“We should get moving, sleepy butt,” Anya says as she nudges me awake.

“Can’t…got cat.” I mumble. Zatanna is lying on my thigh, doing her best impression of a leopard lounging on a tree branch.

Anya scratches Zatanna behind the ears. She responds by standing up, doing a big stretch, and following Anya’s hand to the other side of the bed.

“Traitor,” I mutter.

Anya offers me her hand, which Zatanna is still following. I take it and she pulls me to a standing position, somehow managing to smoothly insert a kiss into the process, as well as groping my ass. I try to pull her back onto the bed with me, but she resists.

“June will be expecting us soon,” she says.

“Oh fine,” I pout. “Can you feed Z while I pull myself together?”

We’re soon leaving my apartment in Anya’s car and on our way to pick up June.

“Are you sure she’s okay with this?” I ask. “I know that some of this is a little complicated for her.”

“She said she was good. I trust her to tell me no, and she trusts me to listen when she says no.”

“Well geez, you could at least pretend that your friendship isn’t so disgustingly functional and built on mutual trust and respect.”

Anya shrugs. “Besides, she trusts you not to get weird and insisted that having a second spotter for your first flight is a good idea.”

We stop by Anya and June’s house. June is already waiting outside for us. She climbs into the car and we head out of town, although not before going through the Caribou drive-through.

Our destination is some land owned by somebody in Anya’s family, although I’m a little fuzzy on the exact relationship, possibly because Anya is as well. In any event, it’s supposed to be enough out of the way that we’re unlikely to spotted as I learn to stretch my wings. Anya says that some Nephilim fly at night pretty regularly, but that I need to start in the daylight, which I can’t argue with.

It’s not a short drive, so I seize control of the Bluetooth and put on Taylor Swift and June and I sing along. Anya pretends not to know all the words.

After leaving the highway and driving a few miles down a gravel road, we reach a gated driveway with a barbed-wire-topped fence stretching away in both directions. The land on the other side of the fence is heavily wooded. Anya sends a text and a few moments later the heavy gate slides open.

We follow the driveway through the trees until we reach a clearing with a fairly unremarkable farmhouse and several large but otherwise nondescript grey pole barns. As Anya drives up to the house, a black dog dozing on the porch raises its head. And then raises another head, and another.

Fortunately, aside from having two extra noses to stick in our crotches, the dog is very friendly as we get out of the car. There’s a sharp whistle and the dog runs back up the porch steps to the man stepping out of the house.

“Heya, Anya!” he says. He’s cast from the same lanky Scandinavian mold as Anya, but I think I can see a family resemblance beyond that, although I’m still not confident that family resemblance bears much weight when shapeshifters are involved. Anya introduces him as Ben, a distant cousin.

“First flight, huh?” he says to me. “Have fun and watch out for tree branches!” He points to the other side of the clearing. “Follow the dirt road and then in half a mile take the left fork and that’ll get you to the north field. We just mowed it for probably the last time of the year, so you’ll have plenty of space.”

“Thanks!” says Anya. We climb back in her car and follow Ben’s directions to the north field. Sure enough, the field looks freshly mowed and relatively flat, although Anya manages to find a few bumps with the car. She parks in the middle of the field and we pile out.

“For your first time, it’s probably best to go full demon or whatever,” Anya says, unselfconsciously stripping and tossing her clothes on the driver’s seat. “For most of us, flying is actually completely bullshit because the physics make no sense, but hey, that’s magic for you. But it’s still usually easier to manage when you’re completely transformed.”

“Sorry, what?” I say, staring at Anya’s abs and other parts of her. “I got distracted.”

“It’s time to find out what your final form is,” she says, walking around the front of the car toward me. As she does, her skin reddens and horns and a tail appear, which I’m more or less used to, but she continues to change. Large bat wings snap open behind her, the membrane a darker red than her skin and fading to black near the edges. Her legs and tail take on a scaled texture. She is also getting taller, so by the time she’s standing in front of me she’s at least eight feet tall and her chest is at eye level. I look up. Her face is fiercer, but is still recognizable.

“Whoa, big Anya,” I breathe.

“Oh my god,” June laughs. “You’re such a bottom.”

“Who’s next?” Anya asks, and her voice is now huskier than usual and that doesn’t help my composure at all.

June and I make eye contact. She looks a little uncomfortable.

