But that was part of the plan. This wasn't about creating an army to combat man. Not yet. Emil Kowalski and Genetic Futures had helped her create a watered-down version of the formula. Without the genetic material that had made her whole, Owen and the rest were not like her.
Owen had yet to shed the extra weight he'd inherited from a lifetime of slothful humanity. Loping, panting, the spring bottler raced up to Judith White. "They're here!" Owen announced.
Her cat's eyes narrowed. "Who?" she demanded.
"The two you told us about!" He glanced back, as if he expected the two men to appear on his tail at any second.
The fresh blood of the dead truck driver had distracted her. Smell conquered all other senses. She redirected her attention to the front of the building.
And she felt it. The thrum of fear from her creatures.
Judith was surprised by her own reaction. She thought she would be cool and ready when the time came. Instead, the oldest animal instinct overcame all else.
Panic washed over Judith White.
"You're certain it's them?" she demanded.
Owen nodded frantically. "They've killed many of us. I barely escaped. What should we do?"
Judith sensed the male's fear. The bottling plant was Owen's den, his shelter. Instinct told him that he would find safety here. But Judith knew that it was only a building. With wide-open doors and easily shattered windows.
"We aren't doing anything," Judith replied. "I'm escaping. And since I know you'll try to follow me..."
Her hand was up faster than he could see. Thick, hard claws attacked. With a violent tear, she ripped the life from Owen's bulging, throbbing neck.
Even as Owen was falling to the floor, Judith was wheeling. Alarm collapsed her pupils to yellow pinpricks of fear as she vaulted to the open loading dock. Nose in the air, she sniffed deeply.
The smell of blood came to her. Soft wind blew from the front of the building to the forest. They were still out front. Out back was woods. The woods were safety.
Powerful legs tensed. Judith flew from the dock to the driveway. She was running the instant her bare feet touched the ground. She headed for the woods. Branches snapped at her face.
Animal instinct she had thought she could control compelled her to put distance between herself and the very men she had schemed to bring to this place. But in her heart she was still an animal and her animal mind screamed flee!
Judith White ran like the wind. Away from those she knew could deal her death.
Chapter 23
The Master of Sinanju avoided the stairs. Sandaled feet left the hard-packed front path and the tiny Asian vaulted to the porch in one bound. Plain black robes billowed around pipe-stem legs. He marched for the door.
By the time Remo flew up to join him, Chiun's hands were already blurs. With sharp strokes of savage fury, he reduced the front door to kindling. Both Masters of Sinanju swept inside the Lubec Springs offices.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the foyer. Receptionist's desk and outer offices were empty as they moved deeper into the building.
Each man understood he was facing prey beyond the ordinary. Both strained their already heightened senses to the maximum as they headed along. But though they pressed to feel, they detected no telltale signs of life.
Owen Grude's office door was open. Ever alert, Remo peered inside.
The room was clear. A wide picture window looked out on forest at the rear of the building. There was no sign of Judith White or any of her cubs inside.
"She's not in here," Remo said thinly, ducking back into the hallway.
Chiun's face was dark. Wisps of hair were trembling thunderclouds as the Master of Sinanju turned from his pupil.
The next door they stopped before was closed. An odor came from within. One with which both Masters of Sinanju were all too familiar.
It was the smell of death.
Remo raised a foot, striking hard with his heel dead center in the heavy door. With a shriek, the door whistled around on twisting hinges, burying itself with a vicious crack into the interior wall.
Even before the door struck, Remo and Chiun were sweeping inside.
The scene within was a vision torn from the darkest depths of Hell.
Judith White and her cubs had used the office to nest. Bales of hay stolen from a nearby Lubec farm had been broken open and spread around the floor. Animal smells mixed with the stink of rotting flesh.
The gristle-smeared bones of Burt Solare mingled with bits of dried grass. Tipped back in a carefully arranged hay bed, the grinning skull of the dead cofounder of Lubec Springs stared with hollow sockets at the two Masters of Sinanju.
Near Burt Solare's remains, a second skull peeked timidly from out of the grass. Wet hay clung to broken bone. All that remained of Helen Solare.
Arm and leg bones had been chewed to sharp fragments. They littered the room's damp floor. Against one wall, nestled between a small desk and a filing cabinet, a half-eaten cow carcass lay rotting.
"Puss has been busy," Remo commented with thin disgust as he surveyed the sick tableau.
Chiun's face was impassive.
There was no one in that small room but ghosts. Leaving the dead to their final rest, the two men moved back into the hallway. On the way out, Remo tugged the door out of the wall, swinging it back into place.
The few remaining offices were empty. At the rear of the attached wooden structure was the connecting corridor to the bottling plant and warehouse.
The plant was free of life, as well.
Even before they stepped through the door to the warehouse, Remo had detected the thready heartbeat. It came from behind a stack of cardboard boxes near the open bay door.
He didn't need to ask the Master of Sinanju if he had heard the sound. The old Korean's bright hazel eyes locked in on the source.
The heartbeat was almost but not quite human. It was the heartbeat of one of Judith White's monsters. But it was near death.
Side by side, the two men moved swiftly across the cold concrete floor.
They found Owen Grude tucked back from the main floor, chest rising and falling with shallow panting breaths. He had dragged himself up against a pallet loaded with boxes decorated with the familiar Lubec Springs waterfall logo.
Remo squatted beside him. Owen seemed barely to notice his presence. Now in death's embrace, he had become fully animal. There was little pain. The look on his face was that of a creature confused by its own mortality.
"Where's White?" Remo demanded.
A glimmer of recognition. A flicker in his eyes. Owen shook his head. A fresh gurgle of blood leaked from the claw marks raked across his throat. He tried to snap at Remo's neck, but there was no strength left. With a wet sigh, Owen's head dropped forward.