Collinsport. The night before has been a chaotic one for Nicole Collins. She had discovered that Rhyaad deAnnar had slipped into the secret room of the Old House with the intent of stealing the mysterious orb with possible time travelling capabilities. Anger growing from the pain of betrayal, Nichole Collins had stormed from the old house breaking her relationship with Rhyaad. And later while recovering that that tempestuous confrontation, she discovers Esther confronted by one of the two vampires she had seen in the past one of the vampires, which had murdered Esthers parents. Casimir reveals to her an ancient contract, signed in blood by an ancestor of Esther Friedman, which binds all of the descendants of Moishie ben Aliyah to the service of Stephen Báthory. Nicole has been given an ultimatum to hand Esther over to Stephen Báthory within a fortnight. Now a new morning dawns on Collinsport and with it yet another series of events, which will soon have consequences that will also affect Nicole Collins and those she cares most about.
The text message had arrived at precisely 3:30 the afternoon before.
She had walked out onto the patio looking at her mobile rather quizzically as the message was but a single word. Book. What was of interest was the fact that the person who had sent the text was herself. Or at least it came from her email account. Odd thatshe thoughta message from oneself; especially one she did not remember sending. Of course the agent was well aware of her distraction for the remainder of the afternoon and the night. Aware that she sat silently looking at the bookcase, although she knew The Book in question was not in this hide-away home they had sent her to. No, it was some place else but where.
And that night, she had the dream.
She awoke early the next morning, quickly showered, dressed, applied her make-up, and had two eggs, hard-boiled, two strips of bacon, not over done, with a cup of tea. The car keys in hand she had asked the agent, who had arisen and eaten earlier than she, if she carried to take a drive.
Wary, but not overly suspicious, she had agreed.
It was a bright summers day. Catriona Kaye had taken the Jaguar out of Collinsport and headed west along U.S. 1A en route for Bangor and then taken I-95 South toward Portland. Agent Nine had sat watching the countryside passing outside the passenger window feeling a bit of a doze coming on. When she awoke, Catriona was making her way past Portland.
They had been on the road well over three hours.
The agent had asked where they were headed as she leaned forward to check the GPS and Catriona smiled, It is so boring dont you think, just sitting about there in the house.
Yesbut a three hour sight-seeing excursion? Miss Kaye, neither of us are tourists.
I want to see a place I have heard of in Massachusetts. She told her with a hand leisurely lying atop the steering wheel cruise control set at 70.
Massachusetts? Nine turned to look at her.
Yes, Catriona nodded and stretched her arms. Agent Nine could not help thinking she was lithe as a cat sitting in the sun which fell through the Jaguars windscreen. Just outside of Arkham. Catriona continues.
Arkham, Nine thought to herself, she had been there twice; once to pass along a package to the university there, and another involving that ghastly business with the Bishops. Whatever did Kaye want to do in Arkham? It aroused a bit of suspicion.
She glanced at her watch: 1:25. What about a bite to eat. She asked, her toast and coffee now a long memory.
They stopped at a roadside restaurant, something rustic. They took a table beside a window overlooking the sea. The jagged Maine coastline ran up along a curve, where off in the distance could be seen the white and red pillar of a lighthouse. Catriona had a salad and Nine ordered a turkey croissant. They both felt awkward as they sat and attempted some unimportant small talk. The countryside, the weather, what they thought of Collinsport and Maine in general but neither discussed the drive.
Nine had a feeling there was something Kaye was not telling her, but so far she had now seen anything particularly troublesome about the trip other than its undisclosed destination. Somewhere in Massachusetts.
Back on the road and Catriona continued heading north. Nine sat back for a bit before taking out her mobile and connecting to the Net and looks up Arkham to refresh her memory. The ride was uneventful, the countryside inoffensive.
Sometime later, Nine watches the trees whizz by and sees the exit to Arkham. Catriona took the turning and was off the highway driving now past rambling streets of gambrel-roofed townhouses, past a graveyard, and over a bridge crossing the grey waters of the Miskatonic River. Nine looked out the window at a rather unwelcoming island in the river. They were headed now into Uptown and past the business section. She could see the lofty tops of grey granite buildings of the University off in the distance through the urban landscape and the swaying tops of the elm and oak trees.
