THE PAEDOPHILE PROBLEM

“I love balconies at night,” cooed Anastasia Wingus as she took in the view from that luxury apartment building overlooking the Hudson River.

An insanely voluptuous brunette with luminous blue-green eyes and a mouth painted like an inviting scarlet gash, the girl was clad in only a bikini and spike-heel shoes that made her look several inches taller than she actually was.

With her was a man of about forty years of age wearing a purple dressing robe. He was tall and dark, with features bespeaking a mixed Mediterranean-Celtic descent. He looked at the girl closely. He had had many of them, he mused to himself, but there was something different about this one.

“Glad you like it, Anastasia,” he said. “This is just one of my apartments, and I also have a mansion upstate.”

Indeed, David Miron was quite wealthy, and he often utilised that wealth to meet young girls. This one he had found on the internet, first on a DikDok social media account entitled “@anaxstaxsiax”, to which he had rather mysteriously received an invitation. From this he had messaged her and was given her even more pornographic OnlyPervs account, on which she utilised the ridiculous screen name “Asia Milan”.

“So you own a lot of stuff?” asked Anastasia. “I heard about that thing you have that used to belong to that old writer.”

“You mean the raven sculpture that belonged to Poe?” returned Miron. “Yes, I keep that here in the safe. I inherited it from my old man, who was into old books and things and collected stuff like that. Not really my kind of thing though, and I really don’t like the looks of it, to be honest.”

“Oh, but can I see it?’ queried the girl.

“Maybe later,” smiled Miron. “First, I had something else in mind.”

With this, David Miron reached out lustfully to-wards Anastasia Wingus. She smiled seductively as if she welcomed this, but it was all a ruse. As soon as Miron touched her, the knife was in her hand. It was a switchblade she had hidden in her cleavage. In a split second, Stacy Wingus had buried the blade in David Miron’s stomach.

Miron lurched backwards in pain and shock. “What the hell?” he muttered. “Why… ?”

The man then stumbled and fell. He fell over the balcony and plummeted screaming to the river thirty-eight storeys below.

Anastasia Wingus then peered over the balcony to make certain Miron was gone. He had indeed plunged under the water and not returned.

“Oh, that was so hot,” said the girl to herself along with a mad giggle, “and Father will be so pleased. I will get that raven thing out of the safe for him and he can use it to take over the world. I love balconies at night!” …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

“It really belonged to Edgar Allan Poe?” enquired Millie Drake. “The raven sculpture that got stolen from that man’s apartment?”

“Indeed so,” I affirmed. “The art piece that was taken from the safe of the wealthy playboy Mr. David Miron by an unknown intruder; an intruder who apparently also murdered him, it seems at one time was indeed the property of the American writer and poet -- and unabashed paedophile, I might add -- Edgar Allan Poe. Apparently, Poe purchased it from an antique shop during his stay in this city between the years 1844 and 1849, shortly before his own death in the latter year, hmmm?”

We were seated in our secret downtown headquarters, located as it is an a skyscraper with a golden trapezoidal rooftop, the bottom floor of which if a take-away food establishment known as The Pizza Gate, named after the ornate gateway-styled entranceway of the building.

My companion, Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect, with hair of a rich chestnut hue, enchanting violet eyes, and sun kissed skin. The royal blue dress she wore only served to highlight the wonderful shape of her slender adolescent figure.

I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.

The chamber in which we were is filled with a mixture of computer banks, laboratory equipment, and numerous bizarre artefacts from my long and storied career; forsooth artefacts from this planet and others, artefacts from the past and from the future.

Also with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or les that a small mechanical cat.

“So, Daniel,” said Millie, “who do you think might have killed Mr. Miron and stolen the raven sculpture, and why would they do such a thing?”

“There is no clue to the identity of the suspect,” I informed, “so that is a bit of a problem in itself. Strangely, the apartment building’s security cameras had stopped functioning for the evening. As for the stolen object, it has some value on the antique arts market, but I suspect a far darker reason for its theft; hence our interest in the case as the world’s foremost investigators of the occult and paranormal. You see, the sculpture was rumoured to have at one time been stolen from the ruins of an old Greek temple -- a temple of the goddess Minerva!”

“Minerva? Wasn’t she the ancient Greek and Roman goddess of wisdom in the arts of war?”

“Quite, my dear. In reality, of course, Minerva was one of the Olympianoids, that immensely powerful race of alien beings -- distantly related to our own Algolite species -- that came to Earth in ancient times and were worshipped as deities around the Mediterranean region.”

“So the raven sculpture has some residual kind of power from the Olympianoids?” asked Millie.

“So it appears,” I confirmed. “It has been said that it at times glows with a weirdly pulsating black and red radiance.”

“But who would think they were able to use such a power? Daniel, you don’t think it could be… ?”

“Let us not speculate before we have more facts, my dear Mills. If the person or persons who have purloined the raven sculpture are able to activate its powers, then…”

“Oh my gosh, Daniel!" suddenly cried Millie. "Look at that!"

I whirled around to see what the young lady had indicated and beheld an horror indeed. It was a large mass of pulsating black and red energy hovering several metres above the floor. Within a few seconds it had coalesced into the shape of a face; the visage as of that of a man of middle years, his features still showing a certain handsome distinction despite being marked with the signs of lifetimes of extreme unhallowed crime. His hair was long and dark, and his countenance decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his eyes shone with an intense hypnotic glare.

Of course, I recognised this face immediately. It was the face of my oldest and most dangerous enemy; the renegade Algolite who has become the most notorious villain in all of Space and Time.

Formed out of the bizarre energy was the very face of Don Wingus!!

“Kit-10!” I called.

The robotic feline then shot several beams of her nose-laser at the strange apparition, but it was to no avail. The horrid face, completely unharmed by the blasts of the robot’s energy ray, continued to float across the chamber to-wards us.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the terrible black and red energy phantasm vanished.

“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “wasn’t that… ?”

“Quite so,” I replied. “It was the face of Don Wingus manifesting by the force of the Olympianoid energy of Minerva.”

“So it was him that stole the sculpture!”

“So it seems. That apparition was just a side effect of his use of the energies. Nevertheless, it may be of some use to us, hmmm? Kit-10, can you analyse the energy readings and trace them to the source from whence they are emanating?”

“Accessing information, s--,” replied the mechanical cat in her simulated yet pleasantly-feminine voice. “Energy source verified as Olympianoid, and detected to have transmitted from an address at 11753 Bronx Road, which is found in city record business database to be an establishment known as the White Oak Tavern.”

(It should be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her other feline characteristics, is completely unable to openly show respect to anyone. In truth, the closest she ever comes to it is by referring to me with a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir" -- and Millie Drake with “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)

‘By the Triple Star!” I swore. “That is indeed the area where Poe lived when he resided in this city, hmmm? Wingus has taken it there to amplify the powers further -- no doubt in his latest plan to establish himself as fascist dictator of the world!”

“We need to stop him!” cried Millie.

“Indeed we do, my dear,” I agreed, fetching my hat and cloak. “This will be dangerous mission indeed. The powers of Minerva are said to have been quite devastating. So come along, Millie and Kit-10. We have work to do!” …

At that same time, in a private room of the White Oak Tavern, the evil Don Wingus stood behind a table clad in a shiny black business suit with a blood-red necktie. Beside him was the insanely voluptuous form of his daughter Anastasia.

The peculiarly pulsating Olympianoid energy emanated from and object at the centre of the table before them. It began to swirl around Don Wingus, and continued to grow in its paranormal potency.

“The power is mine!” announced Wingus. “The power of Minerva and of the Olympianoids is now mine! It is mine and I shall use it to establish myself as ruler of Earth and other worlds! It is mine and no one shall stand before me! No one -- not even the meddling Kosmikos of Algol; not even Daniel Rumanos!”

With this, as the horrid extraterrestrial radiance continued to increase around him, the villainous Don Wingus let forth with a peal of utterly mad laughter. …

Night-time had fallen before Millie Drake, Kit-10, and I arrived at the White Oak Tavern. At first, the business seemed like a quite normal drinking establishment, with numerous patrons enjoying their night out, having beer or whiskey and watching sporting events on the bar’s two widescreen television sets.

“Kit-10,” I said, “do you still detect the presence of the Minerva powers here?”

“Of course, s--,” replied the robotic feline. “They are currently emanating from a backroom behind the door labelled ‘private patronage’.”

My companions and I then went to this door and opened it, carefully venturing inside. We soon enough beheld the horror were seeking; we saw it just as the door slammed shut behind us.

What we beheld was the notorious Magister Don Wingus and his daughter Anastasia standing behind a table on which was a small antique sculpture of a raven -- from which radiated the horrific black and red energies of the Olympianoid known as Minerva.

“Greetings, Rumanos,” sneered the evil Don Wingus. “We have been expecting you. You do doubt imagine that you can accomplish your objective of halting my plans, but you are incorrect. The power of Minerva is mine, and I shall use it to conquer all!”

“Wingus, I should have known it was you from the start,” I countered. “You escaped from the Axe of Romulus, and have now continued your bid to utilise Olympianoid powers by stealing the raven sculpture that once belonged to Poe -- and by murdering Mr. David Miron in the process!”

