by Jenna Payne
“You led us on quite a chase my friend.” Shaun’s voice was gruff as he spoke. “One of the longest chases I’ve been on, but no matter. They all end the same. Now I’ll give you the same choice I give all of our targets. Fight us or die in the dirt like the animal you are?”
“Can’t we talk about this?” The man tried to move back further, but the wall prevented him from doing so.
“Nothing needs to be said here. You killed a little girl. You showed that you are not worthy of living. If it was up to me, I’d tear you to pieces right here and now, but that is not the law of the chase. So choose. Fight and die or whimper in the dirt and be executed.”
“I...I don’t want to die!” He screamed and swiped at Shaun.
“Too little too late.” Shaun began to change back into the bear. As he did the man also began to morph. He’s features became wolf-like as his body altered. “Good.” Growled Shaun. “I like it when they fight.”
Behind Shaun, Gerald let out a sigh. “I got the last one so this one is yours brother.”
The man lunged forward in wolf-form and tried to snap at Shaun with his mouth, but Shaun batted him away with a massive paw. This time he used all the force he had. The wolf was thrown into the air and slammed back to the earth in a cloud of dust. The wolf was game, though. He let out a tremendous howl and lunged forward once again. He ducked under the swipe of the bear’s paw and moved in for the attack, but Shaun anticipated the move. He brought his other paw down like a sledgehammer into the back of the wolf. A howl of pain escaped the wolf’s mouth as his back broke from the force of the blow. Shaun bent over the wolf as he lay whimpering on the floor. With a grim smile, he peeled back his lips and revealed massive teeth. The screams from the wolf echoed throughout the abandoned factory and the surrounding woods as the Brother’s Swagger completed their job.
*****
Cynthia loved her job working in the library for more reasons than one. She loved to read and the library had plenty of books. She liked the quiet and that was one of the things that libraries were known for, and she also liked the smell of the old books. Somehow the smell reminded her of her childhood home. Not that her house had smelled like old books, but her father’s book collection had been quite extensive. Being a lawyer, he had required several books on law and a lot of them had been old tomes. From a very young age, she remembered going into her father’s study room and taking the big old books down from the shelves. Even before she could read.
Now her parents were gone and her father’s books were donated to a local law practice, but she still loved books. As she flipped to the last page of the book she was currently reading she felt a thrill go through her. Another one on the list, she thought. She had a list of books she had read since she was a little girl. It was quite long.
A small voice spoke up to her from the front of the desk. She sped through the last paragraph of the book and thumped it shut with a sigh. The book had been one of the best she had read in a long time. She glanced at her watch before she looked up and noticed that it was almost closing time. She could see the hands of a child on the desk and the book they held, but the rest of the little girl or boy was hidden from view because of the height of the desk.
“Can I have this?” The small voice spoke again and the fingers wiggled over the book.
“Of course you can.” Cynthia leaned forward enough so she could see the small child. It was a boy of about eight years old. She smiled at him and he returned it. “Do you have your library card?”
“I do.” One of his hands slid from the counter and fished in his pocket for a moment. A look of worry crossed his face but was soon replaced by a smile as he found the card. He pushed it onto the desk. “Here it is Miss Librarian.”
“Okay. I’ll just scan your book and your card and you’ll be set to go.” She handed him his card and book with a brown dog on the front locked in eternal combat with a rattlesnake. He took them eagerly and turned to go, but she stopped him. “Are you alone honey?”
“No. My mom is waiting in the car.”
Without another word, he hurried out the door and down the steps. As the door swung closed. Cynthia moved to the window and watched the boy to make sure he wasn’t alone. Sure enough, he ran to a car parked on the curb and hopped in the back. A woman nodded as he showed her the book and pulled away from the curb.
Cynthia thought it was kind of strange that a mom would let her seven or eight-year-old son go into the library by himself. Her mom would never have done such a thing, but then again her mom had been very overprotective of her and her older sister. She was what the psychologists now would call a helicopter parent.
The lock on the door worked smoothly as she turned it and the deadbolt. She locked the top and the bottom bolts too. She really didn’t see anyone stealing books from a library. Vandalism was more likely. It seemed that the world was getting worse by the day. The morals of each individual falling a couple notches each week, but in reality it was no worse than it had ever been. Yes, the crimes seemed more violent. That was because the criminals had to think up new ways to commit the same old crimes. Humanity wasn’t getting worse. People were starting to drop the naive shield from their eyes and see the world for what it truly was.
A pounding on the front door broke her chain of thought. She stopped halfway between her desk and the door. A second later the pounding on the door echoed once more throughout the library. She spun on her heels and walked back to the door. Just as she reached it whoever was outside pounded on the door once again. They were hitting it hard too. Each blow caused the door to jump and bounce in place and the front doors were very solidly built from oak.
“We’re closed for the day. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.” Cynthia yelled through the doors.
“Come on lady. I just need to get a book for my daughter. I promised her I would today.” The man’s voice sounded hurried and nervous.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I . . . ”
“Please. I’ll make it worth your time. I’ll pay you fifty bucks if you’ll let me get the book my daughter wants.”
