Xolo

Within minutes of entering Mexican air-space, Trisha headed back to the restroom with a notebook under her arm. It was a little tattered and torn, but what thing of ancient power wasn't these days?

She locked the door behind her and laid the notebook on the counter. She looked at the blood splattered stains on its cover and wondered if this would work in a moving tube of metal. It certainly hadn't worked in the states, but she'd been warned it would not. She'd made the official courtesy call to the Mexican Police authorities call before boarding her flight.

Now it was time to call the other Mexican Authorities with power.

She chanted in Nahuatl the words of power she'd been thought by her Mexican counter-part, Lady Quetzalcoatl. They'd both gotten their powers from extra-dimensional beings. Trisha's were based in science; although it was an impossibly advanced science. Lady Quetzacoatl's powers seemed to be magic based, as was her specter-like patron who had followed her across dimensions, letting her force of life act as something like a reversed psychopomp leading it out of Mictlan.

Trisha wasn't sure she bought its story more than 10%. A god getting trapped in Hell didn't seem very realistic, but then given the things she'd seen, the places she been, and the powers she had, she couldn't simply rule it out.

She consciously decided that she'd have to accept it all at least on an Allegorical level. Especially when she was about to communicate with a feathered serpent god with blood and the chanting of a nearly dead language. She flipped throught the pages while chanting. Almost 100 pages of charcoal drawings, each drawn by Lady Quetzalcoatl herself. Each a drawing of the feathered serpent in a slightly different position. Every scratch of charcoal had been mixed with blood. She closed the book and used a hair pin to prick her finger.

Three drops of blood landed on the cover of the notebook as she chanted.

The notebook seemed unimpressed.

She opened the book, her chanting more demanding, but not much louder. She flipped the pages and the serpent danced as the images strobed past. Trisha came to the end. The last drawing was only a drawing. She repeated twice more, getting a little blood on the pages from her finger prick. Nothing.

Silently cursing the TSA, she created a thin razor sharp red "stripe" of energy. She slashed her palm for a more respectable blood flow. It wasn't a cermonial onyx knife, but the red stripe was of her power, which the Mexican diety would surely apreciate. She splashed the cover with her blood and a variation in the chanting.

The book sighed and she opened up the pages, heedless of the blood she got on the pages. Either it would help or the book was useless to her anyway. She flipped the pages past and the image of the serpent god seemed to move. The pages ended but the image seemed to stop.

Except the feathered head of the serpent turned to look at Trisha. "Who begs for Quetzalcoatl?" It asked. It rose up from the paper, not looking three dimensional in the least. Then it's head moved towards the front of the aircraft, and it leaned forward streading its wings. The feathers rippled in unseen winds. "Oh," it said in pleased wonder. "We are flying." It rose up fully and seemed to glide in the air without fully leaving the last page.

Trisha smiled. "Hello, Queztling, you know me. We have fought together, you and I." Its eyes were closed in bliss and it seemed to have no wish to communicate with her. One of Lady Quetzalcoatl's power was that she could animate any snake or image of a feathered serpent into a Queztling. It was an impish creature; extremely whimsical... at least compared to the rest of its blood thirsty panteon. Part of that was that it was a construct of the Lady's mortal mind and Quezalcoatl's will, Trisha decided.

The imp ignored her for a very long time it seemed. Trisha felt surprisingly awkward and decided that maybe a formal introduction was the least she could do. "I am Trisha Rittenhouse, also known as Yankee Poodle, warrior of the lands to the North."

"Quetzalcoatl sends you greetings, and sad news for the Lady now travels with our brother."

It took a moment for Trisha to recall that the serpent god's brother was death. Or something more akin to a classic ferryman to the netherworld, then death itself. Either way, that meant her friend was dead. And she'd never had known her real name. "How did she go?"

"Bravely," the drawing said and it looked away saying no more, looking once more into a wind only it felt.

Trisha resisted the urge to touch the drawing. It was beginning to look almost three dimensional around the edges. "Has Quetzalcoatl selected a new..." She almost said 'host' but decided that might not sit well with a powerful other dimensional entity that fancied it self a god. "Agent on Earth?"

"Yes, you shall meet my warrior on the roof of the Hotel Astor tonight, along with El Cerdo-Mosca."

This startled Trish because mind reading was not one of the creature's powers. The Hotel Astor was the room she was booked under. "How...?"

"You booked your room with the notebook in hand. A Queztling is never a simple drawing. When awakened, I can recall all that I have seen and heard if asked the right question. The Pig-Fly asked my mortal where we should meet you. They are speaking to another Queztling."

"Oh," Trisha wasn't sure if this counted as a form of scrying or not. "Can you ask them what ti-?"

"We are NOT a telephone," the creature snapped. "Be on the roof at dusk."

Then suddenly the drawing broke down into dust that drifted into the sink. There was a knock at the door. Trish closed the book and held it under her right arm and let the crane in to use it.

She needed to use the restroom herself, but she wasn't going the use it with the notebook in their with her.