Zoe Kissane (later Kissane-West), also known by the call-signs Bloody Mary and Princess Zoe, is a member of the Coalition of Minnows and of Jack West Jr's team, and is also Jack's wife and Lily's adoptive mother.
History[]
Early History[]
Sometime after turning 18, Zoe Kissane joined the Army Ranger Wing of Ireland's Defence Forces (the Sciathan Fhianoglach an Arim). During her time there, Zoe became a specialist in hostage rescue and received advanced medical training. She soon received the official call-sign Bloody Mary. Her younger brother Liam would later follow in her footsteps and join the Irish Defence Forces as well.
In 1989, Zoe was assigned by her superiors to study archaeology under Max Epper at Trinity College in Dublin, in preparation of a multi-national mission the Canadian was hoping to put together in the future. During her studies she met Jack West Jr and the twins Julius and Lachlan Adamson. From the moment she met Jack, Zoe felt an attraction to the Australian soldier, but could never admit her feelings for him.
After completing her studies at Trinity College, Zoe returned to military services.
Before Seven Ancient Wonders[]
In 1996, Zoe and Liam were among Ireland's representatives in a meeting of small nations to discuss uniting to restore the Golden Capstone in order to avert the destruction threatened by the Tartarus sunspot. She briefly spoke up during Epper's explanation, reminding Sheik Abbas what the seven Wonders of the Ancient World were. Once Ireland agreed to the multi-national mission, they assigned both Zoe and her brother to help guard Lily until she was old enough to begin translating the clues leading to the hiding places within the seven Wonders.
Over the next several years spent raising Lily at the team's base in Kenya, Zoe worked alongside the other members of the Coalition team on the farm while also raising Lily as much like a normal girl as possible. Many of the locals who saw Zoe on the farm assumed Lily to be her daughter. Indeed as she grew up, Lily came to admire Zoe, since she was the only woman even remotely close to her age that she knew. In addition to playing video games together such as Splinter Cell, the pair would do girly things together, and Lily eventually gave her the nickname, Princess Zoe.
Several years into the mission, Zoe found herself talking with Epper, reminiscing about the days when she studied under him and noting Jack was a lot different from that time. Epper went on to explain to her things about Jack that she had never known before, such as his mother being Australian and his work operating with the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force.
When Lily turned ten, she managed to decipher the first part of the Callimachus text, and soon afterwards Jack led Zoe and the rest of the team to the Sudan to locate the Colossus of Rhodes Piece.
Seven Ancient Wonders[]
As the team made their way into the ancient mine, Zoe reminded her brother (Big Ears) to watch his step as he carried Lily through most of the trap-laden mine. Once the team entered the cavern and initiated the Warblers, Zoe and the others moved to make their way through the Master Snare trap, and once Jack and Lily retrieved the Piece, began their retreat. Unfortunately, once they made it back outside, the team was surrounded by Cal Kallis and his men, and the ruthless CIEF soldier put a gun to Zoe's head, forcing Jack to relent and hand over the Capstone Piece. Luckily, the team managed to escape from Kallis and get away on the Halicarnassus.
As the team prepared their next move to recover the Alexandria Lighthouse Piece, Zoe saw to Big Ears' and Fuzzy's injuries. Once Jack located Hamilcar's Refuge in a concealed inlet, Zoe and the rest of the team were dropped off to join him. After racing Kallis and Judah's teams through the trap systems to the Refuge, Zoe, Jack and Lily alone made it to the Piece, where they found the Lighthouse's Piece with the Mausoleum Piece. However, with Judah's team right behind them, they were forced to leave them behind, and so Zoe escorted Lily back to the rest of the team before they all made their escape from the Refuge.
In the wake of their failures, Jack called a team meeting to discuss the difficulties they were having with the clues for the Statue of Zeus and Temple of Artemis Pieces. After Epper revealed that the present-day form of the Cult of Amun Ra, noted to have the Piece in their highest temple, was the Catholic Church, Zoe followed his line of reasoning and realised the Piece was at St. Peter's Basilica. Soon, Jack reluctantly decided they needed to liberate Mustapha Zaeed, an expert on the Capstone, from Guantanamo Bay to help them identify the location of the Zeus Piece, and so he and Zoe donned Gull Wings in order to infiltrate the detention camp and free the terrorist while the rest of the team provided a distraction.
Once Zaeed revealed the Zeus Piece was kept unknowingly in the Louvre, Zoe helped to explain to Big Ears the diversity between the Freemasons and Catholics and their current forms of worship compared to ancient times such as the construction of obelisks, which helped lead the team to realise how they might be able to locate the tomb of Alexander the Great. While Jack led most of the team to retrieve the Zeus Piece, Zoe joined Epper and Fuzzy as they ventured to Rome, not so they could take the Piece, but so that Wizard could memorise the inscription. Soon after they contacted Doris to inform her of their success, however, Zoe and the others were soon captured by Father del Piero's men.
Del Piero had Zoe, Epper and Fuzzy brought to him one day before the Rotation event, gloating about the Church's imminent victory before introducing Lily's twin brother Alexander to them. When Zoe asked if the boy had ever played Splinter Cell, he replied that games were for fools. To this, Zoe noted that games helped teach people lessons, one of which was to know who had your back, and she suggested to Alexander that in difficult times it wouldn't be del Piero or his men.
Zoe, Fuzzy and Wizard were brought along by del Pier to Luxor to watch as he attempted to take the Americans' gathered Capstone Pieces. After del Piero's men were blindsided by Judah's forces, Zoe and the others were reunited with the similarly-captured Lily and Stretch, and brought along to Giza.
