10 Agency 51
“I know you can shape-change at will,” I say. “That seems pretty universal. There’s a plethora of potential side effects, but there’re a few that manifest pretty regularly as far as I can tell. Night vision and scent are your new superpowers.”
“And the full moon?”
“Has fuck all to do with it,” I reply. “And a silver bullet will still kill you, but so will any other bullet. Actually, it might not. I’ve heard something about manipulating metal, but I’m no metallurgist, so remind me to look into that.”
“This has to be a dream. No way, there’s no way.”
I gesture to his hands, where the claws are creeping out again. He looks at his hands in horror before closing his eyes and breathing deeply again. His normal hands reappear. He rubs at the scars on his arms and frowns.
“It doesn’t hurt, but it’s strange. Everything I’m used to being slips away for a moment, and I have to remember who I am.”
“I bet.” I’m no werewolf, but I know what it feels like to have to rebuild myself.
“It’s healed already, where it bit me.”
“Yep, superfast healing. That seems to be a thing for you. But I don’t think you’re immortal, so be careful. And I hate to break it to you, but you have some gnarly scars across your face too. So don’t be surprised the next time you look in a mirror.”
It’s true. Three parallel scars cut across the right side of his face, slashing through his eyebrow and ending halfway down his cheek.
Honestly, with the scars, the blood, and general grunge from our nighttime forest adventures, he looks kind of villain-from-a-movie-sexy, but I’m not about to share that opinion.
I give him the uncensored Winnebago tour. The first time I’ve done that if you don’t count Eldi. I try to formally introduce Bandit, the zombie raccoon, but he only hisses at us angrily from atop a time-traveling wardrobe, paws full of peanuts.
“I feel so stupid. How is all this”—he gestures widely at the piles of accumulated oddities—“how is this all real? All the stuff I’ve been trying to debunk. I have to find a new career.”
Before I can address that uncomfortable subject, he starts to lower himself into a nearby chair, but I shriek out a no and pull him away.
“I don’t have the keys!” I point to the chains that rattle, moving on their own as if they sense an unsuspecting victim, straining where they’re attached at the arms and legs of the chair.
“Kinky,” Calvin says.
“I promise you, you couldn’t handle the kind of kink that chair likes,” I say.
He smirks. “Hmm.”
“Moving past that,” I mutter under my breath. I refuse to blush.
Calvin reaches to lift the veil on an ornate old mirror, but I stop him again. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? There’s a monster in there.”
He raises his eyebrows as he gestures at himself. “And there aren’t any out here?”
At least he’s back to joking again.
“Precisely,” I say. “I’ve enough to deal with out here. No more.”
Calvin reaches for a marbled green-and-white rock with pockets of sparkling crystal that perches on a shelf near his eye level. He pauses before his fingers make contact and then points instead. “What’s this?”
“A rock.”
“Clearly. But why do you have it? What is it?”
“Moss agate,” I say with a grin, plucking the rock off the shelf and tilting it so the crystals catch the light. “I like the way it sparkles.”
Calvin raises an eyebrow and mutters something disparaging under his breath.
I decide the tour is done when he reaches for the handle of an old detached door that leans against the wall. “Stop touching everything! What’s behind there will definitely try to kill you. That’s not the kind of door anyone comes back out of.”
“You know,” Calvin muses, “I have a cousin who claims he got lost in some sort of alternate universe behind a door he found in the woods once.”
“Yeah, and I bet he also told you never to mess with any doors you find somewhere that there shouldn’t be a door.”
“He did, actually. I have a whole podcast episode about it, The Darkness Behind the Door.”
“Speaking of your podcast, you can’t put any of this on there,” I say as we emerge into the bright light of the Winnebago’s normal rooms.
“Why shouldn’t I? Why keep all this secret?” he asks as he automatically moves to the sink, pokes around for a sponge and soap, and starts to wash the cocktail shaker. Manny could stand to learn an extra trick or two from Calvin.
I hand him a dry towel as I consider the conundrum about how much to tell him.
I can’t spill all my secrets, obviously.
But he’s in danger if he starts going public with any of this.
It’s partially my fault he’s a werewolf, and now I’ve gone and shown and told him even more.
