She looked at him. Shook her head in incomprehension. “But…” she whimpered, “… So long, so very long.” She shook her head.
And then as though by horrible miracle, her face began to break up. The blondness of hair seemed to go dull, as though from gold to corroding brass. The fire went from blueness of eye, and they dimmed to aged grey. Her shoulders slumped forward, in an older woman’s slump of age. Her mouth went slack, her face pinched, and her seventy years and more of life showed through.
Nicolas Ferencsik had leaned back against the wall, resting from whatever ordeal he had been through these past several days.
And through the door through which he had come only a few minutes before, lurched the creature of Doktor Grete Stahlecker’s manufacture.
In first glance it was a man of possibly forty, the body well formed, the face of a certain heavy handsomeness. But second look branded it hulk. A meaningless, nonthinking hulk that walked. Empty of eye. Empty of brain.
Its Zombi-eyes went to its master.
Suddenly she galvanized. She pointed at Quentin Jones, who long since had come to his feet. She shrieked. “Take him. Take him to the laboratory! He doesn’t realize what I offer. I will prove everything!”
The thing’s dull eyes came back to Quint and there was the dim, faintest gleam of pleasure. It lurched forward, the big strong hands coming up from its sides where until now they had dangled, lifeless.
“Run!” Ferencsik blurted, as though with his last strength.
Without thought, Quent Jones went into the
The monster’s movements were deceptively fast. It came in, soft gurgling sounds emanating from its throat, its hands forward to grasp.
Quint exhaled, with a piercing Kiai shout of “Zut” and darted forward, without conscious thought going into the tenth Kata. He blocked the lunging creature’s right hand with a hard blow of his own right, grasped the wrist with the thumb pointed upward, and pivoted on his left foot to the right. His back was to the growling, muttering thing. He kept his hold of the right wrist, raised the other’s hand high as he drew the body closer to his back. With his left hand he struck brutally into its groin. He seized the peach, as his Jap instructor had called it, and brought his left arm down, holding the left wrist now, over his right shoulder and across the chest. He pulled down on the thing’s right arm as he pulled up on the groin, and threw it over his shoulder.
Automatically, Quint went into the
But the creature was coming to its feet again, still moving in deceptive speed, considering its appearance of clumsiness. There was spittle at the side of its mouth, but it still mewled as though in pleasure.
“Take him! Take him! The laboratory.” Somewhere in the background Doktor Grete Stahlecker was screaming, unheard by either.
It came again, its hands clawing for a grip. Let it get its hands on this shrieking, dancing opponent, and it knew that then all would be over. Then the master would have her wish. Then would come the good feeling, perhaps. Perhaps the master would allow him to do that which brought the good feeling.
Quint, in desperation, decided upon the nineteenth kata, screamed his Kiai yell, and blurred into the motions of chopping the other’s kidneys, stamping his left knee pit, and finally throwing him again clear across the room, crushing a straight chair to splinters in the process.
Quint was breathing deeply now. Nothing living should be able to take this punishment. Nothing living. He assumed the
He had no illusion now about Grete Stahlecker being able to control it, now that it was in the heat of mortal combat. Nothing could control it. Of that he was sure.
The monster came lumbering in, perhaps more slowly now, or perhaps that was Quentin Jones’ wishful thinking. He hit it with the eleventh Kata, Okinawa style, attacking the groin again, chopping its shoulder in a judo chop, then darting away.
The thing was shaking its head and staring at him stupidly.
The Doktor was screaming something else now. Something Quint couldn’t make out. He couldn’t stand this pace. The thing was heavy to work with. It must have gone well over two hundred pounds. And it was fast. He had to use top energies, razor edge reflexes, to keep way from it and still punish it.
He moved in again, feeling his weariness. He must take the fight to the foe. Must finish it off, or he was sunk. He could feel his strength melting. He tried the twenty-fourth Kata. Something he had seen professional instructors enact, but which he had never tried.
He screamed, “Zut!” throwing a left block against the other’s left wrist, grabbing the outside of its wrist and applying a temporary wrist lock. He kicked into its groin again with a left forward kick, and with his right hand came down hard with a judo chop to its neck. Still holding the wrist he pivoted behind the now squealing thing and stamped its left knee pit with his right foot, sending it sprawling.
He resumed his position, seemingly at his ease and awaiting further combat. The thing might not know, but Quint Jones was at the end of his resources. All his training told him that he had done sufficient to have killed two or three men. But the thing seemed still strong.
Grete Stahlecker, her face livid, her full madness upon her, was screaming at the creature. “Kill, kill! I order you. Kill him, kill him. It is your master who says,
It was on its knees, breathing deep, shuddering breaths. Its eyes went from Quint to the screaming madwoman, and then back again. It had ceased, long since, to mewl its pleasure. It looked into Quint’s face, looked into the easy karate stance he had assumed. Far, far down, he knew he had met defeat, that he could never conquer this new master.
“Kill him!” Grete Stahlecker shrilled.
Her voice irritated the thing. Could she not see? He could not obey. It was impossible to obey. This new master prevailed. Her high voice irritated him beyond bearing.
It lurched to his feet and came toward her.
“No,” Ferencsik said. The Professor had collapsed into a chair. Now he shook his head. “No. She is one of the world’s greatest—”
Quint’s eyes suddenly widened, as he caught the significance. He moved forward… too late.
She never knew. Her vision blurred by hate and hysteria, the thing was upon her and had finished with her, before her hate-fuddled brain could have comprehended. Its clawed hands ripped out her throat, beat in her skull, before she knew its purpose, could comprehend its purpose.
It turned away from her, and sunk to its knees, its hand out stretched toward Quentin Jones as though in supplication. As though supplicating a new master.
Quint, sickened, moved forward, his right hand went up and chopped down, in a single judo blow to the back of the neck.
Quint never remembered, later, how he got to the couch. Perhaps Nicolas Ferencsik had helped him there, half carried him there. All he knew was that reaction, a form of shock, set in, and the black ebbed over him.
He felt, eventually, a stinging of the face. Shook his head. Finally managed, “Cut it out, damn it!”
He could hear Mike Woolman’s voice. “He’s coming out.”
He felt another slap on his cheek, and opened his eyes. “Listen,” he growled. “You do that once more, and I’ll slug you.”
He sat up, and shook his head. “What happened?”
“That’s a good question,” Mike snorted.
Jose Garcia Mendez was there too, and a couple of what were obviously plainclothes men. In fact, Quint vaguely recognized one of them as having been in his apartment several days ago when he was being suspected of Digby’s death.
Garcia looked about the shambles of the room. He said, mildly, “We were hoping you’d tell us, Quint old
