Summoning Sebastian (13 page)

“Um…in a bottle.” I looked down at where I was sprawled in my seat, the blue bottled cradled in my hands.

“Whoa.” He stared, eyes wide, as if unable to comprehend his own current state. “That bottle?”

“Yeah. That one.”

Sebastian shook his head. “I'm not granting you any wishes.”

I laughed so hard I woke up. The bottle was pulsing in my lap. I clutched it hard between my hands. “It'll be okay,” I told it, hoping Sebastian could hear me. “I promise I'll take care of you.”

The bottle thrummed, a rapid fluttering that reminded me of a hummingbird. It thrummed, quieted, thrummed again.

Somehow, I knew he'd heard me.

Smiling, I stroked the bottle, then set it carefully away in my carryon and pulled out my iPod. Time to learn some Russian.

C
hapter Thirteen

When there was only ice in the sky, and the sky and the world became ice, the People of the Caves moved deeper, and there they found the life from blood, and the refuge of the darkness.
—Codex of the Caves, section III, lines 5-7

T
he stopover at Moscow Sheremetyevo International Airport was full of bustle, paperwork, bright colors and pointy Cyrillic letters. I'd spent the better part of about six hours of the flight with headphones on, listening to vocabulary lists from the CDs I'd bought, and another hour or so playing around with the alphabet. Apparently I did have a knack, because I was able to read and understand enough to get us to our flight to Chelyabinsk. Which was fortunate because it was a big airport. It also had a train station attached, which had me confused for a few minutes. But only a few minutes.

Surprisingly, Colin apparently didn't know a lot of Russian beyond “please”, “thank you”, and something I was pretty sure meant “go fuck yourself”. Roland was a bit more fluent, but even she seemed awkward in the language. From my cram session, I gathered she hadn't used it since Soviet times. Things had changed. I pointed out signs and translated short announcements with a certain amount of smugness I couldn't keep under control. Colin kept giving me strange looks, like I'd been replaced with a doppelganger while we were in the air. I just grinned at him.

In any case, we made it through the tangle of the airport and onto the next leg of the flight. I was hungry, so I bypassed a couple of Subways and a Burger King for a Kroshka Kartoshka, where I bought a fluffy, foil-wrapped baked potato topped with crab meat, of all things. I also acquired a squishy, fruity cake, which was excellent. The influx of carbs meant I was fairly mellow by the time I got settled in for the rest of the journey.

It was dark for this flight, so my traveling companions were awake this time. It was a short flight, though—only about two and a half hours, so there wasn't time for much chatter. Colin spent most of the time talking to Roland in a low voice—so low I wasn't sure how she could hear him, vampire or no—while one of his hands lay absently on my leg. I put my own hand on top of it and squeezed. The closer we got to Chelyabinsk, the more nervous I got. Not about Sebastian—I hadn't even gotten to a point where I could think about that yet. I was nervous about my parents meeting my boyfriend. That prospect seemed safer to worry about and infinitely more immediate.

Colin must have been a little nervous about it too, because when they announced our final approach, he shifted his attention to me.

“What are their names again?”

I told him, and I also repeated the rundown I'd given him a few days ago about what they did and why they were in Siberia in the first place. Colin nodded soberly and seemed to be mentally filing the information.

“They're not going to like me, are they?” he finally concluded.

I shrugged. “I honestly couldn't tell you. Just…try to be polite.”

He squeezed my hand. “Okay. I'll do that.”

C
helyabinsk Balandino Airport was much smaller than the airport in Moscow. Which was understandable, since Chelyabinsk isn't all that gigantic, itself. As I'd discovered on the previous flight, coming in at night, with no windows, took much of the joy out of approaching a new city by air. We didn't get to see what we were flying into—we just landed, got off, and there was an airport, noisy and bustling in spite of its smallness, and smelling vaguely of old grease and diesel fuel.

I juggled my carry-on, careful to protect Sebastian's bubble-wrapped bottle as best I could by keeping the bag close to my body. We'd have to stop by baggage claim on this trip and unload. But first, we needed to find my parents, who were meeting us just outside security.

It seemed like I hadn't seen my parents in years. Although, thinking about it, I actually
hadn't
seen them in years. They travel so much, and usually out of the country, that it was hard to get together with them. So when I saw them in the terminal, waiting for us, for a split second I actually didn't recognize them. They were…older than I remembered.