Cynthia was saving up for a new coffee pot. You really didn’t notice how little money a librarian made until you tried to save up to buy something. She was tired of no coffee in the morning and the fifty bucks would give her more than enough to buy the coffee maker and some good coffee beans to boot.
“Alright, but you have to hurry.”
She unlocked one of the doors and swung it back until a crack no wider than an inch appeared. The man’s face appeared in the crack and he gave her a smile. His hand flashed and he pushed a fifty-dollar bill through the crack she had made. She took the bill and let him in.
“Thank you. You’ve really helped me out.”
“Well, it’s the least I could do.” She held the fifty out to him. “Here. I don’t feel right taking this. Take it back, please.”
She expected him to refuse for a moment before taking it back or just refuse altogether. She could not have been more shocked when he grabbed her by the wrist and yanked the bill from her hands.
“Don’t mind if I do you stupid broad. Now lock the damn door back and hurry it up.”
“What . . . ”
“Lock the door!”
He punctuated the yell with a backhand across the mouth so hard that Cynthia immediately tasted blood. She locked the bolts on the door and turned around to face the man. A wicked grin split his face. With his right hand, the same one he had used to slap her across the face with, he motioned her toward the window.
“Shut the blinds and hurry up about it.”
Cynthia closed the blinds. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t ask questions! Just shut the damn blinds, woman!”
She hurried around the library and shut the blinds like she was told. As she was shutting the one behind the desk, he picked up the phone and ripped the cord from the wall. Her heart sank as he smashed it on the floor. Plastic scattered in all directions. Her cellphone w
as still in her purse behind the desk. She hoped against hope that he wouldn’t think of it, but once more her heart sank as he turned to her.
“Where is your cellphone?”
“I don’t have one.” She thought that maybe he would believe her. The hard look in his eyes told her at once that he hadn’t. He lunged forward with the speed of a darting snake and grabbed her by the throat.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time.” He growled. “Where is your cellphone? Keep in mind that if you lie to me again I’ll crush the life out of you.”
He tightened his hold on her throat just to show her that he wasn’t joking in the least. He shoved her back. She coughed violently and rubbed her neck where he had squeezed it. She reached behind the counter and for the first time in her life wished that she had a gun. Never before had she wanted anything to do with one. When she was young, she remembered her father having guns, but she had never liked them. Too loud. Now she wished she had kept at least one of the small handguns. She handed her purse to him and sat down on her stool behind the counter.
As the man rifled through her purse and spilled the contents out onto the counter, Cynthia tried to think of a way out of the mess she was in. She didn’t try to sugarcoat it. She knew that she was in serious trouble. There are only a few ways that this can end. She told herself. None of them are pleasant in the least, so you have to do something quick. Her eyes fell upon a small metal object that she used every day. It was no longer that her hand and gleamed in the light.
A letter opener.
The man had found her cellphone and she expected him to smash it on the floor, but he didn’t. He flipped it open. While he was distracted with turning the phone off, she palmed the letter opener and shoved it up the sleeve of her sweater.
“Now me and you are going to have a little talk and when we’re through we are both going to leave in your car.”
“I don’t have a car here. I ride the bus to work to save money. My car is at my house.”
The man rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger like he had a headache and sighed. “That’s fine. We’ll walk to your car and then we’ll take a little trip. How does that sound?”
“Truthfully?” She shrugged her shoulders. “It sucks and I wish you would just leave me alone. I’ll give you the keys to my house and my car. You can have my money too. I’ll even tell you where I keep my few pieces of jewelry if you’ll just leave me alone.”
“I need you so that’s not happening. Now shut up and let me think for a minute.”
Cynthia shut her mouth and bided her time. When the man turned around to study the library, she knew that she had to act or risk being killed. She pulled the letter opener from her sleeve, took a good grip on the handle, and stabbed at the back of the man’s neck with all her might. Just as she swung, the man began to turn around. He saw the letter opener coming and ducked to the side incredibly fast. Faster than she would have believed a human could move. It wasn’t fast enough to avoid the stab altogether, though. The letter opener sunk deep into the flesh of his shoulder.
He let out a yowl that didn’t sound like a human noise at all and stumbled back away from the desk. Cynthia took the opportunity and ran for the door. She undid the bolts as quickly as she could. As she reached for the last one, she heard him scream ‘bitch’ and then the sound of boots on the floorboards as he ran toward her. She slammed the bolt back and tore open the door. A pair of men stood on the top steps. The sight of them surprised her enough to stop her in her tracks. A hand grabbed her on the shoulder and spun her around so hard that she fell to the floor. Her back hit the floor hard and she looked up, half expecting the man to fall upon her and attack, but he merely stood and looked out the door with a wild look on his face and his mouth open. His lips quivered for a moment.
*****
“How . . . how did you . . . find me?” He asked the men on the steps.
“You’re too loud Jimmy. Much too loud.” The voice that answered was gruff and deep, but somehow soothing at the same time.