Zoe, Fuzzy and Stretch were kept in a Black Hawk at the base of the Great Pyramid to be used as hostages that Judah would order killed if Lily didn't comply to his commands. During the ritual of power, however, the remainder of the Coalition team assaulted the CIEF on the scaffold from the hovering Halicarnassus, and in the confusion Zoe and the others escaped from their bonds and took control of the Black Hawk, using it to help bring down CIEF choppers. After the battle was over, Zoe rejoined the rest of the team on the Halicarnassus and, once they had taken the used Capstone, left the area. Zoe was soon informed of her brother's death, and Lily did her best to comfort her.
In the following weeks after the battle, Zoe went along with Epper and Lily to meet Jack at his farm in Australia. After Jack showed off the Capstone and some of the Ancient Wonder relics he kept hidden in an old nickel mine, he presented Zoe with a White Desert rose he had recovered from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
Between Seven Ancient Wonders and The Six Sacred Stones[]
Some time after the mission was completed, Zoe returned to Ireland to resume her regular duties, while occasionally being asked to go over some details of the Capstone mission. However, Zoe was expected by some of her superiors (who were unaware of the details of her ten-year long mission) to completely retrain before she could resume military service.
After reflecting on the deaths of Big Ears, Doris and Noddy during the mission, Jack realised that there would always be the risk of being killed without a chance to say goodbye, and so he suggested that Zoe and everybody in the team write an email to be read by him or someone else important to them should they perish during a mission, which he called Messages from the Other Side.
Though the absence of most of her former guardians, including Zoe, was hard on Lily at first, she took to visiting them regularly in their home nations whenever possible. During her time off, Zoe would in turn visit Jack and Lily in Australia, staying at Jack's farm and hanging out with Lily, doing girly things together such as painting their toenails or dying the tips of their hair. On one of these occasions, Lily asked if Zoe was in love with Jack, and Zoe replied that she had been since she had first met him, but did not elaborate on why she had not acted on her feelings.
Zoe was able to rejoin the entire team as they celebrated the 2007 New Year at the Burj al Arab in Dubai.
At some point during this period, Zoe reluctantly agreed to dinner with her colleague Cieran Kincaid, and when she woke up the next morning she realised that they had slept together, despite Cieran's highly religious beliefs. Unaware that she had been drugged, Zoe was horrified at what she had done and her betrayal of her feelings for Jack. Zoe attempted to avoid Cieran afterwards, but after General O'Hara's death, she was forced to brief Cieran when he was made O'Hara's replacement. He suggested that they go out to dinner again to continue their debriefing, however Zoe declined the offer.
Some time shortly before the first of December 2007, Zoe was visiting Jack's farm to visit him and Lily during the latter's school break.
The Six Sacred Stones[]
Zoe was awoken by Jack as he called to his guests that the farm was about to be attacked by invading Chinese forces, and set about helping Lily and her friend Alby Calvin get ready to evacuate. Zoe then helped aid the group's escape by driving one of the Light Strike Vehicles safely through the farmland's traps to the Halicarnassus, where she used one of the turrets to fire back at the pursuing attack planes until they were clear. The group then headed to Dubai where Wizard had requested Jack arrange a new meeting of nations.
Once everyone had gathered, Zoe represented Ireland once again as Jack revealed what he had learned from Wizard's notes; a zero-point field referred to as the Dark Star was due to enter the solar system, and unless it was repelled, then its deadly energy would destroy all life on Earth. To this end, they needed to gather six oblong diamonds called Pillars and set them at various locations around the world to rebuild an ancient machine. In order to find the Pillars and Vertices, determine when each Pillar had to be set and cleanse them, they would need to find the Six Sacred Stones. Zoe was dubious at the idea of the Dark Sun coming to wipe out life on Earth, however Jack reminded her that it wasn't a thinking entity and Earth was just in its way.
After Alby revealed he knew some details of some of Wizard's notes, Jack sent him with Zoe and Lily with the Firestone to meet with the Adamson twins to unlock the secrets of the Altar Stone of Stonehenge. Upon their rendezvous with the Adamson twins, Zoe and the kids made their way to Stonehenge, and Zoe offered suggestions for the twins request for call-sign, all which which they rejected, and listened to the twins' theories regarding Stonehenge and its connection to the Great Pyramid. Upon reaching Stonehenge, Zoe disabled the guards and helped to restore the ancient site before the Titanic Rising began, watching in amazement as the weakened light of the Dark Sun caused the lichen on the trilithons to reveal the relative locations of each of the six vertices.
Reuniting with Jack's group Mortimer Island, Zoe and the others were introduced to Iolanthe Compton-Jones of the House of Windsor, who had the Fourth Pillar to go with Vulture's First Pillar. Zoe rolled her eyes when Iolanthe regarded Lily, at which point the royal noticed her, and the two immediately came to dislike one another as Iolanthe show amusement at Zoe's call-sign. Zoe joined the rest of the procession as they identified the location of the First Vertex at Abu Simbel, learned the Pillar-laying dates from the Killing Stone of the Maya, and cleansed the two Pillars they had with the Philosopher's Stone.
Zoe accompanied the team as they made their way to Abu Simbel, and soon located the entrance to the Vertex. Though skeptical of Jack's suggestion that they could simply crawl by the Nile crocodiles in the entryway since they would be too sluggish to move, Zoe proceeded to join Jack and Wizard in making their way through the vertex. Zoe listened as Wizard told them of his theory regarding how the Machine and its components had been built by a race of super-ancient men, and she helped him to note several of the carved images on the walls as they waited for the Titanic Rising. Once the time arrived, Zoe watched in amazement as the inverted pyramid began activating and Jack laid the Pillar in place.
