Were in the City Ch. 12

I think Helen has figured out what you are ... and you are not supposed to be real!

She wasn't real? What did that mean? Jessie was completely confused now. She seemed to be a were-bird whose superpower was the ability to find jewellery (ok, that was odd and not at all fearsome, damn it!) but surely there were shapeshifters like her, otherwise where did she come from?

She walked back upstairs into Liam's bedroom and put the necklace she'd just found back on the bed with the rest of the contents of her mother's jewellery box. She sat down on the end of the bed and looked at Jacob and Liam, who had followed her into the room. "Why am I not real?" she asked.

Liam sighed, "Since it's her idea, let me get Helen back on the phone so she can go through it with all of us together." He made the call. "Hi Helen, you are on speaker. We are all here. Jessie found the necklace I hid outside, just as you thought she would."

"This is marvelous!" Helen exclaimed. "Jessie, you are more special that you can possibly understand right now. We don't have all the answers for you yet, we'll get more info when you can completely shift into your Were form, but I can tell you some things now. I'm pretty sure you are a hybrid shapeshifter, which means you'll show a combination of at least two types when you change. You've got aspects of a bird that can be seen in your eyes, your arms, your hair. We haven't seen what the rest of you turns into, but I'm willing to bet it won't be a bird - it will be something else.

There has never been a credible report of a hybrid actually living - they are supposed to be mythical, not real. There are many different stories, different names, for hybrids. I'm going to call you a gryphon for now, because you definitely have some aspects of that type. In the traditional gryphon legend, one has a bird's front feet, head & wings and a lion's body but Liam says you smell canine, not feline, so I'm not convinced that you'll have a lion's body. Gryphons are supposed to protect priceless possessions - most stories describe them as fancy guards for the treasures of others - but some stories seem to indicate that they collect and guard their own hoard of precious things.

Nobody really knows what a gryphon can do, no one has ever met one. So Jessie, you are unique and unpredictable."

"How can I be a mix of different Were types? My father was human. Shouldn't a hybrid be a combination of his or her parents?" Jessie was trying to puzzle out how it worked.

Helen sighed, "Very different Were types don't mate or have children all that often, but if they do, the children become entirely the type of ONE of their parents. For example, a werewolf and a were-cougar might mate and have children, but each child would be either a wolf or a cougar, not a hybrid of both types. Hybrids are mythical, they are not supposed to actually happen ... and supernatural birds are very, very rare just so you know - almost mythical all on their own.

I'm guessing a lot here, but if only your mother was Were, then somehow she had to have been a gryphon too and you inherited everything you are from her. I have no idea how a real gryphon came into being but somewhere in your ancestry, it happened."

Jessie wasn't sure what to do with all this new information. "So what now? I don't seem to be able to consciously shift into it, whatever it is. And if I do, will I be able to walk or think or do anything? A bird's head, feet and wings plus something else, it sounds like a big mess!"

Helen laughed softly. "Remember honey, if your mother was a gryphon she seems to have gotten around ok, so you will too I expect. I'm wondering if part of your problem is that you are thinking of your other half as an IT, instead of welcoming her as the other half of YOU. Liam tells me you are expressing some feelings you are having as coming from her, which is good, she's closer to the surface than she used to be. The more you and she connect the better. Keep trying to talk to her, think to her. Keep trying to shift, but don't do that alone. You are right that when it finally does happen, you will need some time to get used to functioning in what will likely be an unusual body type."

After Helen hung up Liam finished taking photos of everything, Jessie put it all back in the fancy box, and they all went out to the garage where she was shown the hidden safe cemented into the floor under a bench. The jewellery box fit nicely into an empty area inside that safe. Jacob registered Jessie's fingerprints on the front panel and gave her the combination so she could access its contents as needed. The day finally wrapped up as any day does when a family member finds out they are a mythical creature with an inheritance worth many millions of dollars - everyone ate a dinner reheated in the microwave, drank a lot of wine, and went to their separate beds to lie awake for hours wondering just what the hell life would throw at them all next?