But rather than come to a stop, Catriona continued driving.
Where are we going Miss? Nine looks over to Kaye, her visor darkening ever so slightly.
It is just ahead, a small little town, much like the one we left. Catriona Kaye says not looking over to her, but rather watching the roadway. Kingsport, Massachusetts.
Kingsport? Why? Nine now is becoming a bit irritable its been a long fools trip for what? Nothing that she could imagine. She was tired of being in the cartired of feeling the tension of having to make attempts at small talk with someone she knew very little of, and was in fact a superior it was not that long ago Kaye was the Chairman. But more importantly, was the fact that the woman sitting beside her, the woman she had been entrusted to guard was someone who had begun to attract her attention. And so, keeping the talk to a minimum was just a good precaution in not allowing herself to fall prey to any injudicious thoughts concerning the lovely woman driving the Jaguar.
Catriona looks over at the Agent, “The truth?”
Of course.
“I really don’t know.” Catriona admits, “I had a dream last night about it.”
Oh? Agent Nine arches a brow. What sort of a dream?
“I was sitting in a large bay window of an very quaint hotel. It looked out on the ocean.” Catriona begins.
Agent Nine nods watching her.
“I was drinking tea and this man came up to me and sat down. He at first seemed to be perhaps the manager, or maybe the owner at least someone of official status with the Hotels management. He sat there silent looking out that the bottle green sea. I asked him if I could help him, and he turned to me with a smile and said that it was quite a nice day for reading wasn’t it?”
Nine continues to look at her.
“I looked at him and said, yes, but I don’t have a book, I am just sitting here drinking tea. He nodded, and said well you need to find a book, then don’t you.”
A book?
“Yes.”
So were looking for a book one you dreamed about? Nine asks.
Yes.
And this book is in Kingsport?
Yes.
Nine shook her head this is her fault, she should have stopped this long lunatic drive much sooner but had felt it might be therapeutic and it was better than sitting around the house all day she had to admit. Only now she knew they had driven this far to find a book from a dream. Kaye was nothing more than endless enigmas wrapped in riddles.
Oh, please, I do so need you to trust me. Catriona says and glances over at her with a slight smile.
They now took the scenic route out of Arkham and drove for about fifteen minutes when the waters of the Atlantic just became barely visible. The costal road wound itself along the ocean and then rose slightly, before it curved to reveal a small port city. Kingsport.
Two things came to mind as Nine first saw the city, the first was how much like Collinsport it seemed, almost a sister city, and the second was how it all looked like a moment cut out of time.
Just keep on good behaviour Miss Kaye. Agent Nine tells her not at all certain where they were going in order to look for this book and that she might have dressed a bit more inconspicuously if she were headed to something like the Kingsport Library or some antique shops.
Catriona looks over at the agent, “I have never asked. But, are you afraid of me?” She downshifts as she crosses a small narrow bridge leading into Kingsport.
Afraid? Nine asks glancing over at her, What is there to be afraid of?
“You are aware there are some who are. Your boss for one.” Catriona remarks. “Are you?”
No Miss Kaye, She tells her, There is nothing to be afraid of.
Are you so sure? They drive now slowly through the small town, which, thought one a fishing community, is now mostly for tourists and artists. So, do you think me mad?
Mad no.
To the left they pass a hotel.
The Kingsport Inn.
The front of it has a large bay window just as she said there was in her dream. Although there are several things . . . odd . . . about you.
“Yes, there are. I am sorry about that it’s just bedevilling at times, it is like I can’t remember something that is rather important.”
Agent Nine has not broached the subject until now, It is possible that your death tampered with some of you memories. Oxygen and blood deprivation.
They drive now through the city and Kaye takes a hard right, which leads up a steep grade.
“That is a possibility, I know.”
Agent Nine grips the door tightly.
The road is steep, and the passenger side, looking out along the edge of a cliff, appears to drop off to the sea, as the grade rises now to the top of Kingsport Head a massive sea cliff that looks out over the sea, the North Point Lighthouse, and the city below.
Up ahead now there seems to be a mist or fog that lies along the rocky summit.
Only as the Jaguar draws closer to the top of Nine looks at the mist it seems to be stationary, as if a cloud has been captured and tethered to this high summit.
