Kingsport. Agent Nine, assigned to protect the previous chairman of the Diogenes Club, has taken a drive that has lead from Collinsport to Kingsport, Massachusetts. There Catriona Kaye has taken her to a strange house high in the mists that surround the summit of Kingsport Head, a massive cliff overlooking the sea and the town below. Inside the house she has witnessed a bizarre ritual done by Kaye using a strange and cryptic key. Now, Kaye seems to be almost a different person. In search of answers, Kaye has indicated you will give them, if they stop for tea and a bit of cake.

The drive down from Kingsport Head was done in silence. Agent Nine, who had earlier seen that outside the windows of the old Victorian house the late afternoon turning into dusk and then dusk giving way to night – as well as having seen not only the lighthouse but the city of Kingsport apparently disappear – was baffled to find that it was still late afternoon as they exited the house. As they crossed over to the Jaguar she also found that the North Point Lighthouse and Kingsport, with its large harbor arrayed with motorboats and large yachts, lying below where precisely they should have been.

Everything since the moment they had entered the strange house in the mists had been odd, damned odd, and more than unworldly. To say nothing at all about what had transpired with Catriona Kaye. The Key, the blue gems, the altar, the fact she appeared to have died, and returned from the dead, yet again. But more importantly, she seemed different – the way she walked, moved, the tone of her voice.

Kaye and yet, not Kaye.

In silence, as if neither knew precisely what to say after the events that had transpired, Catriona Kaye drove and Agent Nine’s eyes occasionally glanced at her continuing to detect subtle changes. Her eyes now seemed to twinkle with a lively inquisitiveness – the curiosity of an Alice looking about Wonderland. Her upper lip curled upwards to the right when she smiled. She seemed now left-handed.

Catriona Kaye drove the Jaguar down the steep narrow road to the main highway and then back into Kingsport. The pavements were busy with tourists walking along window-shopping the souvenir and antique shops. The roads in Kingsport had a winding, almost maze like quality to them – the town itself seemed ethereal, as if it were on the cusp of two worlds.

The Jaguar came to a stop as Kaye found a space large enough to parallel park the motorocar. She turns and looks at Agent Nine, “Let’s have that cup of tea.”

“Very well,” The agent replies, the glare of the sun almost hiding the flickering of her visor. The visor concealing the glare she gave Kaye.

Closing the car door, Kaye walks over the cobblestones to the cafe and strode over to a table on the patio.

Agent Nine steps out aware that a couple with two young children looks at her oddly – the black PVC outfit and the PPK visible. She smiles. And checking the perimeter carefully she follows the leisurely Catriona Kaye to the café.

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A young waitress steps over to them, “Good afternoon Ladies.” She looks at the woman with the gun a bit anxious.

Agent Nine still mentally clearing corners and assessing escape routes and defensive positions as was her habit glances up at the waitress.

Catriona looks up with a smile, “I would love a cup of Black Currant, and my companion would like . . . ” She looks over at the Agent.

“Earl Grey.”

“Okay, anything else for you?” The waitress asks, her eyes cutting furtively to look once more at the gun.

“No, thank you.” Nine shakes her head, thinking this is yet another mistake, sitting out here in the open.

“I would love a slice of your wonderful Caramel Cake.” Catriona tells the young waitress and detects her concern for the gun, “Oh, she has a permit, she’s my bodyguard. She’s with the authorities,” her British accent quite noticeable.

“Ohh, okay.” The woman says, still uncertain – but then, being a native of Kingsport, she has seen more than her share of odd visitors to Kingsport. She leaves to get their order.

Kaye sits back and looks out over the patio, “I am certain you have questions Agent Nine.”

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“I have just one Miss Kaye,” She says, the light breeze lifting and blowing through her red hair, “What the bloody h**l just happened,”

Catriona looks at her, “That is complicated.”

“If you can’t explain it simply, then you don’t understand it well enough.” Nine quotes Einstein. “That usually makes my answers seem crystal clear Miss.”

“I have done the best I can to correct a mistake I made.” Catriona tells her, “Well—actually a miscalculation. But it is perhaps better to try to begin by answering your earlier question. Who am I?”

“That would be a good place to start. “

The young waitress returns with teacups and saucers and places them before them. She puts a small plate with a piece of caramel cake before Catriona. Places a fork and cloth napkin beside it. “If you need anything, my name is Amanda.”

Catriona looks up, “Thank you Amanda.”

The young waitress steps away, her eyes still looking at the black suit of Agent Nine, and most particularly her gun.

Kaye sits forward; her fingers curl now about the top of her teacup turning it so that the handle is accessible. “I am Victoria Wren.”

“Victoria Wren?”

“And I am Caronia Kaye.”

