DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
Manolo felt the arrival of the visitor before he heard it. A slight yet sudden chill, and then a ripple in the air and the soft flap of feathered wings.
He did not storm downstairs into the parlor with swords drawn, as his instincts told him to do. Instead he remained in the library armchair where he sat, crossing one leg over the other and glowering at the door. The gods were going to come to him for once, whether they wanted to or not.
A few minutes passed in silence before a set of heavy footsteps strolled up the stairs and down the hall, stopping in front of the double doors. The knocks on the wood were hesitant, even as they reverberated through the room. "I know you're in there, Sanchez." He had not bothered to disguise his voice this time.
"You're not dead yet. Open it yourself."
The doors creaked inward slowly, as though trying to put off the inevitable. They revealed not Xibalba's natural form, nor the wizened one he often took in the Land of the Living. He was tall, brown-skinned and sharp, dressed in a purple suit and drumming his fingers on the top of his two-headed walking stick. His long white hair was pulled back into a ponytail, while his beard and mustache were as neatly trimmed as ever. He had tried to make his eyes brown, but flashes of red still glimmered through. The only movement in his placid face was a slight twitch of his lip as he saw Manolo. "Pleasure to see you again."
"You're lucky Maria isn't home," the other man answered. "You wouldn't have made it past the parlor."
"No, I suppose not." The god made an attempt at a smile. "I suppose you know why I'm here, boy."
"I can think of one reason why you ought to be here." Standing up, Manolo began walking towards him.
"La Muerte sent me," Xibalba continued. "She says the Candle Maker happened upon something troubling in the book, and that someone should - "
"You know what you did, Xibalba."
The god bristled and glared back at him. "You think I let that happen on purpose? We all make oversights, you know. I can't be bothered to…"
His vision flashed and turned white as Manolo drew back a fist and punched him in the jaw as hard as he could. Xibalba stumbled backwards and slumped against the wall, bruises already forming as he blinked rapidly. Holding his face with both hands, he shifted and snapped his bones back into place. "She said you would do that…"
"Did you know there was a chance they would escape?" Manolo snarled, towering over him. "Did you have any idea what you would do if they did?"
"I didn't think they would - "
"Did you?!" Grabbing Xibalba by the collar, he hoisted him to his feet and drew back his fist again.
"Don't touch me again!" Xibalba shouted back, pulling himself free of the mortal's grasp. "Now, mind your manners and perhaps I won't tell our friends up in Aztlan about all this."
"What do they want with me now?"
"They sent me here to give you fair warning."
"Pueden ir follar ellos mismos."
"For goodness sakes, Manolo, I'm trying to help you! They're angry! You can't just kill a god and walk away from it like nothing happened!"
Manolo remained still for a moment, his breaths heavy as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Turning on his heel, he paced back and forth across the room a few times before stopping in front of the window. "Do you have children, Xibalba?"
"What does that have to do with this business?"
"Answer me and I'll tell you."
Xibalba sighed and rubbed his face as he leaned against a bookshelf. "I used to have some. Wouldn't do it again, though. Far too much work. Always getting themselves into trouble…"
"But you loved them anyway. And you would do anything for them."
"As close I can come, I suppose."
Manolo was slow to turn back around. When he did, Xibalba could see that his eyes were red and splotched with past tears. "Sit down."
Xibalba raised a wary eyebrow. "Why should I?"
"There's something you need to see." He gestured to one of the armchairs, and as Xibalba reluctantly sank into it, he went to pull open the drawer of a nearby side table. A moment of searching brought forth a small bundle wrapped in tissue paper, which he pressed into Xibalba's hands before sitting down himself.
"What's this?" Xibalba asked, inspecting it with an air of suspicion.
"Open it."
The god started to roll his eyes as he pushed away the folds of the paper, but stopped when he saw what they concealed. There was a scrap of pale yellow cloth, covered in dirt and shredded nearly to ribbons by sharp claws. Beside it sat a pair of broken black spectacles: the frame bent almost beyond recognition, one lens cracked and the other gone but for a few shards of glass.
"I know you met her once," Manolo said, his voice now barely above a whisper. "She told me."
"I didn't know…"
"Did she deserve it?"
Xibalba didn't answer.
"She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose." Manolo's eyes glazed over, as though he was watching a memory. The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile before violently twisting back down, and his voice emerged as a choked sob when he tried to speak.
Xibalba placed the bundle back in the man's lap, not sure what else there was to do. "La Muerte didn't tell me what exactly was in the book."
"Then I suppose we have quite a bit to learn from each other." Placing the bundle aside, Manolo leaned back in his armchair and looked at his visitor. "Tell me what you know, and maybe I can fill in the rest."