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But not anymore.
Cass followed Grayson to the group surrounding the trash, their inane chatter already drifting to her ears. Seagull shifters talked too much. But then again, a lot of avian shifters did. Heck, even she found it difficult to keep her beak closed sometimes. Not that all bird shifters shared this trait. Her best friend, Bianca, was a songbird shifter. While she enjoyed singing, she wasn’t as chatty as other birds.
The gull group stopped circling the metal can of garbage as Cass and Grayson neared. They looked at them expectantly, though she couldn’t tell if they would be more likely to attack or flee if provoked.
“Do any of you know a biker by the name of Joe?” Grayson asked, stopping a few feet away. He lifted his nose in a way she knew to mean he was scenting the air. Probably double-checking that this group was shifters. They had to be careful. If this was a group of humans, they couldn’t let it slip that shifters existed.
“Joe?” the man eating the fries asked, turning his head to stare at them from the side with one eye. A chorus of “Joe” erupted as the rest of the group echoed the name. The second man at the table chose not to join and instead snuck a few fries while the other was distracted.
Cass took a step back. While it was true that shifters took on some of the characteristics of their animal, these gulls seemed to be over-identifying with their bird.
“Yes. Joe.” Grayson adjusted his sunglasses and shifted uncomfortably but didn’t back down. “He was supposed to come here last week to meet someone named Cindy or Sandy. Sound familiar?”
Now they erupted into a mixture of “Joe,” “Cindy,” and “Sandy.” Cass became more unsettled.Something’s not right here.They weren’t like any flock of birds Cass had ever been around—and as an ASS agent, she’d been around many. Instead, they seemed unnatural, like an experiment gone wrong. Were they mixed with parrots? So far, the group didn’t seem able to form their own words or phrases, only repeat what Grayson said.
Grayson turned to Cass. “Do you speak gull?”
“No.” She bit her lip. “Gray, I think there’s something wrong with them.”
They picked up on the word “wrong” and began echoing it.
“Really?” Grayson raised a brow. “I guess I’ll take your word for it.”
“I mean it. This isn’t normal behavior, even for bird shifters.” Cass hadn’t seen anything like it. She took another step back, horrified by what she witnessed. Who would do something like this to the gull shifters?
The five shifters circling the trash started flapping their arms and squawking. The man with the fries snapped at the other man on the table with his teeth after noticing him steal another fry.
“At least they can’t peck your eyes out,” Cass tried to reassure Grayson. She could tell under the sunglasses that his eyes were wide. He was well beyond his comfort zone with this case.
Humans in the park stopped to record the scene with their cellphone cameras. This wasn’t good. The shifting community tried hard to keep their supernatural abilities secret from regular people. If shit got out of hand and this group changed into a flock of seagulls, they’d have to grab a COOCHI—Corrective Outdoor-shift Or Calming of Humans Incident —form. It would assist both FUC and ASS in following the status of the coverup of the public shift. Excuses could range from gas leaks causing hallucinations to PR stunts for the local zoo. Cass’ brain raced with excuses to explain away this train wreck.
She turned to Grayson and said loud enough for the gathering crowd to hear, “The artists call this ‘Angry Seagulls.’ It’s a protest against littering.”
Grayson nodded, saying nothing. That seemed to satisfy some of the gathering people, who, after clapping, dispersed back into the park. A few remained behind until they realized the “performers” weren’t going to do much more than flap their arms and pace while repeating various words and names. Their faces hinted at their boredom before they meandered back along the path away from the gulls.
Cass was at a loss. In all her years of an agent, she hadn’t been in a situation like this. It would be one thing to occur where no one could see, but in public? This wasn’t good at all.
Do you speak gull?Grayson’s earlier question reverberated through her mind. “I do!” she exclaimed, turning to him. He raised a curious eyebrow. “Speak gull, that is. Birds can communicate with each other… in a manner of speaking.” Birds were able to recognize the general meaning of some calls from other species. If she could find a place to shift… She glanced around, looking for a restroom. With any luck, she’d find one cleaner than the bar they were just in, or she would have to replace more pieces of her wardrobe. Though, the more she thought about it, the more fun a shopping trip sounded.
The human-shaped gulls squawked louder, some of them mere rasps since their vocal cords struggled to make the sound. A few hopped excitedly.
“Are you talking about shifting?” Grayson whispered. “How am I going to explain away a peacock the size of an ostrich?”
“For one, I’m a peahen,” she corrected, puffing out her chest with pride. “And just make up some crap about me in costume, protesting the dangers of growth hormones in our food or some shit.”
She waved her hand in a flourish. Her nails glistened in the light of the fading sun, dipping below the line of trees at the distant end of the park. She pointed a finger at the screeching group. “Keep them here and happy until I get back.”
Without further instruction, she padded off to the nearest bathroom.
5
This is horse shit.Grayson grew up on a farm around animals and shifters alike, and he’d never been more uneasy in his life. And Cass had left him. Alone. With these crazy bird-brained people. He grimaced as one rooted through the trash littering the ground, pecking at wrappers with his pointed nose. As a young pup, Grayson may have liked knocking over the kitchen trash and spreading refuse around during temper tantrums, but it was something he’d grown out of.
Speaking of growing and changing, he couldn’t help but think about Cass… and himself. Cass was the same, yet different than the woman he’d met years ago, but him? He’d been so naïve back then. Becoming a FUC agent was the first time he’d met shifters outside of the canine community where he grew up. He’d never considered the various cultural differences of animal societies until he met other agents, and most of those in FUC were mammals. Sure, there were rare exceptions, like Jessie Cygnclair and Clarice Tertius, but he’d never gotten to know them very well.
Which meant he was in for culture shock when he met Cass from ASS. A beautiful peafowl who made his heart race from the first time he met her hazel eyes. The perfect balance of green and brown, reminding him of the rich forests back home that surrounded his family farm. Her gaze made him feel just that—at home.
She dressed to the nines, yet she wasn’t stuck up, as he’d heard many other ASS could be. Cass gave him a chance, really talked to him. Opened up. He got to learn about her and her family, but he thought she was joking when she explained she was expected to join a peacock’s harem—until he realized she was serious.
