Chapter 34

In the hallway, on her way to the vault, Jo ran into Zane. Literally. It was dark, and she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. He’d stopped, seeing her coming, likely hoping she’d look up and sidestep, but when she didn’t, her head collided with what felt like a wall of muscle.
His arms entangled her, keeping her from falling backward. “Oh, God, Zane. Sorry,” she muttered, rubbing her forehead. It smarted for a second but otherwise she was fine. She knew exactly how muscular he was but had no idea running into him would feel like an encounter with one of those WWE fighters Uncle Elliott used to be so fond of, back in the day when sports were still a thing. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said, flashing that crooked smile that might’ve been enough to make her swoon under other conditions. “Are you?”
“Yeah, I’m hard headed,” she said, rubbing the spot on her forehead that still felt like someone had hit her with an ice pick. “I’m going to the vault. Mikali got us in, thanks to one of his squealers. He picked two good ones. Wanna come?”
“Of course I wanna come,” Zane said, perking up at the possibilities of what they might find there. He was always up for a good adventure. Stepping aside, he made a sweeping gesture with his arm, and Jo went around him, being more careful to watch where she was going this time. She didn’t need a concussion to polish off what had been a pretty sucky day.
Her mind was still on what that Vampire had told her, the one Mila had blown away a few seconds after Jo had walked away from him. The red headed woman Jo’s dad had seen was the Vampire Queen, and though she had many names, one of them was Asteria. It still hadn’t quite sunk in yet that her dad was right, that it was Holland, returned from the Blood Moon Portal. But Jo had to assume that she was the only one capable of playing these sorts of mind games. If it was anyone else, her Aunt Cassidy would be able to see where she was hiding, wouldn’t she? Was anyone else powerful enough to block her thoughts from a mind reader?
Her thinking was interrupted when they arrived at the vault. The door was propped open with a large rock, and inside, she could hear Mikali speaking Russian to the Vampire, the sound of shuffling papers and sliding drawers interrupting the conversation as Mikali dug for information.
Jo could’ve used her IAC to translate what they were saying, but she didn’t really care. If Mikali found anything of interest, he’d let her know. “Got anything?” she asked, walking into the poorly lit room. A few bare bulbs hung from the ceiling, their wires exposed as they ran down the inside of what appeared to be an entire bank vault resituated in the middle of what was otherwise pure cave.
“Not really,” Mikali said, his accent thicker than usual as he switched back to English. “I’ve found a few maps, but he says those are potential work sites, not anything related to the Queen.”
“Let me see.” Jo stuck her hand out, and he gave her several rolled up papers. Upon unfurling the first one and lying it on a table in the corner, she saw that it was a map with several Xs on it. Everything was written in Russian. Her IAC did come in handy for translating written languages. She accessed the mode she needed to be able to read it in English. “Scandium?” she said, wondering if that was a word that just hadn’t translated correctly. All of the sites were marked as potential locations for scandium--whatever the hell that was.
“Rare earth metal,” Zane said, looking over her shoulder. “It’s mostly used in alloys for aerospace components and sports equipment, but it’s pretty hard to find. Russia did a lot of mining of their reserves, right before the Revelation. What the hell do a bunch of Vampires want to do with scandium?”
“That’s a great question,” Jo said. The rest of the maps were similar. One of the Xs was labeled, “Mine at Esso,” but the rest were unlabeled, only referred to by their latitude and longitude. “Ask him, Mikali.”
“I did ask him,” her colleague replied. “He said he doesn’t know, but that’s what they were looking for here, and as far as he knows, that’s what all of the mines on that map are for. To find more scandium.”
Jo looked at the Vampire. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “What’s the scandium for?” she asked, assuming he knew enough English to be able to answer her.
He was either playing dumb or was dumb. Mikali barked the question at him in Russian, kicking him in the leg with his boot, hard enough to make the man rock back and forth but not hurt him too bad. He muttered that he didn’t know, lifting his eyes to look at her male counterpart but unable or unwilling to look at her.
“We’re not getting anywhere with him now,” Mikali said, his weapon in his hand. “You want me to get rid of him?”
Suddenly, the comrade’s English wasn’t so bad. “No, no!” he shouted, pressing his hands together and shooting forward to his knees. “Please.”
Looking from Mikali back to the Vampire, Jo was about to tell him to go ahead and put him out of her misery when his eyes finally met hers. A moment of sympathy met her, something she wasn’t used to. He looked a little too human for her to order him to be shot. When he said, “I’ll give message for them,” she wanted to take him up on the offer. But she didn’t know what message she needed to send.
“What’s going on?” Mila asked, coming in the door with her weapon pointed at the Vampire’s head. “He done?”
Jo held up her hand and motioned for her to lower the Beretta. “Not yet. He said he’d take a message to the other Vampires.”
“Which other Vampires? What message?” Mila wanted to know.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she admitted. “But it might be a good idea.”
“To let them know we’re coming?” Mila asked, her forehead crinkled.
“They’ll already know that,” Jo reminded her. “No, but there has to be something I’d like for the queen to know.”
“He won’t be able to get a message to her. Not directly, anyhow,” Mikali said, his finger moving as it was clear he was anxious to get a round or two off before Mila had a chance.
“They’ll know we found this place and wiped out what they had going here, but they won’t know that we found out they’re looking for scandium unless he tells them. And they won’t know we are certain who the queen is, either.” Zane was standing behind Jo, and she didn’t turn to look at him when he spoke, but she liked the confident way he said his piece.
“Are we sure we know who the queen is?” Mikali asked in her head.
Jo nodded. “If I can accept that it’s her, I guess everyone can.” Not that she was a hundred percent sure. There was always room for a little doubt in her mind. But it was the only thing that made sense. Vampires often didn’t make sense…. She was off track again. Jo turned her attention to the Vampire. “What do you think of that message?” she asked him, tapping him lightly in the foot with her boot in hopes of getting him to look at her.
He didn’t. For some reason, looking her in the eyes seemed almost painful to him. Jo wanted to know why, but she couldn’t get into his head without Cass, and she wasn’t there. The thought of bothering her again only lasted a second before she pushed it away.
The Vampire did answer her, though. In broken English, his voice shaking, he said, “I tell them anyting you want.”
Crouching down so that she was as close to him as she could be without actually touching him, Jo leaned in. “I want you to make sure someone tells that bitch that Jo McReynolds is coming for her. And she’d better have some fucking answers when I find her or else she can bend over and kiss her sorry ass goodbye. And this time, when she dies, there’ll be no coming back. I’ll make sure of that.”
By the time she’d finished, a new layer of sweat had beaded up on the Vampire’s forehead. He nodded slightly, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye but not speaking.
Whether or not he got every word, he understood the sentiment. Jo stood, gave Mila a look that let her know if she shot this one she’d be getting a piece of that promise herself, and then headed out of the vault, hoping she sounded a lot more intimidating to that Vampire than she did to herself.