The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Struck Down

Fiadh frowned as she watched Sakura run out of the galley sobbing nearly an hour after she took control of Lash with her Compulsion. She then looked back at the galley entrance, expecting Lash to step out with one of those thoughtful looks of his on his handsome face. But when he didn't appear after several minutes, Sekura in a far corner with a blanket wrapped around her as she continued to cry, the Irish lilith decided to investigate.

Stepping out of the flight deck and into the galley, Fiadh found Lash sitting in a chair facing the far wall.

"Lash?" she said out loud, hesitating by the door. When he didn't react, she quickly stepped to his side to lay a hand on his shoulder.

When the big vampire still failed to respond, she came around to kneel in front of him. Looking up into his face, she felt a chill travel her spine in an explosive rush to find his eyes rolled back and his expression slack.

"Lash!" Fiadh said, heart pounding as she shook his legs to try and elicit a reaction. "Lash!"

That was when she smelled it: the sickly sweet smell of a pheromone overload seeping out of Lash's pores. Her expression tightening with concern and fear for him, Fiadh leaned forward and gently kissed him on the cheek. Then she was extending her own pheromone cloud in an attempt to undo what Sakura had done, much like what she did to help Truk and Narcist at Heathrow after Meredith bombed their brains into oblivion with her pheromone-fueled panic attack.

But when ten minutes of steady effort produced absolutely no results, she felt a thrill of panic chill her heart.

"Ellie!" she called out. On her rounds to check the other liliths that were still unconscious, the Ventru little sister was quick to stick her head in the door.

"Did you need something ...? she began to ask before spotting Lash sitting motionless in the chair. "Lash!!"

Fiadh threw up a hand before Ellie could charge in.

"Get your medical kit and a kickstarter, and hurry!" she tautly directed, the forestalling hand becoming a knife hand pointing back out the door. Nodding, Ellie quickly retreated back into the passenger bay.

When Ellie returned a few seconds later, dropping to her knees beside Fiadh, she looked into Lash's slack face and gasped out loud.

"What happened??"

"Pheromone oversaturation," Fiadh grimly replied, doing her best not to let her fear for Lash spike to the surface. "Sakura had three months' worth of Compulsion that she unloaded on Lash in one fell swoop." Her expression tightened. "She might as well have hit him with a train. It would've had the same effect!" She looked over at Ellie. "Do you have that kickstarter ready?"

Ellie nodded as she pulled it out of her kit, along with two injectors of stims and one of painkillers. A gesture from the Irish lilith and she put them into Fiadh's hand. And the lilith quickly put them one at a time into the thick muscle of Lash's thigh.

"Nothing," the redheaded lilith husked as a wave of dismay and frustration washed over her when even the kickstarter didn't stir any reaction in the big vampire.

Then Naryan was skidding on her knees to Fiadh's opposite side as the lilith let the last injector tube fall with a clatter to the floor.

"Lash!" the Ventru legionnaire cried, despair naked in her voice. She then looked first at Ellie, whose face was collapsing into a mask of pain and sorrow, then at Fiadh, who had tears streaming down the sides of her perfect face.

"What in the Dark Father's name happened?!?" she demanded to know. A look back at Ellie found her shaking her head, unable to speak. Then at Fiadh: "Fiadh! What happened?" she tightly repeated.