“Impeachment,” Hillary said, gently drawing a shaking claw down his face. Her breath was low tide and old blood.

“Impeachment,” he agreed, his eyes wide. He shivered at her touch.

“Child of the sea,” she crooned. “You do have the Innsmouth look about you, don’t you? I can recognize it anywhere.” She licked his neck where his gills would form when he finally went home to the sea.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He was frozen like a rabbit when the shadow of a hawk wheeled around a field. Her god was older and more powerful than his, even if the ocean was home to them both.

“Adam,” she said. “The name of the first human. Names have power, Adam. Mine means cheerful. Did you know that?”

“No, ma’am, I did not,” Adam said.

“Am I not cheerful, Adam? Am I not filled with happiness?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. His pants felt loose and warm as a small amount of wine-dark urine escaped.

“Adam,” she said again. “It means ‘to be red.’” She pressed a claw into his flabby triceps and watched, panting, as his blood flowed, absorbed as a spreading stain on his dress shirt.

“To be red,” he repeatedly numbly.

“But your blood isn’t really all that red, is it?” she asked leaning in close. “How can you get blood work done with it this color?”

“We have our own doctors, our own hospitals. Massachusetts takes care of its own,” Adam told her.

Hillary licked the tawny spot on his shirt. “I can taste the power in it. I can taste Dagon. But we don’t have to be enemies any longer. The plague of man is almost at an end.”

Adam nodded.

“Impeachment,” she said, a low grumble. “Help me remove this illegitimate President and I will reward you.”

“I’ve been working to remove him, ma’am. Working very hard.”

“Work harder,” she hissed in his face, drops of her spittle burning him where they landed on bare skin.

She stood and took a step back. Something moved under her pants suit, loops sliding past one another, reconfiguration, slithering sounds, the wet slapping of meat.

“I am done with this one,” Hillary said.

Huma walked quickly from a dark corner of the hotel room and helped Adam to his feet.

“Secretary Clinton appreciates your support during these trying times for our great nation,” she murmured.

“Ngh,” Adam managed, and then, “Guh.”

“Oh, you poor man,” Huma said. She took a napkin off the room service tray, shook the small bones off of it and daubed his face gently.

“They will heal quickly,” she said, stroking along her face and neck. “See? They barely leave any scars at all.”