“Not to discuss the Wren part, but, that is an impossibility.” Agent Nine replies brushing strands of hair back that the wind has scattered before her face, “A human body is incapable of sustaining two souls with this degree of stability.”

“Mmm, yes, you would think – but you see, in my experience I have come to understand that there is nothing really impossible – unlikely, but not impossible.” She sips her tea, “As for the soul – that’s a rather unique and wonderful concept. To start – what do you know of The Dreamlands?”

“I admit not much, I was briefed on them.”

“Oh good – that does make things a bit simpler. Now, you see, in actuality, what is known as The Dreamlands is really another dimension, one that is very close to ours. Rare are the individuals who have made their way into Dreamlands. And those that do usually arrive via their dreams. Some truly unique dreamers are able to pass over much easier than others,” Catriona says and takes a sip of her tea, “But there are other ways to access The Dreamlands. There are certain points of intersection, physical points between the two dimensions. And then there is the use of rather rare and unique artifacts.”

She slides her fork into the slice of cake and takes a bite, which she relishes, “Oh, you so need to have a slice. This is marvelous.”

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“Artifacts? Like that Key?” Nine inquires watching Kaye eat the bite of cake and suppresses a smirk momentarily recalling her conversation with Mr. de’Annar.

“Yes, like the silver key.” Catriona nods, “It is such an artifact.”

“These points of intersection?’ Nine asks, lifting her teacup, “Would Kingsport be one of them?” She cannot help remembering the day changing to dusk and then night—as well as the view of the missing lighthouse and the whole of Kingsport.

Catriona smiles, “Yes—it is.”

She sips her tea and looks over with fascination as the wind stirs the red hair of the agent seated across from her. “Agent – oh dear, is there another name I can call you? Agent Nine is far too formal. Let’s just call you Nine, shall we?”

“As you wish Miss.”

“Yes – well,” She looks at her with and smile and points with her fork towards her, “We do need to come to an accord, Nine; and so I need to tell you a bit about myself.”

Agent Nine nods and leans forward, Kaye was attractive but she is even more so now.

“I was born in 1880. I served a bit in the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau. Before I resigned – just before the war in 1913 – and began working for another branch of the Secret Service.” Catriona Kaye, or Victoria Wren, or both of them begins.

“The Diogenes Club?”

“Yes.”

“That would make you 132.”

Catriona smiles, “If I were bound by time.” She takes another lovely bite of the caramel cake. “This is delightful.”

Agent Nine’s eyes narrow, “This isn’t going to involve blue police boxes is it?”

“Perhaps something rather like.” Catriona now beginning to rather like this Nine, “It was in Bayonne, France. I had received word from Mycroft Holmes that an original printing, with the verified golden salamander cover, of Le Roi en Jaune, had been reportedly found tucked away in series of small catacombs there. I arrived just as the city came under heavy artillery fire. Seeking shelter, I chanced upon two French Foreign Legionaries, who were at the moment AWOL from their unit. They too just happened to be exploring the various mysterious caverns beneath the city – both were Americans, Etienne-Laurent de Marigny and Randolph Carter.”

Nine takes a sip of her tea – was it possible that she knew Mycroft Holmes, founder of the Diogenes Club? Oh, this was too amazing. “This is when you first met him? Randolph Carter.”

“No—actually I met him once before in Paris in 1913. He gave me a letter – this was right after the death of . . . Melanie”

“Melanie?”

“Melanie l’Heuremaudit . . . she was my lover. She died rather tragically.” Catriona looks away for a moment with a sad memory she struggles with briefly. “His letter informed me of clandestine forces within Europe – forces of the supernatural. And, their involvement in Melanie’s death. That’s when I left Intelligence and when to work for Mycroft. The odd thing was that in Bayonne, he did not seem to remember me – it was as if we had not met. It was during the night, as we sat huddled in shelter from the Germans and their bombardment that we began to discuss dreams. It seems he was unable to – dream – as he had once had, and was shocked to find the places to which I had been in mine – then he sat up all night telling me all about the places he had once dreamed of and we compared our experiences in The Dreamlands.”

Nine looks at her and takes a long sip of her Earl Grey.

“For more particulars of this I am sure you can check my file.” Catriona tells her.

“Wren’s file?”