In turn, they seemed to do a quick double take as well—not so much at me as at my traveling companions. I could see why—they were both very tall, very attractive, and had that odd, catlike quality of movement all vampires displayed.

Strangely enough, Colin glanced at me as the moment of recognition passed and we all started to move toward each other. He looked—well, he looked as taken aback by my parents as they had been by him.

“Do I look okay?” he asked me.

Seriously? He was going to be that nervous? Then I reconsidered my reaction. That was actually kind of adorable.

“You look like you just got off a plane,” I told him, which probably wasn't reassuring. I patted his shoulder. “It's okay. You look fine.”

“I'll take your word on that.” He straightened his collar and ran a hand over his hair. “I hope they like me.”

I couldn't hold back a laugh. “You're a tall, brooding, gorgeous, vampire asshole. What's not to like?”

By now, we'd reached the spot where Mom and Dad were standing. Dad reached for my carry-on, and I handed it over. “Just…be careful with that,” I said. “It has breakables in it.” Then I leaned forward and hugged him. “It's good to see you.”

He hugged me back, the embrace firm and warm. I felt like I'd needed a hug from Dad for an eternity, although it hadn't occurred to me until that moment that I did. Tears sprang to my eyes before I could blink them back. I drew up a hand to push them away and started to make an excuse for them, but then my mom took over the hugging and there was no point.

“Oh, honey,” she said, one hand cupping the back of my head. “It's good to see you too.”

By the time I'd untangled from Mom's embrace, Dad was already introducing himself to Roland and Colin. I hadn't really wanted my parents to start chitchatting with them without some moderation on my part, but they seemed to be getting along all right. My dad was even smiling instead of threatening Colin with a wooden stake. So that was a plus.

For his part, Colin still appeared to be nervous. “We've worked together for a few years now,” he said, handily sidestepping the fact he was my boss. “She's doing more administrative work now, but I have to say I miss having her on the collections team. She can kick ass and take names better than anybody in the department, and that's including guys twice her size.”

That earned him a companionable slap on the shoulder from my dad. Colin's gaze drifted toward me, as if he was aware I was watching him, and I gave him a soft smile. With a little more training, he just might shape up to be a pretty good boyfriend after all.

R
oland and Colin went to wrangle our luggage, which seemed fair since the luggage was heavy and they were vampires with super strength. Mom, Dad and I waited at the FlyBar, where we ordered coffee and appetizers. I was hungry, but not quite ready for a full meal, so the combination was perfect.

The FlyBar itself was really a restaurant, nicely appointed in a Victorian style with flowery wallpaper and recessed, curtained booths. The coffee was strong and hot, the appetizers tasty.

“It's a bit of a drive to the house,” Dad told me. “It might not be comfortable with all five of us.”

I sipped the coffee, enjoying the dark flavor and the jolt of caffeine. “I don't think Roland's coming with us.” I paused, judging Dad's reaction. He had frowned, and I knew he was going to ask if I didn't tell him. “She has business farther east. Sort of paving the way for the rest of our trip.”

“Where exactly are you going?” Mom had commandeered my carry-on and was treating it with careful respect, which I appreciated. I would have liked to have it back, to be honest, but on the other hand it was nice to give my back and shoulders a break.

I mulled whether to tell her. “It's kind of…vampire business,” I finally said. “I'm not sure I should talk about it. Also, we need to finalize things before we can even go. That's why Roland's going ahead of us. She's kind of…a vampire bigwig, I guess.”

“Really.” I could see Dad's thinky thoughts going in circles behind his eyes. “I don't know much about the hierarchy in the vampire world.”

“Nobody does,” I countered. He was thinking up an idea for a new book. I could tell. “Well, except the vampires.”

“When you get a chance, maybe tell us what you can manage,” Mom put in. She was all over the interesting book ideas too.

I anticipated long interrogations once we got settled in. And not just about my vampire boyfriend. “Okay. Will do.” Maybe I would. I'd have to make that decision later.

Colin meandered up about then, dragging our suitcases behind him. Neither of us had packed heavily, so he'd been able to stack both pieces of luggage on top of each other for easy rolling.

“Where's Roland?” I asked.

“She took her luggage and headed out,” Colin said. “She seemed anxious to get things taken care of.” His frown made me think I needed to ask him for more details about that as soon as I got a chance. “Are we about ready to go?”

