The first hints of flame at the bottom of the stairwell four stories below crackled into his peripheral vision as he pushed the old warped door open.
Inside, he found nothing but four empty walls. Judith White was nowhere to be seen. Ever cautious-sensitive to the flames licking up below him-Remo stepped into the vast, airy room. In his wake, smoke wafted into the chamber.
"Here, kitty-kitty-kitty," Remo called. A creak from above his head.
She'd been hiding on the rafter directly above him. Judith dropped, deadweight.
Remo bent double, catching her falling bulk on the meaty part of his back.
As her claws brushed the cotton cloth of his T-shirt, Remo flexed his back muscles and jerked left. Judith White flipped off his shoulders. Twisting, she landed solidly on both feet, facing Remo, her teeth bared viciously.
"You heal quickly," Judith commented, nodding to the spot where her claws had raked his shoulder and chest.
"Good genes," Remo explained thinly.
Her smile was feral. "Better genes," she replied. She dived at him again.
Remo had prepared for her. He was ready to stop her forward momentum as he had with the hunters in the cellar. But as his hand flew out from his side, Judith White did something unexpected.
At the last minute, she dropped low, beneath his rocketing fist.
The command had been sent. Remo's hand was already locked into an unstoppable motion. It flew forward, but with nothing to contact it struck only air. It was all he could do to keep his arm from tearing out of its socket.
He lurched forward as the force of the missed blow knocked him off balance.
Before Remo could regain his equilibrium, Judith sprang up at the inside of his outstretched arm. Both hands balled tightly, she shoved Remo's chest with a strength far greater than her slight form would have indicated. As he toppled backward to the floor, she leaped forward, collapsing on his prone form.
In her hand, Judith held a test tube filled with brown, brackish genetic formula. With a savage grin of victory, she tipped the thick liquid into Remo's open mouth.
CHIUN SPIED THE CROWD Of rowdy hunters the instant he broke from the wooded area behind the adjoining building. They surrounded the warehouse into which Remo had gone.
Much of the ground floor was already engulfed in flame. Acrid smoke hung heavy in the afternoon air. Arms pumping furiously, he raced across the vast space that separated the two warehouses. By the time he reached the building, the second story had already ignited. Flames were racing up to the third. Near the old loading dock, the hunters were enjoying a celebratory drink. Someone had retrieved a bottle of Jack Daniel's. from one of the trucks. They were trying to figure out how to pour the liquor into their open beer cans without spilling a drop when Chiun raced up behind them.
"Where is my son?" the Master of Sinanju cried. The voice startled them. Jumping, the hunter with the bottle splashed some whiskey on his hand.
"Watch it, Grampa," the man threatened. He slurped the spilled liquid off his thumb.
"Hey, tha' counts ash your helping," another slurred.
Chiun had neither time nor patience. Plucking a shotgun from the concrete dock, he wrapped a hand around each barrel. He pulled.
With a pained wrench of metal, the two barrels tore up the length of the weapon.
The men were only just becoming aware of what was happening when Chiun's hands became sweeping blurs. The hunter with the bottle felt a tightness at his throat. He only realized that his shotgun had been knotted around his neck when he looked down and saw the stock jutting out beneath his chin. A single skeletal finger brushed the trigger.
"My son, grog-belly," Chiun repeated savagely.
"There was a guy in there," the hunter panted. "Heading for the stairs. After White." Tense fingers groped the shotgun knot at the back of his neck. "Please. You can have the bottle. Just don't pull the trigger."
His plea fell on deaf ears. Chiun was already gone.
None of the hunters could say for certain where the old Asian went, but a few swore they saw a flash of silk kimono hurtling like a fired cannonball into the growing wall of orange flame.
REMO JERKED HIS HEAD to one side. The gene-altering liquid splattered thickly to the dirty floor. Above him, Judith White growled in anger. Her breath was rancid.
The crazed geneticist's elbows were bent and jammed against his biceps, pinning him down. There was a surprising amount of weight to her.
Without his hands free, Remo used the next-best thing. As Judith repositioned her test tube, he bent his knees sharply, stabbing them up into her pelvis. The weight lifted. Judith flew off him, landing in a heap near the stairs.
Remo completed the motion with his legs, slapping soles to the floor. Upright, he spun to Judith as she was scampering to her feet.
Black smoke poured up around her. Flames licked at the wooden door casing. Framed in fire, Judith White was a hell-sent demon.
Judith sensed the fire at her back. It clearly frightened her. Keeping her back to the walls, she moved quickly and cautiously away from the open flames.
She stepped around Remo, leaving a wide space between them at all times.
"You should have taken a sip, brown eyes," she said, hurling the near empty test tube away. The frail glass shattered against the brick wall. "You could have been on the ground floor of the new era. You'd be one of the first successors to mankind."
Remo's gaze was level. "Been there, done that," he said coldly.
Her green eyes betrayed suspicion. "What do you mean?" she asked.
"I met your predecessor, Sheila Feinberg, years ago. She tried using me like a scratching post, too." For the first time, uncertainty clouded Judith White's features.
"What happened?" she asked.
Remo smiled thinly. "I don't see old Sheila on 'Stupid Pet Tricks,' do you?"
Judith had continued sidestepping in a wide arc around Remo. She was moving toward the river side of the attic room.
"She wasn't me," Judith sneered.
"Yeah," Remo replied. "What happened to her was an accident. You deliberately did this to yourself."
Remo's eyes strayed over her shoulder. Apparently, the hunters hadn't been satisfied with simply setting fire to the front of the building. They had torched this rear section of the warehouse, as well. Orange flames had just begun to peek up over the sills of the attic windows behind Judith. She didn't seem aware of the flames at her back.
"Is this the point where you give me the big speech on the immorality of tampering with God's grand scheme?" Judith White said sarcastically.
"No," Remo said. "You've been a bad kitty. This is the point where I put you to sleep."
He'd had enough of Judith White's attacks. It was Remo's turn to act.
She was still several yards away from the rear wall. Remo tensed his legs and sprang.
He was off the floor in a shot. Whirring like an airborne top, he chewed up distance faster than the animal eye could perceive. Only when his feet struck her solidly in the chest did she realize he'd even moved. By then it was too late.