“I don’t smoke,” Daniel said automatically.

“Of course you do. You have a display case of Turkish meerschaum pipes right there, and some of them are used. And a humidor with some nice Cohiba. I was tempted to get one.” He gestured toward the case in Daniel’s living room.

“I mean, I’m not a smoker. Are you a liar?” Daniel asked him.

His eyes widened, baffled by the conversational turn. “No. Not the way you mean.”

“But you’ve lied before?”

“Sure, occasionally. Most people have.”

“I rest my case.”

The swarthy man rubbed his eyes, the gesture condescending, as if dealing with a child. “Okay, I get it,” he sighed theatrically. “Occasional user, no dependencies, right? You quit drinking, quit smoking cigarettes; you’re an exercise junkie now. Nothing but endorphins, meditation, yoga, martial arts, the Quantico Shooting Club, going to church, anything to keep the nightmares and the demons at bay.”

Shows how much you don’t know, Daniel thought, but that’s good, since it means my little chemical issues are well hidden.

“I’m surprised you don’t have a dog or a cat,” the suit went on.

“I have a serpent.” Daniel barked laughter, a little too loud, on the edge of control. “And I had a dog. But my ex took him. But to hell with all that. Start talking.” He sat down, because he was coming down, and wanting a drink, but he clamped down on that desire.

Resting the gun on the table, Daniel kept it pointed at the other man’s chest, his fingertip off the trigger but close, very close. The serpent kept trying to wrap around that finger, make him squeeze. “What’s your name, anyway?”

The suit took another drag, then looked at his cigarette, speculatively. “Jenkins. J. Andrew Jenkins the Fourth.” He said it as if it should mean something.

It occurred to Daniel that Jenkins had no ashtray, so he got up, took a cereal bowl out of his cupboard and slid it across the dining room table to him. Since he was up anyway, he filled a tall glass with orange juice from the fridge. After violent action, the next best thing to alcohol was sugar. He didn’t get the suit any; he had his smoke.

Daniel sat back down and sipped, feeling the cold sweet run down his insides. It steadied him a bit. He took a deep breath. “Okay, Jenkins, talk.”

The suit smiled, smarmy, superior. “Just like that. The secrets of the universe?”

The serpent coiled, and then Daniel kicked the man under the table, hard, somewhere near his left knee.

Jenkins convulsed forward, dropping the cigarette and clutching for the pain, and Daniel reached over, put his left hand on the man’s head and mashed his face into the table. With his right he used the magazine extension of the automatic to grind out the burning cigarette. “Now you owe me for a new tablecloth.”

With his weight still on the man’s head, Daniel put the pistol down out of his reach, picked up the still-smoking butt and singed the man’s skin, right behind his ear, drawing a yelp. Then he dropped it in the bowl-ashtray. He scooped up the gun again.

“You can’t play conversation control games with me, you stupid suit.” Daniel made that word into an epithet. “I’ve been through every resistance training course, every combat psych and psy-ops and mind-freak exercise, and you are in my house now.” He felt violated, and it fueled him and what control he had left drained away like water through a colander of pasta.

The serpent egged him on.

“MY HOUSE!” The snake and the Dexedrine seized control, the worm in his hindbrain that he tried so hard to keep caged every day since the IED and the brain damage, his nemesis, that satanic serpent. This idiot, this suit, is a child playing with blasting caps and batteries in a toybox full of explosives and he might die, right here, right now, for that ignorance and stupidity. Daniel was on the edge of a whiteout, and the snake longed for it, longed to throw itself and the body he possessed into that bright hot place where all he had to do was destroy. Annihilate every threat, kill everyone that wasn’t on his side, and this fool, the serpent screamed, IS NOT ON YOUR SIDE.

He wrapped his fingers into the intruder’s hair and dragged him to his feet, moving around the table. Daniel stood a bit under six feet, 200 pounds and muscular, but the berserkergang closing in let him shake the smaller man like a rag doll, lifting him onto his toes with one hand. Nose to nose, the muzzle of the XD jammed hard into the man’s solar plexus, he screamed into Jenkins’ face, “I just killed one person, and I just. Might. Kill. You. Too So. TALK!”

Then he threw the man into his chair. The suit almost fell over backward, but caught himself against the wall as Daniel stood over him, shaking. They were both shaking, Daniel with barely-suppressed chemical rage, the cologned man with dawning fear.

Finally afraid. “You can’t kill me,” Jenkins said, shuddering.

Wrong thing to say. Oh, so very, very wrong.

A silent explosion in Daniel’s head, and then the serpent took him, wrapped him up and dragged him under. He watched his hand move of its own volition, watched himself as he shot the man twice in the chest.

It felt so good.

The serpent writhed in ecstasy.

Jenkins gaped upward, then looked down. Touched the entry wounds. Tried to speak. Slumped and was still.

Crap.

-3-

Elise came to consciousness wondering what had happened, then knowing but hardly believing it. This is the guy Jenkins was supposed to recruit? The softhearted special operator who would help us with a minimum of trouble, who would be grateful, who could be controlled?

Then why do I hurt so damn much?

First thing the stench hit her, blood and her own body stink mixed with the surreally mundane odors of soap and shower gel. A shampoo bottle lay shattered by her arm, its gooey contents a puddle on the shower floor. Well, might as well make it useful. She reached over, scooping the stuff onto her hands and then rubbing it into her medium-length auburn hair. Rolling over, she got painfully to her feet.

She saw her clothes were torn and so was the nylon cloth that covered the heavy Kevlar vest. The bulletproof helmet she had worn showed a couple of scars as well. Good thing; that saved my life. Eden or not, bullets in the brain tend to be fatal.

Eden. She laughed to herself. The one and only, the first. Call me Eve. If they’ll only let me find my Adam. I’d thought it might be Daniel Markis. Little chance now.

Reaching out, she turned on the water in the shower, letting the hot soothing liquid run over her clothed body. It still felt wonderful. She lathered up her hair, then awkwardly used the soap to wash off what she could of the blood and fluids as she waited for Jenkins to make his recruiting pitch.

***

Silence wrapped him as Daniel stood there, and he suddenly felt dizzy, ice cold, drenched in sweat. Numbly he reached over, bumped the thermostat up a couple of degrees, leaned against the wall. Listened to the silence. Mostly silence. The serpent still gibbered in his hindbrain. Too many chemicals, he knew. Steroids and painkillers and speed, and they had betrayed him this time.

But he heard something else. A rushing sound, not the forced air of the heating system either. Water. It sounded like the shower in the basement was on. Had a pipe broken? Did one of his rounds damage something?

Reloading automatically, he retraced his steps back down to the basement. No way that guy – sorry, that woman – got up. No way, after the mess I made of her.

The serpent in his head slithered forward again, eager.

Edging around the bottom of the stairs, Daniel glided forward with all the stealth he could muster and slipped back to his position in the unfinished part of the basement, behind the thin wall with its sixteen or so holes. Yes, the shower was running, and something moved within. Several of the rounds had gone right through the tile and now the water was soaking back, drizzling through the holes.