When it was over, Iolanthe and her team of Royal Marines jammed the team's communications and took the team members on the surface hostage. Their commander threatened to kill Alby when Jack initially refused to hand over the Pillar, and so Jack and Zoe reluctantly sent out Wizard with the Pillar, right before the Vertex entrance was closed on them. Luckily, the crocodiles in the entryway meant there was another way out, and Jack and Zoe escaped in time to save the rest of the team, who were sinking into the crocodile-filled lake.
Wizard then radioed to report that Iolanthe's group had been blindsided by suicide bombers, and was now fleeing with Lily and the Pillar. However, Sky Monster then reported that a convoy of enemy vehicles were approaching, and so the team rushed to catch up to the Halicarnassus in a Land Rover Sky Monster dropped to them. During the chase, Zoe received a call from Alby's mother Lois, and an exasperated Zoe gave the phone to Alby. After Pooh Bear threw himself from the car to drag off some of their enemies, Zoe took the wheel and managed to get herself and Alby into the Hali. However, with an engine damaged Sky Monster needed to take off, and Zoe and the others reluctantly heeded Jack's plea to find the Neetha and place the Second Pillar, promising to catch up to them, leaving the rest of the team behind.
Shortly after they took off, however, Sky Monster informed the group that they would need to make a forced landing in Rwanda. After sending word to Solomon Kol to request fuel, Zoe and the others made plans to rendezvous with him on the way to the Congo. With word having been sent out to search for them, Zoe had to cut her hair short to help disguise herself. Zoe took down a rape gang when they came close to their first resting spot so that they could take their technical, and while attempting to get in touch with Jack, they instead reached his father Jonathon "Wolf" West Sr, who was the leader of their adversaries and had apparently killed Jack, revelations that disturbed Zoe.
After meeting with Solomon, Zoe's group continued its search for the Neetha, however when they approached the Neetha village, they were promptly captured by the tribe, and discovered that, in addition to the Second Pillar, the Neetha also possessed the Seeing Stone of Delphi. As the Neetha held them prisoner, the group became concerned when Wizard realised the Neetha had no desire to save the world, and soon they met the long-missing anthropologist Diane Cassidy and a kindly Neethan called Ono. When Warano announced his claim to make Lily his wife, Zoe was horrified, and Solomon tried and failed to fight for Lily's freedom. Zoe decided to try herself, taunting Warano with claims he couldn't defeat a woman and offered herself as a second prize. During the fight, Zoe allowed Warano to wear himself out before finishing him off.
As Zoe was sentenced to the village's maze as punishment, she noticed Alby still had her camera and requested he accompany her, while also calling for Lily to continue listening to Ono's radio, having realised Wolf's men were closing in. Zoe quickly reassured Alby that the path through the maze was in one of the pictures she'd taken of a symbol in the first Vertex, and Zoe defended them from crocodiles and the hyenas sent after them. Zoe then had them wait until Wolf's men started assaulting the village before dashing out to grab the Pillars and Seeing Stone and attempted to to escape from the village in the chaos. When she was knocked down, Alby opted to save Zoe rather than grab the Pillars, however Alby was shot and captured by Wolf's men, and Zoe was forced to leave the boy behind.
Zoe and the others were able to get back to the approaching Halicarnasus, where Lily and Wizard commended Zoe on all her efforts to keep them safe, however they were all disheartened to learn that Wolf and his Saudi allies had paid off the South African government to prevent any access to the Second Vertex beneath Table Mountain. Eventually Wizard's belief that Jack was alive proved true when Jack got in contact with the group, and Zoe watched over the video link as Wizard helped Jack navigate the second Vertex's trap system. However, she was soon watching in horror as Jack made a desperate play to lay the Pillar before a treacherous CIEF soldier dropped it into the chasm and fell into its depths as a result. A tearful Zoe was forced to delay her grief as South African fighter jets made their way to their position.
The Five Greatest Warriors[]
As Sky Monster flew the Halicarnassus out over the sea, Zoe used one of the plane's turrets to deter the F-15s from coming too close until they were forced to abandon the pursuit. When she rejoined the others, she was surprised to see them happy, learning Jack had survived the fall and rescued Alby, and so the relieved Zoe and the rest of her group arranged to meet up with him at World's End.
Once the team reunited, Zoe broke down crying and hugged him, having spent far too long holding it together for Lily's sake, and told Jack to let someone else save the world next time. Once they'd exchanged tales of their adventures since their split, Jack then told them about Pooh Bear's mission to save Stretch.
Eventually Jack decided they needed to help Pooh Bear on his quest, and so he and Zoe infiltrated a uranium shipment to the Dimona Nuclear Centre where Mordechai Muniz had Stretch. Setting off a small explosion as a distraction, Zoe helped to retrieve their friends before they were pursued in an ambulance to an old salt mine by Muniz's forces. Fortunately this had been Jack's plan, as Zoe led Pooh Bear and Stretch through the mine's tunnels to where the Halicarnassus waited while Jack distracted Muniz.
Once the whole team was reunited at Sea Ranger's base in Zanzibar to prepare their next move, Cassidy suggested they focus their research on a prophecy in which five figures throughout history known as the Five Greatest Warriors would affect the Machine, the Pillars and the Vertices. As Cassidy explained, Moses, Jesus Christ, Genghis Khan and Napoléon Bonaparte all fit the descriptions in the prophecy, while the Fifth Warrior was unknown and set to be present during the Dark Star's return. Though Zoe was skeptical that Jesus and Napoléon were the prophecised Warriors, Jack believed it was their best course of action, and suggested that Zoe also look into other possibilities of the Warriors' identities in case Cassidy was wrong.
