Chapter 45

Inside, the house was as much a palace as Jo had expected. They followed a few of the guards through a foyer lined with expensive works of art, their shoes echoing on immaculate wooden floors, down a long hall to a living area where Lucas and Eliza stood in front of modern white sofas that looked so soft Jo imagined one might sit and stroke the couch all day, like it was a pet.
“Welcome to our home,” Lucas said, the voice matching the one that had hit Jo’s ear earlier. So he had come outside to check on them. He crossed the space quickly and offered his hand to Jo first, and then to Zane. “How was your journey?”
“Long,” Jo admitted. “But not bad.”
“Good. We are glad you’re here.” He wasn’t as tall as Zane, but he was strikingly handsome, his amber eyes glowing softly in the light from a few lamps that dotted the expansive room here and there and a roaring fire that had to be more for show than anything else since neither of the creatures that lived here would be any more capable of catching a chill than Jo was.
Eliza finally stepped forward and offered her hand. She looked nearly the same as she had in the images Jo had seen of her from when she was younger, except her hair was a dark black, not purple as it had been, and it reached past her shoulders now, tied back in a simple ponytail. She wore a black pantsuit made of elegant fabric, heels, and more jewelry than Jo owned. “Thanks for coming,” Eliza said as she released Zane’s hand and took Jo’s. “It’s nice to see you again, Josephina.”
“Please, call me Jo.” She managed a friendly smile. While she couldn’t remember ever having met the woman, she knew she had a few times, when she was a small child. Back then, before Eliza married Lucas, she’d still been a LIGHTS team member. Not a very good one, at least to Jo’s knowledge, but a member nonetheless.
“Won’t you have a seat?” Lucas motioned toward the larger of the sofas, which was now situated behind Jo and Zane since they’d entered the room to greet their hosts. They looked at each other and then sat down, leaving a good space between them. Eliza and Lucas sat with their backs to the fireplace in equally impressive white chairs. Jo was right about the couch. It was soft. She put her hands in her lap to prevent herself from further running her fingers along the fabric.
“What is it that we can help you with?” Lucas asked, folding his hands in front of him.
Jo studied the Souled Vampire for a few moments. It was difficult to imagine someone of his resolve tearing a person’s throat out or sucking their blood. He was so polished, so… civilized. Jo knew he wasn’t that much older than her as their kind went, but she imagined, if he had been alive in the eighteen hundreds, he would’ve blended right in with the English gentlemen the Irish farmers, such as her dad, detested. Not that it made her feel any ill will toward him now. If he and Eliza would help them track down Holland or otherwise weaken the Vampires’ position, she would love him until the day he died--which might be never.
Stalling while she collected her thoughts, Jo took a deep breath and cleared her throat.
“Where are our manners? Would you like a drink?” Lucas asked, scooting to the edge of his seat.
“No, thank you.” Jo put up a hand to stop him. “We don’t want to take up too much of your time. We’re here just to see if… if there’s any way you’d reconsider helping us. We understand that your conversation with Cass didn’t go so well--for us anyway, and I guess… I just wanted to try again. We know you could help us--if you have time.” She couldn’t imagine how they wouldn’t have time to help. It really wasn’t a matter of time, was it? Who had anything better to do right now? Saying they didn’t have time, rather than they just didn’t care to help, was an easy path for them to take out of the mess. She wasn’t sure why she was handing them an excuse, but she waited to see what they had to say, hoping she could keep her mouth shut and give them an opportunity to talk.
Eliza and Lucas exchanged glances. They both looked like adults, like a well-off married couple with jobs and responsibilities. In comparison, Jo felt like a child, like a vagabond, wandering around in the woods looking for things to kill…. She knew it was all a mirage, but it didn’t help her feel any more settled.
Once the exchange of glances and a few silent statements were made between the couple, it was Lucas who turned back to address her. “Well, Jo, we did have a conversation with your Aunt Cassidy. I’m not exactly sure I understood the reason for her request. Perhaps you can shed a little more light on the situation for us. Specifically… are you certain it is, in fact, Holland that was seen? If so, how do you know that? And then… what precisely would you have us do?” He spoke with a Slovakian accent that had faded over the years to a mixture of British English and Eliza’s Mid-Western American, but it was clear, concise, and made perfect sense.
Jo had to wonder why Cassidy wouldn’t have explained all of that before. Maybe they just wanted to hear her version of the answers. Or maybe Cassidy hadn’t done her best to convince them because she didn’t want them to come. She wasn’t sure if Cassidy’s husband, Brandon, would’ve been able to use his mind tricks to convince them or if that didn’t work on Souled Vampires and/or Guardians who had been exposed to his father, Elliott, for so long they were immune to that type of persuasion, but had Brandon even tried? She knew there was no love lost between Eliza and Elliott. Eliza had been involved in the ambush that had gotten Elliott temporarily killed, after all.
Jo found herself clearing her throat again but stopped just before Lucas moved in a way that made her think he was off to get her some water despite her protests. “My father saw her. He was back a few weeks ago for a week or two, and while he was in Moscow, he saw Holland. So… that’s one way we know it’s her. Since Cassidy’s visit, I also confirmed with a Vampire we had in our custody for a short amount of time that she has many names, one of which was Asteria.”
If they had been looking at her skeptically before--which they had--those expressions shifted. “He said that?” Eliza questioned, tipping her head forward as he eyebrows raised. “The Vampire voluntarily told you that one of her names was Asteria? Without prompting?”
“Yes,” Jo confirmed. “Believe me, no one could possibly be more skeptical than I was. I didn’t think it was her. I thought she was dead, or at the very least so lost in the portals she’d never find her way out. Even if she were alive somewhere, I didn’t think there was a chance my dad would’ve actually had the opportunity to see her with his own eyes. In my experience, fortune doesn’t quite work that way.”
“Preach!” Eliza said in agreement.
Jo paused, waiting to see if she would say more, but she didn’t, so she took a deep breath and continued. “When the Vampire used that name, Asteria, I got chills. I realized then that it did make sense that it could be her, that it almost had to be. She’s one of the only Vampires that’s ever been able to create the sort of shields from Cassidy that she’s experiencing now. The other was Daunator, and he exploded, so I don’t think he could be back.”
“God, I should hope not.” Eliza wiggled her shoulders, like she’d gotten the heebie jeebies.
“You were there, weren’t you?” Jo asked, straying from the topic slightly, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her.
Eliza nodded. “I was there when your mom and Christian used some special grenades he’d come up with to blow Daunator into a billion pieces.”
Swallowing hard, Jo realized Eliza’s statement confirmed that the Guardian had also been there when her mom had fallen off of the mountain and died--the first time. She wished she could pause to talk about that hunt for a moment, and about how Jamie had saved her mom. She’d like to hear it from someone else’s perspective, even if she’d spent her whole life growing up listening to her Uncle Elliott retell the story and had also heard versions from Cassidy, Brandon, her dad, and Jamie.
Now wasn’t the time, though. Lucas had asked questions. She needed to answer them. “As for what we would have you do, well, anything. Anything at all that could possibly do to help would be greatly appreciated. Lucas, we know that you have a huge amount of influence over the Souled Vampires and that many of them would prefer to distance themselves from the vile creatures we are battling. We know that you have means of influencing the Shadow Creepers and some of the other various monsters that sometimes work alongside the Bloodsuckers.” She couldn’t even begin to name all of the mutants that had surfaced since the Revelation began. “If nothing else, we’d love to have your insight.”