The Jaguars tyres crush upon gravel as it comes to a halt. Catriona turns off the motor and opens the automobiles door and steps out. She walks across the front of the bonnet and seems to be heading into the odd mist.
Agent Nine opens her door and watches Kaye something damned odd about this place. She could feel it. She went around and opened the boot and took out a bulky black nylon bag and slammed the lid shut. What else was odd was the view, looking out now at the glinting brilliance of the ocean, the lighthouse, the harbour and the city the perspective was off. It seemed as if the city were much further now, looking down upon it than the cliff had appeared from the city when looking up. Something faulty with her visor?
Hand slipping into the pocket of her dress, Kayes fingers touched the silver of the old, ornate key. As she did so, she could now make out the shape of an old house a two-story Victorian townhouse. Very much weather-beaten it seemed.
Nine is now concerned, as she did not see the house when they first arrived and yet there it was sitting out amidst the mist on the edge of the cliff.
Catriona Kaye, walking purposefully, but slowly forward, toward the ancient house removes another key, one not made of silver. She steps into the outer wisps of the chill mist. Nine suddenly feels as if she has lost control of the situation watching now as Kaye walks deeper into the fog.
Catriona mounts the wooden stairs leading up to the front porch.
Agent Nine chases after her, toting the bag, which appears to be rather heavy, Maam you do have a bad habit of wandering off.
She hurries up the stairs to stand beside Catriona Kaye, who now places the key that is not made of silver into the lock. Kaye looks over at her with a knowing smile, Shall we? The look is rather impish Nine thinks not one she is used to seeing from Miss Kaye in the short time they have been together.
She turns the key and the lock clicks. Catriona opens the door.
The interior of the house is dimly lit, very old, and filed with antiques. As well as a strange purple mist, which swirls about the floorboards. It seems to be everywhere.
Agent Nine, her Walther PPK drawn, pushes past Kaye to enter into the house, quickly clearing the corners. Aware of the mists, she drops the bag into a curling swirl of purple vapour and hurriedly unzips it in order to remove and slip on a small oxygen mask.
Behind her Kaye has already entered and is slowly closing the door.
Careful Miss! Agent Nine says into her gas mask.
Kaye looks about the house. Its age seems almost to be indefinable but one cannot mistake the impression that it is hundreds of years old. The front foyer looks as if it had once been the bridge of an old sailing ship. To the right, there stands a bookcase seemingly made of stone. It is filled with old parchments and scrolls. Books are stacked on the floor.
Who owns this? Nine asks as she hands Kaye an oxygen mask.
Catriona Kaye shakes her head, “No, the mist is fine.”
She walks across the creaking floorboards and down a series of steps into a sunken living room. Old Victorian furniture that gives the impression that it has been sitting here since the 1800s appears extraordinarily new. Oddly there does not seem to be any accumulation of dust one might expect in a house left standing, apparently for sometime, unattended. Or at least that is the feeling Nine has as if the house has been sitting here atop this cliff waiting . . . waiting for what?
Kaye?
Whose house is this? She asks.
“I have been here . . . before . . . Kaye says stepping past a high backed chair and over to one of a pair of matching old, glass-fronted book cases set against the further wall, Oh, I am sorry, what did you say?” She turns to look at Nine.
Who owns this? The voice comes out of the gas mask.
Catriona Kaye says in a quite voice, “I do. I think.
Agent Nine blinks, her visor flickering as she follows down the steps into the parlour. Miss . . . I don’t think thats possible.
“Something is missing . . . something should be here.” Catriona runs her hand through the air between the bookcases.
Nines eyes narrow bookcases? Once again she recalls Kayes dream from the night before.
Catriona opens the glass door to one of the bookcases and stands looking at the old volumes, her grey green eyes scanning their titles, Cultes des Goules,Livre d’eibon,Unaussprechlichen Kulten,The book of Dzyan.
Agent Nine steps over to also have a look, A rather morbid collection, she observes.
Catriona turns to look at Agent Nine
“This is impossible. How how could they be here. I mean left this long?”
How so Miss?
“Do you not know how rare and valuable these are? To be simply left in an abandoned home?”
