The greasy mesh that covered both Matt and Abrams fell away as another figure stepped out of the tunnel mouth, and let loose another burst from her machine gun directly into the rapidly expanding Andy. His human skin split away and he started to rapidly inflate. Dozens of mouths broke open all over the putrid bloated body, each one screaming in agony.

Adira strode toward it, lifted her leg and kicked what had so recently been Andy Bennet off the ledge. She watched it plummet into the darkness. Her teeth were bared, as her eyes followed it all the way to the bottom, where it exploded like a balloon full of toxic fluid.

She turned, her face ferocious, and approached Matt and Abrams. She held the gun dead level, its muzzle moving from Matt to the major. “Speak.”

Abrams held up his hands. “Don’t shoot, Captain Senesh. It really is us.”

She turned the muzzle on Matt. “You too…Now, quickly!”

Matt opened his mouth, but no words would come. Instead, there were the whispers, chants and screams of an ancient race. There were images of burning lands, monstrous beings, and things whose size defied nature and sanity itself. The burning touch of the Shoggoth and its intrusion into his system, even only briefly, had united with the traces of the Al Azif he had absorbed, and they mushroomed into meaning.

“Last chance.” Adira had moved the gun muzzle to Matt’s face.

“I…” Matt got to his knees. “I’m okay.” His vision cleared. “Adira…I’m okay. It’s me.”

She fired.

“Fuck!” Matt grabbed at his head. Blood ran from between his fingers.

“Okay, it is you.” She lowered her gun and held out a hand.

“You shot me? You fucking shot me?” Matt looked at his bloody hand, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

“Don’t be a baby; it’s just a graze.” She shrugged. “I had to be sure.”

Beside him, Abrams breathed a sigh of relief and wiped at his face.

Matt grabbed the outstretched hand and she pulled him up. Adira then turned to Abrams who was already on his feet and now vigorously rubbing his hands over his face.

“Yech.” The major spat something onto the ground, and then wiped his hands on his pants. There were still glistening snail trails all over his body and in his hair.

Matt guessed he looked the same, but it was what was inside him that worried him the most. He winced as he dabbed at the red graze on his cheek.

“Salt, huh?” Adira cradled the gun in her arms. “I could smell it in among the nitro discharge – worked a treat – especially on a few men of the cloth I ran into.”

“Salt…yeah.” Abrams ran a hand up through his slick hair. “These things are closer to slugs than animals, so salt turns them to mush.” He looked back at her. “Hartogg?”

“Dead,” she said evenly. “I came across what was left of him in the cavern.” She motioned to the cliff edge. “Captain Kovitz there, or what she had become, was waiting for you, Professor. Seems you’re more a threat than they thought. Poor Andy was just another way to get close to you. They obviously didn’t need Hartogg, so consumed…most of him.”