He deserves to know. But also telling him anything else puts everything at risk, and I’ve worked so hard for what I have now.
I think I can trust Calvin. But I let myself get too attached before, and look how that turned out for me.
On the run in a stolen Winnebago with the Chupacabra, that’s where.
If I tell Calvin everything, I will lose him.
But if I tell him and can’t convince him to keep quiet, I will lose Eldi.
Eldi is curled up asleep in her loft bed above the driver’s seat.
She needs a bath. Her sticky little hands are covered in dirt and blood, and her bangs are plastered to her forehead, hopefully with sweat not boogers, but who knows.
Goat is firmly tucked between her teeth, his one eye barely visible through graying polyester fluff.
Eldi snuffles and kicks her feet violently before burrowing under the covers.
It’s an easy choice. I can live with myself if she stays safe.
I’ll give him enough information to keep him quiet, make him understand the dangers, but not enough information to hate me.
“Have you ever heard of Agency 51?” I finally ask Calvin. I lean back against the table behind him, staring past my cactus perched on the sill at his vague reflection in the darkened Winnebago window.
“You mean have I heard the conspiracy theories about Area 51? That the government hides alien ships and bodies there?” His familiar skepticism is back in full force. “Don’t tell me that’s real.”
“I wasn’t going to, because it isn’t. I don’t actually know anything about Area 51.”
“I knew it couldn’t all be true.” Calvin laughs with relief, refolding the towel neatly and turning away from the sink to face me.
Under the pretense of checking on Eldi, I move to the front of the Winnebago.
I need an excuse to keep from looking directly at Calvin while I speak.
“Agency 51 is something else. If anyone does have alien bodies and ships, it’s them.
They want you to laugh at all the conspiracy theories and discount rumors as wild stories.
Hiding in plain sight works. They operate out of a different part of the Nevada desert and aren’t connected to the government at all.
” Tugging Eldi’s blanket down to cover her toes knocks Goat from her mouth.
Her hands automatically scrabble for him, and Calvin is there, pressing Goat back in her hands before I have the chance.
“Somewhere along the way,” I continue in a low voice, though Eldi could sleep right through an apocalypse, “the rumors got entangled with the Area 51 conspiracies, and the name stuck. It works in their favor. Most people assume anything with the 51 in it refers to Area 51, not the agency.” Calvin has leaned even closer now, listening intently as I speak.
Close enough I can feel the heat of his body, smell that goddamn shampoo of his.
Turning away from him as much as I can in the small space of the front cab, I find myself staring instead at Manny, still in the passenger seat.
He hasn’t moved in a while, and I vaguely wonder if he’s asleep; it’s hard to tell.
“Their operation is to find, control, and weaponize anything that might not fit into a neat little niche in this world. Monsters, aliens, magic, that’s what they hunt and experiment on in there.
” I dart out of the gap between Calvin and the driver’s seat and rest my hands on the edge of the sink, my gaze returning to the cactus perched on the windowsill.
Before he follows me, Calvin tugs loose a spare blanket puddled at the end of Eldi’s bed and gently tucks it over Manny, who by all appearances is really sleeping.
My heart threatens to burst out of my chest at the sight.
Heartburn, I tell myself. Late-night lemon and whiskey will do that at my age.
“Eldi would be in danger if they could find her.” He doesn’t need me to connect those dots.
“So her father . . . She doesn’t have a father. Or at least her father isn’t some ex-boyfriend of yours.”
“Nope, but I couldn’t explain that before.”
A complicated mix of emotions flashes across his face. “How did you get involved in all this?”
Picking up my cactus, turning the pot this way and that, I examine the rainbow pattern of flowers painted on it.
I think for a moment, pass the pot from hand to hand, weigh the truth.
“They tried to recruit me,” I say, “and you’re in danger even if you stopped associating with me and Eldi, now that you’re a werewolf.
You’re on their radar because of your podcast, but it fits the narrative they want, so they leave you alone. ”
“But if I started claiming to have proof creatures like Eldi and werewolves exist . . .”
“Exactly. They’d come after you to shut you up or get information out of you.
And I have worse news: I think they’ve found me and suspect I might have something they want.
They don’t have proof that I have Eldi, so they’re waiting to strike.