People leave valuable things behind all the time, Miss Kaye.
Caronia turns and looks now slightly bewildered, as if examining the old house for some clue as if she is uncertain why she is here at all, in this house filled with mist. “Why did I leave them here like this?”
It is rather out of the way Miss Nine continues and then stops in mid-sentence. Why did she just say that? Why did I leave them?
“Or rather why did she?” Catriona steps over to the other bookcase. “Or was it me?”
Miss Kaye, there are not any records of you owning a house in the statesof that I can assure you. Agent Nine tells her and decides to take off the gas mask. She drops it on the sofa. They had arrived in later afternoon true, but now, looking out the window Nine was surprised to see that it was dusk.
“I know, I never have, but this . . . this is . . . my house, I feel it.”
The purple mist unlike the misty fog outside the house was not at all damp it was dry, warm, swirling about their feet as they walked.
Catriona opens the bookcase and cocks her head to one side, and reaches in and removes a book it is very old, and it seems the binding is split and several pages appear to be loose. She has to be careful in opening it so that they do not spill out. She turns a few pages and then stops as she finds a piece of paper. She takes it out and reads it.
She turns to the agent, “I have to go up stairs.”
And with that statement, Kaye hurries out of the room and mounts a stairwell leading up to the second floor.
Agent Nine quickly follows her, Miss, youre doing it again.
Kaye is rounding the stairs and entering into a room on the second floor, D**n! Nine mutters as she chases up the stairs after her.
She catches up with Kaye who has stopped just inside the door. She introspectively looks about the room, which appears to some strange workroom.
What is this . . .? Nine asks looking around the room. There is a large device emitting a type of electrical discharge off in the corner, giving the room a hint of an ozone smell strangely mixed with the scent of cinnamon. There are more stone looking bookcases with scrolls and ancient parchments. Bookcases filled with bizarre reference books. A book pedestal with a very large book, resting upon it, open, as if left at the page someone had been reading. There is a worktable with papers scatter across it.
And there is a odd looking stone structure sitting at the opposite end of the room it looks like some type of an altar odd symbols and hieroglyphs carved into it, with several blue stones each of which seem to glow with a slightly pulsation.
Catriona having paused just inside the door now moves over to the long worktable and begins to sift through several papers with the tips of the fingers of her free right hand a few diagrams and formulas as the left still holds the piece of paper and the book within which she found it folded.
Agent Nine, her gun still drawn steps over and looks at the open book on the pedestal it is in Latin. It is the Necronomicon.
Miss, this this room has some very questionable items. It looks like a sorcerer or necromancers workroom please dont touch anything.
“Thisthis was hermy work room.”
Her? Youve mentioned a her now several times, who are you referring to Miss Kaye?
Kaye looks around the room mystified, “I don’t know?”
She places the book she took from the first floor, the one from which she extracted the sheet of paper, on the worktable. Can I trust you? She suddenly asks the agent.
Agent Nine, both hands holding the gun, warily, Of course.
I have not told this to anyone. Not even Coats. Catriona says, Every since I I came back from the dead, there is a voice in my head it is as if . . . there is someone else inside me.”
Agent Nine is not particularly overjoyed with this information possession was one of the Diogenes Clubs considerations and worries and as to who precisely may have possession of her. What kind of a voice?
“A woman’s voice. A woman that I know. A very special woman. She says, still holding the piece of paper as she now steps around the worktable and over towards the strange altar. She runs her fingers over it. The pulse of the blue stones or gems intensifying.
Miss Kaye, dont touch.
“She was an Extraordinary Member of the Club, her name was Victoria Wren.”
Agent Nines visor flickers, Impossible.
Why would you say that? Catrionas voice now slightly changed, less bewildered and more self-assured.
Wren is currently in Collinsport. Nine tells her.
Catriona looks at her, “In Collinsport?
Staying at Collinwood?
Catriona Kaye stands beside the altar,
Now that is impossible. Catriona says, and turns to look at Agent Nine, You know, she disappeared about . . . now when was it?” She seems to be trying to recall, Yesabout the same time I . . . died.”
Agent Nine arches a brow, lifting her gun slowly, No, the information I have is that she has been working on a book, and she is now in Collinsport, doing something related to the town founders.
