TEEN GROTESQUE

A DANIEL RUMANOS MYSTERY

It began with the reports from that decaying township on the Jersey Shore -- a place of salt marshes and abandoned boardwalks where the Atlantic wind carries the stench of rot and forgotten things. Parents whispering to priests, priests muttering to the police, and the police, in their baffled desperation, finally ringing the private line at our golden trapezoidal headquarters atop a Manhattan skyscraper. Teenagers vanishing, then reappearing grotesquely altered. Skin mottled with pulsating boils that wept black ichor. Extra limbs sprouting like cancerous tubers. Eyes — far too many eyes — blinking from impossible angles upon foreheads and throats. One boy, they said, had begun to speak in a voice not his own, reciting verses from a tongue that curdled the air and made listeners claw at their ears until blood ran.

“By the Triple Star!” I said to Millie as we sped along the coastal highway in my canary-yellow Edwardian roadster, affectionately known as Lizzie. “This is no mere teenage rebellion or viral prank. This reeks of the Elder Things — those cyclopean abominations that slumbered long before humanity’s first scream echoed across the primordial ooze.”

The lovely Miss Millie Drake sat beside me, her petite and perfect form clad in a tight blue skirt and pink blouse that accentuated her sun-kissed skin and luxurious chestnut hair cascading like liquid fire. Her enchanting violet eyes sparkled with both courage and that delicious hint of fear she always tried to hide.

“Daniel,” she said, her voice soft yet steady, “the parents described a book — an old leather-bound thing the kids found in the ruins of that condemned Catholic school. They called it the Liber Grotesque. One girl posted a photo before… before she changed. The symbols looked like they were moving.”

We arrived at dusk. The high school loomed like a tomb against the bruised sky, its windows shattered and vines choking the brick like veins on a corpse. Inside the auditorium, we found the first of them: a circle of perhaps twenty adolescents, their bodies already half-transformed into something blasphemous. Flesh rippled and folded in non-Euclidean geometries, limbs elongating into slick, suckered tentacles that quested blindly toward the stage. At the center stood a makeshift altar — the Liber open upon it, its pages alive with writhing glyphs that hurt the mind to behold. Above them hovered a shimmering rift, a tear in reality itself, through which pulsed a colossal thing -- not a god, but a servant of one older still. A mass of quivering orifices and compound eyes, its voice a wet chorus of screams and laughter that whispered promises of eternal mutation.

The transformed teens turned toward us as one.

“Join us,” they gurgled in unison, voices overlapping in impossible harmonies. “The Grotesque One hungers for fresh youth. It will remake you beautiful… in ways the stars themselves cannot endure.”

Do you recognise the grotesquely eldritch terror, forsooth the unspeakable horror of that moment, dear readers? There we were -- the wonderful Miss Millie Drake and me, Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing a congregation of once-human youngsters now become avatars of cosmic corruption. The air stank of brine and decaying star-matter. The rift widened, and a single pseudopod the thickness of a man’s torso lashed forth, dripping corrosive slime that ate through the wooden floorboards with a hiss like dissolving universes.

Millie drew her compact Algolitish energy mezuzah from her purse and fired, the sapphire beam slicing through one of the grotesque limbs. The creature shrieked -- a sound that drove two of the unaltered teens mad on the spot, their eyes rolling back as they clawed their own faces. I stepped forward, raising my hands. From the superior genes of Algol surged the Daemon-Fire -- a nimbus of violet plasma that appeared to mortal eyes as sorcerous lightning.

“By the burning eye of Algol and the sealed vaults of the KOSMIKOS,” I intoned, “I abjure thee, spawn of the Outer Void!”

The entity recoiled, but not before its influence touched me. For one nauseating instant I glimpsed its true form: an infinite regression of teenaged faces melting into one another, each screaming the secrets of dead galaxies while their bodies twisted into parodies of human desire — breasts sprouting fangs, genitals blooming with teeth, every youthful curve become a gateway to devouring madness. The Liber flared, attempting to drag Millie into the rift. I dove, tackling her aside as my Daemon-Fire erupted in a cataclysmic burst. The ancient book burst into azure flames that consumed not merely paper but the very concept of its forbidden knowledge. The rift imploded with a thunderclap that shattered every window for blocks. The transformed youths convulsed, their extra limbs shriveling and dropping away like rotten fruit. Most survived — broken, amnesiac, but human once more. A few… did not. Their remains we consigned to the sea with proper rites.

