"I don't know what you were expecting to do if you managed to catch up to them," Xibalba said, starting to pick at his teeth by this point. "They've all been warriors since birth, and that's not even with Pax leading them. A god that old can't be scratched by a mortal. Certainly not with mortal weapons."
Manolo answered with a slow, grim smirk. "I managed it somehow, didn't I? Or else you wouldn't be here." His quiet voice was tinted with bloody anticipation, as though he was waiting to demonstrate what had happened for and on his visitor.
"…Right." Xibalba squirmed in his seat and tugged at his shirt collar. "Finish your story up, then."
"It's only just starting."
The god scowled. "What more is there left to tell?"
"Oh, you'll see."
The pack had gone by the time the small search party had found the cave, but the tracks they left were still clear and fresh — the four humans followed the trail as far as it would go, riding through the day and into the evening. Around them, the landscape changed bit by bit: tan and orange earth became brown and green, and flat plains broken by spurts of rock became sloping hills covered in trees. Joaquin began to shift in his saddle and glance at the passing world more often, especially at the dark clouds following the group.
"Have you ever come out this far before?" Ixa asked him, seeing the tenseness in his face.
He shook his head. "Not in this direction." Spurring his horse forward, he galloped up alongside Manolo and Maria. "I think there's supposed to be a town near here. We should reach it by nightfall if we keep this pace up. Just something to think about in case the weather turns bad, you know…?"
Maria nodded as though only half-listening. Manolo said nothing and only stared at the horizon.
The stormclouds covered the sun before it could set. Fat, cold raindrops came pouring down as though the earth had become the bottom of a waterfall. The four mortals shivered as they tried in vain to shield themselves from the deluge, and the faint pawprints that still remained in the ground began to wash away. Manolo grew pale and spurred Plata forward, nearing throwing Maria off the horse as he galloped down the fading path. "No!"
"Leave it alone, Manny!" Joaquin shouted as he caught up to him and grabbed Plata's reins. "We need to find a place to stop anyway."
"But — "
"We won't find her in this weather, hermano. And even if we did, we wouldn't be able to put up much of a fight." He pointed off to the northwest, where a collection of lights were flickering through the trees and rain. "Let's look for shelter over there. Maybe we can ask some people if they've seen anything."
Manolo didn't answer: he was still tense, his gaze darting back to the road ahead. Maria gripped his arm and pulled him closer to her. "It'll do us all some good. Por favor."
He began to relax and loosened his grip on Plata's reins, but he kept staring at the last of the disappearing pawprints. "Alright…"
Half a mile away, the forest came to an abrupt stop. Dying leaves and branches littered the ground, surrounding the stumps of felled trees. Beyond them lay small, fenced-off fields around a scattering of sad-looking wooden buildings drooping in the rain. The lights in the houses were being put out one by one as frightened faces peered out from windows. They glanced around them and then up at the sky before retreating once again. Past the invisible point where the not-quite-a-town came to an end, the plain continued for another short while before dropping down and out of sight altogether. It seemed to be the edge of a great pit or canyon, its bottom obscured by the wild, untamed mass of canopy and foliage that grew from its depths. A flimsy ladder propped up against the cliffside, stretching down into the dark, was all that connected the speck of civilization to the jungle pushing against it.
By now, the only lights in the little town were coming from the cantina near its center. The four travelers tethered their horses beneath the rusty metal awning, and then pushed open the swinging doors.
There was only one room on the ground floor, and a rather dingy one at that – a row of crates lined up in front of several shelves formed a bar of sorts, looking out on tables filled with shifty-eyed men in long beards and serapes playing cards. A few lanterns sat as centerpieces or swung from the ceiling. In the back of the room, one flight of steps led downwards and another wound up.
The dozen or so pairs of eyes in the cantina fixed on the newcomers, narrowing and glinting. The bartender was the first to speak up. "What do you want?"
Joaquin shook the water droplets off as best as he could and cleared his throat. "We're, ah…just looking for a place to spend the night."
The old man grunted in acknowledgement and nodded towards the stairs going up. "There's a few beds in the attic. Or there's a stable in the back," he added with a smirk.
Joaquin let out a small, feigned laugh. "I guess that works out. Let me just go take care of the horses and - "
The bartender snapped his fingers, and a scruffy little man leapt up from his spot at one of the tables and scuttled out the door. "Don't worry," the older man added, admiring the travelers' alarm. "He only picks saddlebags half the time these days."
"I see…"
"Not often we get people like you around here." The bartender looked his visitors up and down, lingering on the women. "Can't just be business that brings you out so far."
"It certainly is," Maria answered, glaring at him. "We're looking for someone. We think they…she passed through here."
"Taken away from you, was she?"
"Does that mean you've seen her?" Manolo asked, his attention sharpening.
The old man let out a snort. "That just means I know how this sort of thing goes."
Joaquin saw his friend's facial features beginning to twitch and placed a hand on his shoulder. "We'd be grateful if you could help us find a guide. This girl, we think she's somewhere in the jungle."