“Oh, my little Anastasia here took care of that aspect,” replied the villain. “She has become quiet adept at both assassination and safe-cracking.”

“It was fun,” giggled Stacy Wingus. “I made a date with him from my OnlyPervs account, ‘@theyluvmilanxx’.”

“Wingus,” I said, ignoring the insane girl, “you should know by now that you cannot control the powers of the Olympianoids. They have grown chaotic and unpredictable with age.”

“Oh, but you are wrong in that, Rumanos,” he returned. “You are so wrong. The power of Minerva is mine!”

With this, the black and red energies that had been swirling about suddenly increased in potency and began to lurch to-wards Millie Drake, Kit-10, and me.

“Daniel,” cried Millie, “the Olympianoid powers seem to be under his control! What can we do?!”

“You can do nothing, Miss Drake,” shouted Don Wingus. “You can do nothing, for I now command the powers to destroy you both -- along with that ridiculous mechanical pussy! Now, Daniel Rumanos, you old nuisance -- you will die!!”

Forsooth, it is at all possible, my dear friends and most loyal readers, that you can even commence to comprehend the sheer terror, in truth the absolute ungodly horror of the grotesque situation in which young Miss Drake and I then found ourselves? There we were in the private room of the White Oak Tavern, facing the evil Magister Don Wingus and his dangerously seductive daughter Anastasia. There we were, with the awesome force of the alien Olympianoid energy heading directly to-wards us -- the immensely powerful and potentially deadly eldritch energy that Wingus intended to utilise in his plot to subjugate the planet Earth!

“You will now die, Rumanos!” repeated the wicked Don Wingus amidst peals of his utterly insane laughter. “You will now die along with your wretched companions, and I -- Magister Don Wingus of Algol -- shall go on to use the powers of Minerva to establish myself in my rightful place as ruler of this world and others!”

Millie Drake clung to me in absolute horror at the grotesquely radiant alien energies bearing down upon us; energies that even then were beginning to cause us extreme and intense pain. Kit-10 nobly continued in her attempts to defend us with rays of her blaster, but it was of no use against the Olympianoid powers.

“Die, Daniel Rumanos, you accursed old meddler!” shouted Wingus. “Die! Die! Die!”

“Father, please don’t do this!” suddenly interrupted Stacy Wingus. “Please don’t kill Doctor Rumanos! I want him! I like him and want him to be mine! Please don’t kill him!”

“Anastasia, you cretinous courtesan!” rejoined Don Wingus, turning to slap his daughter hard across the face. “I am sick to death of your inappropriate obsession with that ridiculous poltroon Daniel Rumanos! He is nothing to us! He is only a glorified Space cop for the accursed Kosmikos! I am Don Wingus and I shall…”

The voice of Wingus then halted due to his noticing a strange occurrence in the room. Forsooth, the very energies of the Olympianoids had now ceased to threaten Millie Drake and me, and had in stead changed directions, now heading directly to-wards Wingus and his daughter!

“No!” bellowed Don Wingus in sudden realisation of what was happening. “No! You cannot do this to me! I am Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of worlds! No! No!! You cannot do this to me! You cannot… !!”

By now, the energy of Minerva had completely surround Wingus and his daughter. I heard Stacy scream in terror and her father bellow in outrage as it then imploded upon them. Within a mere moment, the energy had vanished, taking the villains with it. All was now quiet in that back room of the Tavern. Even the raven sculpture had crumbled away to only a tiny pile of dust.

“Are you all right, Millie?” I enquired concernedly.

“Yes, I’m okay,” she replied.

“What about you, Kit-10?”

“All systems undamaged and functionally within normal parameters, s--,” replied the robotic cat.

“That is excellent to hear.”

“But... what happened?” asked Millie Drake. “I know the powers turned against Don Wingus and Stacy when he got distracted, but where have they gone?”

“They have been taken out of this reality,” I explained. “They have gone to another dimensional plane; a sort of hell -- from which they may never return.”

“Well, I hope they don’t. But what about the raven sculpture?”

“It was hoary with age, and the re-energising of its powers was more than its structural integrity could bear. It is no more -- and the occult legacy of Edgar Allan Poe is at an end.”

With this, the lovely Miss Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- left the White Oak Tavern to return to our downtown New York City headquarters -- until our next assignment!

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN

ROMAN HOLIDAY

It was the holiday season, with the city decorated seemingly from top to bottom. There was a Christmas tree in the centre square that was several stories tall, covered with tinsel and glowing multicoloured lights, and similar lights blinked all over town. There were also numerous mechanical reindeer and snowmen, and individuals dressed as Santa Claus rang bells on street corners and outside of shops, many collecting money for charities in order to help needy children to get presents, and impoverished families to enjoy a good meal. Neither was the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa neglected, and if one were to look closely enough, one could even find the occasional Hanukkah menorah.

Nevertheless, there was at least one location in which the seasonal cheer had not at all penetrated, for on the particular evening in which our weird tale begins a rather strange event was transpiring in a certain secret site underneath the city. It was in a large sub-cellar painted completely black and lit only by a couple of dim lanterns. In the centre of this grotesque chamber was a table covered with a black silken cloth, on which was a bizarre object obviously quite hoary with age -- an object made of iron in the shape of a cruel battle-axe.

Behind this darksome table stood two individuals, one a man seemingly of middle years, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marked with the results of lifetimes of extreme unmitigated evil. His hair was long and dark, and his countenance decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolute hypnotic glare. He was clad in an ebon business suit with a long red necktie.

The other was an insanely voluptuous adolescent girl with raven hair, pale skin, and luminous blue green eyes. Her mouth was painted like an inviting scarlet gash, and she wore only a bikini top, a leathern miniskirt, and spike heels that made her appear much taller than her actual height.

Peering intently at the object on the table, the man spoke, “It is mine. At long last, it is mine. It is mine, and I shall use its power to rule this world.”

“What did you say it was, Father?” enquired the girl, absently curling her hair with her fingers.

“I have already told you what it is, Anastasia. It is none other than the Axe of Romulus, the first King of Rome.”

“Rome? Isn’t that near Milan? I love Milan!”

“This has nothing to do with modern Italian cities,” replied the man with a note of annoyance. “The ancient Roman power is entirely its own, Romulus himself having been a scion of the Olympianoids, and the Axe being that which he used to conquer -- and which became infused with his own alien essence. It is this essence that I, Magister Don Wingus of Algol, shall now reenergise and utilise to take my rightful place as supreme dictator of all!”

With this pronouncement, a strange blood-red glow began to emanate from the ancient battle-axe, a glow that pulsated and grew steadily in power.

“It’s working!” cheered Anastasia Wingus. “Father, it’s working!”

“Yes, it is,” exulted the evil Don Wingus, with the tone of utter madness deepening in his voice. “The powers of the very Axe of Romulus are mine, and I shall soon become ruler of all creation. I shall finally take the power that justly belongs to me, and I shall take my due position as the supreme ruler of all -- and no one shall stand before me! No one!” …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

“By the Spires of Daemonia!” I swore. “It was indeed the Axe of Romulus that was stolen from the Oddities Museum!”

“Romulus?” queried Millie Drake. “You mean the legendary founder of Rome, like in the mythological story of Romulus and Remus??”

We were in our downtown headquarters, located as it is inside the golden trapezoidal roof of a certain skyscraper, filled with scientific equipment and with artefacts gleaned from our adventures across Time and Space. I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand, and a brightly lit eight-branched menorah shone close by.

Millie Drake is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, sun-kissed skin, and lovely violet eyes. The flowered dress she wore only served to highlight the soft shape of her slender teenage figure.

Also near by was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat. She was quite busy at the moment, with a sound like unto a contented purring issuing forth from her as she sat connected; recharging and updating her systems from the main computer hard-drives.

“The very same,” I said in answer to Millie’s query. “Romulus, who conquered the Italian peninsula in the eighth century before the Common Era. He was said to be the son of one of the alien visitors from the planet Olympiana, that immensely powerful race -- distantly related to own Algolitish ancestors -- who became the ‘gods’ of the ancient Greeks and Romans.”

“So the weapon that he used would have some sort of powers,” said Millie.

“Indeed so. The Axe of Romulus was aid to have glowed blood red when he used it in battle -- this leading to the belief that his extraterrestrial father was actually the god of war himself.”

“But these powers must have vanished long ago, right? I mean, they weren’t ever seen when it was on display at the museum.”

“They were not, and neither was there any note of them by the private collector of Italian antiquities who left it to the museum in his estate will,” said I, absently touching the Star of David necklace I wore, “but that does not mean that the powers are no more. Someone with certain mentalist abilities could reactivate them. You see, when the relic was on display at the Oddities Museum, there was no way of knowing if it was truly the Axe of Romulus. But now that it has been stolen -- and by a burglar or burglars with the ability of disabling the security cameras and to brutality to stab the night-time guard to death -- it has become obvious that there is some reality to the legends concerning the object after all.”

“At least the burglars believed there to be,” added Millie. “But who could think themselves to have the abilities needed to reactivate and use the powers of the Axe of Romulus? Oh my gosh! Do you think it could be… ?”

