Leila rolled her eyes at him, but she didn't try to move away. "Yeah, I've been exploring. I figured you guys would be busy for a while."

"Nah, Kitty went out this morning," Carlos replied. "She scoped out the area for me. She's probably lounging about in the Jacuzzi in her room, so we should go poke her with a long stick and tell her to hurry up. We need to leave soon."

Leila laughed. "She wouldn't appreciate that. Especially not if she's in the Jacuzzi." She grinned. "But I invite you to try. It'll make for an entertaining show."

"That's why I included the words 'we' and 'long stick,'" Carlos pointed out, grinning. "She won't lash out at you, after all."

Leila giggled again. "Uh huh," she teased. "Come on. Let's go see what we can manage. Without either of us getting gutted."

Carlos grinned and offered Leila his arm.

"Let's go, then," he said.

Leila grinned and took his arm, letting him lead the way back to the hotel.

And before he could go find a long stick, she knocked on Katherine's door. "You up yet? We're getting ready to go."

"I'm up," Katherine called back. She was indeed lounging in the Jacuzzi. "We're leaving so soon?"

"I guess so." Leila shrugged. "According to Carlos. Come on, get ready to go before he decides to send me in with a poking stick."

Katherine snorted and rolled her eyes, but turned off the Jacuzzi and got out.

"Ten minutes," she called back.

"Alright." Leila grinned and turned back to Carlos.

"See, no need to anger her at all."

"I told you she would never lash out at you," Carlos pointed out with an impish grin.

Leila just laughed and shook her head, going back into her room to make sure she had everything packed up.

"So when's the flight and how long is it?"

"In about an hour," Carlos replied, "and it's a few hours long. Not bad, considering."

"So we'll get there kind of late again. Okay." Leila shrugged. She was kind of getting used to traveling late.

Carlos shrugged a bit.

"That's how travel goes when you only have the nighttime hours to work with," he said apologetically.

"It's fine. It's not so bad. How do you manage the trans-atlantic jump?" Leila frowned a little. "There's no way you can do that easily."

"Special connections," Carlos admitted. "There are special flights for nightwalkers like me, flights specially reserved for us. Blacked-out windows and everything so we don't burn up. Since the flight is like twelve hours long or something, it's not hard to board the plane just before sunrise, fly all day, and get off again just after sunset." He grinned a bit. "Granted, it's easiest in the winter."

"I can imagine. Longer night, shorter days..." Leila shrugged. "Makes sense. Those flights must not be too often, though." And she shuddered to think how much they cost.

"Once a night, usually," Carlos said. "Since the flight has to be timed pretty tightly."

Leila nodded. "So, how many of you are there? In gerenal."

"Lots," Carlos replied. "I have no idea the estimate. We're onto, what, the sixth generation now?" He glanced over at the door as Katherine came out.

"Seventh," Katherine replied absently as she pulled her bags out of the room. "Statistically, there are two newborns turned every night, I believe."

"Every night?" Leila blinked. "How do you guys keep under wraps? And not over-hunt?"

"Not every newborn survives," Katherine pointed out. "Survival is typically around eight or nine percent. And it's two every night worldwide, so the numbers aren't quite as high as you're thinking."

"That's a pretty low survival rate," Leila murmured. Then she shrugged. "But I guess it doesn't matter overmuch."