“I guess I can try,” I say. “Do I need to strip?”

“Do you like those clothes?” Anya asks. Under my jacket, I’m wearing some comfy workout leggings and a halter top that June found for me that should at least accommodate a tail and wings. I consider what Anya’s increased size would have done to her clothes, and since I don’t know yet what happens when I fully transform, I follow her example and get naked. Even though it’s sunny, early November is chilly, and I shiver.

Shifting in the purple skin, horns, and tail is now second nature to me. I’ve done the wings a few times as well but I sense there’s still a big change left. I close my eyes and try to relax as I let go and my body rearranges.

“Fuck me,” Anya murmurs.

“What?” I rumble. I open my eyes I’m dazzled by what I see. Anya and June are glowing. Luminous lines connect them to each other and to me. Looking around, I see more glowing spots in the woods around us, which I somehow know to be birds and squirrels and at least a few deer. As I look at the trees, I can see them with perfect clarity, despite being some distance away.

I realize I’m on all fours, and it’s not uncomfortable at all, but Anya’s chest is still at eye level. I’m also not chilly any more. Looking down, I can see that I’m covered in fur in a familiar lavender shade ticked with black. I lift one hand (or is it a paw?) and flex my fingers. Wickedly sharp, dark claws emerge.

It’s easier to get a look at myself that I thought it would be, as I seem to have become more flexible. My body looks basically feline. There’s an armored ridge running the length of my spine and feathers emerge from the fur of my tail, fanning out at the end.

“You’re a griffin!” Anya says. “That’s sick!” She grabs her phone from where it’s sitting in the car on top of the messy pile of her clothes and snaps a picture to show me. Sure enough, my face, which is covered in downy fur, or maybe feathers, ends in a beak with large feline eyes behind it. There are feathery tufts underneath my horns where my ears should be.

“That’s cool,” I say in a deep and velvety voice and then I pause in confusion. “How the fuck am I talking without any lips?”

“Eh, that’s nothing,” Anya says. “Your turn, June! We’ve shown you ours, now show us yours.”

June shrugs noncommittally, but her gorgeous black wings unfurl from her back followed by two more pairs of wings. All six wings make a complicated flapping motion and she rises into the air, her aura or whatever it is intensifying. I’m pretty sure that even if I were looking at her with my regular vision, I’d still see her eyes glowing. Suddenly, luminous eyes open all over her body and wings. Her wings flap again and then things get seriously weird.

June, or the space around her, folds in directions that make no sense at all. An indeterminate number of glowing rings appear, like when she made a halo for Dave’s benefit, but much larger. The rings are constantly in motion and seem interconnected and separate at the same time. They rotate at impossible angles. Wings and eyes fade and flash into and out of existence. Looking through the rings, I don’t see anything that looks like June’s usual appearance, but I do see glimpses of the sky and the ground and myself and Anya and the car.

“So yeah,” June says in perfect four-part harmony with no visible mouth. “Be not afraid or whatever.”

“Whoa,” I say, and then I have a thought, since my voice now is actually lower than my old male voice. “You can be an entire backing vocal section all by yourself,” I sing to a simple walking bass line.

“I suppose I can,” June answers, catching my key and the groove. “As long as I don’t think about it too hard.”

“Nerds,” Anya groans.

“You just wish you were as cool as us,” chants the casual violation of Euclidean space that is June, suddenly zipping away over the field, her last words Doppler shifting. Some instinct takes over and I leap into the air after her.

Flight is exhilarating. I have no idea how I’m doing it, so I don’t think to hard and instead push myself to catch up to June. We careen over the treetops and I think I’m gaining on her. I’m closing in when she disappears and reappears a hundred feet to my right going the opposite direction. I bank and turn to follow her and see that Anya is also in the air.

I continue to chase June across the sky, although we’re careful not to get too far from the field where the car is parked. I can tell before long that she’s toying with me, because she can pop in and out of existence at will with no clear limit to the distance she can travel instantaneously. It’s also evident that I’m faster in the air than Anya is.

After some time, June disappears, but my eyes follow the ray of light that connects us and even though I’m at least a mile way from the car, I can clearly see her standing next to the car in human form. I head back that way, Anya following behind. As I get closer, June takes out her phone and tracks me as I come in for a landing, which is not quite as graceful as I was hoping for, but I don’t augur in, so I’m calling it good for now.