She steps closer to the table and looks at the battered old book Catriona she has apparently driven to Kingsport to find: The Relics of the Anti-Saints. Oddly now, a quick glance back to Catriona, who stood now with a window to her back, it seemed to be night outside the window.
“Well I can assure you that that can’t be.” Catriona says looking at the agent.
She steps away from the window. A slow, almost leisurely stride now takes her back over to the worktable where she sits on sits one hip perched on the edge. The purple mists swirling about the floor, Agent Nine cautiously keeps an eye on Kaye even as she steps over to look out the window. There is a huge moon shining down on the white wavecaps of the sea and that is all there is outside the window, a vast expanse of ocean. There is no longer a lighthouse, and it appears as if Kingsport too is gone!
Damned! What was Kaye up to . . . a quick look back reveals she is once again reading the piece of paper she found in the book.
Nine, her visor flickering rather insanely now, points the steady gun at Kaye, Who are you?
“II am . . . Catriona Kaye begins uncertain, her voice once again filled with confusion she looks at the paper.
Let me see that? Nine now demands.
Catriona Kaye allows her to take it from her fingers.
Agent Nine looks at the sheet of paper, it is hand written:
Catriona,
Go up stairs. Now. Use the Key.
You are Victoria Wren.
It is time to remember.
Who are you?
I am Randolph Carter’s daughter.” Catriona tells her, but then looks at her very confused, No, that is Victoria. Wren. Victoria Wren is Carters daughter, butonly I know that!”
Miss Kaye, Agent Nine asks, Do you trust me?
Catriona Kaye, the ex-chairman of the Diogenes Club. looks up and for the first time in a very long time there is the slightest hint of fear in her eyes not of Agent Nine, or the gun, but of what is happening and what it may all mean. For her.
“Do you trust me?” She counters.
Yes, but I must do something. And you may not like it.
Catriona Kaye cocks her head, “What do you need to do?”
I need you to hold perfectly still.
Very well.” She sits on the edge of the table looking at her.
Agent Nine lifts the gun and pulls the trigger.
The report is loud in the room.
The bullet smashes into the far wall.
Nine, having flicked the gun just a fraction, aims so that the bullet just nicks Kaye’s ear.
Catriona grabs the lobe feeling the hot pain and sees blood, “What”
Please, move your hand away.
Catriona’s hand lowers from her ear but her right has slipped now into her pocket, instinctively, and she touches the ancient silver of the key.
Hands where I can see them, Miss Kaye. She tells Catriona as the visor begins to scan her.
Are you going to shoot me, Agent?” The hand does not coming back out of the pocket and the voice speaking to the once again is the more confident one.
Miss Kaye you have an anomaly, Nine tells her having completed the scan. Her voice, now affected by her findings, is strained.
“Yes, I dobut, what precisely do you see?”
Your physical and paranormal signatures don’t match.
“Quite right, they dont. She smiles at her, Now, I know what I need to do, but I have to have you trust me in order to do it.”
What is it that you need to do?
She walks over to the agent, “That is where the trust comes in, you have to let me show you. Now the question is, will you let me?”
Conflicted, Agent Nine looks at her, there is a very good chance that this woman is not Catriona Kaye that she is possessed by something, whether benign or malevolent, she is uncertain, and yet, she was the Chairman of the Diogenes Club and if she is Kaye . . . how can she refuse to allow her to rectify this anomaly. Gun still trained on her, Nine slowly nods agreement, Okayshow me.
“Thank you.”
Catriona walks now purposefully back to the altar and stands before it. She removes now the ornate silver key from her pocket and kneels before the altar.
Gun aimed at Caronias forehead, Agent Nine watches her steadily.
Catriona Kaye lifts the key and begins a series of movements:
With the tips of her fingers she spins the key to complets one full rotation to the left.
Now a second rotation to the right.
She flips it over in order to point it back at her, the third.
She interlaces it through the fingers of her left hand and turns it with her right, the fourth.
The altar begins to glow and a strange whispering sound is heard.
She mimics inserting the key and turning it in a lock, the fifth.
Agent Nine watches memorizing the patterns before taking a step back.
