"Emphasis placed on the word 'seems'," Alec said. Lord knew he'd had a hard enough time trying to get a hold of the enormity of the madness here - he was still half-convinced he was on a drip of psychotropic drugs in Gitmo. "You're new, so I'll give you fair warning. Things get weird at night. Seriously special. Giant scorpions. Things with metal triangles on their heads. It's like being stuck in a Japanese horror film."

At Armand's words, he grimaced. "They got my..." What was James to him anymore? "...an old friend of mine, last Sunday. He was not at all like himself...and perhaps too much, at the same time." So much of that faux-James had been a cover, a cover that MI-6 had perfected over the years, but there were parts that were vintage James in there, and that worried him more than he cared to admit.