“Come on guy . . . ”
A hand shot forward and grabbed the man by the neck. Cynthia gasped as the man whom the hand belonged to stepped through the door. He was huge. The sleeves of his shirt were stretched tight over the bulge of his biceps. Another man stepped through behind the first. He wasn’t quite as big, but he was close. The first man backed her attacker into the room while his companion shut the door and locked it. She watched the men closely, afraid that she was in even bigger trouble now.
“You put up a good chase Jimmy, but you’ve come to the end of the road. I’ll give you the same ultimatum we give everyone else. Fight one of us or be executed like the animal you are.”
“I...don’t want any trouble.”
“You should have thought of that before you killed that old woman for her money Jimmy. Now, which will it be?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“So be it.” The muscled up man let go of Jimmy’s throat and gestured to his partner. “This one is your prey Gerald.”
“Good. I hate it when they prey on the old helpless ones.”
Gerald, the man who had been guarding the door, stalked forward with a grin on his face. The man who had attacked Cynthia tried to back away. He held up his hands.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it. She just happened to get in the way of a robbery that’s all.”
“You raped her you bastard. Now I’m going to tear you apart.”
Gerald’s body shuddered once and then something seemed to happen. His skin changed before Cynthia’s eyes. He grew fur and claws. His muscles bulged and his teeth elongated. In seconds, he looked like a grizzly bear, but she knew that was impossible. The man that had attacked her backed away and shuddered as well. He grew fur and claws like Gerald, but he looked different. He looked more like a weasel or a ferret once he had changed. Cynthia wanted to scream, but one look from the huge man who had grabbed her attacker by the throat stopped the scream in the back of her throat.
Gerald approached Jimmy with a confidence that showed he wasn’t afraid of anything. Jimmy tried to back away, but there was little to nowhere to run in the library. The only exit he knew of was the front and to get through there he would have to go through both men. Desperate, Jimmy lunged forward with unnatural speed. He bit Gerald on the arm, but Gerald didn’t seem to mind. With his off hand, he batted Jimmy across the room. As he lay on the floor in a heap Gerald rushed forward on all fours.
Cynthia watched in horror as Gerald finished off Jimmy with one massive swipe of his paw to the man-weasel’s head. She didn’t have to try to scream this time. It came out of its own violation, but the other man laid his hand across her mouth.
“Shhh. There is no need for that. We aren’t here to hurt you. We were after that man.”
He waved a hand at the man laying on the floor with half his head crushed from the massive blow dealt by his partner. The dead man had already taken the form of a human again as had the guy who had killed him. All of it had happened so fast. She could not believe what she had just seen. It was like something straight out of one of the books that she loved so much. The man with his hand over her mouth looked her in the eyes.
“I’m going to remove my hand. When I do, I want you to keep calm. Don’t start screaming. Alright?”
Cynthia nodded her head. She was scared to death and intrigued at the same time. The man pulled his hand from her mouth and she sucked in a lungful of fresh air. It took a real effort not to look at the crushed and broken man on the floor.
“My name’s Shaun and this is my partner Gerald.”
“What the hell are you?” She looked at Gerald wide-eyed. He simply smiled at her and went to watch out the window that overlooked the street.
“You know it’s considered impolite to not tell someone your name once they have given you their own.” Shaun squatted on his haunches and let his hands dangle between his thighs.
“Sorry.” Now that she was a little more
calm Cynthia noticed how handsome the man who called himself Shaun was. “My name is Cynthia. Now, what the hell is he?”
“She is persistent, isn’t she?” Shaun barked a laugh.
“A good trait to have.” Gerald’s voice was weirdly high-pitched for a big man.
“I suppose you’re right about that Gerald.” He agreed with his partner and turned back to Cynthia. She noticed that his eyes were the same intense light blue as the ice in the glaciers that she had seen on TV. “We are shapeshifters. Specifically werebears.”
“Wait.” She held up a hand and waved it toward Gerald. “So you’re saying that both of you can do what he just did?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
“That is something that I couldn’t tell you. The best explanation I can give you is that our parents were werebears. We inherited it from them. Other than that your guess is as good as any.”
“There must be literature on it. What was he?” Cynthia pointed at the dead man without looking at him. She didn’t want to look at his dead body again.
“He was a wereweasal.”
“Why did you kill him? Was it because he was a wereweasal and you are werebears?”
“What he was had nothing to do with it. His actions condemned him.”
“Did you know her?”
“No, but she was a shapeshifter like us. We heard from her family that what had happened so we tracked down Jimmy over there and did our best to make things right. It’s what we do.”
“So you’re shapeshifter bounty hunters?” Cynthia smiled and shook her head. “This would make a great book.”
“She’s not like the others.” Gerald spoke from the window.
“I noticed.” Shaun turned back. “Aren’t you scared of us?”
“No. Why would I be? If you were going to kill me, I doubt that you would have taken the time to explain to me who and what you are.”
“Smart too.” Gerald grunted.
Cynthia tried to stand to her feet, but a wave of dizziness overtook her and she fell forward. Strong arms caught her and held her like she weighed nothing and she knew better than that. The last time she had checked she weighed a little more than two hundred pounds. The dizzy spell subsided and she pulled away from Shaun. He grinned at her and she felt her heart flutter.