“I think so,” Mom chipped in. “Are you ready for a car ride?”

“Ready as I'll ever be,” said Colin.

I
'd about given up on absorbing anything about our surroundings, since I seemed destined to go everywhere at night these days. I managed to take in a few details on the short trip from the airport to Chelyabinsk proper. There were headlights and streetlights to illuminate things along the way, so I took in what I could as we drove.

I'd always pictured Russia as a lovely collection of bright colors, onion-domed buildings and Russian Orthodox art. This was because the only pictures I'd really seen of Russia were from Moscow and St. Petersburg. Chelyabinsk was neither Moscow nor St. Petersburg, though parts of it held similar elements. Other places reminded me more of downtown Detroit. As best I could tell in the dark, anyway.

My dad, who likes to talk as much as Rufus likes to dig holes in my yard, was giving us a recounting of the history of the area as he drove. Chelyabinsk had been much smaller before World War II, until the evacuation of numerous factories from the country's more vulnerable western areas had expanded its population considerably. Now it hosted over a million inhabitants. At one point, it had been known as “Tankograd” because so many tanks came out of the local factories.

It wasn't all heavy industry and pollution, though. There were also gold-domed cathedrals, museums, opera houses and monuments galore. Dad promised he'd take us to see some of them while we were there. I wasn't completely convinced we'd live long enough for him to keep that promise, though, based on his driving.

He seemed comfortable on the road, from his fluent Russian swearing to the dash cam in the middle of the front window. From the backseat, I flinched every time he executed a maneuver—driving in Russia apparently owed much of its finesse to hockey—but Mom sat placidly in the front seat, knitting. I did notice, though, that her attention was focused resolutely on her needles. She was knitting straight stockinette. She could have done it with her eyes closed.

When the fifth or sixteenth driver cut us off and nearly ended all our lives in a fireball of exploding late-model Lada Largus, Colin moved a little closer and put his arm around me. He'd been paying attention to my dad's narrative, even asking questions now and then. It occurred to me he might actually be interested, rather than just placating my father to make a good impression. It was fairly interesting, although I wasn't reassured by the trivia point that Chelyabinsk was one of the most heavily polluted cities in the world. It made me glad I didn't have asthma.

I snuggled against Colin's chest and tuned out the surrounding traffic and Dad's necessarily erratic driving. He was talking about the Soviet-era growth of towns like Magnitogorsk and Chelyabinsk in the Siberian regions, driven by Stalin's expansion plans in the 1930s. After a while, he veered into a narrative about the near-miss meteorite, pointing out a factory that had had all its windows blown out from the force wave. I ventured a peek out the window. The factory had been re-windowed and stood gray and uninspiring in the wash of its nighttime security lights. I snugged back down and slid my hand into my carry-on to cup Sebastian's bottle.

The thrumming vibrations seemed to have eased off a bit, but as I stroked the glass curve, they quickened again. The bottle felt warmer against my fingers, and I laid my palm flush against it, feeling the warmth and the buzzing. Fortunately, it didn't make any noise. I didn't want Mom and Dad to think I'd whipped out a vibrator in the backseat of their car.

There was definitely a sexual element to what the bottle was doing, though. As I continued to stroke it, the heat warmed my thighs and the vibration… Well, it did about what you'd expect a vibrating bottle to do to a girl's lap. Worse, there was another sensation, and I was pretty sure this one didn't originate with me. Sebastian was getting himself all hot and bothered, even from inside his bottle.

Well. This could get super awkward. Colin peered at me side-eyed, as if he too could catch the drift of Sebastian's arousal. Mom and Dad seemed oblivious, thank God; they'd stopped discussing local history and were arguing about whether we should stop for dinner before we went home or just whip up something at the house. I would have thought they'd have thought about that earlier.

What?
Colin mouthed, and I shrugged. Then, seeing no other way to explain, I took his hand and set it on the bottle.

Colin's eyebrows rose as soon as his fingers touched the glass, then one of them came down again, and he got that expression on his face that told me we were about to get into all kinds of trouble with Mom and Dad.

I started to pull my hand away from the bottle and even gave brief thought to putting it back inside the carry-on. But Mom and Dad seemed pretty involved in their conversation about dinner, and I didn't want to make Sebastian feel rejected. We'd already stuffed him in a bottle—no point making him feel even more isolated. It just seemed mean.