The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Cadiz

With a final look at Lash, who gave her an expression that said: 'Well? Go ahead!', Narcist found herself nodding.

"Absolutely, Inaya," she said. "What would you like to know??"

Naryan gave Lash a nudge as she stepped back to join him where he had come to a stop to let Sofia and Inaya join the others.

"Working your magic again, I see," she said and Lash looked down at her with a sad smile.

"The change in attitude?" The smile disappeared. "Yes. I only wish it had come at a cheaper price than was paid."

Before Naryan could ask what he meant, he went on.

"We found sleepers, Narya. Nine in total. After I had cleared Dru and thought I had cleared Sofia. The first was Gabriela, who was activated by the time I reached her." His expression tightened. "After Sofia, I wanted to clear the other two Toreador liliths. So I visited Gabriela next. Being driven mad by the changes a retrovirus was making to the DNA in her brain to hardcode the sleeper protocols into her, she had slashed herself repeatedly in an attempt to trigger her regeneration protocol to fix what she thought was a corruption in her head."

Lash looked over at a horrified Naryan.

"I found her standing naked in a pool of her own blood, Narya. Her throat was partially slit and her hands were slick with her own blood. Before I could do anything, she lifted a Shiva to her head, apologized to me and said she was no longer in control. Then painted the near wall with her own brains."

"Dark Father's mercy," a stunned Naryan breathed.

Lash stared down at his feet as the memory washed by his mind's eye.

"Thankfully out of those brains Kassidy found an organic glass vial that we quickly realized was the trigger. A trigger Mordecai couldn't sense with all of his abilities."

"No!" Naryan exclaimed with a shake of her head. "So Jeriko wouldn't have seen them when she was reorganizing all of their minds!"

"Just so," Lash said. "But I was able to discover they were detectable with ultrasound and had Kassidy scan all of the liliths to see if anybody else had vials. And I also scanned myself, Kassidy, and Sofia to make sure the process worked first. I got Kassidy's report after spending time with Meredith."

"Ah. So that's what you were looking at."

"Yes. Kassidy had found eight more. And, in the middle of me excusing myself from you all to go and deal with them, I got the call that Cassie Botha had triggered and Ell was fighting to save her life."

"You ... saved her though, right? She didn't blow her brains out, like Gabriela?" Naryan was desperate to know.

"It was close, but yes, Ell and I saved her. Mostly Ell. I just held Cassie down so she wouldn't break her own back or neck from the seizures."

"Merciful Dark Father." Again Naryan shook her head.

"That, He is," Lash said with no little amount of sincere gratitude. "I sent Cassie to her quarters to rest and recover after we removed the broken vial from her brain. Isla's keeping her company there." He then looked at Inaya, who was happily chatting away about some point of technology use in counterintelligence with Narcist.

"The technique we used to remove the broken trigger Ell and I first developed to remove intact vials out of the remaining liliths' heads after we saved Cassie and left her to rest. Considering we lost her fellow Toreador Gabriella to the vial, we started with Isabella. Inaya was next, along with the remaining unaffiliated liliths. Isabella returned to her apartment so she could grieve Gabriela's loss. But Inaya insisted on joining Sofia and I in the command center."