The new female stopped in the middle of the floor, rising proudly to her full height.
Judith's pride came forward slowly. Peering, sniffing, they nuzzled the new arrival curiously.
They quickly determined that she wasn't a threat. When the inspection was through, they broke away, fanning back out around the warehouse.
Some of the new arrivals took the acceptance of their leader as a cue. They came out of the shadows. When they tried to eat, they were chased away with growls and snapping jaws. Slinking off to the edge of the group, they gnawed the scraps that had been tossed to the concrete floor.
Judith White paid no attention to her cubs. She was sniffing the air almost as an afterthought.
"You're from New York," she announced with certainty.
"Yes," replied Elizabeth Tiflis. There was a hint of puzzlement in her deep, throaty voice.
Judith sensed her confusion. "You want to know why you're here," she said. "Eschewing the boring human notions of the metaphysical, you are here because I programmed you to be here. Just the tiniest leech DNA. Green Earth is right to want to save them. Those things have one of the strongest homing beacons for the few square feet of swamp they were born and bred in than virtually any species I've ever come across. It's pretty useless in a leech. It's not like they can migrate. But then, they can't drive. I assume that's how you got here."
"Yes," Elizabeth said.
"Did you feed along the way?"
"No, we ate before we left."
"Good," Judith said, more to herself than to Elizabeth. "I want them here, not wasting time investigating every half-eaten corpse at every Mass Pike rest stop."
Elizabeth growled confusion. "Who?" she asked.
A flicker of self-satisfaction crossed Judith White's face. "In good time," she promised. "For now, you're only part of the equation. Get something to eat."
She waved at a few uneaten Green Earth bodies that had been stacked against the wall. The men who had come with Elizabeth didn't need a second invitation. They pounced on a body, dragging it out onto the floor.
As they began to feast, Elizabeth made a face. "I prefer a fresh kill," Elizabeth complained.
"There will be plenty of time for that later, once more of the others have arrived."
"If they arrive," Elizabeth said. "If the same thing happens to them as happened to us, they'll be lucky to get here at all." With the words came a soft shudder of fear.
Judith felt it in the woman. Fear was unusual for her species.
Elizabeth had chased back two of the males who had accompanied her from New York. She had settled in with the others at the protester's corpse. Her rounded bottom settled back on coiled legs.
"What do you mean?" Judith asked.
"We were taken captive. Two humans nearly stopped us from escaping."
Judith sensed it again. The fear. "Describe them," Judith ordered.
"They were fast," Elizabeth said. "And strong. They weren't like the others. I sensed no fear in them."
"What did they look like?"
Judith was surprised at the urgency in her own voice. The others noted it, too. Worried eyes glanced up.
"One was Asian," Elizabeth said. "Too old for a meal. No meat on his bones at all. The young, white one had dark hair. About six feet tall. Deep eyes, high cheekbones. He had very thick wrists."
With the description came a cold shudder that passed like ice through her body. This time, Elizabeth was not the source. Her meal was abruptly forgotten.
Elizabeth was instantly alert. Back arched, she stood up on hands and feet. Brown eyes darted to empty shadows.
It was instinct. Elizabeth didn't know why she was searching the corners of the warehouse. Only that her body had picked up a telegraphed dread.
And Judith White was the source.
The others sensed Judith's alarm. A thrill of panic rippled through the drafty warehouse. Males and females alike stopped whatever they were doing. They pawed the floor and sniffed nervously at the air for some unknown fear.
But while the rest didn't know why they feared, Judith White knew. It was those two. The men Elizabeth Tiflis had described could be no one else.
Judith was angry at the instinct that made her fear. If she were to succeed, she would have to master the panic.
Animal noises filled the warehouse. The creatures that had once been men and women paced and snorted at shadows.
"Calm yourselves," Judith growled loudly. "There's nothing to worry about."
Spinning, she left the fearful creatures growling at the walls of the big warehouse. Judith White hurried back to the safety of the front office. To quell the fear.
Chapter 19
The bare bulb was snapped on from a switch above. A moment later, Harold Smith climbed down the basement stairs.
A set of keys from his desk drawer was clutched tight in his hand as he made his way around the bottom of the staircase. Nearby was the secret wall behind which CURE's mainframes hummed. Smith bypassed that part of the room.
He found a small steel door tucked away behind the ancient boiler. Grimy letters on a discolored brass plate read "Patient Records." A note written in Smith's hand instructed any Folcroft staff who wanted to enter the room to see Director Smith for the keys.
The paper was yellowed from age. Smith had posted the note thirty years before. No one ever asked for the keys.
He unlocked the heavy bolt and pushed open the door.
Inside was another bare bulb.
Smith rarely came into this room. The last time was a year ago when he had finally gotten around to showing it to Mark Howard. Before that it had been years. The only person to come down here with any regularity was Smith's secretary. Whenever Eileen Mikulka needed to access old patient records, she used her own set of keys.
Six big filing cabinets held a century's worth of Folcroft medical records. In addition to these, three small stainless-steel drums sat against the far wall. There was a temperature gauge on the side of each tank.
When Smith peered at the dial on the nearest container he saw that it was holding steady at -196 degrees Celsius.
The other two tanks were no longer functioning. Smith considered pulling the plug on the third tank. For a moment, his hand hovered near the off switch. After all, it had already served its purpose. For all the good that had done any of them. He had explained that to Mark the previous year, as well. But the pragmatist in him won out.
There might yet be a need. He left the tank running. A small refrigerator-the kind used in college dormitories-sat unplugged in the corner. Smith plugged it in. Fishing in his pocket, he took out the aspirin bottle of Judith White's formula and put it in the fridge.