The whole cantina stared at him in horror as the last word left his mouth. Sloshing cups paused halfway to mouths, and playing cards slipped from hands to scatter on the floor. A pulse seemed to shoot through the room, like a terrible memory abruptly resurfacing.
"If I were you," the bartender said softly, "I'd go back to where you came from. You're not going to see that girl again." He dodged Manolo's hand as it shot out, trying to grab the collar of his shirt and drag him over the bar. "The jaguars got her now."
Manolo froze. "…What did you say?"
The bartender gestured to the window, where moonlight the color of blood was beginning to seep through the clouds. "You see that? Moon's turning red. Means the jaguars found their way out of hell."
Ixa stepped out from behind Joaquin, eying the old man with suspicion. "How much do you know about them, exactly?"
"Nothing that you kind of folk ought to hear."
Maria took a seat and rested her arms on the top of the bar. "I think we can be the judges of that."
The bartender flashed her a toothy grin and started to pour some more drinks. "Very well."
"We used to have lots of towns in these hills before the Spaniards came," he said, aware that the whole cantina was leaning in to hear him. "Still stopped right at the jungle's edge, though. That wasn't us mortals' place. That belonged to Pax and all his kin."
Manolo stiffened.
"Ah, so you've heard of him? Back then we called him the Jaguar King. One of the old gods, he was. Not quite a man and not quite a cat. Him and his pack, they ruled this part of Mexico for centuries. Deep in the jungle they had their own city. Tehuantepec." He downed a glass of mezcal in one gulp. "My bisabuelo told me they built their palaces with our bones and painted the walls with our blood. But that was just the drink talking. Now what they did to the children, that was all true…"
"T-The children?" Joaquin said.
"Si, if you could still call them that." The old man's countenance began to darken as he poured another drink. "First they hunted us down whenever they found someone straying too near the trees. Then they came after the villages for sport. Dragged our bodies over the sacrifices we left them. Once they saw we'd grown desperate, they came to each town and offered us a deal." His voice turned raspy and menacing as he began to imitate Pax's speech. "'Give to us one of your children on the tenth day of Ix each year. Leave them at the edge of your village for us to collect. If this is done, and no harm shall come to you.' So we said yes. It was wicked work, but it was done."
Maria frowned. "It doesn't make any sense, though. What would they want with just a few kids?"
"My people asked themselves the same thing, señora," the bartender answered. "They never found signs of slaughter after the monsters had gone. One year the villages sent their best warriors to follow them all the way to Tehuantepec and bring back news of the children's fate." He paused to pour himself another drink, this one much larger than the others.
"And what did they find?" Manolo asked, whispering around the lump in his throat.
"Pax took them all to his altar. The ones who were most frightened, those were the ones he killed outright. Tore them open and drank their blood, and the rest of them had to watch. The ones who looked away, they got the same thing. The ones that could stomach it…" He downed his drink.
"Well?"
"…He lashed them to the altar and let the red moon's light shine on them," the old man said gravely. "And they were turned. Remade in his image. Their souls destroyed. When it ended, all you had left was a jaguar cub ready to feast on its old friends."
The only sound to be heard was the wind moaning outside.
"When Pax came for his new soldiers the year after that," the bartender continued, "he found an army waiting for him. We traded with the Spaniards for guns, hundreds of them. The old gods didn't stand a chance against such things back then. We chased that cabrón all the way to his city and smashed it to ruins. As for him and his kin, they fled and grew weak. My people never saw them again." He paused, glaring forward with unfocused eyes. "And now? Now the moon's shining red once more. Now they're back, come to build their army back up and go on as they used to. And I'll bet everything I have they mean to start with that girl you're looking for."
"No," Manolo hissed through his teeth. His hands were balling into fists as he felt eyes drilling into him from all sides.
"It's true, every word of it — "
"No!" Scrambling to his feet, he stormed out into the night. Maria was on his heels, her eyes blazing.
"And where do you think you're going?" she snapped when she caught up to him at the stable.
"I'm not staying here."
Maria advanced on him, trying to back him against a wall. "Oh, so you think you're the one who's going to fix this? You're the one who did this!"
"At least I'm not going to waste time while they get further away!"
"At least I'm not the one who left our daughter alone with those things!" Raising a hand, she slapped Manolo across the face with all the force she could muster. He staggered and slipped on the dark mud, falling onto his side. She stood glaring down at him as he stared at the ground, neither of them daring to move.
Eventually her legs began to wobble, and she sank down to his level. Curling up against him, she pressed her face into his chest and waited for tears that wouldn't come.
He lifted an arm and hesitantly wrapped it around her waist. "I deserved that."
"She'd say you didn't."
Manolo struggled back to his feet, pulling her with him. "You know I can't wait until morning to go after them," he said. "I won't let you lose her."
"I'm not losing either of you." She stepped away from him, still holding his hand. "That's a promise."
They both turned at the sound of a low cough and found the Mondragons standing nearby. "So…I guess we need a plan?" Joaquin asked.
"We have one," said Maria. "Get everything you can carry off the horses and climb down that ladder."
On the other side of the cantina, a lone horse carrying two small figures trotted through town and hurried towards the jungle's edge.