“How bad is it?” he asks.
“Bad.” I straighten myself up. “I’ve got the Obligation under control, but I don’t know for how long.” I’m struck by a hopeful thought. “Wait. You’re supposed to know everything, right? Any chance you know a way to get rid of this curse thatdoesn’tinvolve handing you over to the elf?”
“I don’t knoweverything, Alvin,” he sniffs, but he looks guilty. He then glances up and to the right, his eyes moving back and forth. “But as far as human knowledge goes, there are only three ways to get free of a mystical pact: you can honor it, the person you owe can choose to release you… or you can die. And, just in case you’re wondering, him dying before you do any of those things means it willneverget lifted.” He frowns, very unhappy. “I’m sorry. I know I put you in this situation. I wish I had a different answer.”
Well, those options are definitely sucky. Luckily, I have one more magical resource I can tap. Even if it’s the last thing I want to do.
“You didn’t put me in this situation, Collin. I put myself in it. And if human knowledge can’t help me, then I guess I have no choice.”
I grimace at him, trying to make light of something that feels very heavy. “I’ll just have to appeal to adarkerpower.”
Collin’s posture immediately stiffens because he knows exactly what I mean. Or, in this case, who. In San Francisco, thereisone person who might know more than both Collin and Ms. Stryker about the magical world. Aparanormal expert with centuries of experience. A woman with a relentless thirst to discover other people’s secrets but whose services come at a very high cost.
It looks like it’s time for a long-overdue visit with Mother.
14
Even though it’snot even 5:30 a.m. yet, Mom answers my text immediately. Other than the obligatory rent-check conversation, I never reach out first, and never before dawn, so she knows it must be serious. Of course, the quick reply isn’t because she’s concerned or anything. I’ve probably just sparked her curiosity. She’ll do literally anything to fight her boredom.
She sets a meeting for 6:30. She even says she’ll cook and promises me pancakes and bacon. (Her favorite breakfast, not mine.)
I’m grateful at least that I have enough time to shower and change my clothes before I’ll need to hustle out the door to get to her multi-floor penthouse condo in Pacific Heights. (I do check the window in the bedroom. Looks just as intact from the inside as it did from the outside. I don’t even feel a breeze. There’s definitely residual magic, but I can’t tell whether that’s a glamour or if he fixed the glass outright. Guess I’ll find out if it suddenly wears off!)
Collin disappears the moment I step out of my pantsand into the shower, which in some ways I’m also grateful for. I’m still hurt, so having more sexy time together to recharge my healing powers probablymightmake a lot of sense, but I’m already having to concentrate to keep the incubus hunger at bay. I don’t want to do anything to encourage it. And anyway, I don’t even know what to make of what happened thelasttime we “got physical.” Even thinking about it makes my stomach vibrate with emotion. What emotion, I’m not sure.
So, I go with my standard operating procedure and embrace denial. I have enough upcoming drama that I don’t need to add any more to my plate.
The shower wakes me up. I’m not exactly a new man, but I do feel better. Once I dry off, I wipe clear a slash of steam off the mirror and check out my face. I can’t do anything about the cuts and bruising around my nose and mouth, which look days healed but still visible. But I can at least fix my hair and wear a shirt that matches my pants and shoes. (Mom cares about that kind of stuff. Deeply.) I go with yet another polo (navy) and my only clean pair of beige khakis, slipping the watch into its back pocket. Collin appears next to me as I put on some brown penny loafers I haven’t worn since high school.
“You don’t need to do this, Alvin,” he says, his expression downright mournful, but there’s an undercurrent of anxiety. “I know a way to contact the elf. If you hand me over to him, you’ll be free.”
I ignore him. In part because the old me might have agreed. Between the Obligation crushing my insides and the murderous glare the elf gave me just an hour ago, I am feeling pretty overwhelmed. But at some point you have todecide if you have what it takes to be who you want to be. And for better or worse, now-or-never looks like it’s still now.
Collin stays quiet in the rideshare over to her building and also as we ascend the elevator to the 49thfloor of the Pacific Pinnacle Tower. The whole way, I try to focus on keeping my breath even—and not just because I’m fighting the Obligation.
The elevator doors open directly into the polished white marble foyer of the first floor of her condo. My mother is standing there, waiting for me. She gives me a serene smile. “Alvin. My darling son.”
“Hi, Mom.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “What happened to your face?”
“It had a little disagreement with a steering wheel. The wheel won the argument.”
Her brows knit, baffled. “You were driving?”
“Yeah. And that’s literally theleastinteresting thing that’s happened to me in the last twenty-four hours!” Her eyes light up, so I know I’ve truly piqued her curiosity. (Which gives me at least a fighting chance to maintain control of this conversation,ifI can make her work for it.)
I push past her. “You said something about pancakes?”
She smiles, immediately on to me and my attempt to keep her in suspense, but she looks more impressed than pissed. “I did. Batter is already made.”
She glides effortlessly toward her high-end stainless-steel chef’s kitchen, which gives me a chance to take in her current appearance.
Before I was born, Mom wasn’t just a strong and alluring succubus. According to her, she was the strongestand most alluring succubus on the entire planet. And yeah, I’d question the source, except that she can still do things that supposedly no other succubi can, like completely change her form. Most sex demons who feed can makesomeminor alteration to their looks to attract prey—more luminous skin, slightly bigger muscles, maybe a change of eye color. But when my mother met my father, she was in the guise of a stunning Filipina TV star with inky black hair, brown eyes, and a rich, dusky complexion. Now the woman approaching her $30,000 quartz island is blonde with green irises and flawless ivory skin.
Wearing pink slippers and peach-colored lingerie—perfectly draped over her supernaturally perky breasts—she appears years younger than me. The term “barely legal” immediately comes to mind. (Her OnlyFans account is one of the top ten earners worldwide. Before the Internet, she could only “date” a few lonely, rich men at a time. Now she can bilk thousands.) And this is a pretty standard look for her. To say it was confusing growing up is an understatement. I could go on for a long time about how totally alone and isolated I felt as a boy, with everyone assuming I was Pinoy but having zero actual connection to any history or culture I could identify with. Until we got to San Francisco a few years ago, we’d move all the time, and Mom seemed to delight in choosing the most backwater, least diverse places in the U.S. to settle down in. I was always “the new kid,” so both the white and Black students at school kept me at arm’s length, and because I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t talk to the few real Filipino kids about even small-stakes stuff like food or holidays without sounding like a complete idiot. I felt likea fraud and, on top of that, to have a sexpot Mom who didn’t look anything like me—and who wouldn’t ever, evenonce, acknowledge to another living person that we were blood relations?— (!)
Yeah, I could say more. A lot more.
