Secret of the Wolf (56 page)

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
.

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Kill. Kill. Kill
.

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?”

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"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,

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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 killed 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.”

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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
.

"It's a long story," Harper said, addressing Johanna's frown with a wry nod. "You

remember when I told you that I get visions from things belonging to people, things

they've touched. I took May's book right after she was kidnapped. I had lots of things of

yours, Doc, and I had this—" He pulled a woman's ring from his pocket and pressed it

into Quentin's hand. "I saw Irene with it, not long after I came out of my long sleep. I

don't know how she got it. She dropped it and ran away, guiltylike, when she saw me,

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and I picked it up. Knew it was yours right away." He shrugged in embarrassment.

"Sorry I kept it so long. I had a feeling I'd need it.”

"I'd wondered what had become of it," Quentin said. "I'd thought it was gone forever."

He kissed the ring and slipped it onto his little finger. "Thank you, Harper.”

"You're welcome." He glanced at Johanna. "I couldn't just let you come out here alone,

Doc, knowing what'd happened. So right after you left, I started concentrating on these

things. And I could see where May was. I could see you, and Quentin, only he didn't feel

right." He cocked his head at Quentin
.

"Another long story," Quentin said. "You were saying?”

"Well, I got enough of a sense of where to look that I talked to Mrs. Daugherty and

asked her if she could hire some help to see to the others while I was gone. But Miss

DuBois overheard, and she asked me if I knew where Bolkonsky was." He glanced at

Boroskov. "She was in a right taking. Didn't do any good to tell her no. She insisted on

coming along, said she'd follow if I didn't let her. And then Andersen found out, and he

said he wasn't going to let either one of us go without him—though he did a right lot of

scrubbing and praying before we left.”

Johanna rubbed at her eyes. "Mein Gott.”

"Then, well

Oscar wouldn't be left behind, either. He's strong, so I thought he might

come in handy. Lewis donated some money he'd saved, and we took the train and the

ferry to San Francisco. Then I just followed what the visions told me.”

Quentin exchanged glances with Johanna. Both of them knew that Harper and the

others had only the vaguest idea of the danger they'd rushed into. But even leaving the

safety of the Haven had been a great act of valor for people who had feared and

distrusted the world, or themselves. An act of valor, and of selfless loyalty
.

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"You should not have done it," Johanna said thickly. "But I thank you for your concern."

She brushed at her cheeks. "Mrs. Daugherty is still at the Haven with my father?”

"Of course," Harper said. "She warned me that if we didn't all come back in a few days,

she'd get the law involved.”

"That is not necessary." Johanna rose. "We will go home as quickly as we can, as soon

as we find May—”

"I can help," Harper said. "I still have her book in my pack. She'll be all right.”

Johanna shook her head, her eyes suspiciously bright. She gave Quentin an intensely

private glance, acknowledging that their conversation was not over. "Lewis?”

The former reverend gave up his attempt to clean his blackened gloves and rose from

the couch. "Doctor?”

"We must find May, and I will need Quentin's and Harper's help. Will you look after Irene

and Oscar if we take you to a hotel where they can rest?”

Andersen stood very straight. " 'The Lord is my strength, in whom I will trust.' I can,

Doctor Schell. Simply tell me where to go.”

"Thank you." She smiled at Irene and Oscar. Irene sniffled, but her habitual hostility was

as absent from her face as the garish paint. Oscar sang a nursery song under his

breath
.

"Are we going home now?" he asked
.

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"Very soon." She drew close to Quentin again, and his constant physical and mental

awareness of her rose to a higher pitch. He felt a little of Fenris's irrational desire to drag

her off to a dark corner and ravish her, but also the patience to wait. Their time would

come
.

"I'm afraid you will have to use the manacles on Boroskov," she whispered. "If we leave

him here until May is safe, will he escape?”

"No.”

He could see that she was still adjusting to his new self-assurance, but she didn't

question him. "Very well. I'll take the others outside, and wait for you. Then we shall

escort Lewis, Oscar, and Irene to my hotel and go in search of May.”

Quentin hid a smile of love and admiration. His dear, headstrong Johanna. She couldn't

help but take command. She might have suffered a few doubts in the course of this

day's work, but she'd rally in the end. She was too strong to do otherwise
.

Just as she'd made him strong with her love
.

"I'll be right with you," he said. As she turned to gather the patients, he caught her and

pulled her into his arms. In full view of their gawking audience, he kissed her soundly
.

"For Fenris," he said. "And for me.”

Quentin held nothing back. Every one of his inhuman senses worked in perfect

harmony, as they hadn't done in years. It was almost ridiculously easy to follow

Boroskov's trail to the place where May was hidden. He had no need of Harper's

psychic abilities.

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If not for the girl, he would have left Johanna and Harper behind. But they needed to be

a part of this, and so he let them follow
.

The old warehouse, at the edge of the Barbary Coast, was guarded by a small army of

Boroskov's henchmen, who looked ready to put up a nasty fight. The Russian wouldn't

have left so many if he had been as confident as he pretended. But even in this he'd