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Two days later Jessie was working in the back yard moving wheelbarrow loads of soil and compost onto her vegetable beds after it had all been delivered in two truckloads and dumped in the driveway. Jacob and Liam had left for work together, leaving her by herself for the third day in a row. Jessie was very thankful for that little bit of freedom - it mattered a great deal to her. She had promised not to leave the property and they were trusting her to do as she said she would.

The brothers had been putting on a good show of behaving themselves around her - no overt aggression towards each other - but she'd realized pretty quickly that the competition had just moved to a more sneaky level. They were each taking every opportunity to rub up against her, marking her with their scent. She wouldn't have been surprised if there was some kind of counting game going on with that. Liam was teaching her about jewels and jewellery, looking at the photos of her mother's collection one at a time - Jacob hovered, bringing her tea and then refills and making comments the whole time. They'd framed in the vegetable beds for her ... there had definitely been something going on between them then to see who could do the most the fastest. Jacob had finished his two first and had apparently "won" some time to sit on the couch talking with her after dinner while Liam did the dishes. Generally though, she didn't seem to be "allowed" to be alone with only one of them. Did they really think she wouldn't notice what was going on? Jessie figured she'd tolerate their behaviour for a little while, since it meant they left her by herself during the day.

Something ... no, correct that ... someONE inside Jessie was awake, still mostly observing rather than participating. A few more thoughts and feelings were now bubbling up that Jessie knew were not her own. When discussing her mother's jewellery she had felt a brief intense desire to pile it all back on a bed and roll around on it (?!); she'd watched one of the feral cats move through the garden yesterday and wondered what it would taste like (ug!); earthworms were suddenly fascinating and smelled nice (double ug!) In the quiet of the night the connection was stronger and was seriously affecting Jessie's sleep, filling it with erotic dreams. Her other half was a very horny gryphon! In last night's dream Jessie had been wearing nothing but the diamond and ruby necklace ... and more than one set of hands had been caressing her. She had cum, hard, and woke up wondering if her cries had been real or not. When she saw Liam smirking at her as they left for work in the morning, she knew she'd been a noisy neighbour - damn her.

Jessie had been carefully pacing her work, moving a half-dozen loads at a time before taking a break. It was a very nice late afternoon and she lay in the grass looking up at the sky resting her back for a few minutes. She'd been silently talking to her other half all day. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to feel something, anything, talking back. Nope, nothing ... sigh ... she just let the sun warm her skin and gradually drifted close to sleep.

Jessie awoke with a start, something warning her of danger. Her heart beating fast, she sat up and looked around wondering what was wrong. Her eyes met the gaze of a coyote standing under one of the large trees on her side of the back fence, only about 15 feet from her. It was one of the wild ones from the pack in the golf course, a male. There was another one, a female, sitting on the other side of the fence. They were hungry - how she knew that, she didn't know. She was about to stand up and make noise to scare them away when the male growled. The simply-human Jessie would have reacted to that by yelling and throwing whatever came to hand at him to drive him away. But she was someone else now, and that someone else decided this was the time to come all the way out.

Jessie's first complete shift was a very weird and uncomfortable experience. It was like every bone in her body was suddenly pulled apart, crushed up, pushed into a big ball, bounced around a few times, and then stretched out in every direction all at once. It hurt, intensely, but that only lasted for a second. Her eyesight went blank briefly and came back with an acuity that was amazing, very different from what her human eyes saw. Her hearing and sense of smell were much more powerful. Unfortunately her sense of balance was thrown completely off and she pitched forward, doing a face plant into the new soil of one her garden beds. She flopped around, flailing her legs (yup, she was four legged), trying to stand up and managed to get her tail (oh goody) twisted painfully under her (ouch!) She rolled onto her back to free her tail, then lay on her side panting. She tried to say "holy shit" but it just came out as a long high pitched whine.

