DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
Ten years. Thousands of days. Endless hours and moments. Each and every one cut like the sharpest knife.
The centuries of imprisonment before had been easy compared to this, the jaguars thought. Back then, they had been too broken to remember how it felt to be fed and powerful. A proper king had locked them away, not some arrogant usurper, and not for the sake of the lowly creatures which had been made to be ground into the dust. They screamed and rattled their chains at the thought, and the piercing noise bounced off the cold, granite walls of the pitch black pit.
Pax merely growled in his throat. It would not do to waste valuable power now, not when they were so close. The power Mictlan had granted him was draining away with each careful spell: even now he could feel it flowing out of him, dulling his senses. No. You must focus. He closed his eyes and began to mutter incantations under his breath. Dipping his paw in the pooling blood from a still-warm corpse beside him, he started to draw. The veil between worlds is thin tonight, he thought. At last we shall break it.
The walls and floor around him were dark with the dried, flaking shapes painted in blood. Jagged, frenetic glyphs that shook and curved, spiraled and repeated. Ten times the jaguar had drawn the same symbols over one another, a spell that grew more powerful with each passing year. With the fresh blood, he drew people: standing, sleeping, all screaming. They looked above them, where he had drawn the pack prowling as in the old days.
"Hear me, mortals," he whispered, his voice low and guttural. "When you think of those you have lost on this Day of the Dead, you shall think of us as we once were and as we shall be once again. You shall remember us."
The walls shook. The floor began to crack, shattering the bloody images of those who had wronged him. He could almost feel the chains grow weak as power surged through his veins.
Miles above, mortals who slept began to struggle and cry out. Those who were awake started and looked around in fear, not sure what they were looking for. They were only vaguely aware of the hellish images which invaded and retreated from their minds in sudden flashes: sharp teeth, glowing eyes, red moonlight. Beware, their thoughts told them even as the nightmares slipped back into distant memory. They are coming.
The jaguar pack grew more alert, eyes growing wide as they sniffed the air. They could feel the power as well, and they roared with glee as they pulled against their restraints. "Patience!" Pax growled at them. "The mortals shall do the work of freeing us."
There was a sudden thunderclap, and the world went silent. For a fleeting moment, the darkness seemed not to come from lack of light but from lack of anything. Pax felt his stomach lurch, as though he was being pulled up and forward. The chains on his wrists burned, and then they were no more.
He breathed in and found the scents he had nearly forgotten: dirt, night air, jungle flowers, the fear of dull-minded prey. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a clearing framed by dark green foliage and bathed in moonlight. A river ran somewhere in the distance, and the hum of birds and insects filled the air.
With more thunderclaps and flashes of light, the rest of his pack shimmered into view around him. They roared and stretched their weary limbs, rolled about in the dirt or prowled around the clearing with bared teeth.
"I think I smell that fool Huitzil," one of them said, making all except Pax laugh at the thought. "Come, let us pay him a visit!"
"Stay your claws," Pax commanded, causing them all to cower. "I shall seek out our first prey."
"And what shall that be?" one of the creatures asked.
"Mortal flesh." He dropped to all fours, his claw-tipped fingers morphing into cat paws, then looked to the moon with gleaming eyes and smiled. "We must find San Angel."
"That was months ago." Manolo's face was beginning to harden again. "Months ago."
Xibalba resisted the urge to squirm in his chair and shrugged instead. "The guards told me things were under control."
"And you didn't think to see if that was true?"
"There are some places where even gods ought not to venture, boy."
"Stop calling me that."
"Oh, please. Thirty-one's hardly a blink when you put it in perspective."
Manolo continued to glare at the god but didn't move. "That spell. What was it?"
"Something my brother taught them, most likely," Xibalba answered. "It's meant to put thoughts in people's heads. Works best if you attach it to some other thought. So while you and the rest of your little mortal friends were in the…" He trailed off as Manolo began to lean forward.
"Are you saying," the man hissed quietly, "that I had a hand in what was done to my daughter?"
The god remained silent.
"Go on," Manolo snapped, crossing his arms and keeping his eyes locked on his visitor. "You can say it if you want. You'd be right."