In any case, Cassidy's suggestion turned out to be quite fruitful, and the team spent the next two months undergoing research to confirm the Five Warriors' connections to the Machine. When the twins discovered that Genghis once possessed a Fabergé Egg with images of the entrances to the Vertices, kept in his long lost Arsenal, Zoe joined Jack's team as they headed to Mongolia to locate it.
However, when they arrived, some of Wolf's men had already entered the Arsenal, as had Tank and the Japanese Blood Brotherhood, the latter having destroyed the Egg. Zoe and Lily took cover until Wolf's team departed, and when they caught up to their friends their were horrified to see that Wizard had been fatally wounded by Wolf. As he lay dying, Wizard let slip that Jack had once planned on proposing to Zoe, to her shock. Though Jack wanted to take Wizard's body with them, Zoe pointed out they couldn't and thought that being buried in the same tomb as Genghis Khan would have pleased Wizard, having seen a sarcophagus in the vault. Upon opening it and finding that Genghis had a shield with the Egg's images, Zoe and Sky Monster worked to dig out an old escape tunnel beneath the sarcophagus to avoid Mao and his forces.
After they had laid low for a week, the captive Tank revealed that the Blood Brotherhood was supported by the Japanese government, and had blockaded the Third Vertex thanks to the Imperial Navy. Knowing that Wolf would encounter difficulty entering the Vertex, Jack, Zoe and Lily decided to use the Black Bee and Warblers to land on the exposed beach and help the Philosopher's Stone-carrying Rapier into the Vertex before a tsunami struck. After Jack and Wolf agreed to an alliance to make sure that the Third Pillar was laid, Zoe took up a fallen CIEF soldier's sniper rifle to use against the Japanese forces inside the Vertex trying to stop them.
During the course of the journey through the fire maze, Zoe was hit in the ankle by a Japanese sniper. Later, as Wolf looked at the trio and seeing how much of a family they seemed, suggested that they weren't always loyal to one another, looking at Zoe as he said it, suggesting he knew of her night with Cieran. When Jack was threatened by Rapier, Zoe demanded that he back down. As Zoe and Astro helped secure the winches Jack and Wolf were using to reach the inverted pyramid's peak, Zoe did her best to provide cover fire as the Pillar was placed. After taking time to tend to their injuries and help Astro, Zoe and the others emerged from the Vertex and were quickly captured by Russian forces.
Zoe, along with the others, was taken to a dam in Siberia belonging to the Russian royal known as Carnivore, who revealed his intention to take the Pillars and their rewards and manipulate everyone else into completing the Machine's restoration for him. Zoe, with her injured ankle, was apparently deemed unfit by Carnivore, who had her placed inside a tank of formaldehyde to use her as one of the hostages to manipulate Jack and the others. As Jack pledged to Zoe that he would return for her, Carnivore revealed that in spite of his love for her, she had apparently betrayed him by sleeping with someone else (but not revealing the truth behind the incident). Zoe was visibly shocked that Carnivore knew this, and since she couldn't speak she bowed her head in shame. Though disheartened, Jack still determined to rescue her and the others.
However, after the Fourth and Fifth Pillars were confirmed to have been laid, Carnivore abandoned his base and the prisoners, informing them that they would likely perish from lack of oxygen after a few days. After Wolf managed to escape his tank, Zoe screamed and motioned for him to release her and the others, though Wolf chose to ignore them and left them to their fate.
Fortunately, the twins, Pooh Bear, Sky Monster and Stretch were able to get back to Carnivore's dam and free Zoe and the others before they could suffocate. After spending the next few days recovering, Jack and Lily finally returned to see Zoe and the others. Though Zoe prepared to apologise to Jack for betraying him, Jack assured her that he had forgiven her, having learned the truth about Cieran drugging her, and pledging that Zoe always had his loyalty before they kissed.
Within the next few weeks, Jack and Zoe got married in a civil ceremony attended by their friends. Five weeks after the repelling of the Dark Star, as they watched Lily and Alby playing on their new farm, Zoe noted that they had never uncovered the identity of the Fifth Greatest Warrior, and suggested that it was in fact Jack. After listing the adversities the Fifth Warrior was to have faced and how Jack had done those same things, Jack admitted that he had in fact figured out it was him. The amused Zoe noted that they'd likely never hear the end of that fact.
Between The Five Greatest Warriors and The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
In the months after the Dark Sun's return, still wanting Lily to have some semblance of a normal life, Zoe and Jack arranged a trip to an Adelaide dog shelter to find her a pet, and while Lily was immediately taken with a Labrador named Ash, Jack surprised Zoe by suggesting they also adopt a poodle named Roxy.
During the course of the next eight years, Zoe (apparently retired from the Irish military) and the others continued largely as they had before, returning to their home nation while making the odd visit to one another. Around this time Zoe met Jack's mother, Mae Merriweather, for the first time. However, even as Jack and Zoe enjoyed living a normal life, Zoe found herself more restless and in want for more adventures than her husband, taking to visiting their friends more often. After Lily left to attend Stanford, she kept in touch with Jack and Zoe by chatting with them via FaceTime between their visits.
In November 2016, while Sky Monster, Lily and Alby were visiting Jack and Zoe at the farm, Lachlan and Julius informed Jack and Zoe of a discovery that they and David "Nobody" Black had made of an doorway deep in the Mariana Trench covered in Thoth symbols. While Jack declined their offer to go and see for himself, he suggested to his more restless wife that she go along with them to see the archway for herself.