“Now now, Mills,” I admonished. “Let us be careful that we do not speculate too much until we have more facts concerning the case, hmmm? What we need to do is to locate where the Axe has been taken, and then we can…”

“Oh my goodness, Daniel!” suddenly interrupted Millie Drake in horror. “Look! Look at that!!”

I turned to see what my friend was indicating, and beheld an eldritch horror indeed, forsooth a thing of unmentionable terror and nightmarish fear beyond any sane imagining. It was an huge mass of pulsating blood-red energy that had appeared hovering in the centre of our chamber, accompanied with a sensation of utter dread, and it was even now rushing straight to-wards us!

I quickly moved to shield Millie from the onrushing horror. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the strange mass of energy then vanished, taking with it the feeling of impending doom that its very presence had brought with it.

“What was that thing, Daniel?” asked Millie Drake, recovering from her fear.

“It was a type of Olympianoid energy,” I explained. “The very type that would be generated from the Axe of Romulus. The person or persons who have stolen it have indeed managed to activate its powers.”

“Daniel, look at Kit-10!” Millie then cried.

I went over to inspect our robotic cat friend. Her head was drooping, and there was no longer any sign of her systems running.

“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “Kit-10 has been drained of her energy by the very presence of the Romulus powers. It is a residual affect of the same feeling of dread that we experienced. The Axe must be powerful indeed to have done this even when she was attached to the computer banks.”

“Poor Kit-10,” lamented Millie. “Will she be okay?”

“There does not appear to be any permanent damage. She should become functional again in time. In any event, we have to find the location of the Axe of Romulus. The next use of it will likely be far more devastating than this mere show of bravado.”

“Is there a way to locate it?”

“The main computer should be able to trace from whence the energy was emanating,” I replied, looking at the central console view-screen. “Ah, there it is. According to this, the energy was sent from a location on Sergeant Street, several blocks west of here. That will be where we shall find the Axe of Romulus, along with the criminals who have it in their possession. It is at a place called Asia Milan.”

“Asia Milan?”” repeated Millie Drake. “What is that?”

“It is -- or rather, was -- one of those ‘fusion’ restaurants, in this case combining Chinese and northern Italian cuisine. It did not last long before filing bankruptcy and going out of business, and has now been shuttered for some time.”

“We need to get over there right away!” added Millie.

“Quite so,” I agreed, fetching my hat and coat whilst Millie donned a smart holiday-coloured sweater. “The Sun is setting, and the powers of darkness will be all too strong. Since the dreadful energies of the Axe of Romulus have already been activated, there is no time to lose!” …

A short time later, Millie Drake and I arrived at the location on Sergeant Street. We could tell even from outside that the restaurant was completely abandoned and in great disrepair. We realised that the old dining and kitchen areas were much too exposed to be utilised as a criminal hideout.

“They must have taken the Axe to some basement area, hmmm?” I pondered as we investigated the exterior of the abandoned Asia Milan eatery. “We shall have to ascertain as to where…”

It was then that I noticed something; something terrible indeed. It was a large knife that had been thrown in our direction, and it was flying directly to-wards Millie Drake’s heart!

It was only due to my superior Algolitish reflexes that Millie was saved from the knife. I moved her out of the way just in time for it to fly past her and then to clatter onto the concrete several metres distant.

It was then that we beheld a female figure clad in a bikini top and miniskirt quickly retreating into the Asia Milan restaurant building.

“Daniel!” said Millie. “Isn’t that… ?”

“Anastasia ‘Stacy’ Wingus,” I completed. “We need to get after her!”

Millie Drake and I accordingly followed the evil girl as she attempted to vanish down a staircase leading far underground, into a sub-cellar of the restaurant building. We soon found ourselves in a chamber lit only by two dim lanterns. At its centre was a table covered with a black silk cloth -- and on the table was the Axe of Romulus itself, which was already pulsating with the dreadful blood-red Olympianoid energy!

Stacy Wingus had by now joined another figure behind the table. It was a man clad in a black business suit and with a look of absolute sardonic evil on his face. It was a visage I knew all too well, for it was the face of my oldest and most dangerous enemy, the renegade Algolite who has become the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.

“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known it was you from the start. So you did escape from the Szepasszony, and have reunited with you daughter Anastasia in order to steal the Axe of Romulus.”

“Quite so, Rumanos,” admitted Wingus. “Quite so. My little cutie here did away with the guard at that museum. She has indeed become quite adept with the knife.”

“I noticed,” said Millie Drake.

“Wingus, you old fiend,” I charged. “You cannot utilise the powers of the Axe of Romulus. They are ancient and chaotic. They are the very essence of war, and can easily destroy any unworthy to wield them.”

“You shall find that I have already proven my worthiness to wield the Olympianoid war powers,” returned Don Wingus. “The powers are mine, and I shall use them to become master of all!”

With this, the blood-red energies began to increase, rising up into the air in the centre of that darksome subterranean chamber. With them was a feeling of utter dreadful horror. Then, as they reached a sudden crescendo, the energies suddenly shot directly to-wards Millie and me!

“This is your ending, Rumanos!” exulted Don Wingus, his voice like unto a symphony of utter madness. “Now you will die!!”

Is it possible, my dear friends and most appreciated readers, that you can even commence to understand the extreme unmitigated horror, forsooth the complete and total unnameable terror of this grotesque situation? There we were, they lovely Miss Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, facing the evil intergalactic villain known to eternal damnation as Magister Don Wingus, along with his dangerously-seductive and murderous young daughter, Anastasia. There we were, as the aforesaid master criminal wielded the arcane powers of the ancient and storied Axe of Romulus against us -- powers that manifest themselves as a pulsating blood-red energy like unto an animated crimson stain; in truth a deadly force that even now was rushing directly in our direction!

“You will die now, Rumanos!” repeated the wicked Don Wingus. “You will die by the powers of the Axe of Romulus -- powers that I shall then go one to use in my conquest of planet Earth!”

The blood-red energies emanating from the ancient Axe of Romulus had by now begun to swirl around Millie Drake and me, approaching us closer and closer with their potentially lethal powers. We already felt the affects of their close proximity to us, with a certain sensation of pain and anguish as of one conquered in war. With this, we felt ourselves beginning to sink into unconsciousness -- in sooth a faint from which I knew we might never recover.

“And now, Rumanos,” said Don Wingus amidst peals of his sick insane laughter, “You and your assistant shall die!!”

“Father, please don’t do this,” suddenly interrupted Anastasia Wingus. “Please don’t hurt Doctor Rumanos anymore. I want him. In fact, I’m a big fan of his! Please don’t kill him. Just let me have him when you come into your new kingdom, okay?”

“Stacy, you clueless concubine!” shouted Don Wingus in anger whilst slapping his daughter hard across the face. “I have told you so many times how utterly sick and tired I am of your sexual obsession with that ridiculous Daniel Rumanos!”

I then noticed that the Olympianoid energies whirling around Millie and me now seemed unfocused. I quickly touched the Magen David necklace I wore and raised my voice in a certain ancient incantation.

“Nes Gadol Haya Sham!!” I prayed. “Nes Gadol Haya Sham! Nes Gadol Haya Sham!”

The holy prayer had an immediate affect, causing the Olympianoid energies to reverse course and, in stead of pummelling Miss Millie Drake and me, to head directly to-wards the evil Don Wingus and his daughter!

The energies quickly then surrounded them. I heard Anastasia scream in terror and Don Wingus bellow in outrage.

“No! You cannot do this to me!” he shouted with a tone of indignation. “I am Magister Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of all! The powers of the Axe of Romulus should be mine to command! No! No! You cannot do this! I… I… !”

Moreover with this, the power completely surrounded and engulfed Don Wingus and Stacy, a few moments later simply blinking out of existence, taking the two criminals with it. I looked upon the table and saw that the Axe of Romulus itself was also no more, with only a slight pile of rubble denoting that it had ever even been there.

“Are you all right, Millie?” I queried concernedly.

“I’m fine now,” she replied. “But… what happened?”

“Wingus being distracted weakened the focus of the energies enough that I was able to recover from their effects and then to utilise the ancient Hebrew invocation to command their reversal -- therefore turning the powers of the Axe of Romulus against Don Wingus himself! The necessary show of power also caused the remains of the ancient Axe to disintegrate.”

“So the evil is gone now.”

“Happy Holidays, my dear Millie,” I smiled.

“Happy Holidays, Daniel,” returned the young lady. “So, do you think Don Wingus was destroyed, or will we have to deal with him again?”

“It is likely that the power of the Axe of Romulus took him and his daughter out of existence,” I pondered, “but he has indeed escaped before from similar things. We shall see, hmmm? We shall see. As for now, I know of a local kosher restaurant that is offering a nice late Hanukkah dinner, including brisket and potato latkes, and those excellent jelly donuts for dessert. We can join them in the festivities.”

“That sounds wonderful, Daniel!” cheered Millie with a lovely smile, and indeed it was.

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN

SCREAM OF THE SZEPASSZONY

The sounds that filled the chamber were like unto the moans of sexual ecstasy. They echoed about in the darkness, their source as yet unseen.

“I do stir you up and summon you,” stated the man who stood behind the desecrated altar, his voice tinged with madness and unnameable evil. “I do call you forth from the most ancient times of the Empire of the Ringed Planet. I do call you forth that you may resume your domination and may establish your dominion here upon this world known as Earth.”

