The Wasteland

St. Eustace Island. Five miles off the coast and northeast of Collinsport there lies a small group of islands. Here within this archipelago, David Collins has helped finance a secret facility for the clandestine British Intelligence organization known as The Diogenes Club. As Nicole Collins and her close associates have unexpectedly been thrown back into time and forced to relive the tragic events of Esther Friedman’s parents gruesome murder, old acquaintances are about the meet once again on the island facility with unexpected results.

A pinprick of light in a swirling spiral of blackness.

A pinprick that grows brighter; it expands, pulsates.

The darken laboratory is suddenly awash in the light – bright, brilliant, white light – as the whole of the laboratory seems now to be a scene taken from a black and white film circa 1930. A scene from an odd German expressionistic film.

The pulsating light illuminates the equipment – an odd mix of antique scientific instrument panels and modern computer technology.

The pinprick has expanded and now as the whirlwind of darkness retreats and as ever more light replaces the darkness.

A foot appears stepping forth from the brilliance of the portal’s glow.

Dark high-heels.

A tall ash blonde appears.

She looks around the room.

“And they say we have free will.” She muses.

Agent Nine steps through the portal behind her.

Catornia Kaye’s head turns to look at the darken laboratory – “Strange, they always look so familiar.”

Agent Nine looks around, her gun drawn, eyes adjusting to the darken room as she expertly clears the corners.

“Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” She turns and looks at the Agent wryly. “They call it–Maine.”

“I call it h**l, Miss.” Agent Nine says wryly.

“Several theories as to why, you know, one being a practical nautical term being the “Meyne” or “Mainland” to distinguish it from the bulk of the numerous islands.” She touches the dials of a very odd, antique instrument panel. “Then again, in 1623, an English naval captain, Christopher Levett, exploring the New England coast, wrote that the first place he set foot upon in New England was the Isle of Shoulds, being Islands in the sea, above two Leagues from the Mayne.” She sighed. “And then there is of course the original charter which considered it “the Mayne Land of New-England. But – I find it all so apropos seeing as how they mainly have no idea what to do with me.”

“You’d think they’d be better funded,” Nine mutters, inspecting the antique equipment.

There is suddenly an odd sound. The sound of someone choking – and a woman’s voice.

Catriona turns without looking at the agent accompanying her and walks quickly over to the curved stone stairs leading to the upper room – and ascends them swiftly.

Agent Nine instantly looks upwards, her gun instinctively following the line of sight, seeing nothing at the top of the landing, she quickly follows after her.

At the head of the stairs she arrives in time to not only see the tall, lovely blonde with the clay doll in hand, tightening a silken handkerchief about the doll’s neck . . . but to also to hear her say, “Let’s talk about that abomination you placed in my womb.”

“Abomination?” Catriona asks, striding further into the room.

The blond turns and Catriona recognizes her as Angelique Collins!

Agent Nine takes a firing stance, aiming at the woman – even as she takes a rather quick look to see the man in the chair who is apparently choking.

“I am the one who had that abomination put in your womb.” Caronia Kaye says as she approaches them.

“Stay back Miss,” Nine warns.

Angelique Collins turns, her blue eyes going cold, “You!”

Quickly reacting, Nine steps up behind Catriona Kaye and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I would have expected some more witty repartee from you my dear.” Catriona says.

“I would have said you have not aged, but that clearly isn’t so. Only, somehow it is in reverse. How – how is it possible – “ Angelique says teasingly, “You were never one to fall to the temptation of the various Arts at your disposal.”

“Death becomes me,” Catriona muses as she walks purposefully toward the large conference table.

Agent Nine keeps pace with Catriona, her gun leveled on the tall blonde woman with the clay doll.

Blue eyes a sparkle, Angelique’s wry lips curl, “However—this is really more than one could ever imagine. Both of you here together.”

“You, keep your hands were I can see them.” Agent Nine instructs her.

“Advisedly, I’m telling you to let him go.” Catriona admonishes her.

“Always one to give orders Catriona – only, I think I have the stronger hand.” She says releasing the ends of the handkerchief, easing the constraint about the doctor’s neck, as her fingers begin to oddly move – as if to fold paper, as she begins to mutter softly . . .

Agent Nine, well aware of what those hand movements could mean, cocks the gun, “HANDS UP! NOW!”

Catriona smiles and Angelique, who knew the woman — only much older — knew her as one not given to wicked smiles, is amazed now to see such a iniquitous one directed at her.

And suddenly –

They are no longer in the upper room of the Diogenes Laboratory facility, but are rather abruptly standing in a vast wasteland.

The wind blows warm dust about as a table set for tea appears, “Care for a cup of tea?” Catriona asks flashing a sparkling smile.

