Page 20 of Strange Lights

“You make shit coffee,” Calvin says. “I’ll make us some when I get back over to the Airstream.”

There’s another wary silence, and Eldi mutters something under her breath and bounds away.

“I never should have bet against werewolves,” Calvin says. “I guess I owe you a drink.”

10

Agency 51

Eldi is asleep and drooling in her bunk by the time we’re on our second whiskey sour. In the end, I provided the liquor and Manny’s bartending services for the promise of a latte later. Winnie and her occupants almost palpably breathe a sigh of relief, dropping the facade of simple 1970s camper van and throwing the door open on the entire cabinet of curiosities. Calvin shook Manny’s hand after a brief double take when he trailed us upstairs, and watched with bemusement as Manny expertly made the first round of cocktails. His keep earned, Manny settles into the passenger seat, plainly intent on eavesdropping. Bandit refuses to make an appearance, but every so often a raccoon paw snakes under the door and gropes for the peanuts Manny occasionally tosses in that direction. Winnie puts her radio on, a habit of hers, quietly scanning through channel after channel, pausing occasionally for a favorite song or a news report on the UFOs. Calvin has question after question.

“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.”