The man, clad as he was in a shiny black vestment robe, was seemingly of middle years. His face still showed signs of handsome distinction despite having upon it the marks of lifetimes of unspeakable wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolute and hypnotic glare.

“I do call you forth,” he continued, his voice rising in volume and intensity. “I do call you forth, Empress of Saturn! I do call you forth -- Szepasszony!”

With this, the strange carnal sounds increased in the chamber, now joined with a weird blue-green effulgence that began to permeate the very air.

“Come forth now, Empress Szepasszony, ancient ruler of Saturn and now soon to be of Earth!” shouted the villain. “Come forth, that I -- Magister Don Wingus -- may share your supreme power as ruler of this world!!”

Then, as the alien energies filled the chamber, the evil Don Wingus laughed a laugh of absolute insane triumph. …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

“The Szepasszony?” enquired Millie Drake. “Isn’t that a sort of succubus from Hungarian legend?”

“Quite right, Mills,” I affirmed, “and I see your studies in comparative mythology have been of great use, hmmm? Forsooth, the Szepasszony is indeed remembered in the folklore of the Hungarian people as a sort of succubus or sexual vampire that drains the very souls of her victims -- but her true origins are actually much stranger than even that!”

We were seated in the library room of our headquarters, located as it is in the golden trapezoidal roof of a certain downtown skyscraper. I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.

Millie Drake -- an exquisitely beautiful young lady with hair of a rich chestnut hue, a sun-kissed complexion, and eyes an enchanting blue-violet -- was wearing a flowered dress that only served to highlight the soft lines of her slender teenage figure.

“So you say she was actually from the planet Saturn?” asked my companion.

“Quite so,” I again confirmed. “The Szepasszony was in truth a ruler of that ringed planet in ancient times, during the era of the prehistoric Saturnian Empire. It was a time when the people of that world were naturally gifted with quite potent psychic powers, particularly amongst the ruling class.”

“So, what happened? I mean, how did the Szepasszony come to Earth and become a monster from Hungarian folktales?”

“The Empress Szepasszony was known as an unspeakably cruel ruler of her world, even by the standards of that barbaric time. The Saturnians, who had already developed a rudimentary form of Space travel, eventually rose up against her, removing her from the throne of their planet and banishing her to an exile upon Earth, in a time when this planet was still in the earliest days of human civilisation. She lived for some time in what is now Eastern Europe.”

“But how has she survived until now?” wondered Millie. “Surely Saturnians don’t live that long.”

“She died eventually,” I returned, “having finished out her normal lifespan. None the less, it was soon found that she had somehow survived the death of her physical body, or at least a certain distorted essence of her being had done so. It is this that lived on and became the creature of legend, draining life energies from human beings, particularly energies of a sexual nature.”

“And now she has returned?”

“Apparently so. Our computer systems have detected energies of the type associated with the Szepasszony coming from, of all places, a near by cemetery.”

I then turned to our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.

“Kit-10,” I said, “have you downloaded all information from the main database concerning the Szepasszony?”

“Of course, s--,” rejoined the little robot in her simulated yet pleasantly feminine voice. “I am now fully conversant in all available data and speculative theory concerning the creature known as Szepasszony, and will be able to detect the presence of the energy forces associated with the same”

(It should be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her other catlike characteristics, is completely unable to openly show respect to anyone. In point of fact, the closest she is ever able to come to it is by addressing me by a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and Millie Drake by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)

“Traces of the Szepasszony have appeared before in recent times, but have then been banished,” I continued, automatically touching the protective Magen David pendant that hung about my neck. “Nevertheless, the level of energy detected this time is much more severe. It is likely that someone has intentionally summoned her -- someone with knowledge and experience in psyche-sexual incantations.”

“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Millie. “Do you think it could be… ?”

“Now, my dear,” I admonished whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “Let us not speculate until we have more facts, hmmm? Mills, Kit-10, let us go on location!” …

A short time later we arrived at Pine Grove Cemetery, located as it is on the very outskirts of the Metropolitan area. I parked our specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) just outside the grounds, and my companions and I approached the graveyard just as dusk had settled over the area. The sky was heavily overcast, and the oppressive humidity was perhaps one source of the strange feeling of unhallowed dread that seemed to have settled like a grotesque presence over the entire region.

“Daniel,” whispered Millie Drake, “aren’t there some old stories about this place? I seem to remember hearing of it somewhere.”

“Indeed so,” I affirmed. “You likely read of it in your studies concerning the history of occult crime. Pine Grove Cemetery was in the news several decades ago after having been hideously vandalised by a local ‘satanic cult’. This was in actuality only a small group of local youngsters with a fetish for heavy metal music. Only one of them was even old enough to serve prison time for the offence.”

“But even if they weren’t experienced devil worshippers,” added Millie as we entered the grounds, “such things can have a lasting negative effect, right?”

“Quite so,” I agreed. “Quite so. It is likely the residual effects of that outrage that have led to the cemetery being a place where a more advanced practitioner of the dark arts, all these years later, would choose to conjure the dread horror of the Szepasszony.”

“S--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10. “Systems are detecting archaic Saturnian energy forces quickly approaching our location.”

“Oh my goodness!” Millie cried. “Look!”

It was then that I turned and beheld an horror indeed. For, at that very moment something was indeed approaching us across the grounds of Pine Grove Cemetery. It was floating above the tombstones and surrounded by a sickly glow of blue-green effulgence. It appeared as an huge face, in truth the face of a man of distinguished diabolism. Of course, I recognised this countenance immediately. I recognised it as the visage of my oldest and most deadly enemy, the renegade Algolite who had become the most wicked villain and heinous criminal mastermind in all of Time and Space.

It was the face of Magister Don Wingus!

I heard Millie Drake scream as the grotesque disembodied face approached ever nearer to us, and I stepped in front of her in order to protect her as much as possible. 

“Kit-10!” I called.

The little robot fired several shots of her nose laser at the apparition, but to no avail. The eldritch thing continued in its lurch to-wards us.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the face and its surrounding glow vanished.

“Are you all right, Millie?” I enquired concernedly.

“I’m okay, Daniel,” she replied, “but that face! Wasn’t it… ?”

“Don Wingus!” I confirmed. “I should have known. So he did escape from the Golden Fleece, and has called forth the powers of the Szepasszony. That was just a show of bravado; an attempt to frighten us. The forces he has conjured will be far more powerful than that.”

“So where exactly is he?” asked Millie Drake.

“Kit-10,” I said, “can you do a location trace on the Saturnian energies?”

“Of course, s--,” replied the mechanical feline. “Systems detect the energy radiating from the interior of the cemetery chapel.”

Millie, Kit-10, and I then cautiously approached the building of the small church at the centre of the graveyard. Its décor was non-denominational, but we noticed immediately that it had all been horribly vandalised as an attempt at unholy desecration.

We then perceived a voice addressing us from the far end of the sanctuary.

“Greetings, Rumanos and comrades,” said its mocking and all-to familiar tones. “We have been expecting you.”

We then beheld the form of the criminal Don Wingus himself, clad in his ebon vestment and surrounded by the sickly blue-green glow of the Szepasszony energy. With this was heard a spectral sound as of moans of fornication.

“Wingus, you infernal fiend!” I charged. “You cannot control the powers of the Szepasszony! She is a force of chaos and unfettered lust averse to all reason and wisdom.”

“Oh, but you are wrong, Rumanos,” rejoined the madman. “You are wrong, for I have conjured forth the very Empress Szepasszony herself, and have joined her essence to mine. Joined together, we will become supreme rulers of this world!”

At this, a further horror appeared there in that ruined chapel. It was the floating form like unto the phantasmal shape of a woman with blue skin, shaggy orange hair, and eyes glowing yellow. The sound of carnal moaning intensified as she began to float to-wards us.

“Behold the Szepasszony herself!” exulted Don Wingus amidst peals of his own insane laughter. “Behold your doom!”

Kit-10 fired her laser at the form of the Saturnian horror, but it had no effect. The blue-green alien energy protected it and Don Wingus from any harm.

“There is no escape, Rumanos,” bellowed the evil Magister Don Wingus. “You will now die. With the power of the Szepasszony, I shall soon rule this planet -- and you and your friends shall now be destroyed!!”

Is it at all possible, my dear friends and most loyal readers, that you can even commence to comprehend the absolute unholy terror, forsooth the complete ungodly horror of this situation? There we were -- the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and me, Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, in that desecrated chapel of Pine Grove Cemetery. There we were, as the renegade Algolite and intergalactic villain known to eternal infamy as Magister Don Wingus exulted in his success in calling forth the very powers of the ancient horror known as the Szepasszony; powers that he intended to utilise in his plans to conquer the planet Earth -- and indeed powers that even now -- with the phantasmagorical shape of the Saturnian hag herself -- were hurtling with deadly force directly to-wards us!!

“You will now die, Rumanos!” repeated the villainous Don Wingus. “You will now die, and I shall go on to become supreme ruler of this world!!”

The extraterrestrial energies, accompanied as they were with the hideous form the Szepasszony and the sickening noises of unholy fornication, were by now almost upon Millie Drake, Kit-10, and me.

