As he contemplated this riddle, Chiun was distracted by the soft sound of the Massachusetts state trooper gliding in behind him.
MacGuire moved gracefully. Almost as effortlessly as Chiun himself. It was strange for a man as beefy as MacGuire to be so light on his feet. It was almost as if...
And in a flash, Chiun finally understood.
He wheeled in place. Just in time to see MacGuire make his final animal lunge. His gun had been dropped. The trooper's teeth were bared, head ripped as it thrust forward at Chiun's exposed throat.
And a single powerful hand-curled like a tiger's paw-swept down in a furious killing blow at the shocked upturned face of the Master of Sinanju.
THE REAR DOOR LED into a dank corridor. The wet concrete walls were covered with moss. The floor was earthen, packed firmly into a level path. Even so, the paw prints of Judith White were clear to Remo as he walked carefully into the bowels of the warehouse.
His eyes pulled in ambient light. Enough so that the dark corridor appeared as bright as midday. The corridor broke into a vast interior chamber, so wide it seemed to encompass most of the area beneath the main warehouse. Wooden columns spaced evenly throughout the cellar kept the ceiling from collapsing.
Most of the ceiling. As he stepped inside, Remo saw that a good-sized chunk of the first floor had crashed into the basement. Recently, judging by the level of disturbed dust that was swirling through the fetid air.
He caught the stench of rotting human flesh the moment he walked into the large cellar room.
A body was impaled on a board near the debris. Even from this distance, sharp eyes saw evidence of more corpses.
A breeze pushed in from the long corridor behind him. It carried a hint of fresh air into the foul-smelling basement. The clean air made the smell in the cellar seem all the worse.
As Remo stepped farther into the room, his senses detected something more in the cool wind on his back.
A stronger pressure of air. Something pushing through the natural breeze. Something fast.
And in that moment of realization, the thing became airborne.
Remo flung himself to the dirt floor. Parallel to the earth, he tucked his shoulder sharply in, executing a tight roll. He ignored the fresh stabs of pain in his scars.
Flipping to a crouching position, he was just in time to see the startled face of Ted Holstein soar overhead.
Ted had thrown himself at Remo's back with such ferocity that he flew several yards into the dank cellar. He dropped to all fours, springing to his feet the instant he'd landed. He wheeled around, snarling angrily.
"You're fast," Ted commented.
The hunter's face was smeared with dirt. His eyes were wide, staring blind hatred at Remo.
Behind him, another creature dropped through the ceiling hole. Evan Cleaver skulked rapidly forward. "You were supposed to lead him over to me," Evan growled, flashing fangs.
"He moved too fast," Ted replied, voice low. Evan kept coming, moving out around Remo. He was trying to get their prey between them.
Remo noted the effortless movements of the two tiger creatures. But though they had grace, they were not artful. It was all pure instinct with them. And in that moment, Remo knew that this was not like before.
When Sheila Feinberg had created her army of tiger people years ago, Remo had been injured. His Sinanju abilities had already deserted him. He had stood helplessly by as Chiun fought the battle that he could not join. But these creatures were nothing special. He saw that now. With their snarling and snapping, they were little more than wild beasts. Certainly nothing to be feared.
And as the dawning knowledge that all his worries had been for naught began to set firmly in, Remo Williams did something the beasts before him did not expect. He laughed. Long and loud. "What's so funny?" Ted Holstein demanded, confused.
"You, snagglepuss," Remo sniffed, tears of mirth in his eyes. "You're already dead and you don't even know it."
"He's bluffing," Evan hissed. He was between Remo and the rear door. Blocking escape.
Remo took a deep breath, feeling the power that was his Sinanju training flood every corpuscle of his being.
The pain in his shoulder had fled. He was alert, infinitely aware. Every movement they took-every soft pad that dropped to the floor-he heard.
His senses were alive in Sinanju.
Remo kept his arms away from his body, hands open. He watched Ted, but kept his body attuned to Evan, still moving behind him. He smiled.
"Try me, puddytats," Remo challenged. And as one, the two tiger creatures lunged.
CHIUN BOUNDED BACK from the swinging paw. MacGuire's hand swept viciously past, throwing a wild gust of air into the Master of Sinanju's face. Thin beard fluttering in the wind, Chiun's eyes grew wide.
"You are in league with the fiend!" he cried.
"I am now," MacGuire snarled. "I just met Dr. White. Nice woman. Don't much like her taste in beverages." He made a show of tasting the vile potion, the aftertaste of which still coated his tongue. "But I think I found a chew toy to cleanse my palate."
He sent another hand toward Chiun, fingers curved in a move as old as the jungle itself. Splayed claws were meant to rip open the flesh of prey. But unfortunately for Trooper MacGuire, Massachusetts did not yet allow its state troopers to grow claws.
Chiun snagged the hand as it swung toward him, arresting its motion. Bony fingers encircling the trooper's hand, he applied pressure with his own clenching fist.
Bones crunched audibly.
Yelping in pain, MacGuire flung out his free hand.
Chiun's countermovement was invisible to the beast before him. But its effect was obvious.
A sharp tug. Trailed by a horrid, wrenching pain. MacGuire was left staring dumbly at the bloody stump where his hand had been. The severed hand dropped to the bed of rotting leaves at his feet, fingers still curled in attack.
The trooper let out a shriek of agony that ended with the sharp point of a single long fingernail in the center of his broad forehead.
Animal scream dying in his lungs, MacGuire crumpled in a heap to the moss-coated ground. The Master of Sinanju let the body drop. MacGuire had been changed since their arrival.
Judith White was not only close by, but she also had a fast-working version of her formula. And Chiun had allowed himself to be lured away from Remo.
The old man left the state trooper to be reclaimed by the earth. Hands clenched in knots of furious ivory, the Master of Sinanju raced from the rear of the crumbling warehouse.
REMO DUCKED BELOW the two springing hunters, rolling to the right.
The two hunters had launched themselves headlong at him from opposite directions and were moving too quickly to arrest their forward momentum. Their great surprise at the sudden absence of their quarry turned to yelps of pain as they plowed into one another headfirst. Together, they tumbled to the dirt floor. They rolled back to their feet with surprising swiftness.
"Did puddy get a bang on him head?" Remo sympathized.
"Asshole," Evan snarled.
"Hey, I don't remember Sylvester ever calling Tweety an asshole." Remo frowned.