Page 11 of Hex and the City
“Um,” I started to say, kneading the back of my neck. “Can I help you?”
When the woman nodded, her scales shimmered, like fragments of emerald and sapphire. “Help. Yes, Leonardo Alcantara. I believe you and I have quite a bit to offer each other.”
“You know my name.”
“I have been watching from afar. It is only fair that you know mine.” She lifted her chin, her gaze imperious, her stature majestic. “I am a deity of old Babylonia, mother to many gods and goddesses. Some would also herald me among the greatest of this world’s dragons. I am Tiamat.”
My lips parted, but no words came out. A goddess. A dragon goddess, standing right there by my open window. I shook my head, confused, and yes, a little bit terrified, too.
“This isn’t some sort of prank, right? I mean, it’s the arcane underground. Everyone’s got a touch of magic in them around these parts. How do I know this isn’t just a trick?”
She didn’t answer, only blinked. I blinked as well, and in that impossible, infinitesimal fraction of time, the woman had been replaced by a serpent huge enough to fill the rest of the room. Its scales matched those on her skin, blue and green and blue again. So did its eyes.
It opened its enormous jaws to reveal rows of sharp teeth, yellowed and off-white like bone, again bathed bluish-green, eerily tinted from something glowing in the back of its throat. The glow burned brighter, hotter. Dragonfire. The great serpent exhaled. I threw my arms up to cover my face, screaming.
The fright took me right off my feet. I landed squarely on my butt. No heat of fire, and nothing burning in the apartment, either. I looked up into the woman’s face, the same person as before. No sign of dragons. She gestured with one hand.
“Come, now. On your feet, little speck. There is much to discuss.”
I pushed myself off the floor, still shaken. A taste of my own medicine, huh? Bitter. Didn’t like it at all. That poor, handsome sap in the leather jacket must have felt exactly like I did. He fell on his butt, too. I smoothed down the creases in my shirt, trying to make myself presentable for the nice, scary lady.
One of those things that Mom had always tried to impress upon me was the fact that many of the creatures of legend were actually real. There was a reason those stories existed. The problem was how I never really took her seriously.
Tiamat’s very presence had just opened a whole new can of beans. Worms? Whichever actually applied. Traveling around California’s supernatural community, I had only started embracing that all sorts of mages, vampires, hell, even demons walked among us.
But I never once thought that a goddess would come to see me. Sopping wet and trailing seawater all over the damn floor, but never mind that.
“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” I asked, careful to approach her with politeness.
Even back home in the Philippines, little kids were cautioned to pay the utmost respect if they even suspected that they were in the presence of the supernatural. Could be ghosts, or nature spirits, or faeries. Mom had drummed it into my head for ages. Even if I never met one of the spirits, it mattered to her that I would know what to do.
More importantly, what not to do. Piss them off, for one thing.
Tiamat tilted her head. “I’ve come to discuss a matter of you stepping outside your bounds in terms of using and abusing draconic iconography.” She tapped the side of her cheek, her nail as long as a talon, gleaming and bone white, like ivory. “Now, how does your generation like to put it again? Ah. Yes. Cultural appropriation.”
I gathered myself up and let out a huff, already preemptively offended. “That’s preposterous and you know it.” Ah, crap. I should have phrased that in a way that wouldn’t get me punched in the throat, or burned alive.
The woman cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that so? Tell me, little creature, feeble thing. Do you bear the mark of my kin? Does our fire run through your veins? Can you assume the shape of my brothers and sisters? You cannot even call us forth, like your summoners of old. No. You insult us, trot out our apparitions as it suits you, like a parlor trick. A game of smoke and mirrors.”
I stepped back, the horrible wetness of my socks squelching against the floor. Tiamat had some fair points there. Some humans were blessed — or perhaps cursed — with the gift of shapeshifting, an inherent paranormal power that allowed them to take the form of an animal. It was the same principle as lycanthropes, those vicious werewolves made famous and sexy by Hollywood movies and weirdly gay TV shows.
Tiamat was right. I wasn’t a shifter. I didn’t have fire in my blood. I couldn’t legitimately conjure or command dragons, either, a talent honed over years if not decades, the exclusive domain of mages who called themselves summoners.
All I could do was make suggestions with my magic, cast an illusion to dazzle and horrify unsuspecting, ruggedly handsome men in leather jackets. The implication that I didn’t deserve to create fake images that sort of looked like dragons was a little hurtful, but likely more than fair.
Of course, I never realized I needed permission in the first place.
“To be fair,” I said, holding my hands up. “You probably wouldn’t have visited me if you didn’t have something else in mind. I can’t possibly be the only person in the world who uses illusory dragons to scare people.” I crossed my arms and smirked. “You need something from me, don’t you?”
Oh. Shouldn’t have said that. Tiamat drew back her lips. I’d expected to see bared teeth, not fangs. She opened her mouth and hissed. Faint wisps of smoke blew with her breath. And it was too dark to be sure, but I thought I saw something dripping from the points of her fangs. Venom? Best not to piss her off and find out the hard way.
Not like I needed to do anything more to sass her. The presumably very powerful creator deity, mother goddess, and dragon entity hated my guts enough already. Which one did she prefer? God. Pick a lane, lady.
“What I need is for you to stop making a mockery of my kind,” she said, jabbing a talon at the air. Her finger was a foot away from my face, but I still recoiled. “It’s insulting, frankly speaking, and what do we get in return? Absolutely nothing.”
Uh-oh. Something was coming. I could feel it in my bones. This wasn’t a matter of a dragon goddess breaking and entering so she could issue a copyright strike, order a cease and desist on my allegedly unauthorized use of her likeness. The goddess was here with an agenda.
Even I didn’t need my mother’s lectures to teach me that dealing with spirits was transactional. Back home, we’d say a prayer or leave an offering for the local fae folk, what we called theengkanto. In exchange, they wouldn’t curse you bald, ruin your harvest, drag your entrails out through your nostrils.