“Of course!” I exclaimed in sudden realisation. “There is a way! There is one chance!”

“What is it, Daniel?” queried Millie. “What can we do?”

“Millie,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “My dearest Millie, will you tell me something?”

“Of course, Daniel,” she replied. “What is it?”

“Millie, do you love me?”

“Of course I do, Daniel. I love you so much. I love you more than life itself!”

“I love you too, my dear little Mills.”

“Daniel!” she said, her eyes suddenly wide with wonder. “Look! Look what is happening!”

The energy and form of the ancient Saturnian horror had now reversed their course and, in stead of hurtling to-wards my companions and me, now turned against the evil Don Wingus!

“No!” shouted the villain in sudden fear of his situation. “No! You cannot do this to me, Szepasszony! I have called you forth! I am Don Wingus of Algol! I am your master! You cannot do this to me! I… ! No! No!! NO!!!”

With this, the Szepasszony had now reached Don Wingus and completely surrounded him with her energies, the sickening sexual sounds now having heightened in intensity to the noise of a scream. Within moments, the alien energy seemed to implode upon the villain and then to simply vanish into nothingness.

I looked around the area carefully. The Szepasszony and her energy, along with the iniquities Don Wingus, had vanished from sight and all was now quiet in Pine Grove Cemetery. It was now as if the evil had never been.

“What… what happened?” stammered Millie Drake, recovering from her fright.

“I remembered something about the Szepasszony,” I explained. “You see, her powers were completely of a crassly sexual nature, without any of the refinement of love or romance. It was our own summoning of the powers of true love that banished her from this world -- and took Don Wingus with her!”

“But… where will they go?”

“Into a sort of hell; a place where those who know not the joys of love will suffer in darkness forever. In fact, it is said that the worst of them are imprisoned there sunk up to their necks in boiling excrement and semen for all eternity, hmmm?””

“Are you okay, Kit-10?” asked Millie.

“All systems functioning normally, m---,” affirmed the mechanical cat.

“Then all is truly well again, my friends,” I announced. “I shall say some words of Hebrew exorcism to ensure that all residual evil is gone from this place, and then we can be on our way.”

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN

GREECE IS THE WORD

"The Golden Fleece? Really?” wondered Millie Drake.

“So it appears, love,” I replied, again scanning the information that had been sent to us via computer, “or the actual extraterrestrial artefact that the ancient Greeks knew by that name, hmmm?”

We were seated in our secret headquarters, located as it is in the trapezoidal rooftop of a certain downtown skyscraper, the bottom floor of which is occupied by a takeaway food establishment known as “The Pizza Gate” -- named for the stylised entranceway that was designed by the famous early Twentieth-Century architect IM Apeddo.

I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.

Millie Drake is an exquisitely beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, sun kissed skin, and lovely violet eyes. The royal blue dress she wore only served to highlight the fine lines of her slender adolescent figure.

“So it was stolen from the Metropolitan Museum?” asked Millie.

“Indeed so,” I affirmed, “from one of the backroom non-display sections -- and by someone quite adept at both burglary and modern technology, in order to so deftly avoid the security of the museum.”

“That doesn’t sound like someone who would need whatever money the Fleece may be worth on the antiques market.”

“Indeed not, and that is the thing, my dear. You see, the so-called Golden Fleece is an alien artefact that once belonged to the inhabitants of the planet Olympiana, who are distantly related to our own Algolite race. They came to Earth in ancient times, and became the ‘gods’ spoken of in the mythology of ancient Greece.”

“So does the Golden Fleece have some kind of special powers?” queried my companion.

“Quite special powers indeed” I pondered, fetching my hat and cloak. “You see, the Fleece was actually a mantle worn on the uniform of the Olympianoid Mission Commander, asserting his authority and amplifying his commands. If whoever has stolen it can find a way to utilise these energies, they could hold the entire planet Earth in bondage. My dear Mills, we will be in extreme danger, but we must find the Golden Fleece right away -- and save this world from a possible tyranny like it has never before seen!” …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

At that same time, a man stood behind a table in a private room of a restaurant. On the table was what looked like a piece of leather, a little over a metre wide, which had been tanned to the colour of gold. The man surveyed it with a look of wicked expectation.

He was a man seemingly of middle years, clad in a black business suit, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the effects of lifetimes of extreme unfettered wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his eyes shone with an absolute hypnotic glare.

With him was an insanely voluptuous teenage girl with raven hair, luminous blue-green eyes, a pale complexion, and a mouth painted like an inviting scarlet gash. She was wearing a red bikini top, a black leathern miniskirt, and spike heels that made her seem much taller than she actually was.

“It is mine now, Anastasia,” said the man. “The Golden Fleece is mine, and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall use it to conquer this world!”

“That is so hot, Father,” purred the girl, “but what will happen if someone tries to stop you; someone like Doctor Rumanos?”

“Now now, Stacy,” Don Wingus admonished his daughter. “I will have none of your ridiculous adolescent obsession with that meddling old Rumanos. If he attempts of interfere with my plans, he will achieve nothing but his own destruction. You forget that my assistant -- that PI we picked up -- is guarding the outside if this establishment. Besides, the power of the Golden Fleece is mine! Watch and behold its power!”

With this, Wingus raised his left hand and made the sign of the pentagram over the Golden Fleece, then beginning his intonation of the ancient incantation:

“Sou O Phalle ischuros eucharistos! By the power of these words of conjuration, I do call forth the powers of the Golden Fleece! Before me Yunges; behind me Teletarchai; on my right Kunochos; on my left Daimonos! By the power of IAO, I do now invoke!”

With this, there suddenly rose up from the Fleece a light; a light of scintillating golden hue that increased in brilliance until it filled the room. Then it began to coalesce into a form like unto a swirling circle of energy that surrounded the evil Don Wingus and his daughter on all sides.

“The power is now truly mine!” exulted the villain amidst peals of his own mad laughter. “The power of the Golden Fleece is mine to command! It is mine, and no one shall be able to stand against me! It is mine, and I shall now begin the take my rightful place as supreme ruler of all!” …

“So this is where the alien signal was coming from?” enquired Millie Drake whilst we approached the location to which we had journeyed that fateful evening. We had left our canary-coloured Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) parked beside the curb, the car’s awareness sieve -- one of the many special modification I have added -- keeping her from even being noticed by the locals.

“Indeed so,” I replied, looking at the establishment’s signage from the sidewalk where we stood. “Zorba’s Greek Restaurant. It appears our thief has a sense of humour, hmmm? Although perhaps they think that the ambience of this location will enhance the powers of the Fleece.”

“Could that actually work?”

“Quite so. The presence of Greek native speakers and culture would be empowering for the object considering the many millennia that it has been associated with Grecian civilisation.”

I took the transonic turnscrew (an highly advanced scientific device in physical form somewhat resembling a writing pen) from the pocket of my jacket and used it to scan the area.

“Too bad Kit-10 couldn’t be here,” said Millie, “but she has to undergo that systems upgrade. What does the transonic say?”

“Hmmm,” I pondered whilst looking at the resultant readings before returning the device to my pocket. “There does indeed seem to be some trace of the powers of Olympianoid technology, but someone with immense mentalist powers is masking it. It is as if they have already succeeded in melding the powers of the Golden Fleece to their own being.”

“Daniel, that would take abilities like… Oh my gosh! You don’t think it could be… ?”

“Now now, my dearest Mills, let us not speculate before we have all the facts, hmmm?”

“Oh my goodness, Daniel!” suddenly cried Millie. “Look out!”

I quickly turned to the direction my friend indicated, and beheld an horror. It was a small but hard muscled creature like unto an ape and a man all at once. Its brown skin was covered with coarse black hair, and its simian face was twisted into a grotesquely animalistic snarl. It -- he! -- chattered a noise of challenged as he leaped to-wards me!

I had no time to prepare, but fortunately I had encountered such creatures in the past and therefore had some idea how to defend myself against him. Just before the ape-man could manage to reach me, I delivered a kick to his midsection. It would have been enough to cripple a normal man, but this thing -- despite his small size -- was incredibly strong. My kick merely altered his trajectory so that his head was hurtling directly at me. I accordingly delivered a blow to his face, which sent him to land hard on the concrete.

“It’s another one of those horrible things!” shuddered Millie.

“Yes,” I said, looking at the now lifeless ape-man. “A member of a tribe from deep within the jungle of the Philippines that has kept some of the qualities of the Homo erectus and other prehistoric proto-human forms.”

“And they are also known to be used as bodyguards by agents of Spectral Paranormal,” added my companion.

“Quite so,” I pondered. “Quite so. The thief who has acquired the Golden Fleece must in fact be a member of that infamous occult terrorist network. This is turning out to be a quite a dangerous assignment indeed.”

Millie Drake and I now cautiously approached the door of the restaurant. Just before we reached it, in fact whilst I was reaching out my hand to open it, a thing of absolute strangeness and uncanny weirdness occurred, in truth a thing beyond all sane and rational imaginings -- a thing denoting the presence of the otherworldly forces that had been marshalled against us.

“Daniel, look at that!” exclaimed my companion.