“Yes. Mine.” Catriona smiles slyly, “Suffice it to say, during missions for the Club I came into contact with others who knew of him – and I tried to find him in Dreamlands, when I dreamed myself there – but to no avail. It was in Algiers that I met him for the last time. For three days we toured the city and he passed on a wealth of knowledge to me. He was infinitely charming and so handsome in the blue-tinted glasses he always wore, and was particularly overjoyed as he told me had been able to rectify a mistake he had made and was now free to be completely himself once more. And that he had wanted to come back – back to celebrate this happy separation, as it called it, with me. The last night we had dinner together. He told me he would be leaving in the morning. I thought I had said my good-byes and then I awoke to find him at by my bedside. He was attempting to silently set on the end table, a hideously ornate wooden box that contained his ancient, tarnished silver key. He smiled and told me to go back to sleep – to dream. Then he said, ‘Just remember they have changed their plans. They seek to make man as they. I am so sorry it has to be you. But my dear it’s in the blood.’ He left, and I sat up to find that beside the wooden box he had also left me two letters. A rather cryptic letter addressed to me in which I was instructed to give the second letter to a Creole collector of Eastern antiquities in New Orleans, whom I met in France back in 1914, Etienne-Laurent de Marigny.”

“Cryptic, how.”

“A series of instruction on use of the key.” Catriona takes another bite of the luxurious cake, and Nine can not help watching as the tip of her tongue licks at her lips. “Which when I followed them I found myself in a singular room. A vast room with bizarrely figured arras and carpeted with Bokhara rugs. Primitive masks, statuettes, bas-reliefs, and odd tri-pods of wrought iron from which the fragrant fumes of rich incense wafted. I was in New Orleans in the house of Etienne-Laurent de Marigny and the year was 1929.

Nine looks at her now aware that the visor masks the dubious look she must have – even thought she is aware of Victoria Wren’s extraordinary nature – but the woman before her is Catriona Kaye.

“I gave him the letter. He read it, and then turned to show me a clock, it appears I am to give you this he told me.”

“A clock?”

“Yes, one that I must recover rather soon.” She takes another bite of the cake and places the napkin at her lips – as she sighs at the taste.

“So, this key – this clock, they what allow you to unlock time?”

“Space and time, and allows me to enter into Dreamlands and other realms.”

Agent Nine finds the story all too fascinating, as she does this new Catriona, not that she wasn’t already fascinated with the Catriona she had driven down to Kingsport with but this one – this one was going to be the devil to ignore. Just as she can not ignore the fact that it seems rather unusual that someone would just give up an item as unique as this Silver Key seems to be – of the clock – although she had mentioned earlier that she was Carter’s daughter, “So, just why did he give them away? And why to you?”

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“The very question I asked.” Catriona replies putting down her teacup, “Etienne explained that Carter had transcended the need of the key or the clock and that he now wanted me to have them. Of course I asked, as you, why? That was when he told me that I was Carter’s daughter.” She looks off for a second as if embarrassed, “Illegitimate, of course.”

Nine took note at her discomfort at the word illegitimate – just as she did the word orphan.

“Of course when I arrived in New Orleans, I had no idea it was 1929. I mean I was in Algiers in 1917 when I used the key. Etienne smiled at me as I sat unashamedly devouring his newspaper. He laughed. He said: you are so going to love this clock.”

“And the clock is where?”

“Being protected by good friends.” Catriona says and closes her eyes to savor the taste of the last bite of her cake.

“I am sorry, Miss, but I am finding this all quite hard to believe.” Agent Nine tells her candidly as she sips her now cool tea.

”It does all become more clear the more one moves about in time.” She takes a sip of the Black Currant tea and nods, “You see you are beyond the four dimensions of this reality, whereas I live in the six dimensions of the clock . . . suffice it to say – that is why I am Extraordinary Member.”

“Yes, I am well aware of why Victoria Wren is extraordinary – it is just a bit easier to follow when you just read the words time travel in file.”

A Kingsport Police cruiser patrols along the street. Catriona looks up and past the agent, her green eyes following the car, but the officer fails to notice Sam’s weapon.

“I am sorry, yes, I know this a bit much, and a crash course on my history, but it is necessary in order for us to discuss my present circumstance—“ She sits her teacup back down in the saucer. “So—to current events. In Dreamlands there is a city. The Great City of Thalarion, the mythical city of a thousand wonders.”

“The city from which no man returns alive.”

“Ah – I see Vanessa has briefed you.”

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Agent Nine for the first time smiles, “Well, I assumed that if there were any grain of truth to these bedtime stories, that it would be you survived on account of being a woman and not a man.”

“No—not quite that simple.” Catriona smiles back thinking that Agent Nine certainly needs to smile more, it is such a lovely smile, “Alas—no human was ever entered Thalarion and not died. Now—I am going to have to admit to a certain flaw in my character, I am rather too inquisitive. So you see, I had heard of a book. A very special and very rare book, a black book, with pages that are blank and made of a very odd metallic material—this book, the P’Dwahr M’Ankanon Nyarlathotep could be thought of as the Bible of Nyarlathotep I was told a copy of it resided within Thalarion.”

“Guarded by death.” Nine nods.

“Yes.” Catriona takes a bite of cake.