” One of the cactus’s spines is longer than the other, growing slightly askew.
I don’t know how I’ve kept this thing alive all these years.
I don’t know anything about caring for a cactus.
Am I supposed to prune it or leave it alone?
I can’t resist poking at the errant spine, and it detaches, sticks in my finger, a sharp needle of pain shooting up my left hand.
“And you work to protect beings like Eldi from them?”
“Yes.” Stupid of me to keep a scraggly plant that bites back.
Calvin takes the pot from my hands, moving slowly as if I were a stray cat that might lunge at him. He plucks the spine from my finger and examines the drop of blood welling there.
“Good news,” he says softly, running his fingers across my palm, “I don’t think we’ll have to amputate. And I have no desire to suck your blood.”
“Thanks, Doc. It would be a shame to lose this hand now. I’ve grown attached to it. But I do think you’re confusing vampires with werewolves.”
He’s still holding my hand, absently intertwining our fingers. I can think of nothing but the feel of his skin on mine. “You’ve been following me, working with me to keep tabs on me, make sure I don’t get myself in over my head, haven’t you?”
“Yes. That’s why I started ‘coincidentally’ working on the same cases as you to begin with.
I followed you to keep you from finding out the truth.
From accidentally finding proof that you were wrong all along and monsters do exist. I laid some of the false trails you fell for.
All I wanted was for you to stay out of my hair.
But that has changed now—” I pause, Calvin’s skin warm against mine.
His face inches away. It’s too real an answer suddenly.
More than I meant to say. I tug back my hand, cross my arms.
“Now?” Calvin prods, stepping forward and closing the distance between us again.
I can’t tell him that now I trust him, now I like him as a person.
That he might be my closest friend, that I want more.
I can’t tell him, because he deserves better than that.
Better than me. The silence stretches and becomes weighted.
Calvin is looking at me, his gaze burning, but I can’t look up and meet his eyes. Deflect. Backpedal. Divert.
“Now that you’ve got me hooked on your coffee,” I say, latching onto the first lame excuse I can think up.
“What?” Calvin asks, leaning away again with a sigh.
“Your espresso machine. Do you know how much you’ve saved me on fancy lattes? And you always lose our bets.”
Calvin laughs a little woodenly. “Obviously, and here I thought we were friends.”
“Nah, archenemies, remember?” I tease.
“Huh,” he says. And I bet he’s sorting through memories and piecing things together as he stares off into space. “Admit it, you do listen to my podcast, don’t you?”
Winnie’s volume knob spins, and a recording of my own voice blares from the speakers. “Hey, Winnie, pull up Calvin’s last episode. No, not just the audio, the video file, the one where he’s wearing—”
I knock Manny’s foot askew on his ankle in my haste to reach the radio power button. I’ve always told Calvin I can barely listen to him talk in person, let alone in my spare time. I’m a liar, obviously.
“For research purposes.”
“Research, sure,” he says, his lips twitching. “How much am I wrong about?”
“A lot,” I admit.
He groans. “Damn it.”
“Don’t worry, I think a solid chunk of your channel followers don’t actually watch your episodes for your scientific content, Data Daddy.”
A blush colors his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says loftily. “And you’re one to throw stones. Glass houses and all.”
I pretend I didn’t hear that and ignore the rising heat on my own cheeks. “Admit it,” I say. “You came up with and planted that nickname yourself.”
“I did no such thing. I just use all my attributes to my advantage.”
“Science, my ass. You’re nothing but a pretty face.”
He sighs. “Guess I’ll have to come up with a new angle.”
“You can’t. Haven’t you been paying attention? Pretend nothing’s wrong. Post prerecorded content, or use some filters to hide the scars and steer clear of anything about werewolves or Chupacabras. And keep a subtle eye out for a black Jeep, tinted windows.”
Calvin’s grin disappears. “I know. I’ll keep my mouth shut for your and Eldi’s sake. And my own. I should go back to the Airstream. We should both get some sleep.”
“If you want, you can come along with the wolves tomorrow night,” I say casually, as if it doesn’t matter if he joins me or not. “I need to vaccinate any I missed.”
“Only if you don’t shoot me this time.”