I moved to shield Millie from what had appeared. It was a strange golden light, a brilliance that glowed eerily in the darkness of the city night-time. Then, with grotesque and eldritch silence, the odd glow began to swirl around us!

As quickly as it had appeared, the light then vanished.

“Daniel… was that… ?” queried Millie Drake.

“Yes, it is the power of the Golden Fleece,” I affirmed. “Our enemy sent it here as a warning, but we must continue.”

With this, Millie and I entered the restaurant and found -- to our astonishment -- that everything appeared quite normal. There were just a few patrons enjoying their meals.

“So, Daniel,” whispered Millie Drake to me, “where is the Golden Fleece?”

I took out the transonic device and scanned the interior of the restaurant.

“According to the readings,” I said whilst returning the instrument to my pocket, “it is in one of the private rooms.”

We then proceeded to the chamber the transonic had indicated. Upon entering it, we beheld a man in a black suit standing behind a table on which was the Golden Fleece itself. Beside him was a voluptuous young girl, and around them played flashes of the alien energies.

Of course, I recognised the man immediately; I recognised him as my oldest and most dangerous enemy, the notorious Algolite renegade who has become the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.

“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known. So you did escape from the Ark of the Covenant, and it is you -- no doubt with the aid of your daughter Anastasia here -- who stole the Golden Fleece from the Metropolitan Museum.”

“Oh of course, Rumanos, you old nuisance,” mocked the villain. “Of course. A shame what you did to my little Philippine Islander friend. He had such an awesomely oleaginous orifice. Nevertheless, no matter. The Golden Fleece is mine, and its powers are at my command.”

With this, Don Wingus raised his hand and made the sign of the pentagram, causing a burst of golden light to arise from the Fleece.

“It is all over now, Rumanos!” he continued. “Your meddling is at an end! By the powers I have invoked, will now die!”

The sparkling extraterrestrial light then began to whoosh directly to-wards Millie Drake and me, increasing with intensity as it approached.

“By the Golden Fleece, the powers of the Olympianoids are now mine to command!” stated Wingus. “They are mine, Rumanos, and I now use them to bring your doom!”

Is it at all even within the realm of possibility, my dear friends and most appreciated readers, that you can even commence to understand and comprehend the extreme and unspeakable horror, forsooth that supreme and dreadfully unhallowed terror of the situation in which we then found ourselves? There we were, my beloved Millie Drake and I, Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- standing before the evil intergalactic criminal known to eternal damnation as Magister Don Wingus, accompanied by his dangerously seductive daughter, the alien femme fatale Anastasia “Stacy” Wingus. There we were, the only thing standing between the notorious villain and his plans to rule the world utilising the powers of the legendary Golden Fleece. There we were, as the energies of the strange artefact hurled directly to-wards us at their full power!

“You will die now, Rumanos!” repeated the villainous Don Wingus. “You will die, and I will use the power of the Golden Fleece to rule this world!!”

The golden energies had by now reached Millie Drake and me, and they had begun to have their effect. Indeed, a feeling of pain both physical and psychological began to permeate our very being.

“Daniel…” gasped Millie. “That feeling… It is like… ”

“Yes it is…” I replied, fighting against the encroaching terror. “It is the defensive powers of the Olympianoids. Fight it, my dear! If we were humans, it would have killed us already, but we are Watchers of Algol. Fight it!”

“There is no escape this time, Rumanos!” interrupted Don Wingus. “The powers of the Olympianoids will rip your very being to shreds!”

“No, Father,” suddenly interrupted Anastasia Wingus. “Please, no. You can kill Miss Drake if you want, but please don’t kill Doctor Rumanos. I want him! I would like to keep him as my plaything when you become ruler of Earth. Oh please let me have him, Father. Will you? Please?!”

“Stacy you slow-witted slattern!” raged Don Wingus as he slapped his daughter hard across the face. “I told you I would not tolerate your obsession with that damnably meddling Daniel Rumanos!”

I noticed a slight lessening of the powers swirling around my friend and me and, as quickly as I could, I stepped forwards and delivered a blow of my fist to the face of Don Wingus. Unprepared for this, he staggered backwards and barely managed to not lose his footing.

“Daniel!” cried Millie Drake. “Look what is happening now!”

I indeed beheld the seemingly miraculous occurrence that then presented itself before us. The golden light had switched direction and, with astonishing quickness, had begun to flow directly to-wards the evil Don Wingus and his daughter!

“No! No!” bellowed the villain in rage as the powers surrounded them. “This cannot be happening to me! I am Magister Don Wingus of Algol! The powers of the Golden Fleece are mine and they cannot… ! They cannot… !!”

Don Wingus continued to shout with indignation, and Stacy screamed in terror as the golden glow covered them completely. Then, within a very few seconds, the light vanished -- and the criminal duo had disappeared with it!

“What happened, Daniel?” asked Millie Drake as she flew into my arms. “Are they gone? Is it over?”

“Indeed so, love,” I assured her. “The distraction caused Wingus to lose his concentration, and the powers of the Golden Fleece then turned against him -- taking him and his daughter out of this existence! The remains of that ape-man have no doubt vanished as well.”

I then went over to where the Golden Fleece itself still lay upon the table. I took out the transonic turnscrew and scanned it.

“Fascinating,” I said upon looking at the resultant readings. “The object is now completely harmless. All vestige of the alien powers it once possessed is now gone. It will be safe for us to return it to the museum in the morning. But, my dear Millie, as for now…”

“Let me guess,” she giggled. “You want to stay here and have Greek food?”

“No, my love,” I rejoined. “After this experience, I rather think I would prefer fish and chips!”

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN

TORAH! TORAH! TORAH!

In the very heart of the City is a certain skyscraper with a golden trapezoidal roof. Within this rooftop is found something odd indeed, in fact something that would be considered exceedingly strange by the vast majority of Earth people. It is a secret headquarters and laboratory, accessible only by an entrance sequence known to a select few.

In this hidden HQ one could find a plethora of scientific instruments and computer equipment, as well as an assortment of artefacts -- things both from the results of certain experiments here upon this planet and others from numerous alien cultures. Not the least of these latter is my own combination Spaceship/Time-machine, the DiTraS (pronounced “DYE-tress” and standing for Dimensional Transport Sphere), which in its outer form resembles an ancient Greco-Roman column.

On the morning in which our story begins, I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- was seated here in the lab going over some recent updates we had received. I was clad in my usual finery; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.

Seated close by was my beloved assistant Miss Millie Drake, an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, lovely violet eyes, and sun kissed skin. The pink dress she wore only served to highlight the wondrous lines of her slender adolescent figure.

Also with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.

“By the Triple Star!” I swore upon perusing some printout. “This is scarcely believable!”

“What is it, Daniel?” enquired Millie concernedly. “Have you found out what it was that was stolen from that government warehouse in Washington, DC?”

“Indeed I have, love,” I replied, “and it appears from this that our mission is going to be a danger-fraught one indeed. The stolen object is said to be perhaps the greatest and most storied artefact from ancient times; a relic of extreme and in fact divine powers. My dear, it is said to be -- The Ark of the Covenant!!” …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

“Really, Daniel?” stated Millie Drake in wonder at what I had just revealed to her. “The Ark of the Covenant? The object that was built by the ancient Israelites according to the instructions God gave to Moses?”

“Quite so, Mills,” I confirmed. “You see, it is said that the Ark was taken from the Temple in Jerusalem by the Prophet Jeremiah shortly before the Babylonians overran the city. It was hidden in a cave for safety in what is now Jordon.”

“So how did it get to be in DC?”

“In the years just preceding the beginning of the Second World War, it became known that the Nazis were seeking to find the Ark, that they might make use of its powers in order to conquer the world. Fortunately, the combined intelligence forces of the British and United States governments managed to find the Ark first -- and they then hid it in a nondescript box in that very same secret warehouse just outside of the US capital city!”

“And now it has been stolen!” concluded Millie. “By someone who managed to get away with it without even being seen! But who could have done that?”

“One shudders to think,” I admitted. “In order to break into that facility, positively identify the crate containing the Ark, and so quickly abscond with it would take an amazingly high level of intelligence, hmmm?”

“So is it someone who wants to use its powers like the Nazis would have? Someone who wants to rule the world?”

“More than likely, and the powers of the Ark are considerable, to put it mildly. According to the Torah commentaries, it was constantly surrounded with flashes of golden light, and was inhabited by myriads of spirits both divine and infernal.”

“But could someone manage to control that power?” queried my companion. “How could they manage to not just be destroyed by it?”

“Only by usage of some quite specialised knowledge, hmmm?” I pondered. “The Nazis, you will remember, had access to various books of black magic that they had acquired by plunder from around Europe and the Near East. I believe our thief to be someone with similar knowledge, and indeed with the ability to use it!”

“Then it could be… Oh my gosh, look!”

I whirled around to see what had so frightened Millie Drake and beheld an horror indeed -- in sooth something that was a portent of terror far exceeding even that which we had so far been pondering. It was like unto an huge disembodied face, floating in midair several metres high, and surrounded with flashes of scintillating golden energy.

It was a face as unto that of a man seemingly of middle years, his countenance still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the marks of seeming lifetimes of extreme unhallowed wickedness and iniquity beyond all sane imaginings. His hair was long and dark, and his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolutely hypnotic glow.