Agent Nine spins around, they are in a desert, ahead nothing but barren sand reaching to the strange roiling sky, behind them stands a strange rock formation – vaguely like some abstract sculpture – which casts the only shade that falls upon the table set for tea. “Okay—now who’s responsible for that?”

Angelique stands amazed – an odd expression of terrible anxiety crosses her face as she looks now at the desert wasteland.

The hot wind stirring the dust is a far too familiar sight —“How?”

Nine looks at the bewildered man and the blonde, who seems just as confused as she – as to just where the bloody h**l they are. “So I’m guessing it’s not him or her,” She says looking to Catriona as she renews her grip on her gun.

“At times, I find my reality shifts.” Catriona says truthfully as she slowly walks over and places her hand upon the back of one of the four chairs placed around the table.

“Do have a seat.” She says with a smile, “If I were you, I would not care to find out what else I might be capable of, if pressed – now, as to tea? It is time we did have a bit of a talk, you know.”

The Doctor rubs his throat and steps over to the table, “It’s always a pleasure to see you Catriona. But, if I may ask, where are we?”

“We are – here.” Catriona says.

Agent Nine, knowing that the Ruling Cabal of the Diogenes Club had had their concerns about Catriona, and after this? Well, now they have good reason. She walks cautiously over and sits at the table, drawing a second gun. She keeps one aimed at the woman named Angelique and the other now at Catriona.

Catriona has a seat. “Oh and do not worry Doctor, there is a bit of gin for you,” and she lifts a bottle of gin from beside the chair, unconcerned about the gun pointed at her.

“Thank you,” He says, rubbing at his chaffed neck.

Catriona now lifts the teapot and pours tea into cups for Agent Nine and Angelique. “Oh now nice, a gun for me?”

Agent Nine shrugs a shoulder as if to say – what would you expect?

From another bottle apparently sitting on the sand beside her chair she lifts and pours an amble portion of single malt whiskey into a teacup for herself.

Angelique reluctantly takes a seat, “How is it that you—“

“Somehow brought us here? Or came back from the dead? Oh, there are so many questions.” She lifts her teacup and takes a sip of her single malt. “But, as I said, I died you know. I am sure that had some consequences.

Nine arches a brow looking at the woman she is charged with protecting.

“But you should know perhaps better than I. You have been working magic and coming back from the dead for, god knows, what is it now, three hundred years, give or take.”

Angelique cuts her a piercing glance, “You said – you had her put in my womb.” She looks at the cup of tea. She can feel the hot wind blowing fine grains of sand.

“Yes.” Catriona replies, “We have never properly discussed it, you and I, have we? You do so know how Barnabas is about those he loves. He so wanted to save you – being as you lived off another’s life force.”

Nine now refocuses her attention on the woman named Angelique. Which of these women was the more dangerous?

“And so, once we found out he had been trying rather desperately to repeat Dr. Lang’s experiments. Oh, you do remember those I take it—“ She sips the single malt seemingly not at all feeling the heat of the desert wasteland. She looks cool and unaffected.

Angelique places the clay doll on the table and begins to slowly remover her gloves – in response to the heat.

“You start moving your fingers again, you’re losing one of them.” Agent Nine tells her – feeling the heat now growing more oppressive.

Angelique merely looks at the red-haired woman, her blue eyes void of emotion.

“Yes, I do remember.” She tells Kaye and puts her gloves down on the table.

Catriona places the teacup in the saucer before her on the table, “It was rather easy to have Dr. Praetorius offer assistance. He does so enjoy his bit of magic. Or is it science, Doctor?”

Nine begins to break into a sweat, not from fear or stress, but from being in PVC/Kevlar body armor in the middle of a bloody desert.

“Alchemy the mother of Science.” He informs them.

“Science, Magic. Magic, Science.” Catriona muses, “There are things my dear to which we are merely inconsequential. Like a speck of dust.” With a motion of her hand to the stirring ripples of sand moving serpent like by the wind, “Dust to dust. Well . . . some of us.”

Angelique sits contemplating her position, and decides it is better at the moment to indulge the conversation, “And so – you felt you could play God and create life from—that woman.”

“Bathory?” Catriona asks. “Oh, yes, it was a grand plan to be sure. And what a perfect slayer she would have been – but, she got a bit out of hand you know. All those books of Barnabas’ and her obsession with finding the two of you.”

“Finding us?” Angelique asks.

“Oh, yes,” The Doctor says and sips the gin from his teacup, “Fairly obsessed with you and Barnabas she is . . . was.”

“And now, so as to you my dear.” Catriona asks, “Where have you been?”

Angelique looks off into the distance, and then back at Catriona Kaye, “You should know, we were working for you.”

“Yes, but then you did get lost.”

“Lost—“ She says ironically, “Oh, yes, lost. You of course did not tell us who else was looking for the Mask.”