The Four Legendary Kingdoms[]
After Zoe's expedition with the twins ended, she returned to the farm to find Jack and the others had left. When they eventually returned, Zoe went to the Sky Warrior to meet them and prepared to begin explaining what she and the twins had discovered in the Mariana Trench, but cut herself off when she realised the state they were in and saw the strange additions of Iolanthe, Mae, Hades and E-147 to their group. Upon stating that Jack looked like he'd been through hell, Jack could only remarks on Zoe's choice of words before he began to explain what they'd been through.
The Three Secret Cities[]
As they descended into the Mariana trench in Nobody's submersible from the Betty White, Zoe and the others used ground-penetrating radar to scan the sunken doorway, discovering that whatever lay on the other side was a large deposit of volcanic stone. Unable to open the doorway, Zoe, the twins and Nobody took photos of the Thoth text carved upon it for Lily to translate later. After completing their examination, Zoe and her friends went their separate ways, with Zoe returning to the Simpson Desert farm.
Upon seeing the state of her friends when they returned (Jack's shaved hair and injuries, the dress-wearing Lily and the rarely-visiting Mae) Zoe went inside the farmhouse where Jack explained the events of the last few days regarding the Underworld, the Four Legendary Kingdoms and the upcoming trials set by the Super-Ancients. When Jack was done, Zoe gave a brief account of what she, the twins and Nobody had found regarding the doorway. When Iolanthe departed, Zoe was irked as the royal kissed her husband on the cheek as she left.
On the third day after returning home, Hades informed Jack and the others that he was being forcibly abdicated from the Four Kingdoms. With the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains approaching, they would need to collect the Helmet of Hades of the Immortal Weapons, items which needed to be empowered at the Three Secret Cities of Thule, Atlas and Ra before a ritual occurring on a certain celestial date for the former trial, from his New York penthouse. Zoe then joined the team in boarding the Sky Warrior and heading to New York.
Upon arriving in New York, while Lily, Jack and Mae accompanied Hades to his penthouse at Saxony Tower, Zoe went to take up a backup position on the nearby Tribeca One. Indeed her help was needed as a pair of V-22 Ospreys under the control of a group called the Knights of the Golden Eight opened fire on Saxony Tower. Zoe turned a crane arm to reach just under the penthouse in order to catch Jack, Lily and Mae as they were forced to jump, and joined their escape as they used the falling tower to fall into the Hudson River and reach their rendezvous point with Alby.
Having lost Hades, their primary source of information, the team's best move was to view a charcoal rubbing of the full Altar tablet kept by the Fraternal Order of St. Paul at the Gallerie dell'Accademia. In the meantime, Zoe helped to research the Immortal Weapons, Secret Cities and the Altar of the Cosmos. As they shared some of their conclusions regarding the Cities' matching Weapon and their relative locations, Zoe and the others were caught off-guard as all TV channels around the world were hacked by the Knights of the Golden Eight in order to threaten Jack. Needing someone with inside royal knowledge, Jack contacted Iolanthe, who agreed to meet them at the Hall of Royal Records. With the tablet rubbing still a priority, Jack decided to send Zoe and Mae to meet with the royal.
Zoe and Mae first invited Julius and Lachlan to join them, but only Julius elected to join them in making their way to St. Michael's Mount where the Hall of Royal Records resided. As they approached the Mount, Zoe and the others noticed Orlando Compton-Jones and his entourage departing, and so ventured into the dungeon their enemies had emerged from. Finding Iolanthe in the middle of being tortured, Zoe was so shocked at the state the royal was in that she killed her torturer and released her. She and the rest of the group gathered up Iolanthe's notes and returned to London to meet up with Jack's group at a safe-house.
As they discussed the locations of the Three Cities, a commotion on the Thames led them to discover how far the Knights were willing to go to draw Jack and Lily out, displaying feeds of Lachlan and his family being blown up, followed moments later by Sky Monster's parents. As Jack and Lily elected to go confront the Knights, Zoe stood in their way to beg them to think of a plan, and soon Jack asked Zoe to back them up from a distance and use Julius as her spotter. As Zoe watched the confrontation, she questioned the Knights' tactics, but was soon distracted by Julius vanishing while Lily was taken by the Knights and Jack by Yago DeSaxe.
Having lost her family, Zoe demanded Iolanthe tell her where the Royal Prison of Erebus was located so that she could free Jack. As Iolanthe didn't know, they and Mae had to spend the next few days researching, eventually narrowing it down to a section on the Algerian coast. Along with Stretch and Pooh Bear, Zoe infiltrated the area by swimming up the coastline in the hopes of avoiding any detection systems. As they found Jack embedded in stone and prepared to set him free, Yago and his guards revealed they had been aware of their approach, and Yago informed them that they had earned their own place on the Wall of Misery. Luckily help arrived completely unexpected when a man dropped in and took down all of the guards single-handedly. Introducing himself as bounty hunter Aloysius Knight, an old friend of Scarecrow's who had asked him to help Jack, he assisted Zoe and the others in freeing Jack and Hades from their slabs.
Once Jack asserted that they would next rescue Lily and Alby from the Knights' base at Aragon Castle, Zoe assisted in the assault by driving a second supertanker with Hades into the castle's underwater seagate to distract the Knights from Jack and Knight's approach. Once the Knights were forced to retreat and Alby was secured, Zoe helped to pack up some of the Knights' documents before making her way with Alby and Hades to Rome, where the latter had a safe-house while the rest of the team set out to reach the Cities.
As the rest of the team worked to empower the Weapons at the Cities, Zoe and Alby watched a news report on the week's events. Shortly after Alby went back to continue his research, he called out to Zoe, and heard him call everyone on the team to warn them that Lily was in danger since the Four Kingdoms planned to sacrifice her for the Trial's final ritual.