Of course, I recognised this disembodied face immediately. I recognised it as that of my oldest and most dangerous enemy, as that of an intergalactic felon beyond all others, indeed as that of the infamous renegade Algolite whom has become the most notorious criminal in all of Time and Space. It was the face of Don Wingus!

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the evil face again vanished.

“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “was that really the face of… ?”

“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known. So he did escape from the Hellfire.”

“And he stole the Ark of the Covenant?”

“So it appears, love. This is a dangerous situation indeed. Wingus, as an Algolite, will be able to assert some control over the powers of the Ark, as he has done here by manifesting his own image right here inside our headquarters. No doubt that was just an attempt at bravado, but it does show that he has achieved some success with wielding the Ark’s energies.”

“We need to find out where he has taken it!”

“Quite so. Kit-10, can you get an energy trace from the residual of that manifestation?”

“Accessing, s--,” replied the mechanical cat in her simulated yet pleasantly feminine voice. “Energy seems to be emanating from the building that once housed Bolton Street Synagogue, three blocks west of here.”

(It should be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her other catlike characteristics, is completely unable to openly show respect to anyone. In truth, the closest she can ever come to it is by addressing me with a slight “s--” noise -- for “sir” -- and Millie Drake with “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)

“Come along then, Mills, Kit-10,” said I whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “We need to get over there right away.” …

We arrived at Bolton Street Synagogue on that foggy day and approached the building. It was old but one could still see the stained glass window from outside, on which was a multi-hued Star of David.

“So this synagogue is no longer in use?” questioned Millie Drake.

“Correct, my dear,” I returned. “The congregation merged with another a neighbourhood away. That was a couple decades ago, hmmm? The building has been occasionally used as a community centre, but not really for years now.”

The front door was open, and thus did Millie, Kit-10, and I enter the old synagogue. As soon as we came into the front hallway, it became obvious that the interior of the building had been the victim of vandalising over the years. There was much debris on the floor, and mixed graffiti on the walls said everything from “Hail Satan!” to “Roman Catholics rule!”. The shadows were deep, the only light dimly filtered through the dusty windows of the building.

“Be cautious, Mills,” I admonished. “If Don Wingus has truly brought the Ark of the Covenant here, there is no telling what traps he may have set for us.”

Little did we know at that time that a figure was watching us from the shadows of the synagogue’s front hall. It was the figure of an insanely voluptuous teenage girl with raven hair and luminous blue-green eyes. She was wearing a scarlet halter-top and miniskirt, and stood atop spike heels.

The girl eyed us narrowly, and then reached into her cleavage and took out a switchblade knife, extending it into a long, razor sharp stiletto that she then quickly aimed and threw directly at Millie Drake!!

The knife whizzed through the air directly at Millie and, just before it would have reached her, Kit-10 shot a beam of her nose laser that caught it in midair. The remains of the knife then clattered to the floor.

I looked and briefly beheld the figure of the girl who had thrown it before she once again disappeared into the shadows.

“Are you all right, Millie?” I queried concernedly.

“Yes, I’m okay,” my companion confirmed. “Good shooting, Kit-10!”

“Of course, m--,” replied the computerised kitten.

“Daniel,” said Millie Drake. “That girl! Wasn’t it… ?”

“Yes, indeed it was,” I affirmed. “Anastasia ‘Stacy’ Wingus, daughter of the notorious villain and herself an expert in assassination.”

Millie, Kit-10, and I then continued our search of the old synagogue, soon entering its main sanctuary. It was there that we saw them.

Don Wingus was clad in a black vestment robe on which was embroidered, in crimson red, three interlocking inverted triangles. His daughter had joined him and now stood by his side before the table they had set before them.

On the table was a sight indeed, for it was the Ark of the Covenant itself, made of wood covered with gold plating. Around it played the flashing golden light of its arcane powers.

“Kit-10,” I said, “blast them.”

At this, the robotic cat sent a beam of her nose laser directly at Don Wingus, but it was to no avail. A flash of the golden light appeared and deflected it from him.

“Greetings, Rumanos,” said the villain, his voice a sneering mockery. “We have been expecting you. You interference is at an end. The powers of the Ark of the Covenant are mine, and I shall utilise them to become the supreme ruler of planet Earth -- but first, I shall use them to bring about your final destruction!”

As he spoke, the powers darting about the sanctuary intensified, and soon we were witness to an amazing display of scintillating golden light, in which were flashes of the phantom figures of distorted and grotesque spiritual entities both divine and infernal. Then, before Millie Drake, Kit-10 and I could even further react, the entire conglomeration of powers suddenly shot forth directly at us!

“Now you shall die, Daniel Rumanos!” bellowed the villain amidst peals of insane laughter. “I, Magister Don Wingus, do declare your death!!”

Do you at all recognise the extreme unmitigated horror, forsooth the supreme unfettered terror of this situation, my dear friends and most appreciated readers? There we were; the wonderful Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, facing the evil Magister Don Wingus and his wicked daughter Anastasia. There we were, about to be pummelled by the very powers of the ancient Ark of the Covenant; powers the force of which are unmatched upon planet Earth -- powers that Don Wingus intended to utilise in his plans to subjugate the entire world!!

“You will now die, Rumanos!” continued to exult the wicked Wingus whilst the powers of the Ark shot to-wards us. “You will die, that you may no longer interfere with my plans. You will die, and I shall use the powers of the very Ark of the Covenant to establish rule over this world!”

“Father, no!” suddenly interrupted Stacy Wingus. “Please don’t kill Doctor Rumanos! I like him! I want to have him for myself when you become the master of the world! Please! Oh please don’t hurt him, Father!”

“Anastasia, you clueless tramp!” raged Don Wingus, slapping his daughter hard across the face. “I am absolutely exhausted by dealing with your ridiculous adolescent obsession with that damnable old Rumanos!”

Then occurred a bizarre thing indeed. The energies that had been flowing dangerously to-wards Millie Drake, Kit-10, and me suddenly changed direction and, in their full force, began to in stead shoot forth to-wards the evil Magister Don Wingus and his daughter Anastasia!

“No!” bellowed Wingus angrily as the powers surrounded them. “No! No! You cannot do this to me! I am Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of all existence! The powers of the Ark of the Covenant should be mine to command! No! You cannot do this to me! You cannot… !!”

Then, within a very few moments, it was all over. The scintillating golden energies of the Ark, together with the flashing forms of numerous otherworldly spirits both divine and infernal, completely surrounded both Don Wingus and Stacy. I heard Wingus again bellow with rage, and his daughter scream in fear as the powers completely obliterated them from sight. Then the powers themselves also vanished completely. There was no sign of the villains, and all was now quiet in the old abandoned holy place.

I looked at the Ark of the Covenant and, as if in response to my gaze, it suddenly disintegrated into dust.

“Daniel, what happened?” asked Millie Drake. “Is it all over?”

“Indeed it is, my dear,” I answered. “Stacy’s distraction caused Don Wingus to lose control of the powers of the Ark, and they naturally turned upon him, removing both of them from this plane of existence.”

“But where did they go?”

“Perhaps their very beings were obliterated, hmmm? It is difficult to say, but suffice to understand that the plans of Don Wingus to use the Ark of the Covenant in his ideas of world domination are at an end. Kit-10, are there any signs of the energies?”

“Negative, s--,” replied the robot.

“But what about the Ark itself?” enquired Millie.

“It just disintegrated, hmmm?” I pondered. “It was ancient, after all. More than three-thousand years old, and without the divine energies to hold it together, it simply fell to dust.”

“So it really is over then. But why do you still look so concerned, Daniel?”

“I was just thinking, Mills. For the Ark -- the very Ark of the Covenant itself -- to be stolen, and for its divine powers to be used in such a diabolical plot. There is something quite wrong with that, hmmm? The powers of darkness must be on an ascendancy like never before.”

“So we’re going to have a lot of work to do, right?” asked Millie Drake.

“Forsooth,” I agreed as we left the old synagogue building, “the forces of evil are still here and present upon the planet Earth that we are sworn to defend. They must be fought and vanquished, that this world and its people are protected. My love, it appears that retirement for us is not an option!”

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN

HELLFIRE

Paul Tilman never found out how the girl had gotten into his office. Tilman, age forty-seven with a podgy build and a bad toupee, was working late at his estate law firm there in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He looked up from his desk and suddenly saw her.

She was a voluptuous brunette in her teens, with luminous blue eyes and her mouth painted like an inviting red gash. Her only clothes were a scarlet crop top, a black miniskirt, and spiked heels.

“May I… May I help you?” stammered Tilman, straightening his tie. “May I help you, Miss… ?”

“Wingus,” purred the girl. “Anastasia Wingus, but you can call me Stacy. I want you.”

Tilman put up no resistance to the young girl’s advances, and a few minutes later he gasped in ecstasy whilst she sat upon his lap with her legs spread.

“That was hot,” said Stacy Wingus. “Now, I have something else for you.”

Then, before Paul Tilman could even react, the girl produced a long stiletto switchblade and plunged it directly into his heart. She stood up and walked away, leaving him to die there in his swivel chair with his trousers down around his ankles.