Luckily her shift and subsequent thrashing about spooked the wild coyotes and they ran off. She'd have to wait for another encounter to prove she was a formidable entity and not a pathetic dolt.

Jessie rested, letting her heartbeat and breathing calm down, trying to decide what to do next. She felt very exposed in the yard, even though the vegetation screened her from neighbouring eyes. She tried to shift back, thinking about being human again, but it didn't work. She didn't know exactly what she looked like but she wouldn't be able to blend in as a normal animal - her front legs were still bird's legs, she could see that. Jacob and Liam were not due back for several hours yet, her best idea was to get up on the enclosed back porch and stay there until they came home. The doggie door was locked or she could have gone into the house that way - something to remember in the future.

It took a few tries before she was able to stand confidently on four legs. She took a number of cautious laps around the yard to get used to moving, tripping a bit at first. Her tail took some getting used to, as did the large long talons on her front legs which kept catching on the ground when she tried to trot. From what she could see, she was a bird-wolf. She had a muzzle and a large tongue, not a beak.

As she walked past her shredded clothes she had a thought. She pawed (toed? taloned?) through them, dragging her iPhone out flat on the ground and positioning her head so she could see the screen. She pressed the home button with a talon and tried to enter her passcode on the touch screen (thank heavens she didn't have fingerprint authentication set up!). The tip of a talon didn't register as a touch, so she concentrated and managed to get her talons to retract enough that she could use one of her bird toes as a finger. It worked, and she was in. It took a few tries but finally she managed to get her phone to call Jacob's number. He answered, "Hi Jessie, what's up?"

All she could do was whine, growl, bark and huff but she did a few different combinations hoping he'd get the message. She might have been able to howl too, but that probably wasn't a good idea in the back yard.

"Jessie, is that you?"

She whined a few more times with a growl at the end. Maybe she'd be able to do a kind of morse code in vocalizations one day if she had to, but not today.

"Oh crap, it is you isn't it, and you've shifted, right?"

She barked happily.

"Ok, we are coming home right now. Find someplace to stay out of sight and we'll get there as soon as we can. It will probably be about an hour."

She barked again and managed to hang up with a toe. She maneuvered the phone so she could grab it with her mouth and took it with her to the back porch. She fell twice trying to get up the stairs with four legs, but managed to get to the top where she flopped down on her side and waited for rescue.

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Jessie was hungry, and thirsty. She lay on the porch with her head on the edge of the top stair watching the yard. Her other half was urging her to get up and jump the fence into the golf course. She could sense open water, a pond with fresh water to drink, and she'd heard the rustle of a squirrel that would no doubt taste delicious. Jessie was barely holding herself in check, she wanted to get up and go so badly. It wasn't dark yet, it was too dangerous to move about like that. Besides, she wasn't sure she'd be able to jump a fence (probably end up impaled on it, given her lack of experience), or catch a squirrel. She whined softly, desperately.

Finally she heard the sounds she'd been waiting for, a truck turning into the driveway and her family's voices. Her tail started drumming on the porch deck and she barked softly - that was enough noise to get Jacob's and Liam's attention. They came around the back of the house to find her.

Liam got a look at her first. "Oh, wow, you are going to stick out like a sore thumb where-ever you go!"

Jessie growled at him, and he laughed. "Hey, it's the truth ..."

Jacob sat down next to her and ran his hands over her body. "Are you hurt anywhere? Everything feeling ok?"

Jessie nodded her head and then lay it down on his leg, panting. "Thirsty? I'll bet you are. And hungry too. Shifting takes a lot of energy and you've got a thick layer of fur and feathers now so you'll heat up faster, especially on warm days like this."

Liam unlocked the back door. Jessie pulled herself up and walked in, a bit wobbly. Her feet hit the hardwood floor and within a few steps they slipped out from under her in various directions. Her body hit the ground with a thump and she decided to stay down. Liam laughed again, and she seriously considered biting some part of him. Jacob stood over her, grabbed her around the ribcage and slid her across the floor to a carpeted area. It was definitely not going to be a day with dignity.