Unfortunately, Jack was too late to prevent Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster and his associates from sacrificing Lily on the Altar. Shortly after the trial had concluded, Jack reunited with Zoe in Rome, and the two grieved the loss of their adopted daughter together.
The Two Lost Mountains[]
A few days after the Trial of the Cities, Pooh Bear discovered that it was Alexander's body in the sacrificial pool at the Altar of the Cosmos and not Lily's. Their hope renewed, Zoe, Jack and the rest of the team based themselves at Hades's Estate in Alsace-Lorraine as they began using facial recognition software to comb the world's security cameras in the hope of finding Lily, while also preparing for the Trial of the Mountains.
During the next few weeks, Zoe accompanied Jack and Hades on a trip back to the now-abandoned Gallerie dell'Accademia to see if the Order of the Omega had left anything informative behind. Zoe commented sarcastically about the Omega monks being modern thinkers after hearing about them from Hades, and after searching the living she was only able to find a small hourglass of greystone powder.
Zoe was among those who remained at the estate with while Jack and the others went to Moscow to rescue Lily, and while they awaited their return, heard about the people in the Russian capital being send into a collective sleep, which was soon followed by a similar incident in Rome. Upon the team's return, Zoe and the others learned that Lily, Stretch and Knight, who along with those in Moscow had been sent into the Siren sleep by the Siren bells under Sphinx's control, with Zoe informing Jack about the incident in Rome.
Zoe joined the team in their discussion of what must needed to happen during the Trial of the Mountains, with Zoe briefly speaking up to comment on the existence of goldmen, and Sphinx's lack of loyalty to his allies since he had disabled the Catholic Church with his attack on Rome. As the team decided to try to locate one of the iron mountains to have someone perform the Fall to gain entrance into the Supreme Labyrinth, it was decided that Zoe, Mae, Lynda and Agnes would head to Rome to break into the Vatican Secret Archives to uncover a journal that supposedly contained information on the mountains' locations, or see if they find find any intel on the location of the Orphean bell.
Once they arrived in Rome, Zoe and Agnes broke into the Pope's private study to look through his papers, with Zoe discovering that the Pope had ordered all of the Church's notes on the Orphean bell had been taken to Albano's Emissary, though neither she nor Agnes knew who that was. Then Zoe discovered the Pope had ordered an assassination on Tracy Smith, whom Agnes explained was a former member of the Order of the Serene Maidens and an expert on the Siren bells' properties, with Zoe determining that they needed to find her for her assistance.
When the St. Peter's Basilica was blown open by a missile, Zoe and Agnes moved in to find Mae and Lynda held at gunpoint by General Garthon Rastor, with Zoe shooting Rastor's subordinate before he could execute Lynda. As Zoe urged her allies into the Black Raven, she was caught off-guard as a V-88 Condor under Rastor's control appeared, which allowed the General to open fire and hit Agnes and Mae. After Mae implored the rest of their team flee, Zoe saw that her mother-in-law was right and ordered Rufus to get them out of there.
When the team began reporting in, Zoe explained what had happened to her group in Rome, as well as what they had learned about Tracy and the locations of the second and third iron mountains. As Jack decided to send Zoe's group to Potala Palace so that they could have a chance to perform the Fall there, a worldwide transmission from Sphinx showed the Palace and the mountain beneath it being destroyed, scuppering that plan.
Instead, the team reunited outside Dijon, and began discussing plans to find one of the two lost mountains, with Zoe also sharing what she and Agnes had learned of the Orphean bell's possible location. While Jack made plans to head to the fourth iron mountain in Jerusalem, Lynda reported a lead on Tracy's location since they would need her expertise on the Orphean bell, and Zoe agreed to fly her to Aleppo to locate the doctor, and decided to take their sleep-stricken friends in the event she was able to awaken them.
After locating Tracy in Aleppo, Zoe asked if she could really undo the Siren sleep, and after hearing Tracy's explanation on how to do so, pleaded for the doctor to help her daughter, though it was Zoe's mentioning that it would hurt the royals that convinced Tracy to help. After Tracy injected Lily with a synthetic endolymph fluid, successfully awakening her, Zoe hugged her adopted daughter in relief. As she began explaining their situation, Zoe and the others began heading to Jerusalem to reunite with Jack.
Arriving not long after Jaeger Zwei used a Siren bell to put Jack, Pooh Bear and Easton to sleep, Zoe, Lily, Stretch and Knight fended off the bronzemen before awakening Jack, with the West family glad at finally being reunited.
As the team headed to Egypt and the final iron mountain beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza, Zoe was invited to read Mae's Message from the Other Side with Jack and Lily, and as their plane touched down in Cairo, Jack asked Zoe and Lily to undertake the Fall with him, knowing that they would need everyone they could to try and beat Sphinx to the ultimate throne in the Supreme Labyrinth, and in the event that they did not all make it, wanted them to do so together for their best chance, which they agreed to.
After arriving in Giza and entering the hidden door in the Sphinx's head, Zoe, Jack and Lily contended with Brother Eli from the Order of the Omega as they raced from the top of the Falling Temple to the bottom, successfully getting themselves branded with the burning key necessary to grant them access to the Labyrinth. With that done, Zoe and the rest of the team began preparations to head to the Supreme Labyrinth and find a way past the forces Sphinx had left to guard the gates inside.
