Secret of the Wolf (49 page)

wait on your convenience. A few more days can hardly make a difference." Her smile

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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

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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
.

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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 intention 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
.

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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
.

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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
.

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Love he'd already lost
.

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

"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
.

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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.”

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"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?”

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

It was not uncommon for the children of abusive parents to maintain an attachment,