourself and the others in danger by following me?" She looked beyond him to the remaining three patients. Oscar was perched on a broken chair, kicking his legs and looking quite unperturbed by the recent action. Amazingly enough, Lewis Andersen sat beside Irene, half supporting her. He was brushing himself off with a once-pristine white handkerchief, glancing about the filthy room with visible distaste. Irene gave a loud sniff, and he belatedly passed the kerchief to the actress, who blew her nose into it. His narrow upper lip curled, but he did not draw away from her. Something had changed with Lewis during Quentin's absence.