Arriving at the location of the gates in the Sinai Desert, the rest of the team enact Jack's "Russian Doll" plan in order to barrel through Sphinx's defences, allowing Zoe, Lily and Jack to narrowly make it through the gate with Easton and four "palemen". After examining the mummified head of Imhotep that Alby passed to them, Zoe suggested that Lily marry Alby if they made it out of the Labyrinth alive. Once they opened the inner gate into the Supreme Labyrinth with their brands, Zoe and the others proceeded inside, ready to face their final mission together.
The One Impossible Labyrinth[]
A short distance into their entranceway, after questioning what they were walking into after gunfire and shouts up ahead, Zoe shot and killed a Vandal attacking Jack before the group started to take stock of their situation. Upon being rushed into the First Cavern, Zoe and Jack distracted the silverman on their with their specially-tipped ammunition, barely managing to slow the automaton down. When two additional silvermen moved in, Zoe urged Jack to move ahead to help Lily, this time managing to stun one and cause it to fall into the stalactite's well-shaft. But as Rastor started firing RPGs at the stalactite, Zoe hurried to catch up to the others in reaching the Cavern's exit. However, as the stalactite began falling, it took the bridge Zoe was crossing along with it, with the Irishwoman plunging into the chasm below as a result.
As she fell into the abyss, Zoe pulled out the maghook she had in her pack and fired the grappling unit into the wall, halting her fall. After two hours, Zoe managed to scale her way back up to the exit, and though the door was sealed shut, she blew open a hole beneath it using some of her grenades.
Meanwhile, assuming his wife dead and progressed on unaware of Zoe's survival, Jack was distraught and twice considered giving up on the mission, though Lily gave him some hard words and encouraged him to continue on. Reading her Message from the Other Side, Jack found that Zoe had written that she was grateful for their love and for making her life worthwhile and would be waiting for him on the other side.
Zoe continued on through the Supreme Labyrinth on her own to try to catch up to Jack and Lily, using her knowledge to choose the correct path of the Six Choices into the Endless Tunnel, which she traversed over several hours while avoiding looking into the goldmen's faces. Eventually reaching the entrance to the City-Maze right after the massive confrontation that had taken plane their, Zoe was reunited with Lily, Easton and Alby's team, learning that Jack had pursued their rivals into the second half of the Labyrinth alone. With the entrance flooded, Zoe gathered some diving gear and took Lily and Alby with the intention of catching up to and aiding Jack.
Zoe, Lily and Alby eventually caught up to Jack, but found him being held at gunpoint by Ezekiel and the another Omega monk. Zoe quickly stepped in and fired her maghook at the second monk, killing him, and then stepped into view to greet her husband, who was shocked to see Zoe was still alive. As Ezekiel turned his gun on her, Zoe quickly disarmed and began beating the monk leader, criticizing his dislike of women and his attempt on her husband's life. With a final blow that staggered the monk, Zoe took Ezekiel's greystone hourglass and shoved it into his mouth, and as he choked on the powder, Zoe emptied her water bottle into the Omega monk's mouth. Before he could be killed by the internal damage caused by the solidifying greystone, Zoe offered a final taunt about having been beaten by a girl before kicking Ezekiel off the ledge to his death.
Reunited with her husband, Zoe explained how she had "pulled a Jack West" to survive before they, Lily and Alby began tackling the rotating Four-Sided Maze. At the very end, Zoe, Lily and Alby were swept back by a rush of water, and Zoe urged Jack to continue pursuing Rastor and that they would catch up. As they started crossing the bridge in the next cavern, however, Zoe was horrified as they saw Jack apparently killed in a crimson orb explosion, and stared in shock at the rubble of the cupola. Reluctantly, Zoe and the others ran to catch up to their enemies on the Tower of Judgement, and though Ricardo Mendoza held them at gunpoint, Jack returned to lay out the Cardinal.
With the next part of the Labyrinth expected to be passed through one at a time, Zoe waited until her turn to ascend in the cage to the Chamber of Judgement, where the Gold Colossus judged Zoe to be "pure loyalty" and allowed her to continue on to the Stadium of the the Throne of Death. Once she, Alby and Lily had all arrived in the Stadium, they ran to catch up to Jack, eventually nearing him on the pinnacle as Jack - having had the hand of his artificial arm damaged by Rastor - found himself unable to climb the final overhang. Zoe helped to aid Jack one last time by helping pass Alby's prosthetic hand up to Jack, allowing her husband to make the final climb to the Throne of Death before Sphinx and prevent the Omega Event from happening. Once they reunited at the top of the pinnacle, Jack explained to Zoe and Lily how he had been granted the power of absolute command for sitting on the throne, and the group discussed what the Colossus had said about each of them until the rest of their friends arrived to pick them up.
In the years following the aftermath of the events of the trials and Sphinx's actions, Zoe and Jack resumed living their lives at the farm, with the former occasionally teasing her husband by telling him not to ever order her to do the chores since she would have no choice due to his power.
Personality[]
As well as being a member of Ireland's best commando unit, Zoe is also uniquely University taught, having studied archaeology and ancient history under Max Epper. Much like Jack West Jr, this makes her an extremely good soldier, and certainly not one to underestimate. Though noted not to be a girly girl, she is unafraid to delve into hair styles and painting nails to teach Lily the facts of womanhood.
Skills[]
- Expert Combatant: As a trained soldier in the Irish Defence Force, Zoe has been trained in several forms of hand-to-hand combat. She is skilled enough to even be able to overcome larger opponents, as seen when she fought Warano one-on-one, with Zoe using her smaller size and speed to parry the Neethan long enough that he overexerted himself, allowing Zoe to finish him off with ease.
- Expert Marksman: Being a trained soldier, Zoe is an accurate markswoman and capable of using a variety of different firearms. She is also proficiently skilled in hitting long-distance targets with sniper rifles and some smaller guns, though she does acknowledge the difficulty of trying to snipe enemies from a distance with pistols.
