He was fast. Remo was faster.
"Do I look like a ball of yarn to you?" Remo asked.
One forearm swept Ted's hands harmlessly away. With his arms no longer stretched out before him, Ted lost his balance. And in that split second, Remo launched a balled fist into his attacker's chest. Bones crunched audibly. Splintered sternum and ribs exploded into heart and lungs. Ted was dead before he hit the ground.
Even as his partner fell, Evan sprang forward, teeth bared menacingly.
There was no need to play with this one. The movements of these creatures weren't as graceful as Remo had thought. As Evan thrust his fangs toward Remo's neck, Remo realized he was facing nothing more than a poor dumb animal whose behavior was programmed by twisted science. It wasn't Evan's fault he was what he was.
Remo showed Evan the compassion that Man alone of all the creatures on Earth could demonstrate to a lesser animal. As he flashed forward for the kill, Remo's flattened palm caught Evan just above his slathering fangs. Facial bones cracked, shattering to jelly. Evan had struck a solid wall. He joined Ted Holstein on the dirt floor.
Remo looked down upon the bodies. It was a victory without satisfaction. These men weren't to blame for what they'd become. The responsibility for all of this rested squarely on a single set of shoulders.
A fresh sound came from far above.
A few more gunshots followed the first. Shouting voices. Panicked.
Remo spun from the hunters' remains. Racing to the pile of collapsed debris, he scampered to the top. Flexing calf muscles propelled him up out of the basement and onto the ground-floor level. He ran to the source of the commotion.
In his wake, silence flooded the macabre graveyard.
Chapter 31
The first floor of the warehouse split off in two separate wings. The main section was the large part of the building that faced the street. The other was a long addition that extended over the waters of Chelsea Creek at the rear of the property.
The gunshots he'd heard came from the direction of the river and so when he jumped up through the basement hole Remo struck off into the narrower wing of the musty old building.
He found a group of hunters hustling away from an alleylike loading-dock tunnel. Beams had collapsed from the low roof. The men were forced to climb awkwardly as they hurried back toward Remo.
There were six of them in all. Three trained their shotguns back on the door through which they'd just come. The other two bore one of their fellow hunters.
The man they were carrying had a vicious chest wound. Blood seeped into the cloth of his gray shirt, staining it black.
"What happened?" Remo demanded, racing up to the men.
Darting eyes were terrified. Orange, lateafternoon sun shone through dirty windows, illuminating faces shiny with frightened perspiration.
"It was her!" one of the men panted fearfully.
"Where?" Remo pressed.
"The stairs. She jumped us before we could stop her. I think the shots might have scared her off." They hurried past him, hauling their bleeding friend.
When they realized Remo wasn't with them, two of the men glanced back. They were just in time to see the old wooden stairway door sigh softly shut.
JUDITH WHITE MOUNTED the stairs five at a time.
Her heart thudded madly. It was the fear of a hunted animal.
She was the mouse, cornered by the cat. A fox chased by hounds. A gazelle stalked by a lion.
It was a horrible feeling. A complete loss of control. Utter, utter helplessness and abandonment. She had seen Remo in the basement. Unbeknownst to him, she had watched through a crack in the baseboard on the far side of the cellar as he went up against her two sacrificial lambs.
It hadn't been much of a fight. Ted was dispatched so quickly she didn't even see Remo move. Judith fled before he finished off Evan. She didn't need to stay. She knew what the eventual outcome would be.
Hit the landing running.
Up the next flight.
Six steps at a time now. Faster, faster. Next landing, next flight.
Barely slowing, barely breathing.
She had more of the original tiger solution but she now knew that it would do her no good. The old files of BGSBS stated very clearly that alcohol dulled or even killed the bacteria on which the new gene coding lived. Most of the men in the area had a blood-alcohol level high enough to blind a herd of bull elephants.
Judith had lucked out with the ones she did find. Ted Holstein had sobered up after her morning attack. Evan Cleaver appeared to have dried out a bit, as well. Trooper MacGuire had been unquestionably sober.
The rest?
Drunks. All drunks. Last landing.
Judith pounced forward, slapping a palm against the creaky old door. A plume of displaced dust flew up into the air as the door swung wildly open. She moved inside, quickly shutting the door behind her. Her attic room.
High above her, the tired wooden beams on which she had spent many a night sleeping off her ghoulish feedings stretched toward the distant wall.
Windows lined all but the wall directly behind her. To her left was the parking lot, to her right, woods.
Judith raced toward the last set of windows. During more prosperous times, the long dead business that had once occupied the warehouse had built a new wing out over Chelsea Creek. The four-story wood addition rested on huge pylons that had been constructed atop concrete platforms in the river far below.
At the grimy windows, Judith looked down at the river. Overflow from a dam farther upstream made this area of the waterway treacherous. It was a long drop into swift-moving rapids.
Judith spun from the window, looking desperately across the big empty attic. There was nowhere else she could go. She was trapped.
"Some plan," she muttered to herself.
Footfalls on the stairs. Light as air. Inaudible to a common human. She might have missed them herself if she hadn't been specifically listening for them.
Two fingers poked into her pocket and removed one of the slender tubes of tiger-gene formula. Her plan was bleak. No matter how she looked at it. But perhaps there was another way.
Wild-eyed, she waited for the door to open. And for her new species's final reckoning.
REMO SENSED THE MOVEMENTS coming from the attic room. From the way the animal carried itself, it was either Judith White or another of her tiger creatures.
At the moment, the animal that lurked before him wasn't his primary concern.
He had smelled the smoke before he'd even gotten to the staircase. The gunshots of the retreating hunters had drawn others. Huddled together in the parking lot far below, the men had apparently gotten the bright idea to smoke Judith White out. To this end, they'd set fire to the building.