A small green head poked out of the pocket on Vicente's vest and peered around. "Now what?" said Zuma.
"I should be asking you that," the boy answered. "And how did you find us, anyway?"
"Miss Gabriela said something about a sister's intuition," said the frog. "And she said you would have a plan. So I ask you again, now what?"
"Er…" Vicente tried to see through the mass of fur and flailing claws, searching for a glimpse of his friend. There! A yellow dress and a head of familiar dark curls hiding in the branches of a tree. "We get to where Felia is and get out of here!" he said, raising his sword.
A hand grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Not by yourself, you aren't," said his father.
"Come on, then!" Wrenching himself free, Vicente took off towards the far side of the battlefield, dodging jaguars as he went.
For a moment Joaquin could only linger behind and marvel at his son, before realizing how far away he was getting. "Hey, wait up…!
Huitzil soared above the ground, trying to get a view from the air as Gabriela had told him to. Any other mortals would surely have fallen to Pax's army by now. But the jaguars' ranks were thinning; a great many were being felled by the two dark-haired ones, Ofelia's mother and father, and those who escaped the sword were now fleeing for their lives. Even Metnal was doing her part, jumping at the faces of the slower ones. A rare sight indeed.
Two screams from below got his attention. One of the nastier brutes had Gabriela and her mother backed up against a rock; they were holding him back with their blades, but he was getting ready to pounce all the same.
Before he could stop and think, Huitzil was flying downwards as fast as his wings could carry him. "Miss Gabriela!"
The jaguar was too focused on the prize in front of him to realize where the harsh screeches were coming from, or that they were steadily growing louder. He tumbled over when Huitzil barreled into him, and when he tried to get up, a number of sharp pecks from the bird's beak knocked him down again. A deep stab from Ixa sent him scrambling off with his tail between his legs, yowling all the way.
"And stay there!" Huitzil shouted after him, stomping the ground for good measure. Immediately he burst into manic laughter. "Seven hundred years I've been alive and I've never had such fun! Never!"
Gabriela had a wide, gaping smile plastered across her face. "Think you can do it again?"
"Absolutely perhaps!"
Driven away by a mortal and a potoo - how shameful. Pax would have had half a mind to kill the wretched creature himself, had he been able to think straight.
"Cowards!" he screamed at his fleeing soldiers, trying in vain to make himself heard. "What are these mortals capable of that you are not?"
He got his answer when he noticed a flash of light in the corner of his eye and saw the sword Manolo was holding. No…no! Impossible!
But it could not have been any other blade - the sudden aching of the scars he'd received from it last time attested to that. He had tossed it away, left it to be forgotten alongside the remains of its last wielder. How had the mortal come across it?
There was no time for wondering. The girl - she had run for the trees, hadn't she? He had to find the girl and finish the ceremony. The mortal's spirit would be broken if he could manage that.
Ducking out of the fray, he ran in the direction she had gone. The scent of her fear was still in his nostrils; he would find her before long.
"Ofelia!" Joaquin shouted as he and Vicente skidded to a stop at the bottom of the tree. "Ofelia, it's us!"
The girl looked down, still clinging to the trunk as she sat curled up on a thick branch. "Uncle Joaquin?"
"Jump down and I'll catch you!" he answered.
"But - "
"You can trust me!"
Several agonizing seconds passed before she made a move. She detached herself from the tree trunk, stood up on shaking legs, held out her arms to keep her balance and finally stepped off the branch.
It all happened so fast after that: for only a moment she was falling through the air, and then something she could barely see but recognized all the same slammed into her from the side, pinning her between his jaws as he landed on the ground and kept running.
Pax paid no mind to the two mortals now chasing after him, or to the screaming girl in his mouth. He flew up the steps of the temple, his eyes on the altar and the rising moon. It wasn't quite in position - yes, there would be enough time.