June puts her phone away and walks up to me, holding out her hand.

“May I?” she asks hopefully. I nod and she gently strokes the fur on my shoulder. June seems very small next to me right now.

“Oh my gosh, Anya!” June says as Anya lands. “Your girlfriend is so soft. Come feel her!”

“You know what?” Anya says, “I respect Lark too much to say what I want to.”

June buries her face in my neck. Anya shakes her head, but comes up on the other side of me and touches my fur.

“Okay, June, you were right,” says Anya. That’s when I find out that I can purr.

I’ve always thought that cats had the right idea, but now I’m sure of it. After June and Anya pet me for a while, even if it’s not long enough, Anya suggests that I should try flying in a more humanoid form. Reluctantly, I shift back to nearly human. I lose the wings so I can easily put on my top, but then shift them back into existence.

“You know,” I say casually to Anya, who hasn’t changed, “you can still pet me.” She runs a sharp black fingernail down my bare arm and I shiver. June makes gagging noises and then floats into the air on six wings but otherwise looks normal.

It turns out that Anya was right. Flying like this is harder, especially coordinating my limbs for takeoffs and landings, but I make it through the next hour with nothing worse than torn leggings and a skinned knee, which I heal almost instantly. One time, I clip the car with my wing on takeoff and Anya catches me before I can crash. I consider doing it again on purpose because being held by my large nude girlfriend is exciting.

I’m getting tired, so we all shift back to human and Anya gets dressed again. We stop at the house to thank Ben and pet the dog, but soon head out towards the highway where there should be some fast food.

“Check this out,” June says, handing me her phone. There’s a video of me in my griffin form coming in for a landing.

“Okay, I do look pretty awesome,” I say. “I would have thought the horns would look weird with everything else, but they’re actually kinda badass.”

“What do you expect? Anya got all naked and big, of course you’re gonna be horny.”

Anya and I groan and I blush.

“No, but actually it kinda makes sense?” June continues. “I just googled it. There’s a part in Revelation where there are these four ‘living creatures’ in heaven, and it says one looks like a lion, and one looks like an eagle, and one has a face like a man and one is like an ox. Obviously, you can look human if you want, but you can also have a body like a big cat with wings and a beak like an eagle, and horns like an ox! Of course it also says they had six wings and eyes all over, which I do, but I can’t do the horny griffin thing. It’s something, though, right?”

“So are you saying I’m an angel?”

“Eh,” says Anya. “It’s more like there’s a wide pool of Nephilim traits besides just the popular ‘hot person with bird wings’ and ‘hot person with bat wings and a tail’. It’s like dog breeds. Dogs are all the same species but have a huge range of traits. You can mix and match, but it’s not entirely predictable.”

I consider this. “I suppose that makes sense. Didn’t know that having three heads was a common breed trait, though.”

“I think that might be a Hades Retriever thing.” I can’t tell if Anya’s being serious or not.

“I also didn’t know that you could teleport, June.” I hope that June won’t mind talking about her abilities a little, because the implications are very interesting. “Super cool!”

“Does it count as teleportation?” June says hesitantly. “When I’m like that, I can kind of see and move in more than three dimensions.”

“Seriously? Yeah, I’d say that counts. How far away can you go? You could save so much money on gas!”

“I’m not really sure. I don’t do it much. Also, it’s kind of hard to do discretely.”

“Angels like June are probably responsible for a lot of UFO reports,” Anya says. “You know, when it’s not Venus or something.”

A thought occurs to me. “If you can see other dimensions, does that mean you can time travel?”

“I don’t think so,” June answers. “When I teleport or whatever, that feels kind of like going sideways, and there’s something that’s like up and down and if I go that way I can disappear completely, but it feels super weird and it’s hard to see regular space. I can also sort of see another dimension that might be time, but I can’t really go that way. But, like, when you’re flying, I can sort of see where you’re going to go, but it’s fuzzy and it changes all the time, so maybe it’s more of a probability thing?”

“Damn. That’s amazing! I could see your energy and I want to try it again, but I think maybe our emotional connections too? That would make sense with how I can feel how people are, um, feeling.”

“We both know you feel very soft,” Anya says. She reaches over and squeezes my thigh.

“Wow, so smooth, An,” says June.