Chapter 63

The sound of intense pounding jarred Jo awake. “Fuck,” she muttered as she willed her eyes to open. A look around told her it was daylight, but then, in Russia, this time of year, that didn’t mean anything. Her IAC said it was almost 11:00 in the morning.
She ran her hand over her face and her tongue along her teeth, the sour taste making her grimace.
With a deep breath, she pulled herself up out of the bed, her anger growing as she wondered who in their right mind would be banging so relentlessly on her door without sending her an IAC message before they dared wake her. If it was a human, she hoped the person had a good excuse, or else she might just snap them in half.
“What!” she demanded, slinging the door open. Her eyes widened as she realized who it was. “Lucas….”
“Ah, Jo. Hello!” he said, warmly, his arms open as if he might hug her, but he didn’t. There was another man with him, one of the guys who had been there during the meeting at his house, one of the thugs, though this one didn’t look quite as brutish as some of the others. She had no idea what his name was. “I am sorry to wake you, but Adrian and I have been waiting to talk to you for some hours, and having run out of things to chit chat about with the rest of your team, we decided it was time to wake Sleeping Beauty.” His eyes went to her hair for a moment, and it was clear he was trying to hide a chuckle.
Jo’s hand automatically brushed the top of her head. He was right to laugh, she imagined. Even without a mirror, she could feel that her hair was sticking out all over the place. She hadn’t braided it before she went to sleep like she normally did. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of Zane’s old boxer shorts she’d stolen a long time ago. She must’ve looked the picture of professionalism and style.
With a sigh, she said, “Please come in while I go… freshen up.”
“Thank you,” Lucas said, waiting for her to step aside so that he and Adrian, a man just a little more broad in the shoulders than Lucas, with dark hair and a couple of inches on the shorter Souled, who hadn’t even pretended to smile politely, could come in. He seemed like a real cheerful fellow--like most Russians she’d met.
Jo grabbed some clothes from her duffle bag and headed to the bathroom, turning the sink on while she did her business so they wouldn’t overhear her peeing. She checked her IAC to see she had several missed messages from her teammates asking if she was awake yet. All of them were from Guardians or Cassidy, people who didn’t need to sleep as much as she did. She wondered if any of the other Hunters were still asleep in the other rooms or if they were all up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Leading hunts made a person tired, apparently, and then there was the emotional toll of losing one of her people weighing on her as well.
Jo came back out a few minutes later to hear them discussing something in Russian. They stopped when she entered the room. “Thanks for waiting,” she said politely and took a chair near where Lucas sat on one end of the couch. Adrian was as far on the other end as could be managed between their girth. “Can I get you anything?” She hoped they said no because she didn’t even think they had bottled water in the room. It wasn’t a fancy enough hotel to have a minibar or anything like that.
“No, thank you,” Lucas said. Adrian said nothing, only stared at her, dead-eyed.
“Where’s Eliza?” Jo asked, trying to keep her tone interested but not confrontational as she wasn’t completely shocked that the Guardian hadn’t come along with them.
“She is with some of our other associates, still collecting information,” Lucas replied, not seeming to be offended at the question.
Jo knew that the topic was a sore one because Eliza didn’t get along with everyone on her team and didn’t want to see most of them, let alone have to work with them. “Sorry it took me so long to wake up. Yesterday was… difficult.” She didn’t mention the loss of Ping to them but it was already weighing heavily on her mind, even though she’d only been awake for a few moments.
“That’s all right,” Lucas assured her. “It gave me a chance to visit with some of the others and hear about what happened last night. It sounds like you made the best of a terrible situation.”
“Thanks,” Jo said because she wasn’t sure what else to say. “It was rough.” Deciding now was a good time to change the subject, she asked, “So… what brings you by?”
“We just wanted to discuss with you our next move. We believe we have an idea of what Secret Palace means.”
Jo felt her heart rate accelerate. “You do?” The idea that they might find Holland’s hiding spot soon had her blood rushing. “You do?”
Lucas nodded, and the two men exchanged glances. “There is a castle in the mountains in Bulgaria that has been called the Secret Palace for a few hundred years. We’ve sent some of our associates to canvas the area. If we can get enough information to indicate that might be the place we’re looking for, then we’ll move in.”
She continued to stare at him, not sure what to say. It seemed so simple. It seemed… impossible. “Let me check with Hattie on something,” she said. Lucas nodded, and then the two of them started talking in Russian
She had a few messages from Hattie that indicated she was able to pull some information off of the laptop they’d taken from the cave, but none of them were specific. “Hattie,” Jo said over the IAC. “What do you have for me?”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of specific information, but I was able to find out that the IP address from the email. It’s actually from a town near where you guys intercepted that load of potential reserva de sange.”
Jo’s breath caught in her throat as she remembered the car that had gone past them while they were standing by the side of the road. She had had the distinct feeling that that car was important, that whoever was in it had something to do with the Red Queen. “Do you have anything at all from Bulgaria?”
“I do,” Hattie said, getting Jo’s pulse racing again. “It seems like there were several documents either generated or sent from a remote location that hits the GPS near Belogradchik. It’s not exactly in the town, but somewhere in the mountain range. There are a few other locations that are of interest, here in Russia, though.”
Trying not to let the fact that one of the locations was in Bulgaria, and Lucas had just mentioned the country to her, Jo calmed herself and asked, “Were there any other countries involved?”
“Just a couple of emails that seemed to be sent from Bulgaria to Hungary, but none of those mentioned the queen. Some of the others did mention her, but only rudimentarily.”
“Did they use that same name, Cervene?”
“Yes, but nothing that would be directly helpful to finding her. Just movements she made in the past. I saw an email that mentioned her passing through the part of Russia where Aaron saw her around the time that he was here.”
The hair on her arms stood on end as she thought about what that meant. Further confirmation that not only was it Holland they were hunting, but that name, Cervene, truly did refer to Holland. Putting all of those pieces of the puzzle together not only gave her chills, it renewed her energy. There was no way in hell she was letting that bitch get away.