A check of the time told Layla she still had the better part of two hours before her nightly meeting with Xavier. And this meeting was going to be more than a briefing. She wondered if the others would be invited and hoped for the first time since she’d arrived that she’d be alone with Xavier. The other vampires, especially Joaquim and Chuy, were bound to be super protective and slavishly loyal to Xavier. They wouldn’t have been elevated to the position of his highest advisers if they weren’t.
She gave a mental shrug as she stripped off her sweat-stained and dirty clothes. It would be better if the others weren’t there, but their presence wouldn’t stop her. She’d either get answers or she’d walk. She couldn’t lead, couldn’t make good decisions if she didn’t have all the information. Especially not when it was deliberately being kept from her, and she didn’t know why.
Tossing her dirty clothes aside, she stepped under the shower while it was still cold. She felt as though she’d been sweating for days, rather than a few hours. The water warmed quickly enough that it still felt good, and even better once she’d washed her hair, then soaped and rinsed her body twice over.
She toweled dry with brisk movements, pulled on fresh clothes, and her same boots. Clothes were important, but the right boots could make all the difference in the world when you were fighting for your life.
Feeling reasonably human again, she grabbed a ripe pear and headed back downstairs to the Fortalesa’s small hospital. Most days it had four beds and served as a first-aid and emergency room for everyone who lived there. Today, they’d crammed four cots in with the beds and set up triage in a tent outside. Layla stopped in the tent first, where three cots had been set up and used for those who could be treated and sent home to rest. Now, the cots had been turned into beds and held two fighters who were still receiving IV fluids of one sort or another, and a third who was still groggy from the painkillers Nowak had given him after treatment for a wounded shoulder. She stopped at each of the three bunks to exchange a word with the men. They were in surprisingly high spirits and feeling good about having successfully fought off the larger enemy force. She matched their cheer for a while, since it would do no good to diminish their victory with her concerns, and then walked into the hospital itself.
She waited just inside the door until Doctor Nowak noticed her, then tipped her head toward the only private space left, which was a short hall in the back where two unisex bathrooms were located. Neither room was occupied, so she grabbed a couple bottles of water, then leaned against the back wall and waited. When Nowak joined her, she held up one of the bottles. The doctor took it with a tired but grateful smile, then propped her back against the same wall.
“You get any rest yet?” Layla asked.
Nowak drained the bottle, then took the second one Layla offered. “Thirty minutes on a cot in the office next door. So far, I’ve been rotating my staff every two hours. But if none of our patients crash in the next hour, I’ll probably let everyone except two of my medics go home and sleep for six hours, keeping the ones who stay on the two hour rest shifts. If that works out after six hours, I’ll increase their sleep shifts to four. At that point, I’ll bring in two of the ones I sent home, and let the original two take their own turn at home.”
Layla gave her a dry look. “Did you need to write all those numbers down?”
She looked puzzled. “No, that’s standard crisis mode.”
“Guess my crises have all been non-standard. I notice you didn’t include yourself in that schedule.”
“Oh, I’ll rotate with the others next door, adding more time when the fresh medics start back.”
“I hate to ask, lest you accuse me of being cold again, but what’s the prognosis?”
“We’re looking at a minimum three to five days before any of these patients are mobile, including the three in the tent. After that, I’ll evaluate their progress daily, and give you a report. When they are able to report back, they’ll have to be on restricted duty.”
She took another long drink of water then continued, “And what do I mean by restricted duty, you ask? If you’re lucky, two or three will be able to sit on the wall and fire a weapon, rather than jumping around all the time, like they were today. The others are looking at a longer recovery. Hopefully long enough that this fighting will be done and over with.”
“I see. Thank you. I’ll brief Lord Xavier.”
“Layla.”
She turned.
“I don’t think you’re cold. You have one of the hardest jobs around here. You fight when all the others do, but you don’t go home. Instead, you work in my hospital, and now you’re going to brief Lord Xavier, and try to decide how to keep everyone alive. Not just the people on the wall, but all those sheltering inside the Fortalesa, too. I, at least, can heal all of my patients”—she gestured toward the packed hospital bay—“given the tiniest bit of luck. You have to send your fighters out to die, the next time those fools attack. Whether that’s tomorrow, or two months from now.”
“No,” Layla disagreed urgently. “I never send them out to die. I train them, arm them, support them to the very best of my ability. I send them out there to fight and then come home to their families alive and well. If I believed otherwise, I couldn’t do my job.”
“I suppose not,” Nowak said thoughtfully. “And if you could, no one would follow you.”
Layla gave a tired sigh and said, “I’ll check back after I brief Xavier.”
“Just call,” Novak said simply. “It’s pointless for you to spend your energy running up and down those stairs, when you could just call. Even you need rest,” she added, indicating Layla’s bandaged arm.
“I’ll do that. Thank you.”
XAVIER LOOKED up when Layla walked into his office. Joaquim and Chuy were already there. They’d come early, both having information to exchange that, while bearing on the existing conflict, had little to do with the active fighting that took place during the day.
But Xavier was very aware of the day’s attack. He’d been anticipating her arrival this evening, hoping the détente of sorts that they’d reached the previous night would not only hold, but even improve her attitude toward him. He saw her take note of the empty wine glasses in front of the two vampires before lifting her gaze to him, and knew this wasn’t going to be a friendly briefing.
“Give us the room,” he said quietly. Joaquim and Chuy stood without protest. Their business with him was done, and they both had sources of their own who would provide details of the day’s fighting.