He dropped Ofelia onto the altar and pressed a paw to her chest to keep her from escaping. The chains attached to the corners of the stone were rusted, but they held firm when he tugged on them. There was no chance she would budge them.
Beneath his paw, the girl hadn't stopped struggling. She yelled, kicked, pulled her hands away when he tried to grab them. "Keep still!" he growled, managing to lash only one wrist to the altar.
Ofelia glared back at him. "I will never do as you say."
He looked skyward. The moon's ray would hit the altar any minute now. His work was done. "Before long," he said with a grin, "you'll have no choice."
And that was when something leapt on him from behind, sinking its claws into his back and its teeth into his neck.
Teoxi held on as tight as he could as the jaguar yowled in pain, clawed at his foe and stumbled around trying to throw him off. I'm going to regret this even if I live, he thought. The sight of Ofelia sitting up, already trying to wrench her chained wrist free, reminded him otherwise. I suppose this makes us even.
Pax tripped, and the two of them went tumbling down the steps of the temple in a flurry of dust and blood.
The manacle wouldn't budge - perhaps Pax had locked it with some sort of magic. The chain stayed attached to the rock as well, no matter how hard Ofelia pulled against it. "Help!" she screamed, but her voice was lost in the rest of the noise. "Help…"
"Felia!" And suddenly there was Vicente, out of breath but still helping her pull with all his might. "Harder! I think it's moving!"
"Hurry!"
Pax pulled himself back to his feet. The weakened ocelot was still hanging from his shoulders: ripping it off, he tossed it aside and watched it collapse in a crumpled heap. The girl! He had to finish securing the girl…
He turned around just in time to see the moonbeams strike the altar and bathe the whole clearing in bloody light.
Everything froze in the blink of an eye. Mortals and jaguars alike fell silent. Some shielded their eyes from the glare, while others couldn't pull their eyes away from it. The scattered beams glowed and pulsed for seconds that seemed to last an eternity, and then they cut out just as quickly as they had appeared. The ugly silence remained.
Manolo was vaguely aware of Maria being the first to move again, falling to her knees and weeping. He could feel himself letting the sword slip from his fingers as he rushed up the temple steps, ignoring the sound of Ixa yelling at him to stay back. When Pax's paw came sweeping at him, he barely felt the pain that shot through his nerves when he landed on the rough steps.
The jaguar towered over him, leering. "And to think that you were so close." A clawed hand grabbed his neck and began to squeeze. "I would let her have the honor of this, but I've been waiting far longer - "
"You stay away from my papa!"
Pax dropped the mortal as he whirled around. "What?"
There she stood, human as ever, the fur cloak discarded and the broken chain still dangling from her wrist. Her eyes blazed as they found Pax's, and her hands were steady as she hurled a piece of rubble at him. It struck the jaguar right in the face, knocking him backwards.
He regained his footing, let out a roar of rage, prepared to pounce. He never got the chance. A burning pain shot into his back, shuddered through his organs and muscles and burst out the front of his chest in a ray of gleaming metal.
Manolo pushed his sword deeper into the jaguar's flesh, feeling the life drain out of the monster. Its flailing slowed, its screams became faint gasps and gurgles that eventually stopped. The body slumped forward, and a kick from Manolo sent it sliding back down the temple steps.
The jaguar army recoiled as the corpse landed before them. They dispersed in a frightened mass, vanishing into the trees and bushes, leaving the shocked mortals behind.
Manolo felt his wits gradually returning to him. He looked down at his hands - covered in blood, just like his clothes and the temple steps. But not like the moon, he realized when he looked up. The moon was a soft, milky white once again, its light shining down on Ofelia as she descended to meet him.
"Papa?" she said.
It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and all he could do in response was take her in his arms and let the tears he had been holding back finally fall.
Vicente and Gabriela approached their parents with caution. "So," the latter began, "are we still grounded?"
Joaquin looked from his children to the scene before him and back again. "We'll…talk about it."