“Mask?” Nine asks, her eyes narrowing, holding a gun on each of the woman, as she looks at Catriona Kaye.

Catriona arches a brow, “Who else—”

Angelique fairly spits the words out, “Hutchinson!”

“The meddlesome Count again?”

“Good lord! Is there no end to this monomaniacal madman?” The doctor adds.

“Oh, now that is rich,” Angelique says with an ironic look over at the Doctor, who responded by simply taking a sip of his gin. She then looks across the table at Catriona – well aware of the woman in the black jump suit’s discomfort in the heat, and the doctor’s fastidious fashion consciousness, trying to appear cool even as he clandestinely loosened his collar a bit more – even more so than when she was choking him – while Catriona shows no signs of the wastelands effects. Something had most definitely changed her since they had last met. “He set a trap in Alexandria – and . . . we have been trapped there every since.”

“Where?” Catriona asked.

“Where is this?” Angelique asks back.

“This is a figment of my imagination, my dear – I am sure you were not there.”

The untouched cup of tea before her, Angelique sits back. “Barnabas believes it to be Irem, the Lost City of Pillars. He even found some fragments of Alhazard’s there.”

Catriona lifted the gin bottle from beside her chair and refills the doctor’s tea cup, “I see, then, however did you get back to Collinwood?”

Agent Nine looks at the tea, and mildly wishes it were iced.

“Well, as you said earlier—“ Catriona recognizing now that all too wry smile of Angelique’s, “I don’t know. I awoke one morning in Prague.”

“Prague?” Doctor Praetorius remarks thoughtfully.

“I am here in order to find some means of freeing Barnabas. And then I find—her here!”

“I say now, old girl, she is your daughter.” The doctor admonishes her.

Angelique looks over at him with a cutting glance, “I am not speaking of her.” She looks back at Catriona, “You know who I am talking about.”

“Bathory, yes, well, she is here on her own.”

“Yes, and you—you told her who her mother was.”

“You mean the abomination?” Catriona says sarcastically.

Angelique stares at her, her azure eyes close to sparking into a rage, “You had no right to play God Catriona.”

“Oh my dear someone does . . . and at the time . . . it was me . . . and now, we are at the mercy of another.”

“Diablos?” Angelique nods.

Agent Nine looks over to Catriona – the devil?

“Yes, well, I am sure if he knows I am back he will certainly be looking for me.”

Catriona sighs, “Shall we not use his correct name I get so tried of him using so many.”

“You see, Catriona here seems to have ran a foul of him . . . and it got her three bullets in the chest in Westminster Cathedral.” The doctor mentions in passing as he lifts his saucer and the teacup of gin.

Catriona Kaye turns her head and gives him a look and he suddenly is no longer sitting at the table but standing several feet away – holding his teacup and saucer. The wind blowing sand now about his shoes as he turns back to look at the table . . .

With a demure look Catriona glances for a moment at the agent and smiles, “It is after all my dream, isn’t it.”

“What has happened to you?” Angelique asks curiously.

“Ah, the question everyone seems to ask these days”

Nine retrains the gun she has trained on Catriona, beginning now to wonder if the woman tried to elude her – would she even be able to stop her.

“So, seeing as how I am exiled to this wonderful little Collinsport of yours, I do need to know just what are your plans, Angelique.”

“I don’t see that those concern you.”

The doctor looks off to the horizon, the sky looks ominous – reflecting Catriona’s thoughts, mood, he wonders. At best, perhaps he should not head back to the table at the moment.

“You have done considerable damage in the last three hundred years – and without Barnabas about to keep an eye on you, it will have to be mine that does.” Catriona tells her.

“And you, you and I are still not finished in regards to what you did – you and him,” Angelique looking over to the uncomfortable doctor, “You betrayed me Catriona, and you do know what has happened to those who have done so in the past.”

Nine quickly looks at Angelique, “ ‘allo, I’m what happens if you try.”

Angelique narrows her eyes as she looks over to the agent portentously.

“Then perhaps, since you have grown accustomed to the desert, you might enjoy it here. The tea is good, is it not?” Catriona threatens.

Agent Nine detects movement from her peripheral vision and turns her head to watch now as a small black cat walks out from behind the odd rock formation. The cat prances over to rub now against Catriona’s leg. Good lord – this really is Alice in Wonderland.

Catriona looks down to see the lovely black cat and reaches down to rub its head.

Nine can hear the cat purr.

“Oh I do not need any more bad luck today.” The doctor says seeing the sudden appearance of the black kitten.

Angelique, aware that her plans are at the moment disrupted, and growing tired of this Mad Hatter’s tea party sighs, “Very well then – shall we say a truce?”

