XOLO 3

It turns out the Pig-Fly got around in a mint 1976 AMC Matador coupe. It was also coincidentally, the color mint green.

Oddly enough, he kept it in a cigaret case until he needed it. "When things are small, the rules are different," he explained. "Samuél was quite fascinated by this. No matter my size, I can breath. The car runs. But the air isn't smaller. My strength is undiminished and my car doesn't rust. These are mysteries, yes, but I will not be an experiment."

Trisha looked at him patiently, "Yes, but I simply asked how you keep the gasoline from splashing out while you run around with it in your pocket?"

Pig-Fly shrugged. "It's magic."

"Bullshit," the dark Xolo chimed in English from the shadowy backseat. "He's got a series of baffles on the fuel line and the gas cap. He's a mechanical genius."

"You should be practicing your Spanish, Nancy." The Porcine looked at Trisha, ignoring the oncoming traffic and driving around it with a precision that bordered on the supernatural. Like a real fly, Zooman had a very wide field of perception. "You see what I put up with? Worst wing-man ever."

"I'm not your sidekick. I'm your partner." The Spanish was correct; but the accent still said tourist.

Pig-Fly gave Trisha a lustful wink. Trisha rolled her eyes and used her normal, limited range of perception to completely ignore Zooman. She looked into the backseat. Although she'd first mistaken him as a young teenager – perhaps 12- she since had figured out that the dark Xoloitzcuintle was at least in his twenties and a full adult. "You're not from around here, are you?"

He smiled. "Yes and no. My mother was from here and my father was a third generation American. I was conceived here, but was born in the United States. Last year, I met a rich powerful man who said I should live in Mexico for at least a year, to expand my horizons. He thought it wouldn't be a bad thing if a little machismo rubbed off on me."

"Did it work?" She asked, more comfortable with him.

The Xolo shrugged. "He rubbed off on me, so yeah... a little."

Trisha smiled slightly as Pig-Fly guffawed with insincere force. "He loves telling that joke. Never gets boring."

The canine in the backseat smirked and took a Lucha libre mask from a backpocket. He fiddled with it as if relunctant to put it on. He continued in English. "I've only been doing this a few weeks. I hope I don't disappoint."

"We're not here to fight anyone, I'm just hoping to find something out about the crew of the oil platform."

"And those chilldren," Pig-fly interjected. Trish said nothing, ignoring the male unless a battle broke out in the car.

The short, dark dog moved his ears back, a little embarassed. "Actually, I was thinking about Quetzalcoatl. He's a little disturbed that I'm neither a reptile nor a bird. He says there is a great unbalancing occurring across the magical planes. He says all the Gods can feel it, but none agree what it means. He says I am full of feminine energy... and the rest will fix itself. And I'm really hoping that he doesn't plan on replacing me... because I've seen the retirement plan."

Pig-Fly crossed himself and kept driving in a manner that might provoke Trisha to cross herself, too, if she paid attention to it. She trusted that Zooman wouldn't do anything to scratch his beloved Mexican made car.

"I'm sure you'll be fine. Lady Quetzalcoatl used to be nervous along those lines... plus she felt guilty about the plane crash that gave her the power."

The Xolo raised his non-existent eyebrows. "That's not exactly how she got her powers."

Zooman didn't meet her eyes, for once her watched the road dilligently. "True, Trisha, she got that all from one of her Telenovelas."

"One of...?"

"My little prickly pear, we all lie. We all wear masks. We all have trust issues."

Trisha had known all that. She was just surprised to have been fooled. She hadn't lied about her life or her backstory. And she hadn't realized the gift of the notebook could be used to spy on her. She'd been touched by all the hand drawings and magic that it represented.

"What was her Origin then?" She liked to think she kept the resentment out of her voice.

Zooman shrugged. The Xolo spread his mask on his lap. He stretched and flattened it just enough to make the feathered serpent icon clear. "Quezt?" The icon inflated almost instantly and became a three foot long snake with thick rainbow wings. She'd seen Lady Quetzalcoatl use her powers a hundred times and never seen a Queztling just pop up at her command like that. She was impressed, but magic always impressed her. And frightened her a little, also.

"Car!" the imp said and fluttered up from the dog's lap and arranged himself on the young hero's shoulders. Pleased, the Xolo stroked the little monster.