Catriona Kaye flips the Silver Key so that it so it faces her, and turns it now counter-clockwise, the sixth.
She points it down to the ground and turns it clockwise, the seventh.
There is strange piping sound as if of flutes.
She points it heavenward, and turns, the eighth.
Catriona Kaye looks up at the agent across the workroom and smiles now as she covers the key in her hand, placing her left hand around the right, and then, slowly she bends her wrists so as to place the tip of the key above her heart, the Ninth.
The altar suddenly emits a blast of pure white light in a thin beam directed upon her hands that hold the key. Kaye goes rigid. As is if suspended in time, frozen, she suddenly does not move. Then she shudders and falls to the floor face down.
She begins to convulse.
Miss Kaye! Nine rushes towards her.
Her body trembles and writhes. She rolls over to lie on her side, eyes gone white as they have rolled back.
There is now an audible sound at first faint but steadily growing louder like some whisper caught on the stellar wind passing through space, near forgotten stars.
Nine races across the room, only before she can get to Catriona Kaye the Silver Key sends out an energy pulse that throws the agent back.
The room is filled with light, a kaleidoscope of light. Beautiful. Colours out of space, some beyond the normal spectrum. The blue gems on the altar now seem to pulsate almost as if to the rhythm of a heart. Kayes heart?
Nine scrambles to her feet.
Only the gems on one side of the altar are pulsating to a different rhythm than those on the opposite side.
Two heartbeats?
Yes!
Agent Nine quickly tries to make her way back to Catriona against the waves of energy the key is emitting.
The altar and the key begin a strange harmonics as Kaye is lifted up and held in the air for a moment and she begins to fade.
She becomes translucent.
The blue gems now become one single pulsation, one rhythm one heartbeat.
Kaye falls to the floor.
She lies still.
Miss Kaye! Agent Nine shouts. D**ned shes killed herself!
She races over to Kayes side and quickly searches for a pulse.
There isnt one.
Shes not breathing.
Bloody hell shes let Catriona Kaye die on her watch!
When suddenly, as if a swimmer coming up from deep water Kaye gasps.
She sits up.
Miss Kaye! She touches her neck seeking a pulse its back, strong and steady.
She is taking deep long breaths now but much more slowly.
Catrionas eyes open.
Miss Kaye are you alright!
Catriona turns to look at her with a smile. “Hello Agent Nine, it is so good to see you.”
Agent Nine sighs in relief, only the look on her face betrays her concern to be a bit more than just professionally related, Are you okay Miss Kaye?
Catriona Kaye tightens her grip on the key, “Oh yes, she is find. We are fine. We are all fine. Finally. Finally we are all one.”
What? What the h**l does that mean?
“Thank you, Agent Nine. ” She says as she begins to rise from the floor, the agent quick to help her stand. Thank you for trusting me, although we have not formally met.
Agent Nine furrows her brow confused, What?
“Are you hungry? Catriona asks as she rises from the floor. “There is this wonderful little cafe on Water Street. They have excellent tea and really lovely pastries.
Agent Nines eyes narrow as she looks at her, Oy . . . what the bloody h**l l just happened?
She looks at the agent, “I finally made right what I made wrong. She gets up and walks over to the worktable looking at the papers, then the folded piece of paper she had found in the book, One sometimes has to leave notes to oneself you know, oh, so sorry, you must be confused, allow me to introduce myself. I am Victoria Wren.”
Catriona Kaye holds out her hand.
No you are not, Agent Nine raises her gun.
“Now about that cafe.” She says putting the key back into her pocket. “Oh and do put that thing way. Let’s have a bit of cake and some tea and I shall tell you all about it.”
Nine, completely aware that she is unable to hide the incredulous look on her face, shakes her head, First of all, no I am not putting it away. Second, fine, teatime it is. And thirdly, you had better have a good explanation as to why youre impersonating someone in Collinsport.
Catriona Kaye smiles, “Goodperhaps it is best you keep that gun ready to hand because the Victoria Wren in Collinsport is certainly not me of that I am more than fairly certain. So to the café and tea.
As Catriona Kaye, who is now full integrated with Victoria Wren, steps past the worktable, she picks up the battered copy of the Relics of the Anti-Saints and takes it with her.
Cue Music End of Episode