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.
Beside him, Ted lunged forward, both hands clawing down at Remo's chest.
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.