"Tell our friend how the last Lady Quetzalcoatl came to be."

"I must tell of the defeat of the Warrior before her, Dama Quetzalcoatl. She fought evil during the reign of King Miguel de la Madrid," The little imp said this in perfect English, its voice flutelike and breathy. "She was searching for a missing girl and wandered into the path of a bullet. Mere happenstance that it should break the chains of the ehecacozcatl, causing her to crash back to Earth. She slept the cold sleep, unmoving, unawares. We could not help her, although we tried to heal her from within. Eventually, we whispered enough and her husband, guided by his dreams, found the breast jewel, unknowing of its power. But in that time, her children had hatched children of their own and she awoke to find her self aged and infirm."

The Queztling closed its eyes, looking sad. "We were too weak to help her, and she desired to go beyond the horizon to the realms of our afterlife. But Quetzalcoatl demanded that she must select a champion, first. Her children and her grandchildren were disappointingly average... on their best days. The husband was too full of machismo to allow Quetzalcoatl into his heart and soul... also he would never allow the cross-over knowing it would mean his beloved's death."

The car swerved severely and there was a sudden chorus of honking horns. The imp balanced itself dramatically with a flutter of rainbow colored wings and then leapt to the front seat, rubbing its head affectionately against the neck of Pig-Fly. The porcine took a moment to assure it with easy affection and it looked back to Trisha. "They brought her home... they hired a nurse... that nurse wore a sympathetic emblem -"

"A caduceus." The imp's master inserted from the backseat.

"So, Dama Quetzalcoatl reached out one day and summoned us from the emblem. The nurse was frightened but as fate would have it, she'd been saved by Dama as a child and realized who she'd been caring for as our wings beat about the room. The nurse was worthy and Dama passed the mantle... our mantle... to the Nurse, who became the Lady. The husband came in to stop the exchange, but he found his wife in her full glory and he instead took her hand and together they left this world."

"For a few years, her career, if not her life, had been ruined." Zooman said as they reached the city limits. The imp flew back to its master and began rubbing its head against the the Xolo's exposed, furless chest. This incarnation of imp was certainly more affectionate than the Lady's ever were. "It made the newspapers. A couple physically disappeared from their home while she was on duty there, taken care of one of them. The police had to be suspicious, but the family was especially vicious. Even her own family..." Trisha was surprised to hear such strong emotion in the Pig-Fly's voice.

"Anyway," the Xolo cut him off, "Lady Quetzalcoatl's true origin would have been too easily traced if she let it out. To any one. And she did feel incredibly guilty about what the Origin had done to the family."

Trisha and the men kept their thoughts to themselves for a few moments.

"Ok," Trisha said turning forward in her seat once again. Outside of the city limits, Pig-Fly seemed a normal driver. "So, we're just going to walk through the front door and the doctor will take us to the children?"

"I told you, I have a contact there. We will park a few blocks away and you can follow me there... can you make it look like the Pato is carrying you in flight behind me?"

"Two things," Trisha said, "First, I can make the stripes invisible but I'll have to keep both hands forward to keep us moving. The second thing is that... we're not going to call him names all night."

The Xolo chuckled. "You can call me Lord Quetzalcoatl. Zooey is just trying push our buttons."

Pig-fly smiled and shrugged. "The doctors are waiting for our own Intelligence Agencies who are not as underfunded as our street police, because there's something screwy with the kids... something my contacts wouldn't mind our input on, since Tarkis is a known supervillian."

After awhile they came to good pull off where they could shrink the car and fly the rest of the way. It was a tourist overlook that had become more overgrown than overlook. Trisha got out and gave herself a big stretch just before Lord Quetzalcoatl gave her a big scare.

The little Xolo was getting out as she started to stretch. She closed her eyes, twisting in place, just as the shorter dog pulled the Lucha Libre over its head. When she twisted back, she found a huge dark dog with feathers growing out of his neck and shoulders slamming the passenger side rear door.

The dark skin, and what little hairs he had left, glittered in the moon light. He was ripped and muscular. The wind jewel was no longer a necklace but the most brilliant tattoo she'd ever seen.

He smiled at her.

After a moment of staring, Pig-fly pinched he to prove that she wasn't dreaming.

She slapped him back, making him see brilliant glowing stars... literally as luck would have it.

It took them a few moments to get up in the air.

– to be continued