Vance turned as he heard the door to Miguel's office open, and watched a tall dark-haired woman emerge into the shadowed hallway. She was dressed in a man's shirt and pants. They looked like they might belong to Miguel, and Vance smirked to himself as he imagined what Miguel must have done to the clothes she had been wearing. 

There seemed to be something familiar about the way she carried herself as she walked boldly through the halls to the front of the compound, but he couldn't place her among the women he'd seen here before. Her eyes swept over him as she passed, and he felt his own eyes widen in a shock of bewildered recognition, but she ignored him, brushing by as if he mattered to her not at all. 

For a moment he had thought she was the woman he had shot, the one they'd left for dead in the woods. But no, that was impossible. She was just one of Miguel's girls, and he knew better than to challenge her. He didn't act, but his eyes followed her as she walked on. Then, as if in afterthought, she turned and looked at him again, this time as if she knew him. "Vance, please thank Mario for the breakfast." That was all she said. Before he could respond she was out the door. So he went to look for Mario.

Leaving through the front entrance, Dema walked casually around toward the right side of the house, as if heading for the big limo. Then, using the limo for cover, she ducked quickly into the woods. There she returned to where she had left her clothing and, once again dressed in the jumpsuit and boots, went to where she had hidden her car. As she backed it around to head for the road, she glimpsed her face in the rear-view mirror, the deep green eyes now flecked with yellow, the dusky skin, the chestnut hair, and grinned.

Driving back down the road away from the hideout, Dema again recognized the stretch of road where she had leapt from the car the day she was abducted. Smiling broadly to herself, she found a spot to pull off the road, and parked. Getting out of the car, she crossed the road, climbed over the guardrail, jumped the ditch and walked into the woods.

Her developing shaman awareness guided her unerringly to the glade and the outcropping of rock where the snake den was hidden. Once more shedding her jumpsuit and boots, she set them aside and shifted again into snake form, but this time without the bloodless pallor, emulating instead the dark markings of those she was about to visit. Then the new Lamia crawled into the little cave, curled up among its denizens, and spent the rest of the day in snake-dreams with these friends who had helped save her life.

The following morning Dema returned to the Philadelphia DEA office. When she saw Jeff Strauss she ran up to him with a girlish smile and gave him a big hug. It took him only a moment to reciprocate enthusiastically but she broke it off and said, "Jeff, I've solved it! It all sorted out for me finally. But I might need your help to write it up. Willing?"

Jeff was more than willing. She offered up a modified version of her abduction and escape, her trip to Chicago and back, and her surveillance of the compound. The information she provided, corroborated by cross-references to other reports she and Jeff were now able to pull from existing files, was enough to authorize a raid on Miguel Ortega's Poconos hide-out, led by Jeff and Dema.

The raid went smoothly. Mysteriously, there was not much resistance. No guns were drawn, and the few who tried to run off into the woods were rounded up without much trouble. They finally got a look at the elusive Tonio as he was cuffed and led off to a police wagon. Dema said, "Keep an eye on that one, Jeff. He may have a few stashes still hidden in the swamps. Could have his own string of dealers too. But Miguel may have been onto him."

Only Miguel himself eluded the DEA bust. Those who would talk said he had inexplicably become severely weakened, both physically and mentally. Just days before the raid he had returned to his home country to recuperate, leaving the operation in the hands of his local minions. 

Dema knew, because Miguel had known, that there were tendrils of his organization throughout the city, managed in such a way that they knew little of each other, yet did not interfere in one another's operations. Without Miguel, this deft management would begin to fail. The inevitable power struggles between local leaders would bring discord, and that would bring the higher profile on police radar that Miguel had been able to avoid.

Her mission in Philadelphia successfully completed, Jeff and Dema celebrated with that dinner they had postponed. Inevitably, a large part of their conversation centered around the bust, and how Jeff would handle the clean-up after Dema was gone.

Then Jeff noticed that he was doing most of the talking, and she had grown quiet, pensive.

He asked, gently, "What's on your mind, Dema?"

She took a deep breath, half sighing. "It's all good, the bust and the clean-up. But it won't bring back the ones we've already lost."

"You're thinking about that file photo."

"That, and others." She forced a small smile. "Still, if we have saved a few from ending up there..."

Jeff nodded, his own expression growing wistful.

Soon enough the mood lightened, and they went on to enjoy their evening together. The next morning, though, Dema headed home to Chicago, a little reluctant to leave the scene where her Lamia adventure had begun, but eager to tell her grandmother Sedna all about its conclusion.