Catriona picks up the cat and begins to rub its head, placing it in her lap. She looks across the table at Angelique, “A truce? I don’t think I would use that word. That would indicate a fair amount of trust–and seeing as how I am unaware of what you are up to my dear that does not bode well at all in regards to matters of trust. Even if I were so inclined.”

“It would indicate that I think you’re Catriona Kaye. Which I know you are not. Oh, you have her memories perhaps – her body – but, somewhere inside, you are not Catriona Kaye.”

Kaye smiles a wicked smile. “An fabulously interesting concept.” She says with a teasing look and then glances at the agent “You are not the only one to believe that you know.”

Nine’s lips form a thin line – uncertain just what she has gotten herself into.

“We may want the same things—only I am not a member of your d**ned Club.”

Long, slender fingers rubbing the head of the purring cat, Catriona Kaye smiles, “And I may not be either – as I said, you see, I am not on holiday. I am on exile. This lovely lady here has eyes only for me – while I shall have them for you.”

“You will stay out of my way?”

The cat looks across the table at Angelique and meows – almost as if speaking.

“Let us say – as long as we have mutual interests.” Catriona replies cryptically.

“That cat – you have familiars now?” Angelique brushes back her hair tossed by the wind.

“I don’t remember that you ever used one,” Caronia reflects.

“How long are you going to keep us here?” Angelique demands.

“Should I find your way back . . . I do so want you to stop by later. I need to know more about Hutchinson and of course the Mask.”

At the moment, knowing she has lost control, Angelique briefly smiles, “Very well.”

The black cat now jumps off Catriona Kaye’s lap and runs over to the edge of one the strange rock formations and turns to mew back at the table.

“Now finding our way back . . .” And Catriona ponders as she lifts her teacup and takes another drink of her single malt whiskey.

“Well,” Dr. Praetorius says, speaking up now for the first time since his abrupt dismissal from the table, “In getting back – perhaps . . . if you were to . . . I mean . . . this is Now so thinking of Then might be a bit helpful.”

“Or maybe we just follow the cat.” Agent Nine quips, longing to get out of the heat dressed as she is in the tight form fitting body amour.

Catriona looks over her shoulder at the doctor, and smiles.

And suddenly—

The doctor finds himself back at the conference table in the library of the Diogenes facility off the coast of St. Eustace Island.

Agent Nine finds herself just now arriving at the portal.

And Angelique is standing in the East Wing, a clay doll and a handkerchief in one hand, a teacup in another.

Only Catriona remains seated at the tea table sipping single malt from her teacup.

Warning: Spolier information follows concerning Cartronia Kaye

The black cat now prances back to sit in the chair across the table from her.

“So. Do you plan on returning to visit with us anytime soon?” The cat asks Catriona Kaye, “Ulthar is always such a bustle when you are in town.”

“I do so hope to return, soon. I do enjoy sitting outside the Inn looking down upon the lower town.” She says, and removes from her pocket an ornate key of tarnished silver covered entirely with cryptical arabesques.

The cat looks at the key, “Oh do be careful with that thing dear.”

“Oh, I shall – I always have. Every since Randolph Carter gave it to me oh so many years ago.” She tells the cat with a sly smile, “Although it is a bit confusing now you see as I do have to contend with the fact that I have her memories as well as my own.”

“Well the great Dreamer was much celebrated, and must have been wise to grant you such a gift. But still . . . the prudent would guard it always.”

“It is a bit difficult for when I am here I remember who I am – but, when I am there, I am her . . . and she has no memory of it. “

“And so, you have to subconsciously direct her usage?”

“Yes,” She says, “She does at least sense the necessity to keep it concealed. “ She sits her cup down in the saucer. “I do so regret that I have been forced to leave the clock behind.”

“Oh, we shall keep it safe.”

“Until we finally become one.” Catriona Kaye muses more to herself than the cat.

“Afterwards, which shall you be?”

“I am not sure.”

“It was ill advised, this plan of yours to visit Thalarion.”

“Yes – the most unintended of consequences.” She nods, “It is strange beyond coincidence to see Angelique using my name.”

“Names come and go. Best be on your way Wren.” The cat advises as it licks at its paw. “Oh, and don’t forget to leave a kipper out for old Tom, and Arkham’s Gilbert, yes?

“Yes, but I must get back now before the lovely Miss Nine misses me. Do watch my clock, I shall be back for it soon.” Victoria Wren, says as she takes the Silver Key and begins to rotate it oddly, and mutters something softly just as she makes the mysterious ninth and last turn.

“Of course. You can always count on us Cats.” The black cat says and bows his head to her as she manipulates the key.

And then she is suddenly gone leaving him to sit at the table alone.

Behind Agent Nine, standing at the Portal, bewildered and looking around as she has arrived alone, a hand touches her shoulder.

“Good Lord!” She whirls about startled to find Kaye standing there.

Cue Music End of Episode