Shifters: A Samantha Reece Mystery Book 1 by Jaime Johnesee (libby ebook reader txt) 📕

thought was possible. As we tumbled through the air together his claws slashed at me, tearing open my left side a little.

In a rage at being injured, and having to deal with a misogynistic pig, I slashed back and tried my best to position myself for the fall. When we hit the floor I rolled and got up easily. It took him a moment. And that moment was all Josh needed.

He fired twice and two long red tufted darts went into Grisly’s neck. The bear stood and came at me, making it four feet before the sedatives kicked in and he lost his footing. It took another ten minutes of his scrabbling around trying to bite me and me twirling and leaping out of his reach for the drugs to fully kick in. We checked on him after he went down and stopped moving. Once we were sure he wasn’t getting back up to attack we called in an ambulance. I’d done my job and he was going to face a judge, instead of a coroner. While it was likely he’d cop an insanity plea I didn’t think he’d go anywhere except jail.

That was until he came to long before he should have. He jumped up, somewhat off kilter from the drugs, but still extraordinarily strong, and raked his claws across Josh, leaving four long bleeding wounds deep in his chest.

I heard the snick of those claws on the wood floor as Grisly turned and came for me. I could hear the scratching as he tried to gain proper footing for a full blown assault and the rage had contorted the shifter’s face making it look unlike any bear I had ever seen.

The all-too-human emotion of hatred contaminated every inch of the grizzly’s countenance; it was something real animals weren’t capable of. It made the bear look even more terrifying and wrong.

It made me pause in fear.

I stood, transfixed by the sight of the bear coming for me. I waited for him to get close and I leaned backward as he hit, taking him in my front paws and pushing him off me with my back legs. He flipped over my head, claws raking down my shoulders, and landed with a thud and a squeal. I smiled, got to my feet and turned to face him. Two more darts stuck out of his side and he went down. He was unable to hold form and he shifted back into a man, the darts sticking out from his ribs.

“He said I was doing God’s work,” the man slurred.

“He lied. Who is he?”

“You won’t ever know until he takes your throat in his mouth and bites,” the man said before he began to laugh maniacally.

“How did he find you?” I kept hoping he would tell me something.

“He found all of us the same way, through our hatred of you evil ones.”

“How many is all of us?”

“More than you can take on, whore.”

“You really need to buy a thesaurus.”

“You jest when your kind is so close to eradication?”

“What do you mean?” I asked it as innocently as possible, hoping he’d spill his guts since the confrontational approach didn’t seem to be working.

“They will take all the supers to hell. There will be no more evil on this planet come Judgment Day.” His words had taken on a slur from the drugs.

“Can’t any of you evil buggers ever come up with anything original? Come on, I mean the term Judgment Day is so overused. Haven’t you guys ever had a shred of originality?”

“You won’t be so flippant when the Commander comes for you, bitch.”

“At least you didn’t say whore again.” I thought of that knock-knock joke with the orange and banana after I said it, and I chuckled.

It’s safe to say that the exhaustion from not sleeping well probably had a little something to do with the laughter, too.

“Your death will be my honor.”

“Okay, now that just sounded outright stupid. This isn’t feudal Japan, pal.”

He growled as he raised himself from the floor. Two more darts joined the first two. When I followed their trajectory and looked at the shooter I saw Chad shrug at me.

“He was getting threatening, and extremely redundant. We can grill him at the station.” He came out and hauled Grisly to his feet.

We started walking him out the door. Chad stopped us and asked me to get the killer a towel. It hit me at that point Grisly was in his human form. He was also stark naked. I reached into my linen closet and grabbed a twin size sheet left over from my college days. I handed it to Josh. The new darts kicked in and Grisly finally collapsed in a heap with a snore. Josh carefully draped the sheet over him.

“We’ll wait for the ambulance. They can cart him off. No way am I carrying this guy, especially when he’s bare-assed,” Chad said wrinkling up his nose.

“Ha, ha. Nice pun.”

“I didn’t even mean it like that, but damn that was good.”

“Sam, are you okay?” Quinn’s voice crackled over the radio.

“Yes. Thanks. How are you doing up in your perch?”

“I feel like a yellow-bellied sap sucker, thanks.”

“Hey, that’s on my life list, you know.”

“Sam, you’re a geek.”

“Yes, yes I am. Proud of it.”

Grisly started coming around after help arrived and Chad wrapped the sheet around his waist after he got the killer cuffed and upright. Quinn had climbed down from the tree he was perched in and joined us, helping me to look after Josh until the ambulance arrived. Officer Joshua Hahn had four deep gashes in the center of his chest, but though they were bleeding, there didn’t seem to be any serious damage. The paramedics checked everyone out after determining Grisly was not going to die from lack of treatment.

They sort of left him in a heap on a gurney while they attended us and our various scrapes and claw marks. Okay, so they mostly treated me and my various scrapes and claw marks, but Josh