With no energy to stand and hang up the phone, she let it drop into her lap. The voice mail registered the silence and started giving her options, but Toria just stared at the phone.
The cool of the tile floor beneath her seeped into her body. After tugging off her boots, she began to feel a little better. She should get some water, take a shower, go to bed, wait for her parents to come home.
In a minute. She could rest for a minute.
A stiff back and tongue tasting like a dust rag were the first things Victory noticed upon waking. But the familiar fingers running through her long hair soothed her. She hummed a sound of bliss in the back of her throat.
She raised her head from the edge of Mikelos’ bed. Her back let loose a loud protest when she sat straight up. “Ouch.” The room was dim, so she switched on the bedside lamp.
“I can’t believe you fell asleep like that.” Mikelos’ good hand dropped back onto his stomach.
“I’ve slept through worse, believe me.” His eyes were brighter now, a definite improvement, but he still looked pale. “How are you feeling, love?”
“Okay,” he said. “What time is it?”
“I have no idea.” Max had sat with her for a while after Daliana left, then helped her scrounge the hall for spare blankets to hang over the window. A faint glow of sunlight shone through the edges of the blanket and showed the day had almost passed. She pulled herself out of the wretched plastic chair and stretched, arching her arms above her head and then out to the sides. Her back complained one more time before settling back into its normal alignment. She checked the clock above the door. “A little before nine. You’ve slept for over sixteen hours. I think I passed out around seven this morning. The nurses were probably glad. I was getting snippy.”
“I’m sure you were.” Despite the new energy in his eyes, his voice was still soft and listless, bereft of its usual musical lilt.
She wanted her old Mikelos back. “Are you hungry?” Don’t ask about the violin, she prayed. I can’t deal with that right now. Neither can you.
“Starved.”
“I’ll be right back, then.” It took a few minutes to wave down a passing orderly and demand Mikelos be fed. The man was eager to assist her; she’d earned herself a bit of a reputation that morning when she’d told off a nurse for trying to take the blankets off the window. If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought they were trying to kill her just to get her out of their way. She remembered doctors from her past. Maybe they were. This time, the thoughts amused her.
The orderly returned with the meal cart half an hour later, along with the cup of coffee and daily paper Victory had slipped him some cash for. After they maneuvered Mikelos into the least painful sitting position, he fell on the meal with gusto. He must be hungry if the stuff the hospital called food appealed to him. Victory shoved the horrid chair into the far corner of the room and settled herself cross-legged at the end of the bed.
Coffee made the world seem more manageable. Later she would call the blood donation office and ask for a proper breakfast to be sent up, but this would do for now. Victory spread the paper over the lump of Mikelos’ cast.
“Ah, hell.”
Mikelos looked up from his dinner, his spoon of soup hovering inches from his mouth. “What?”
“There’s nothing in here about the attacks last night.”
“Attacks? Plural?”
Victory sketched out what Daliana had shared the night before. She had tried to find the other victims before dawn and get more information about their attackers, but there was only so much she could do in the middle of the night. Come of think of it, maybe that was why the nurses weren’t fond of her. “We’re pretty sure they were attacked by these ‘Humanists’ like you were,” she said.
“But why me?” Mikelos stared at her coffee until she relented and handed the cup over. “I understand the elf and wolves, but I’m closer to human.”
“Because they’re stupid, but not that stupid,” Victory said. “An elven girl doesn’t look like much. And enough humans can take out a werewolf, at least one of the younger ones. An elder wolf would rip them to shreds. But no one in their right mind would go after me.”
She stole her coffee back and studied the paper spread in front of her. “Werewolves, and the panthers, have that ancient reputation of stealing livestock. The elves steal human children and leave changelings, but they’ve managed to twist the legends in their favor, reminding the public that they only steal children destined for horrible lives.” Like the life Toria would have had, left to grow up in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the Wasteland. “But the chosen prey of vampires has always been healthy humans. And if they’re so convinced I’m evil, then these Humanists are going to assume that I’ll eat them if they go after me.”
Mikelos laughed at her look of distaste, then put his hand to his ribs and groaned. He gasped a mixture of laughter and pain. “Okay, don’t make me do that. Please.” He shifted in the bed again. “So what are we going to do about these Humanists?”
“I have no idea, yet. We have to find a way to implicate them directly in the attacks,” Victory said. “Max said he would head back to the police station and get an update after he got some sleep. He’ll call me.” She traded her coffee again for a bite of applesauce. “Ugh. I’m sneaking you in some proper food.”
“I don’t think so.” Dr. Preston entered the hospital room and flicked on the overhead light. “And I hope that’s not coffee.”
Mikelos handed the cup back to Victory. “Of course not, doc.”
Victory slid off the bed to give Dr. Preston room to examine Mikelos. She flipped through the newspaper, hoping to find any mention of the attacks. If they weren’t on the front page, maybe they’d been buried in the back. Nothing. The biggest news story was how the university sailing team had defeated a college up in the British Colonies. At least now she knew what side of this political mess the local media was on.