“It’s all right now, Father,” said to girl to-wards the already opening door. “I’ve done it.”

The man who now entered the room was seemingly of middle years, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite having the marks of lifetimes of extreme ungodly wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his countenance decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolutely hypnotic glow. He was clad in a silk suit of ebon black.

“Excellent work,” he approved, eying the results of his daughter’s tryst with Attorney Paul Tilman. “Now, the Hellfire Talisman shall be mine, and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall become supreme ruler of all!!” …

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.

Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …

“Sir Francis Dashwood?” wondered Millie Drake. “The leader of the Hellfire Club? That’s who the stolen talisman once belonged to?”

“Quite so,” I affirmed. “It was being held for safekeeping by the now-late Mr. Tilman, who was estate lawyer for a certain local family directly descended from that notorious Eighteenth Century British nobleman.”

We were riding in my specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster, affectionately known as “Lizzie”, into the borough of Steelton, about four miles southeast of Harrisburg on that hazy afternoon. I was behind the steering wheel, clad in my usual finery -- including a frilled poet shirt, velvet suit, sunspecs, panama hat, jungle boots, and one of my favourite opera capes.

My companion, Miss Millie Drake, is and exceedingly beautiful young lady, petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, lovely violet eyes, and sun kissed skin. The purple dress she wore only served to highlight the soft lines of her wondrous adolescent figure.

Our robotic friend, Kit-10, had stayed behind to do some work at our city headquarters.

“So, was it all true?” queried Millie. “I mean the stories about Dashwood practising Satanism and conjuring devils and all that?”

“Apparently someone believes so,” I pondered, “to have stolen the talisman. It is of some monetary value, but not so much as to commit such a gruesome murder when there are other far more valuable antiquities to be had. It was acquired by the Hellfire Club from some Middle Eastern mystic, and is said to have been utilised by them in ceremonies intended to call forth the very power of Lucifer himself!”

“And Lucifer is, in reality,” added Millie Drake, “a remnant of the alien race known as the Cacodemons of Andromeda.”

“Quite so,” I affirmed to her. “The ‘Lucifer’ was a military rank, similar to ‘commanding general’, during the Galactic Wars. After their defeat, the Cacodemons spread out across the Cosmos, some of them making it to Earth where they were worshipped as demonic ‘gods’ by the primitive humans of the time.”

“So, Daniel,” Millie said, “our instruments at headquarters showed that the talisman is now at this location in Steelton?”

“So it appears, Mills,” I rejoined. “An energy signature akin to that used by the ancient Cacodemons was detected coming from a portion of the old abandoned steel mill here, hmmm? The talisman, you see, would generate a certain energy based upon Andromedan technology, and manifesting itself as a strange blue-black radiation. Ah, here we are.”

I parked the car and Millie and I walked to-wards the dilapidated structure that was one of the outbuildings of the old mill. We had just about reached the door when I suddenly heard my companion scream:

“Daniel, look out!”

I then turned slightly and beheld an horror. It was a small apelike man, with brown skin and his body covered in coarse black hair. The horrid thing chattered in challenge, baring his hideous subhuman teeth as he leaped up to-wards me!

Due to recent adventures, I did know what the creature was, so I also knew immediately how to defeat him. I reached out my hand as he was almost upon me, touching a certain pressure point on the back of his low-browed head.

The ape-man immediately stopped all movement and dropped to the ground.

“By the Eternal Spires!” I swore. “It seems I overdid it a bit, hmmm? The poor creature is dead.”

“Are you all right, Daniel?” cried Millie concernedly.

“I am fine, love,” I assured her.

“But that thing… Isn’t it the same… ?”

“It is indeed the same sort of creature; a member of one of the primitive tribes of the jungles of the Philippines who have kept the characteristics of the Homo erectus and other proto-human primates. However, it cannot be told for certain if it is the same one we previously encountered. After all, they all look alike!”

“But the last time, it was being used as a servant by…” shuddered Millie.

“Now now, my dear,” I interrupted her. “Let us not speculate before we have more factual information, hmmm?”

We continued to cautiously approach the old building, finding the door unlocked. Then, as it creaked open, another eldritch horror assailed us. For at that very moment did flow forth from the interior of the building a wave of darksome energy, blue black in colour and accompanied by a sound as unto that of the wailing of countless damned souls.

The dark energy then shot itself directly to-wards Millie Drake and me!

I heard Millie scream in terror as the dark energy swirled around us with its terrible cacophony of unholy noise. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the energy suddenly drifted away, back into the building.

“Daniel, was that really?” enquired Millie Drake.

“Quite so,” I confirmed. “Hellfire energy like unto that utilised by the Cacodemons of Andromeda. That was only a very tiny portion of it. Someone has indeed evoked the powers of that old talisman, going even beyond what Sir Francis Dashwood and his horrid club once did!”

We then entered the building and cautiously began to explore it. The only light was dimly filtered through the high windows of the old steel mill.

Eventually, we came to a room in which the blue black energy was swirling. In the centre of the chamber was a table covered will a black cloth. On this makeshift altar was the hellfire talisman itself, made of silver and carven with a distorted pentagram and quasi-Arabic lettering.

Standing behind the table was a man clad in black standing next to a voluptuous teenage girl. Around them swirled drifting suggestions of blue black energy. Of course, I recognised the man immediately. I recognised him as my oldest and most bitter enemy -- the renegade Algolite who has become the most dangerous and wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.

“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known. So you did escape from Beelzebub. It is you -- assisted by your daughter, Anastasia -- who murdered Paul Tilman and stole the hellfire talisman.”

“Oh of course, Rumanos,” mocked the villain. “Of course. My, what a fabulous detective you are. It is such a shame what you did to my Filipino servant, though. He had such a nice hairy hole. Nevertheless, your efforts are useless. The hellfire talisman is mine, and I shall use its powers to conquer the world! I shall become the new Lucifer and shall establish my own complete dictatorship over this planet! The human race shall kneel before me! Then, with my own Algolitish superiority augmented by the power of hellfire, I shall improve the technology of Earth to build a fleet of Space warships that I shall then use to conquer other worlds; solar systems; galaxies -- the very Universe itself!!”

“Wingus, you insane fiend!” I charged. “You cannot control the powers of hellfire. They are completely of a different realm of existence! They are pure chaos!”

“Oh, but you are wrong, Rumanos,” he countered, the eldritch energies building around him. “You are wrong. My little Stacy and I have already completed the psyche-sexual rites necessary to summon the power -- indeed the very power of the Lucifer which is now mine to command!”

With this, at the mentalist command of the evil Don Wingus, there did shoot forth an awesome blast of hellfire energy directly at my companion and me.

“Now, you will die, Daniel Rumanos!” exulted the evil Don Wingus amidst peals of his own wicked insane laughter. “You will die! I -- Don Wingus, the lord of hellfire -- have declared that you will die!!”

Do you even begin to comprehend the terror, in truth the supreme unhallowed horror of this situation, my dear friends and readers? There we were, Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- being assailed by the ancient hellfire energy of the Andromedan Lucifer; forsooth, energy that the evil Magister Don Wingus intended to utilise to conquer worlds!

“You will now die, Rumanos!” cackled Don Wingus. “Die! Die! Die!”

The darkling energy of the hellfire talisman began to surround Millie Drake and me, encroaching quickly upon us and blocking out all other sensations. 

“Please don’t do it, Father,” suddenly interrupted Anastasia Wingus. “Please don’t kill Doctor Rumanos. I like him. I want to have him as a plaything when you come into your empire. Oh, please let me have him, Father! Please?!”

“Stacy, you ridiculous harlot!” returned Wingus, slapping his daughter hard across the face. “I am so utterly sick and tired of your teen crush attraction to that accursed old Rumanos!”

With this, an odd thing occurred. The blue-black hellfire energies that had been sent to-wards Millie and me suddenly reversed their direction and began quickly drifting to-wards Don Wingus and his daughter in stead.

“No! You cannot do this to me!” bellowed the villain in outrage as the evil energy surrounded him. “I am Magister Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of all! I am the lord of hellfire! No! No! Nooooooooo!!!”

Within moments, the howling hellfire energy had complete obliterated both Don Wingus and young Stacy. When it dissipated, they had utterly vanished.

I looked around the room. All was quiet, and there was no evidence that the occult horrors we had experienced had ever even existed. Even the hellfire talisman had disappeared.

“Daniel, what happened?” enquired Millie.

“When Wingus became distracted,” I explained, “he lost control of the hellfire energy. This caused it to seek the thing in the room most akin to itself -- forsooth the evil Don Wingus and his wicked daughter!”

“But where have they gone?”

“The hellfire has taken them to a certain inter-dimensional realm, were they will indeed receive the proper punishment for their sins. It appears that the old talisman has been destroyed as well, and I am certain we will find that the remains of that ape-man have also vanished.”

“Well, that’s good,” said my companion. “Do you think we have seen the last of them? Of Don Wingus and his daughter, I mean.”

“We can certainly hope so, hmm?” I stated as we walked out of the abandoned building. “We can certainly hope so.”

We did not know that, after we had left, in the now empty room of the old building, there could briefly be heard a strange unearthly echo as of insane wicked laughter.

***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN