01 Summoned-Summoned (19 page)

“It's an apple, you perv,” she says. “They're from the east coast. Always wanted to try one.”

“Is that a euphemism? I'm not following, but it sounds hot.”

She laughs. “No, Dimitri, it's an actual apple.”

I say, “I gotta admit, I'm not really thinking about apples anymore.”

“Please,” she says in a cute little begging tone that makes me want to invite her over and have her beg for something else. “Just swing by a grocery store and grab me a golden ginger, okay?”

“You're a very strange person,” I say, even though we both know I like it. “I can bring you back an apple, if you really want one, but I gotta get rolling. See ya in a few days.”

“Thanks, sweetie,” she says and then hangs up.

I stare at my phone. An apple? I haven't yet figured out what goes on in her brain, but I wouldn't mind appeasing it for the rest of my life.

***

I pull the Civic into the mansion and call Silvia.

“I just finished packing,” she says, breathless.

“You mean, having your stuff packed,” I reply. “Why do you sound like you've been jogging?”

“Whatever.” 

I can picture her fluttering her eyes.

  “Are you coming inside?”

“Rather not,” I say.

“Why?”

“I don't want to deal with Karl.”

I probably should make sure he's good with this plan, but Silvia has no reason to get me in trouble with him. It would be like framing the family dog.

“It's almost midnight. He's asleep,” she says, then speaks to someone else in the room, her voice muffled.

“He's never asleep. Just quit making me wait.” I hang up the phone.

Within minutes, she bustles out one set of front doors. A maid follows right behind, carrying her luggage. Silvia is a toy dog away from her own reality show.

When she approaches the car, I roll down my window. 

“Hey, Silv?” I gesture at the maid. “You know we can't bring them with us, right?”

Silvia shrugs and rounds to the passenger side.

I glance at her as she climbs in. She lights up a cigarette, takes a puff, and throws it out the window. Then she gives me that unsettling look.

This trip is going to be a disaster.

The only way Silvia and I are going to survive this trip is if we don't talk. I blast the radio, and she smokes. We're good until we pass through Phoenix.

Then she turns down the radio. “Where are the hotels?”

I glance at her. “Which hotels?”

“That you reserved.” She taps ashes out the window.

I grin, because I know where this conversation is headed. “I didn't reserve anything. We'll find places as we need.”

She wrinkles her nose as she tosses out the cigarette. “That's . . . barbaric.”

“You've forgotten who you're traveling with.” I resume blaring the speakers.

She turns the radio down. Again. “Do you at least know which city?”

“I'm not a travel agent. And the next time you touch that dial, I'm taking it as a sign you want to go home.”

I crank the volume back up. She scowls at me, then lights another cigarette and turns away.

***

We drive for nearly two hours, heading north. The landscape is desert brush, something Silvia has spent her whole life among, yet she continues to stare at it. I'm pretty sure she's ignoring me. With any luck, she won't do more than blink until we reach the first stop. 

The trip just starts to become optimistic when there's a break between songs.

“I want to shower and change my clothes,” she says.

And here we go.

I turn down the radio. “We're not even out of Arizona yet.”

“How much longer?”

“'Til New Mexico?” I focus on the road. “About five or six hours.”

“I mean to Virginia.”

“Like, three days. Once we cross the New Mexico border, I'm not turning around. You have 'til then to decide if you really want to do this.”

“I do,” she replies, without hesitation.

“Yeah, we'll see.” I glance at the road sign. “We're heading into Winslow now.” Then I start singing, “I'm standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona—”

She taps her hand to my mouth. “Stop. Please.”

“Told you,” I say with a laugh. “I'm not that kind of genie.”

She rolls her eyes.

“Well, I'm not. Hey, look, a stop up here has showers.”

She sits forward. “Let's go there.”

“It's a truck stop, Silv.”

She glances at me with a concerned look.

“Not the Hilton,” I say.

“Is it gross?”

“Yeah, kinda gross.”

She sighs and throws herself back against the seat.

She's quiet for a while before speaking again. “Have you ever had sex?”

My foot slips off the gas pedal. “What? Mother of God, Silvia, can we never talk about this, ever?”

“I'm just curious.” 

“That isn't something you just ask people.” I choke back the disgust rising in my throat.

She turns in her seat to face me. “I should be able to ask you anything.”

“No. No, you should not.” 

Silence fills the car. I hope that we don't have to speak again until this trip is over.

But after a while Silvia opens her mouth. “Do you think it's better with someone you care about?”

I know she means me. I know she means us. But my thoughts go to Syd. The way her hands feel working me over. Her gasps and shudders, and the look afterward, like she will never leave my side.

“Yes,” I say, “it's definitely better with someone you care about.”

***

We roll into Albuquerque around five in the morning. The sun is starting to peek up, and I've had enough of Silvia's just-about-to-ask-something expression. She's brainstorming hard, and I rarely like the aftermath.

I turn off the highway and pull into the parking lot of a hotel. 

Silvia blinks. “What are we doing here?”

“We're going to sleep,” I say. “You'll be able to take that shower, too.”

She gazes at the hotel, one of those places that probably doesn't even have a name. “It looks haunted.”

“Just because it doesn't have valet parking doesn't mean it has poltergeist.” I laugh as she continues to stare at the windows. “Let's go see what they have available.”

I step out, and she follows me into the lobby and to the front desk.

“Need two rooms.” I start to pull out my wallet.

Silvia slaps her J.P. Morgan Palladium credit card onto the counter. “One room.”

I look at her. 

“Two beds,” she says, as if assuring me. Then she raises her eyebrow at the clerk.

He glances at me, and I shrug. “The princess has spoken.”

He gives an appreciative laugh, because he thinks I'm joking. He checks us in, and then we return to car for our luggage. At least she didn't ask for a bellhop.

She grabs up two of her bags and wanders toward the back of the hotel. She takes in everything as she goes, like we're in freakin' Wonderland.

I grab her other bag and my own, slam the trunk, and follow after her. Our room is on the second floor. She unlocks the door and props it open for me with her foot.

It is self-aware, after all.

As I drop the luggage between the beds, she crosses the room to the balcony doors.

“It looks like Phoenix,” she says with a hint of disappointment, gazing at the purple mountain skyline.

I take the bags from her and add them to the pile. “We're still in the desert, and will be for some time. Why don't you go wash up?”

She turns and heads to the bathroom without a word.

I get the feeling this road trip isn't all her excitable little mind had anticipated.

A while later, I'm staring blankly at something on the TV, and she emerges from the bathroom showered and dressed in loose pajamas. She crawls into bed under the covers. Her gaze fixes on me. Again. I've never been able to figure out what she's thinking when she does that. I probably don't want to know.

I toss my bag onto my bed and unpack clean clothes. We have a full day of driving ahead of us when we wake, and I don't intend to make any more stops than necessary.

Silvia speaks out of nowhere. “Can we have pancakes before we leave?”

I glance at her. “Uh, sure?” 

“Thanks, Dim.” A little smile slides onto her lips.

Her eyes close, and she's asleep before I even head for the shower. I expect her to be awake when I get out, but she doesn't stir as I turn off the lights and settle into my bed. My body melts against the mattress. I consider texting Syd, but my phone is in my jeans pocket across the room and I'm too tired to get back up.

I'm not sure what to say to her anyway.

***

My eyes flutter open. Sunlight oozes around the edges of the curtains drawn over the balcony door, but does little to fill the room.

Silvia is sitting on the floor next to my bed, resting her head against her arm on the mattress. 

I nudge her shoulder. “Silv?”

She looks up, blinking, and settles her chin on her wrist. 

“What's up?” I prop myself on my elbows, trying to clear my head. “Bad dream?”

She doesn't reply, but pushes up onto the mattress.

She's naked.

“Holy shit.” I put my arm out to block her as she crawls up next to me. “What the hell are you doing?”

She gazes down at me, a small contemplative frown on her lips. “I don't want our first time to be like that.”

“Like what?” I choke on my words.

“I don't want you to have been . . .  summoned,” she says. “I want it to be because we—you—want to.”

“Uh, that's never, ever going to happen.” My hand tries to figure out an appropriate place so I can push her back. 

Touching her anywhere seems . . . wrong.

“We grew up together, Dim. I don't want anyone else.” Her frown deepens, as if this is all an inconvenience to her.

The money for personal trainers and nutritionist apparently went to good use, but there is absolutely nothing erotic about Silvia the Succubus naked on all fours next to me. 

She sits back on her knees, unabashed. 

“I know you've been with other girls,” she says in a tone like she's giving the weather report. “You're my inheritance. It's not . . . fair.”

My eyes are as confused as my hand.

Then her expression seems to settle on the realization that I'm not giving in to her weird little fantasy. 

“It is going to happen.” Her tone sounds more like the normal Silvia.

She relinquishes off the bed and shuffles through her luggage. Her figure is stunning. Her mind is frightening.

She looks up at me. “I gave you a choice.”

I scramble out of bed, standing on the side opposite of her. Shock morphs into anger.

“Don't ever fuckin' do that again.”

She shrugs and starts dressing for the day.

“I mean it,” I snap. “It's not acceptable.”

She ignores me as she pulls on her clothes, slips on her shoes, and then shoulders two of her bags. She heads for the front door.

I cross the room and block the exit with my arm, hand against the wall. 

“Get out of my way, Dim,” she says, voice cracking on a whine.

I reply through gritted teeth, “Stop acting like I didn't ask you to the prom.”

She stabs me with an unamused look. “Well, you didn't.”

“We didn't have a prom!” I throw my hands in the air. 

She ducks past me and lets herself out. The door clicks shut behind her. I scramble for my things, then head to the parking lot.

She is standing by the car, bags at her feet. I unlock the trunk, drop in the rest of the luggage, and slide in behind the steering wheel. She struggles with her bags then closes the trunk so softly I pop it and get out to shut it properly.

She settles into the passenger seat and lights a cigarette. 

I roll down the windows. Just because she wants to smell like a crematory, doesn't mean I have to.

While she puffs away, I search on my phone GPS for a place to eat and then head around the front of the hotel to drop off the keys. Then we're on the road.

She says nothing, but flicks a half-used cigarette out the window and lights another one as we pull into IHOP.

She looks up, surprised. “What's this?”

“Pancakes.” I twist the key from the ignition. “I assume you still want those?”

She nods, then steps out and crushes her cigarette before following me into the lobby. A hostess shows us to our booth. 

My phone vibrates in my pocket.

“Hey, order me some coffee.” I lean over to pat her shoulder. “I'll be right back.”

I try not to seem in a hurry as I head toward the hall. The last thing I need is for Silvia to try to get her claws on my phone. I duck inside the bathroom and pull the phone from my pocket.

It's Syd.

I don't know why she would be calling me. I haven't been away an entire twenty-four hours yet.

I answer, my voice low. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She sounds tired. “I just wanted to see what time your flight leaves.”

“Uh. I'm driving,” I say, which sounds even more ridiculous spoken aloud. “Long story.”

“Oh.” She pauses. “When are we going to New Mexico?”

“Why would we go to New Mexico?” My attempt to sound casual falls flat, but at least I'm properly confused. 

She doesn't reply.