“I heard you had quite a morning, Victory,” Dr. Preston said. “My nurses started complaining the second I got in this evening.”
She resisted the urge to snap at him—with words or teeth. Irritating the man in charge of Mikelos’ health seemed like a bad idea. “I had a rough night.”
“If you were one of my patients,” Dr. Preston said, “I would insist that you go home and get some proper rest.”
“I’m fine.” He could baby Mikelos all he wanted—that was his job. But she was a grown woman, and she could take care of herself.
Okay, maybe she needed some sleep in her comfortable bed, not hunched over Mikelos’.
Mikelos covered his laughter with more soup. He knew her too well, and she could see the amusement playing out in his eyes.
The doctor ignored her. “Well, everything looks good here. It’s looking like the ACL surgery won’t be necessary after all.” He made notes on Mikelos’ chart. “How are you feeling? Need any more pain medication?”
“Not yet. I’ll ring for a nurse if I change my mind.”
“Good, see that you do. No need to suffer right now, there’ll be plenty of time for that later once we start you on some physical therapy.”
His joke fell flat. “Right,” Mikelos said.
“I’m off on rounds, then. I’ll try to drop in on you before I leave later.” With a nod of acknowledgement to Victory, Dr. Preston left the hospital room.
“I don’t think I like him very much,” Victory said. “Maybe he’s one of the Humanists.” She didn’t mean it. Really.
“Now you’re being paranoid. Though I have the feeling he doesn’t like you much, either. He’s right, you do need sleep.” Mikelos interrupted himself with a yawn. “Me, too.”
She placed a hand on Mikelos’ cheek. “Then be sure to get some, love. I’m going to try to poke around some more. I’ll check on yo
u before I leave at sundown.” Different nurses were on duty now, and she might be able to speak with the other attack victims. She hoped the morning shift hadn’t given them too much warning. Victory removed the meal tray from Mikelos’ lap and helped him lay flat again. She gave him a goodnight kiss before pulling up his covers. He neared sleep by the time she left the room.
Getting thrown out of a hospital by a nurse had to be almost as humiliating as getting thrown out of a bar by a bouncer.
Nope, more so.
And Victory had been thrown out of a lot of bars in her long life, for one reason or another. Once or twice she had even deserved it.
Thanks to gossip overheard in her slow meander by the nurses’ station after she left Mikelos’ room, she knew the two werewolves were still in intensive care. They had chased her out of that unit once already that morning, and she didn’t look forward to a second attempt.
The elven girl had been transferred from the emergency room to a recovery ward. Either she’d escaped with light wounds, or her healing ability was quite strong. Victory hoped general nurses would be less neurotic than the intensive care ones.
None of the nurses, doctors, aides, or other evening visitors paid attention to Victory wandering down the third-floor hallway, admiring the bland hospital art decorating the pastel yellow walls. Watercolor landscapes seemed to be the rule of the day, though she did see a few random pieces consisting of strange geometric shapes. The majority of patients in this unit were human, but she caught the earthy scent of a werepanther halfway down the hall. Not her primary target, but now she was suspicious of any injury to a nonhuman.
After a gentle tap on the doorjamb, she slipped into the room. The young panther slept with his cast-covered leg held above the bed in traction. Victory stared at the contraption for a few moments, thanking whoever or whatever listened that Mikelos hadn’t been injured so much.
The teenager mumbled a bit in his sleep. When he didn’t wake at her presence, she crossed the room and picked up the chart hanging from the end of the bed.
A quick flip through showed he had been the victim of a soccer accident during afternoon practice. A werepanther had the innate speed and grace of an excellent goalie, but that hadn’t saved him from a bad tangle with a teammate. Poor kid. She hoped he’d be able to play again.
So not another Humanist attack. At least at first glance. But she couldn’t dismiss anything out of hand, regardless of the age of the victim or apparent circumstance. For all she knew, the younger nonhumans might be a more tempting target for the Humanists. Victory would interview him later when he woke.
“Can I help you?”
Victory slipped the chart back into its holder, then turned to face the nurse who’d entered the room. “Nope, I’m good, thanks.”
The nurse narrowed her eyes at Victory. “This is a private room. Do you know the patient?”
“Yes, of course,” Victory said. The nurse didn’t mention Victory’s perusal of the chart, but it couldn’t have escaped her notice. How did they manage to look so intimidating in purple pants and pink shirts decorated with cartoon cats? “Tyrone is a friend of my daughter. I was in the hospital on business so I thought I’d see how he was doing.”
The nurse held the door open wider and gave Victory an expectant look. Not wanting to press her luck yet, Victory took the unspoken invitation and exited the boy’s room. The nurse shut the door right on her heels.
“Sheesh.” Victory stopped in the middle of the hallway and eyed the closed door. Part of her wanted to make sure the kid would be okay, but she squashed down that sudden bout of paranoia. Okay, so maybe these nurses were worse than the ones in the intensive care unit. This might be more difficult than she had first thought. Victory surveyed the hall, but things were still quiet. So she continued to saunter in her original direction.
Past the nurses’ station on one side, two more rooms containing human patients on the other. Then she caught what she had been looking for: the light scent of Other, the smell of fresh-cut grass and tangible sunlight that always said “elf” to Victory’s vampiric senses. It was a relief from the harsh antiseptic smell permeating the hospital.
And it was quite obvious this patient was not asleep.
“No fucking way! I said I’m fine!”
With her senses still tuned to their highest notch, Victory resisted the urge to cover her ears at the high-pitched yell emanating from the hospital room. The girl had a set of lungs on her. She peeked around the corner into the room.
Three harried nurses stood around the hospital bed, one holding a glass of water and cup of pills out to the elven girl. “But you’ll feel so much better,” she said. “If you take the painkillers then you’ll be able to eat. You need to keep your energy up so you can heal.”
“Yeah, I need to eat real food! Not mess up my head with your crazy drugs.” The girl slouched forward and pouted, and Victory caught the flinch of pain the girl almost hid. A possible injury to her ribs, to accompany the butterfly bandages holding together a long cut on her left cheek and temple. “That shit is not food. And your so-called medicine already made me puke once. Fuck that.”
Victory stifled a laugh. She had never known an elf to be so loose with her language. This girl would horrify Daliana.
The nurse set the items on the bedside table by the untouched tray of hospital food, slowing her movement just in time to avoid slamming it down and scattering the contents. “Fine. Do what you will. Let’s go, ladies.”
Victory ducked back out of the room and studied more art, hoping she retained her look of inconspicuousness. It must have worked—when the three nurses left, they passed her without notice, heading straight for the nurses’ station. Then Victory slipped into the hospital room.
“I told you—oh,” the girl said, cutting off her attitude midsentence. “You’re not one of those vultures.”
“Nope,” Victory said. “Mind if I have a seat and talk with you for a bit?” She gestured in the direction of the chair in the corner.
“Can I bribe you to get me real food from the cafeteria?” The girl released her arms from across her chest, relief visible on her face.
Taking that for a yes, Victory pushed the door just short of closed before dragging the chair closer to the bed. “You don’t even have to bribe me. I know how bad the patient food is here.” Different style of chair, even more uncomfortable. What was it about hospitals? “I’d like to ask you a few questions, and then I’ll go pick up whatever you want.”
“Deal. You’re my hero for the evening.”
Victory held out her hand. “I’m Victory, by the way.”
“I know who you are. Vampires aren’t exactly common in Limani.” They exchanged handshakes. “I’m Syrisinia, Syri. Sorry I’m grumpy. I’ve had a crappy couple of days.”
“I don’t blame you,” Victory said. “My daywalker is in the hospital, too, and he’s not the greatest patient either.”
Syri sat straight up in the bed. “Shit. They got him, too?”
All of Victory’s attention now hung on Syri’s every word. “Tell me what you know.” If her version of events was anything like Mikelos’, she would have serious evidence against the Humanists.
“I don’t know much. I danced with Mikelos at the Twilight Mists last night before we got kicked out of the club with the wolves,” Syri said. “I wanted to go back in, and the wolves were gonna back me up, but Mikelos convinced us not to, said you were taking care of things in council. Then he headed off.”
Victory answered her unspoken question. “He was attacked by the bouncer who kicked you guys out. Right in front of the council hall.”
“While council was in session? Bloody idiot.”
“Indeed. Not the brightest idea,” Victory said. “So where did you go after Mikelos left?”
Syri started to shrug, thoug
ht better of it when a wave of pain creased her forehead, and relaxed her shoulders again. “The wolves left to go do whatever werewolves do,” she said. “I stuck around for a bit, tempted to sneak back in. Two other elves came up to the club, and I ended up warning them off. I might be stubborn, but I wasn’t going to let them get into trouble, too.” She eyed the tray of food next to her, but dismissed it with a wrinkle of her nose. “Then I heard the shouting start a couple blocks away. When I heard the howl, I figured it was the wolves in trouble. So I ran to the rescue.”
Victory hadn’t heard anything so ridiculous since the last time Toria declared her serious intention to figure out how to make a flying carpet. She studied the girl. Since she looked Toria’s age, Syri was still not more than a child by the standards of elves, who could live thousands of years. And despite whatever magic she possessed, the girl was built like a twig, and not a sturdy one.
“Don’t give me that look,” Syri said. “I may be stupid, but I’m stronger than I look. Sort of.”
Victory laughed at Syri’s admission. “So did you rescue them?”
“Hey, they’re in the intensive care unit, and I’m not.” Syri’s smug voice matched her look. “What do you think?”
“I think that I’m suitably impressed and one day I’d like to know how you managed to pull that off,” Victory said.
“I ain’t going anywhere,” Syri said. Her voice lost its bantering tone when she continued. “There were six humans, all men, and they’d cornered Mal and Gregory in an alley. They had guns. I can’t remember the last time I saw a person in this city with a gun.”
Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1) Page 11