Perhaps she is mad. This is most preposterous story imaginable. Jumbled timelines surrounding some magical clock—a silver key. And yet, she had just seen what that key could do in the strange house in the mists. A last drink of her Earl Grey and Nine sits looking at those enticing green eyes – even as crazy as it sounds she is fascinated by the woman telling it.

“And so—when I found Catronia Kaye in Dreamlands, after her shooting.” She says and licks a bit of frosting from her lips, “I formulated a plan. You see, here in this reality, Miss Kaye was dying and so I thought here was my opportunity. But—alas it was my mistake.”

“An opportunity?”

“I used the key and my clock to infuse myself into her in order to use her body as she was dying in order to enter Thalarion and try to get the book,” Catriona Kaye says matter-of-factly, “You see, as she was dying, then she would die and fulfill the price while I could escape via the key to the clock and back into my body.”

“Run that by me again?’ Nine says leaning forward, “a little slower this time Miss.”

“I am not talking magic here, Nine. You have to understand the technology of the clock is older than man – it is actually a device created by the Old Ones. By using that technology, using it with the Key, I was able for a short period of time to enter into Kaye’s body – and I thought I had timed it well, as she was dying I hope to be able to get to the temple and the book. That the price for admittance death, would be paid by her death – and that I could get the book out, if not, I would just use the key to transfer back into my body.”

“Apparently that plan did not work out.” Nine pushes her teacup and saucer aside.

Catriona nods, “No—they tried to revive her.”

“Yes, we mere mortals tend to do that.”

“I was near the front gates. I was waiting for the moment to use the key and transfer back though the clock. I felt her slipping away – dying and then suddenly when they defibrillated her for the first time – something happened. I felt myself unable to escape her body. I raced for the gate. Tried to use the key again and they shocked her a second time and for a brief moment they brought her back to life and in Thalarion, we died, just as she expired once more in this reality. Somehow in that brief moment I was pulled back into this reality and we regenerated together and Catriona Kaye rather dramatically for those around her was resurrected from the dead.

“So—“ Nine looks at her, elbow on the café table, her finger now pointing at Catriona, “So are you saying both of your souls are in this body?”

“I am not certain of souls,” Catriona says truthfully, “But we are both in this body as I have all of her memories and mine, and it is a bit confusing, as I find myself thinking as her, and then as me, it has been quite a jumble at times.”

“What happened at the house?”

“I was able to establish a link back to the clock, which is being guarded for me by some of my deepest and oldest friends.” Catriona explains, “I . . . we – merged.”

“Like Multiple Personality Disorder.”

“Possibly,” Catriona nods, “I am not sure, but I think I am stable now – as I am no longer me and she is no longer herself – we are a mixture of the two of us.”

“I see.”

“I am telling you this because at the moment, as I am going to ask you to do something you are not going to feel comfortable doing. And I understand why, but I don’t want you to tell Coats who I am.”

Nine sits silent.

“As Kaye I am asking you to trust me, as Wren I am asking for your assistance.”

“I will be totally honest with you Miss Kaye, Miss Wren . . . the best I can promise is to see how this pans out.”

Catriona nods understanding her position.

“One more question . . . “

“Yes,” Kaye sips her tea.

“If you are Wren, who is in Collinsport?”

“We meet her when we first arrived, her name is Angelique Collins. She is a very, very powerful witch. She is part of the reason I need you to trust me and not report back to Coats all that you know.”

“hmmm—so that was her?” Nine looks at the dregs of her tea.

“Kaye was murdered, set-up. It has to do with the Tarot cards she received. It has to do with Count Andreas Petofi, and the book I was looking for – and I believe Petofi to be alive and in Collinsport.”

“Then you need to know, Miss . . . “What do I call you?”

“Cat.”

“Pardon. Catriona Kaye – that is who I appear to me, and she is part of me. Her good friends called her Cat.”

Nine smiles, “Okay—Cat. As I was saying we had a visitor.”

“A visitor? Who?”

A Rhyaad De’Annar

“I know that name. He works with a woman there in Collinsport that I must see. But, why did he come to see you?”

“Apparently he is now an Extraordinary Member as well and was basically assigned to keep an eye on me and figure out what happened when you died.”

Catriona Kaye sits back thoughtfully, “Coats.”

“Precisely.” Nine agrees. “He also had a request.”

“Coats plays a far too dangerous game – she always has.”

“He wanted he to go with him and see his friend, one that he thinks is under the influence of Nyarlathotep.”

Catriona shakes her head, “Coats knows better than that – she knows what she is. She knows what we created.”

“Created?” Nine says.

“I have to talk to Nicole Collins, Nine. Now more than ever” Catriona says. “Will you Trust me? Will you help me?”

“You’ve trusted me so far – and I will for now.”

“Thank you.” Catriona reaches out a hand and places it atop Nine’s, “Something very sinister is happening in Collinsport and we need to find out what.”

Cue Music End of Episode