- Trained Medic: During her time in the Sciathan Fhianoglach an Arim, Zoe received advanced medical training, which has allowed her to help patch up injured members of the team throughout their adventures.
- Expert Archaeologist: Having being taught by Epper at Trinity College, Zoe is a highly knowledgeable in archaeology and ancient history.
- Trained Pilot: At some point during her military career, Zoe was apparently trained in piloting helicopters, as she proved able to pilot a Black Hawk with Fuzzy during the battle with the CIEF at the Great Pyramid. At some point during or after the Capstone mission, Zoe was given some lessons by Sky Monster on how to fly planes, becoming competent enough that she can pilot seaplanes with minimal difficulty.
Equipment[]
Weapons[]
- MP-7: To Be Added.
- Neethan Sword: A sword made by the Neetha tribe which Zoe used during her fight against Warano, stabbing the Neethan with it fatally after wearing him down.
- Barrett Sniper Rifle: A .50 caliber, shoulder-fired, semi-automatic sniper rifle, which Zoe took from a dead CIEF trooper in the Third Vertex and used to snipe at the Japanese forces harassing them within the fire maze.
Vehicles[]
- UH-60 Black Hawk: An American military utility chopper, which Zoe and Fuzzy both commandeered and piloted during the battle with the CIEF at the Great Pyramid, helping the Halicarnassus take down several enemy aircraft.
- Light Strike Vehicle: A small, unarmoured military vehicle used for fast hit-and-run style raids. When the Chinese invaded Jack's farm in the Great-Sandy Desert, Zoe and Jack each drove an LSV across the farm to help them and the children escape the invaders.
- Clipper Seaplane: A Soviet-made rip-off of the Boeing 314 Clipper, which Zoe piloted to get her team away from the Neetha village, until they abandoned it in mid-air to escape to the Halicarnassus as the Neethan warriors sabotaged the Clipper in-flight.
- ICON A10 Seaplane: An amphibious light-sport aircraft previously owned by Zaitan DeSaxe called Sexy Prince Two, which Zoe flew to Aleppo to recruit Tracy Smith, and then onward to Jerusalem to catch up with Jack's group.
Other Equipment[]
- Warblers: Anti-gunfire devices invented by Epper which Zoe and the team have used to defend themselves from enemies firing on them.
- Gull Wings: A carbon-fibre wingsuit for reconnaissance, stealth infiltration and rescue operations. Zoe used a set as she joined Jack in breaking into Guantanamo Prison to liberate Zaeed from his cell and carry him back to the Halicarnassus.
- LaSon-V Stun Gun: A non-lethal weapon which uses a laser flash and sonic charge to incapacitate targets that its aimed at, which Zoe used to stun the guards at Stonehenge to allow her group access around the ancient monoliths.
- Mini-Maghook: A miniaturised version of the Armalite Maghook, a grappling hook apparatus with magnetic adhesion properties often employed by members U.S. Marine Corps reconnaissance units. Zoe had one among her gear as the West family began their journey into the Supreme Labyrinth, which she used to save her life during her fall into the chasm of the First Cavern, and later to kill an Omega monk threatening Jack.
Relationships[]
Jack West Jr[]
Zoe and Jack met when they studied archaeology under Wizard before the events of Seven Ancient Wonders. The first sign of romance between them occurs at the end of Seven Ancient Wonders when Jack presents Zoe with a bouquet of roses from the Hanging Gardens. In Six Sacred Stones, Lily asked Zoe if she loved Jack, to which she replied "I've loved him since I first laid eyes on him, but... it's complicated". Her romantic involvement to Jack is further cemented when he "dies" at the end of The Six Sacred Stones and she is distraught, only to break down in Jack's arms and cry when they reunite in The Five Greatest Warriors. Zoe was later surprised when a dying Wizard reveals that Jack was going to ask her to marry him, but she left for Ireland after the Capstone mission and Jack lost his nerve.
It is revealed during The Five Greatest Warriors that Zoe slept with another man (Cieran), around the time that he lost his nerve to propose. Though upset by the incident, he resolves to save her regardless, and upon learning that Cieran drugged her, realises it wasn't her fault and forgives her. She and Jack had married in a civil ceremony with matching gold wedding bands. Little is described of their relationship following their marriage, although it has been running strong in the eight years since. When he thought that Zoe had perished in the Supreme Labyrinth, Jack was left so despondent that he briefly considered giving up the mission, though was greatly relieved when she turned out to still be alive.
Cieran Kincaid[]
When Jack West is also captured and brought to Carnivore's lair, Carnivore makes a passing comment about Zoe. He alludes to the fact that Zoe slept with another man, two years prior, while in Dublin. Zoe does nothing to deny this fact. Later in the book, it is revealed that Cieran Kincaid, her former colleague, was the man with whom she slept with. Cieran goads Jack, making comments about Zoe and his intimacy with her. He tells Jack that he plied her with wine and slipped her extra shots in order to make her come to bed with him. He says that Zoe regretted what she had done the next morning. However, Jack then kills Ceiran and later forgives Zoe for her indiscretions since it wasn't her fault.
Trivia[]
- Her callsign before it was changed to "Princess Zoe" by Lily was "Bloody Mary."
- Like Jack, she also studied archeology at Trinity University under Wizard, which is where they first met.
- Zoe, along with Jack, Lily, Sky Monster, Stretch and Pooh Bear, is among the few characters who have appeared in every novel in the Jack West Jr Series.
- Notably, however, Zoe's role in The Four Legendary Kingdoms was far smaller than the others.