The vent was near the wall to one side of the desk, and the chair was swung around so that Miguel's back was to her. He was facing the window, and had his hands behind his head, his feet propped up on a corner of the desk.

Noiselessly she slid her entire sixteen-foot length out through the vent and around to the front of the desk, until she was coiled on the spot where Antonio had stood moments before. Then she raised half her length up off the floor, until she was staring down at this drug kingpin from across his desk. 

He was a man of medium build, with thinning black hair and heavy Latino features. His eyes were closed in thought. Standing upright in the middle of the teakwood desk was the source of the thunking sounds. It was a small knife that looked to be carved from stone, possibly an Inca or Aztec relic.

She drew in a breath and then let it out in a long, low hiss. His eyes flicked open and he looked toward her, his face took on an expression of astonishment and disbelief. He jerked his feet off the desk and sprang out of the chair, reaching for the stone knife, but she knew his thoughts, anticipated the motion, and did not move except to keep her eyes on his. 

With unexpected agility, he snatched up the knife and circled the desk to confront her. He did not cry out. She knew he did not intend to. Instead he took up a knife-fighter's stance and faced her. His lips curled into a self-satisfied smirk. Unlike Porky, his knowledge of snakes was not from something he saw on YouTube. He had faced big constrictors before, in his home country. And he had always won.

But again, she was not a normal snake, and with this confrontation came the snake-form memory that she had faced men with knives before. She waited for him to make the first move.

It came with surprising swiftness, but it was a feint, intended to drive her back. Instead she struck, using his own motion of drawing his knife hand back to the guard position to drive his arm down. In the same move she encircled him with her coils, pinning both his arms to his sides. With one quick squeeze she forced the breath from his lungs so that he could not cry out, then she coiled her tail around his legs to immobilize him.

His mind reacted with a kind of shock, reflected in his face. Snakes did not do this, it was not possible. As he stared at her wild-eyed, she dreamed her head into human shape, with its death-like pallor and cloud of white hair, and allowed her thin lips to quirk into a small, knowing smile. His eyes became more frantic, and she could feel his mind retreating from reality.

Summoning up her human arms and hands, she reached out and removed the stone blade from his lax fingers, and brought it to his throat. Saying, "Thus does the earth-mother claim the blood of the evil-doer to replenish the lost blood of the innocent," she opened a vein, and began to lick blood from the wound.

As in her dream, when his warm human blood entered her cold-blooded body, she began to feel her own human warmth return. Simultaneously, as she had expected, she began sensing more of what was in his mind. Images of the swamps and boats he had been speaking of to Antonio surfaced. 

She saw how the deeply convoluted, nearly endless coastal marshes of the New Jersey side of Delaware Bay were used to smuggle drugs ashore, a small boatload at a time, making the flow nearly unstoppable. She saw details of the structure and activities of his organization, locations, including where stashes of drugs and cash were kept. Not, she learned, here at the mountain camp. Miguel Ortega was smart, and careful to ensure he would never be caught with his hands dirty. When she knew enough to be certain that the DEA would be able to dismantle the operation entirely, she released him.

She was aware of the rapturous state he was in, that to his eyes his snake-like assailant had transformed into a breathtakingly beautiful woman. He had seen the thin hard lips become full and soft, the lidless yellow eyes become hooded, with long dark lashes. The color of those eyes had turned emerald green, mere flecks of yellow remaining. The pale, scaly skin became smooth and dusky, and about her head the luxuriant cloud of white hair darkened to a rich auburn.

In reaction to this impossible vision, his mind had become confused and fragmented with denial, his body limp and docile. She knew that whatever story he might tell of this experience would not be believed, except perhaps as it might enter into the body of myth attendant on the drug culture. As she eased his limp form to the floor, the thought of giving the dealers a new source of fear and worry brought a low chuckle to her now fully human throat.