"Ah, so I did. At least I kept my clothes."
"Regrettably," Max smirked. "Come on, let's go help out. You said that you know how to use one of these?"
"Point at what you want to shoot and pull the trigger," Gio said dryly.
"Exactly. We're lucky that nobody on our side is going to be wearing a black robe, which makes things simple. Or at least simpler. Come on."
They went quietly down the steps, side by side. The commotion in the courtyard was massive. There was ample stone as raw material for stoneskins, and the ones that were crashing around were even more crude than Javic's earlier efforts, barely more than ambulatory rocks with rough-hewn, stubby limbs. A cultist and a jaguar that Max recognized as Cousin Manny rolled around together, the jaguar snarling and the man trying to stab him. Max couldn't get a good shot and had to hope that Manny knew what he was doing. She did manage to wound another cultist who was threatening one of her aunts with a rifle. Tía Carla promptly shifted human and punched him in the face.
Max zeroed in on Javic as the main cause of the destruction, but hesitated, holding her gun ready. She hated the idea of killing him. Anyway, she wasn't sure if it would even help. From what she and Gio had seen before, shooting him might just make it worse by unleashing his phoenix.
Looking around, Max spotted the person who was probably controlling Javic, a Black Robe up on a staircase holding a small, jeweled scepter like the one she had seen them use before.
Her eyes narrowed.Thatone she could shoot. Unfortunately a wall and a bunch of ornamental plant pots were in the way.
"Can you try to distract Javic or at least keep him away from me?" she asked Gio. "I think I can take out his handler."
"I can shift and try to hold him down."
"Be careful!" Max said.
"I'm made of rock. He can't burn me."
With that, he shifted and was away. She still couldn't get over the speed and grace of his shifts now.
But there was no time for admiration. Rather than going through the crowded and chaotic courtyard, she went swiftly up a back stair. She met a Black Robe coming down, shot him in the leg and kicked him down the stairs for her cousins to deal with.
The layout of the hacienda was coming back to her now, full and vivid. She and her sister and cousins had spent their childhoods sneaking around in here, shifting and pouncing on each other. There was no way that a bunch of invaders could find their way around as well as someone who had grown up here. Max circled around to the top of the steps where she had seen the cultist with the scepter.
There was no longer any sign of a black-robed figure on the steps, but when Max moved quietly out of concealment, she glimpsed the person crouching behind an ornamental planter. From this close, Max could see that the person's hood was shoved back enough to see their face. It was a woman, and her lips moved soundlessly as if she was chanting. She was concentrating on the jeweled object that she held one hand.
Below, Gio was fighting with two of the lumpy, shapeless stoneskins that were trying to stop him from getting to Javic. The combatants crashed into walls as they struggled, shaking the entire building.
Max burst forward and, in three quick steps, reached the cultist and kicked the scepter out of her hand.
The jeweled object went spinning out of reach. The woman whirled and drew a gun from her robes. They were too close to easily aim at each other. The cultist fired off a wild shot that missed, and Max slammed the butt of her gun into the other woman's face.
The cultist hooked a leg around Max's, and she was shocked to find herself suddenly on the floor, with her assailant climbing on top of her. The black-robed woman had mere human strength, and normally Max would have had little trouble flinging her off. But she was still weak from the fight with Nacio, her body drawing deep on its reserves to heal itself. They were nearly an even match, and the cultist had the leverage advantage that came from being on top. She drove an elbow into Max's face, a stunning blow, and then got her hands around Max's neck.
Abruptly, the cultist jerked and the grip on Max's throat slackened. The butt of a spear had been slammed into the woman's head. She sagged and collapsed on top of Max.
"Oh, it's you," said an unexpected voice, rasping hoarsely. "If I had realized who I was rescuing, I would have let her strangle you."
Max looked up in shock to see her cousin Nacio standing over her, holding a spear from the armory. He had always preferred traditional weapons. His hair was tousled, and he had clearly shifted recently, because he wore nothing but a jaguar harness. His bare body displayed the gruesome bruises and half-healed bites from his fight with Max. His throat was girdled with black bruises from her savaging of his neck.
In spite of all that, he was not at all wobbly on his feet. Their positions, with Nacio standing triumphantly above her and Max on the ground, reminded her horribly of the fight she had lost ten years ago.
For a tense moment, she feared he might use the spear on her and braced to defend herself. But Nacio was nothing if not bound by clan honor and tradition. He lowered the spear and stepped back.
"I thought you were in the dungeon," Max gasped, pushing the woman off herself.
"They decided to let me out, because we need all the bodies we can get to defend the clanlands." Nacio's hoarse voice was dry. "Since you seem to be intact, I'll go find someone more deserving of rescue."
With that, he shifted, caught up the spear in his jaws, and bounded off.
Max shook her head. The woman was still breathing, so Max hastily improvised bonds from the black cult robe. Then she looked around for the jeweled object the woman had been using on Javic and went to pick it up.
It looked very much like a toy wand that a child might use for their Halloween costume. It was about a foot long, set with large, colorful jewels that looked like they were from costume jewelry.