Later, back in Lizzie, Millie leaned against me, trembling but alive. I poured us each a measure of star-water from the hidden flask.

“The Liber Grotesque was but a fragment,” I told her gravely, “a key left by the Great Old Ones to corrupt the young — those whose minds are still pliable enough to accept the truth that humanity is but a fleeting joke in the laughter of an indifferent cosmos. The entity we faced was only a herald. Somewhere, deeper in the marshes or the black libraries of the world, the true source still waits.”

She smiled that radiant, defiant smile of hers. “Then we’ll find it, Daniel. Together.”

I looked out over the dark Atlantic, where waves crashed like the heartbeat of something vast and hungry beneath. The stars above seemed colder, more watchful. For now, the town slept uneasily, its surviving children spared the full embrace of the Grotesque. But I knew — as only one who carries the blood of the Watchers can know — that such victories are temporary illusions against the eternal.

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the mysterious Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears as magic to lesser beings. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am — The Daemon-Star!!!

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

THE CURSE OF NYARLATHOTEP

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I am an investigator who specializes in cases the police will not touch and the newspapers cannot explain. They call me when the shadows start moving on their own, when the dead whisper through telephone wires, or when something ancient decides it is tired of staying buried. I keep an office above a shuttered bookstore in the city's Mount Vernon district, where the lamps still flicker like they remember the nineteenth century. My clients pay in cash or favors -- never questions. That is how I like it.

It started with a phone call at three in the morning. The voice on the other end belonged to Dr. Evelyn Hart, curator of Egyptian antiquities at the Walters Art Museum. She sounded like a woman who had just watched her entire worldview crack open.

“Dr. Rumanos,” she said, “the mummy is moving.”

I arrived at the museum before dawn, my suit jacket heavy with the weight of a golden mezuzah and a small obsidian scarab I had taken from a dead cultist in Prague. Dr. Hart met me at the service entrance, her face pale under the fluorescent lights. She was in her forties, sharp-featured, the kind of academic who had spent her life cataloging the past only to discover the past was cataloging her back.

“It’s the new acquisition,” she explained as we walked the marble halls. “Priest-King Khephren-Nyar, discovered last year in a sealed chamber beneath the Step Pyramid of Djoser. The hieroglyphs called him ‘the Voice of the Crawling Chaos.’ We thought it was poetic exaggeration. The sarcophagus arrived three days ago. Last night… the bandages shifted. On camera.”

We reached the Egyptian wing. The gallery was dark except for a single spotlight trained on the central dais. There it lay: a seven-foot figure wrapped in ancient linen stained the color of dried blood. The face had been left partially exposed -- leathery skin stretched tight over high cheekbones, eyes long since replaced by obsidian orbs that seemed to drink the light. A golden ankh rested on its chest, but the symbol had been defaced by a crude etching of a tentacled face with three blazing eyes.

Nyarlathotep. The Crawling Chaos. The Black Pharaoh. I had read the name in forbidden books and heard it screamed in nightmares. He does not need temples or sacrifices. He needs only a door.

“Has anyone touched the wrappings?” I asked.

“Only the conservation team. They used modern tools -- nothing that should have...”

A low, wet sound came from inside the sarcophagus. Like laughter filtered through centuries of sand.

I stepped closer. The air grew thick, smelling of natron and ozone. My scarab talisman grew warm against my ribs. “Dr. Hart, I need you to leave the building. Now. And whatever you do, do not look back.”

She hesitated. Academics always do. “This is my exhibit...”

“Then it is already too late for you.”

That was when the lights died.

The emergency generators kicked in with a groan, bathing the hall in sickly red. The mummy sat up.

Bandages tore with the sound of old parchment ripping. Desiccated fingers flexed, revealing black claws that had not been there a moment before. The obsidian eyes flared with inner fire — green, then violet, then a color that had no name in any human tongue. Khephren-Nyar rose to his full height, towering over us both. The ankh on his chest pulsed like a second heart.

“Rumanos,” the thing rasped. Its voice was layered — human, insectile, and something vast that echoed from between stars. “The sorcerer who denies the Outer Ones. Nyarlathotep sends his regards.”

Dr. Hart screamed. I shoved her toward the exit and took out my mezuzah. The first golden ray struck the mummy’s shoulder. Linen ignited, but the creature only laughed harder. It lunged, faster than anything that size had a right to be. I dove behind a display case of canopic jars as claws raked marble, gouging furrows deep enough to bury a man.

I had faced vampires in Prague and werewolves in the Appalachians, but this was different. This was not undeath. This was possession. Nyarlathotep had waited millennia inside that corpse, using the priest’s remains as a glove. The god of a thousand forms had chosen the simplest one tonight: terror wrapped in linen.

The mummy smashed through the case. Shards of glass rained like diamonds. I rolled, came up firing. Two more shots. One caught it in the knee; the leg buckled but did not fall. It kept coming, dragging the ruined limb behind it like a broken promise.

“You cannot kill what Chaos wears,” it hissed. “Your world is already dreaming.”

I backed toward the far wall, where the museum’s emergency ritual kit -- my own design -- hung behind a false panel. I had installed it months ago after a close call with a shoggoth in the sewers. My fingers found the latch. Inside: a vial of holy water blessed under a blood moon, a copy of the Necronomicon’s protective verses handwritten on vellum, and the one thing I hoped would work -- an iron ankh forged from meteorite iron, inscribed with the Elder Sign.

The mummy’s claws closed around my throat. Its breath was the grave and the void. Up close, I saw the truth: the bandages were not merely wrappings anymore. They writhed like living tentacles, tiny mouths opening and closing along the fibers. Nyarlathotep was enjoying this.

I jammed the meteorite ankh against the creature’s forehead.

The effect was immediate. A sound like every church bell in hell rang backward. The mummy convulsed. Green fire erupted from its eye sockets. The voice of Nyarlathotep roared through it -- mocking, ancient, amused.

“Foolish slave. I am legion. I will return in dreams. In every mirror. In the space between your heartbeats—”

The body collapsed. Linen crumbled to dust. The obsidian eyes shattered like cheap glass. What remained was a pile of bones and rags that smelled of ozone and forgotten tombs.

Dr. Hart found me twenty minutes later, sitting among the wreckage, repeating the Shema prayer. The police were coming. I already had a story prepared -- gas leak, structural failure, the usual lies.

She stared at the empty sarcophagus. “Is it over?”

“No,” I said. “Nyarlathotep does not die. He just changes the channel. But tonight, at least, the mummy stays dead.”

I stood, brushed dust from my jacket, and handed her the meteorite ankh. “Keep this. Melt it down if you have to. And next time you dig up something that whispers, call me before you open the box.”

Outside, dawn was breaking over the city. The fog had lifted. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed -- normal, human trouble. I walked into it anyway. The Crawling Chaos would be back. They always are. But for now, the curse was broken, and I had a box of cigars and a bottle of vodka waiting in my desk drawer.

That is the job. Some mysteries end with violence. Others end with an ankh and a prayer. Most of them never really end at all.

I headed home. The city smelled like rain and secrets, and I figured that was about right.

***** DANIEL RUMANOS MYSTERIES *****

LEPER MESSIAH

It began with the usual late-night tip from one of my more reliable street informants in Atlantic City -- a jittery ex-carnie named Sal who swore the boardwalk had a new messiah. Not the usual storefront preacher or crypto-grifter, but something worse.

“Doc,” he’d hissed over the phone, voice cracking like dry leaves, “this guy calls himself the Leper Messiah. Touches folks and they get… better. But then the sores come. Real bad. Like biblical. And they still follow him. Worship him. Say he’s the only one who can save ’em.”

I hung up and turned to Millie Drake, my petite, chestnut-haired partner in crime-solving and everything else worthwhile. She was curled on the couch in our Boardwalk condominium, Kit-10 — the sleek robotic cat who serves as our sarcastic AI assistant — purring on her lap like a living thing.

“Daniel,” said Millie, violet eyes wide, “this sounds like one of those cult things again. Remember the Spectral Paranormal business?”

“Worse,” I replied, adjusting my purple velvet suit jacket over a frilled poet shirt. I clapped on my panama hat and swirled my opera cape. “This one smells of Algolite-level biotech mixed with something… unclean. Enochian unclean.”

We took Lizzie — my canary-yellow Edwardian roadster — down to the rotting waterfront district near the old Steel Pier. The night air reeked of salt, cheap beer, and desperation. A crowd had gathered under flickering neon: maybe fifty souls, gaunt and hollow-eyed, clustered around a makeshift stage lit by oil drums. At its center stood the Leper Messiah.

He was tall, emaciated, with skin like parchment stretched over bone. Open sores wept across his face and hands, yet he moved with predatory grace. His voice boomed like thunder over cheap speakers: “I am the outcast who redeems! The leper who heals! Touch me and be made whole — in body and in soul!”

A woman shuffled forward, face already mottled with fresh lesions. She knelt. He laid a rotting palm on her forehead. For a moment her eyes cleared, color flooded her cheeks. The crowd cheered. Then she convulsed. New blisters erupted along her arms. She smiled through the pain. “Thank you, Master,” she whispered.

I felt the psychic ripple immediately -- a low-frequency Algol-tech pulse laced with something demonic. Not pure Watcher science. Hybrid. Corrupted.

“Kit-10,” I murmured into my communicator ring, “scan for energy signatures.”

The robotic feline’s voice crackled back in my earpiece: “S--, it is off the charts. Bio-plague vector combined with psionic compulsion. Whoever built this is not human. Or fully human anymore.”

Millie gripped my arm. “Daniel, we have to stop this before it spreads past the boardwalk.”

I stepped into the light, cape flaring dramatically. “Hold it right there, ‘Messiah’. The show is over.”

The crowd turned hostile eyes on me. The Leper Messiah’s gaze locked with mine — pupils like black holes ringed in pus-yellow. Recognition flickered. 

“Rumanos,” he rasped, voice dripping with ancient hatred. “The Daemon-Star himself. Come to judge the unclean? How fitting. I was once like you — an Algolite exile. But I embraced the rot. The Absolute Convention cast me out for experimenting with forbidden flesh-tech. Now I remake the weak in my image. A new humanity. Leper-strong. Leper-free.”

He raised both hands. The sores on his palms split open, releasing a cloud of shimmering nano-spores that glowed sickly green. Followers moaned in ecstasy as the mist settled over them.

Forsooth, I did not hesitate. Algolite blood surged through my veins. I spoke a single Enochian syllable — sharp, commanding, older than Earth. The air ignited with violet fire. The spores burned mid-air, screaming like dying insects.

The Messiah howled. “You dare?! These people need me!”

“They need a cure, not a curse,” I snapped.

Millie was already moving, graceful as ever, slipping through the throng to reach the stage’s control box. Kit-10 leaped from the shadows, laser eyes flashing, disabling the amplifiers with pinpoint bursts.

The villain lunged at me. His touch was death — flesh dissolving on contact. But my personal shield — a micro-forcefield woven from pure Algolite science — flared gold. I countered with a palm strike infused with Daemon-Star energy. His chest caved; black ichor sprayed.

“You… cannot… purify… what is already perfected,” he gurgled, collapsing. The sores across his body began to knit — not healing, but metastasizing into something far worse. A final transformation. I recognized the pattern: a self-replicating plague meant to overwrite human DNA with Algolite-leper hybrid code.

There was no time for half-measures. I drew the transonic mezuzah from my pocket, tuning the device to negate bio-weapons of this exact class. I pressed it to his forehead and activated the sequence. White light erupted. The Leper Messiah shrieked as his corrupted form unraveled into harmless dust, carried away on the sea breeze.

The crowd staggered, suddenly free of compulsion. Lesions began to fade. Some wept. Others simply looked lost, as if waking from a beautiful nightmare.

Millie rejoined me, brushing ash from her jacket. “You did it, Daniel. Again.”

Kit-10 sauntered up, tail high. “M--, s--. Threat neutralized. Recommend immediate quarantine protocols for the affected."

"And a stiff drink for us all,” I added 

Then I smiled, tipping my hat to the dispersing throng. “Another night on the boardwalk saved. But how many more false messiahs are out there -- breeding in the dark, hmmm?”

We climbed back into Lizzie. The engine roared to life like a triumphant beast. As we sped toward the lights of the casinos, Millie leaned her head on my shoulder.

“So what's next, Daniel?” she asked softly.

I glanced at the rear-view mirror, where the pier faded into mist. “Next? We keep hunting. Because the Universe is full of lepers who would be kings — and only the Daemon-Star stands in their way.” ...

My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the heritage of the mysterious Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears as magic 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 wonderful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am — The Daemon-Star!!!

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

SUN ARISE

“The power is mine!” exulted the man. “The power that I shall use to rule this world!”

Standing behind an old ornate table in the disused former antique shop, he appeared to be of middle years, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the results of lifetimes of extreme 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 wearing an ebon-black vestment robe.

Beside him was an insanely voluptuous young girl with raven hair and luminous blue-green eyes. She wore a tiny bikini top, miniskirt, and spike heels that made her appear several inches taller than she actually was.

“It’s so sexy, father,” purred the girl. “I like the power of the Solarians!"

“That is right, Anastasia,” agreed the man with a peal of mad laughter. “It is sexy, and it is supreme power. It is the power that I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall wield over all!!”

With this, a weird yellow light shone about the room, along with a sight as of myriads of darting creatures -- creatures of the same bizarre radiance. …

“This is where our systems detected the Solarian power arising from, hmmm?” said I, Doctor Daniel Rumanos. “Harold’s Antiques. It closed a couple years back when the proprietor retired.”

“So these Solarians,” said Millie Drake. “They actually come from the Sun?”

“Quite so, my dear Mills,” I replied. “They are a form of life that actually exists on that star’s surface. Usually harmless and not interacting with any other life forms, there are however occasional times when certain beings have attempted to exploit their power for inappropriate reasons. This appears to be one of those times!”

I was clad in my usual finery that sunny morning; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, sunspecs, panama hat, Star of David necklace, and one of my favourite opera capes.

My companion, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The powder blue dress she wore only served to highlight her slender figure.

The door of the old shop was locked of course, but I knew my escape artist skills would make short work of that. I had just begun to apply myself to it when I heard Millie cry out:

“Daniel! Look at that!”

I looked up to see what had startled my companion and beheld weirdness indeed. It was an hovering mass of myriads of darting creatures, shining bright yellow -- and headed directly to-wards us!

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the strange sight again vanished.

“Daniel,” said Millie, “was that…?”

“Yes,” I affirmed. “The power of the Solarians. That was just a comparatively small portion of them, however. It was a mere warning against continuing our campaign against whomever has summoned the alien energies. The full Solarian power shall be much more devastating.”

I had by now opened the lock, and we stepped into the shuttered antique shop.

After searching through several dusty rooms, we entered one that was occupied by a man in a black vestment robe and a young girl who eyed me lustfully. Of course, I recognised them both immediately. I knew the man to be my most deadly enemy, the renegade Algolite who is the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space; and I knew the girl as his insane and iniquitous daughter.

“You!” I said. “Don Wingus. I should have known. It is you that has called forth the Solarians, having reunited with your daughter Anastasia here to plan one of your utterly mad schemes, hmmm?”

“Rumanos, you old meddler,” countered Wingus. “You just cannot resist the urge to harass my existence, can you? However, it is no matter. I have the power of the Solarians, a power I shall use to rule this planet!”

As he spoke, the shining energy of the Solarians began to grow around Don Wingus, with the myriad darting creatures whirling about his form.

“Wingus, you are utterly insane,” I told him. “You cannot control the Solarians. They are creatures of fire and light; things beyond even your ability to manipulate.”

“Oh, but you are wrong in that, Rumanos,” he retorted. “The Solarians are totally under my control -- which I shall now demonstrate to your detriment!”

With this, the shining yellow energies suddenly increased like unto an hundredfold, and shot forth directly to-wards Millie and me!

“Die, Rumanos die!” bellowed the arch-criminal. “Feel the pain of death as the Solarians bring your doom!”

Do you see the terror, forsooth the strange horror of this situation? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing the villainous Don Wingus and his whorish daughter Anastasia. There we were as the full power of the alien Solarians -- the very same force that Wingus intended to utilise in his mad scheme of world domination -- was unleashed upon us!

“Now you will die, Rumanos!” repeated the madman. “The power of the Solarians, which I control, shall bring your death!”

The pain was indeed immense as the awesome force of the Solarians surrounded Millie and me. It was like unto the fire of a furnace, but with an anguish beyond that of the merely physical; a burning horror of extreme nuclear fission.

“Daniel!” screamed Millie. “I can’t stand this! What can we do?!”

