The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Finding That Which was Hidden

The Italian lilith looked considerably more happy as she gracefully strode down the corridor to where Lash, now wearing a clean shirt, stood with Kassidy and Gabriela's guards. She smiled brightly when she caught his eyes on her.

"Amore mio," she greeted him, stepping in close to tenderly kiss him. She then looked over at Kassidy and nodded.

"Colonel Kassidy." A nod the Silver Legion officer quickly and respectfully returned.

"Mistress Sofia."

After nodding to the guards, Sofia returned her eyes to Lash, her gaze softening and her smile becoming more sensuous as she instantly found herself remembering her recent 'apology' to him.

"What can I do for you, il mio bellissimo uomo?" she asked, moving close enough to press against him, her hand seeking out his to tangle their fingers together.

"The good colonel has discovered another layer to our situation, Sofia," he said. "Gabriela killed herself when she felt her mind suddenly begin to move out of her control."

"No!" Sofia gasped, her free hand flying to her mouth. "When??"

"Perhaps ten minutes ago," Lash grimly reported. "I watched it happen."

"You were here to challenge her as a Toreador, as you did me!" Sofia exclaimed, eyes wide. "Except ..."

"She was one of those sleeper agents I was telling you about," Lash finished for her, his expression still grim. "But, in an act of bravery, she chose to take her own life instead of yielding to Makarov's sleeper programing."

"La grazia del Padre Oscuro," the Italian lilith quickly said, lifting a pendant with the vampire glyph representing the Dark Father to her lips to give it a kiss. "May she awaken in the Dark Father's Garden of the Night!"

"She will be on His right hand," Lash reverently said, earning himself yet another bright and thankful smile from Sofia. Then he had Kassidy hold up the broken vial in its small plastic envelope.

"Fortunately for us, when she took her life, Gabriela uncovered this vial which had been inserted into her head." He looked at a wide-eyed Sofia, who stared at the vial. "We think it might have either triggered her sleeper programming with some sort of activating agent, or contained some sort of mRNA code that wrote itself into the DNA of her brain, rewiring it with the programming."

"You must check me for such a vial, my Lash," Sofia instantly said, tearing her eyes off the vial to look almost pleadingly at the big vampire. "I cannot live knowing such a thing might be implanted in my brain!"

Lash smiled as he held up the ultrasound scanner.

"I'm glad you feel that way, Sofia. Because we can do that right now for you!" He looked at the scanner. "This is an ultrasound scanner, calibrated to detect small objects inside the vampire body. It will find any vial that may be implanted in your head."

He waved it over the broken vial in Kassidy's hand and nodded in satisfaction as an image of the vial appeared on the scanner's small screen, along with an audible 'beep'. Then he waved it over a bemused Kassidy's head and nodded again when they were greeted with silence. A silence that was repeated when he scanned his own head.

Sofia almost sagged with relief when a pass over her head with the scanner yielded silence for a third time.

"We are safe!" she breathed. "Grazie al Padre Oscuro!" Then she was in Lash's arms, squeezing him tight. "Thank you, amore mio."

"Of course, my queen," he replied, handing the scanner to Kassidy so he could return her embrace. "Your bravery in allowing the scan has given us a tool to help your fellow liliths be cleared of Makarov's insidious contamination of their persons with the triggering vial."