They got her a big bowl of cool water and she managed to drink most of it once she figured out how to keep her nose out of the bowl and her tongue in it. They fed her chunks of left over pot roast until it was all gone. At that point, she just wanted to curl up and sleep, but before she did that she really wanted to know what she looked like. There was a full-length mirror in Jacob's bedroom so she headed up there, quite pleased that she managed the stairs like a pro.

Liam was right, she was going to stick out. She didn't have wolf ears, she had feathered tufts like an owl; her eyes were large with dark pupils and golden irises; she had a muzzle with what looked like a bird beak's keratin, stripped orange and black, running between her eyes and down the bridge of her nose. She had small white feathers covering her head and neck, running down the middle of her back all the way to her tail. The rest of her body was dark grey fur with black and white patches, except her front legs which had only light orange scales. No wings, thank the heavens - she'd been quite worried about that.

What seemed odd was that her body looked dark in the mirror but when she looked directly at the parts she could see there were bright light-blue patches in her fur. It suddenly occurred to her that she had a bird's eyes ... if she remembered what she'd learned in biology class correctly, birds could see UV light but mirrors, unless they were specially made, didn't reflect UV. She could see more than humans could, and she might even glow in the dark under UV light!

Jessie heard Liam taking a few photos while she studied herself in the mirror. She was interested in what human eyes could see of her vs. how she saw herself. That would only happen when she was able to shift back ... she wondered when that would be. She felt someone lean up against her and turned to see Jacob, in his coyote form, beside her.

How are you doing with all this? Startled, she realized she could hear his voice in her head. Just focus on directing your thoughts to me and think about what you want to say.

I'm ok I guess. It's a lot to take in and I'm very tired. When will I be able to shift back? Jessie yawned, her eyes half-closed.

You should sleep for a while. It takes energy and concentration to shift. You should be able to do it after you rest. We'll talk you through it. Lie down here now.

Jessie took a few steps into the open area of the room, turned around a couple of times, lay down on her side and closed her eyes. Jacob lay down behind her. As she drifted off to sleep she felt Liam, also in coyote form, lay down by her head.

In her dreams she was running free in the full light of day, surrounded by a mixed pack of many individuals. Every kind of Were she'd been told about in her training discussions was there together. It was glorious.

When she awoke she was inside a circle of two protective coyotes, warm and safe. She stretched and wiggled, realizing she had to pee. She closed her eyes and pictured what she looked like in her human form, willing herself to shift back to that. After a few moments, she felt everything twist again - though without as much pain this time - and when she opened her eyes she was back. She got up and moved to the bathroom very pleased that she'd done it by herself.

With some precautions, like stocked up water and food dishes inside and outside, an unlocked doggie door, and some carpet runners over open areas of hardwood floor, she could practice switching and using her new hybrid body. Knowing something of the dangers they all faced, she would not be caught unable to function if she had to shift, run or fight. She was determined not to be the weak link in their family if she could help it. Her other half agreed completely, she could feel it. She got a strong impression from her that having a jewelled necklace that could survive the shift would also be a very nice touch. Jessie was now certain she was stuck with a sybarite (she'd always loved that word and had rarely had a chance to use it until now).

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A few days later Jessie was reading an e-book on the history of jewellery when her phone rang. It was Helen. "Hi Jessie, I need to ask for your help. Jacob and Liam were going to do something for me tomorrow afternoon but the situation has changed suddenly and I need to get it done starting in about 30 minutes. There's an accident on the bridge between where they are now and where they have to get to, the traffic jam is miles long so they can't make it in time."

"If I can help you Helen, I will. I owe you a lot and I'd be happy to do whatever I can." Jessie said. "What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to drive to a truck stop about 20 minutes from you, pick up a woman and her child who will be arriving there, and drive them north along the coast for about an hour to a public dock where they'll be picked up and taken by boat to their destination."