“Resist it, Millie,” I counselled. “We must endure until we can somehow escape. We must…”

“Father!” suddenly interrupted Anastasia Wingus. “Father, please don’t do this! Don’t kill Doctor Rumanos! I like him. I want to have him as a plaything when you rule the world, okay? You can kill that Miss Drake if you want, but leave him alone, please. Please, father? Please?!”

“Stacy, you low-IQ tramp!” thundered Don Wingus whilst slapping his daughter across the face. “I am sick to death of your damnable obsession with that ridiculous old Daniel Rumanos! Do you hear me? I am sick and tired of it and will tolerate it no more!!”

Within the Solarian melee, Millie Drake again spoke to me.

“Daniel, do you notice something?” she said. “The power isn’t attacking us anymore.”

“Quite so,” I pondered. “Wingus has been distracted and his control is waning.”

With this, I stepped forwards, the Solarians parting when I passed. I then delivered a kung fu kick to the stomach of Don Wingus, sending him sprawling several paces backwards.

At this, the Solarian power completely changed direction and, in stead of continuing to attack Millie Drake and me, concentrated itself upon Wingus and his daughter.

It was over in moments. We heard Don Wingus bellow in outrage and Anastasia scream in terror as the Solarians rushed upon them. Then, with a sound like unto an atomic explosion, the yellow light suddenly vanished.

I glanced around the room. There was no sign of the nefarious Wingus or his wretched daughter.

“Fascinating,” I pondered. “The extreme energy of the concentrated Solarians seems to have taken them completely out of existence."

Millie Drake then ran into my arms. “Is it all over then? Have they been destroyed?”

“So it appears,” I replied as we began our exit of the old antique shop. “Nevertheless, we have seen Wingus escape from seemingly impossible situations before. We must continue to be vigilant against any possible resurgence of his evil. But for now, all is well. The Solarians have returned to their proper place on the Sun, and Earth is safe from the threat of tyranny!”

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

THE RASPUTIN RELIC

It began in a tiny shop called “Russian Treasures”, nestled on a side street in Queens. It was there that Sara Sloan, a rather frumpy middle-aged woman with hair the colour of excrement, found the thing. It was a sort of stone or crystal, grey of hue, and she felt it was calling to her. She immediately purchased it and left the shop.

In the days to come, Sara Sloan heard the sound of chanting from the stone; chanting in a language she knew not for what it was -- Old Church Slavonic. With the chanting was a strange mist-like energy that seemed to surround Sloan there in her loft apartment, and with this was accompanied a vision. Forsooth, it was a vision of a tall man clad in black vestments and with a long beard; his eyes a flaming glow. It was a vision of Rasputin! …

Millie Drake and I had no trouble entering that Queens apartment, my own escape artist skills quickly taking care of the lock. We entered and found it quiet and seemingly deserted, with only a few sticks of furniture to show that it was or recently had been inhabited.

“So this is really where the energy reading was detected to be coming from?” asked Millie.

“Quite so, love," I affirmed; “the energy reading that signified the re-energising of an object once belonging to a very powerful mystic, hmmm?”

I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos, alien secret agent and occult investigator -- was clad in my usual finery; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, panama hat, Magen David necklace, and one of my favourite opera capes.

My companion, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an 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 her slender figure.

“And you suspect this object actually belonged to Rasputin and… Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Millie.

I whirled around to see what had so startled my assistant and beheld an horror indeed. It was a floating mist-like energy, deep grey in colour -- and it was headed directly to-wards us!

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the weird energy mist again vanished.

“That was simply an echo,” I pondered, twiddling my frills. “It was a warning of what we shall experience here. The actual power from the Rasputin relic shall be much more powerful.”

Suddenly a woman’s voice spoke from behind us. “You’re right about that, Doctor. The powers of Rasputin are more than you can handle.”

Millie and I turned around to face the speaker and beheld a frumpy middle aged woman clad in a cheap brand of pantsuit. She glared at me with a look of extreme hatred.

“You would be Sara Sloan, hmmm?” I enquired. “The current resident of this apartment. It was you that purchased and re-activated the crystal stone that once belonged to Rasputin.”

“That’s right,” she affirmed, “I bought the stone and started seeing visions of Rasputin. I knew that I would bring his power back to the world.”

“Ms. Sloan,” said Millie Drake, “don’t you know that what you’re doing is dangerous? Rasputin was a powerful mystic, and his power shouldn’t be in the hands of anyone who isn’t prepared to…”

Sara Sloan suddenly broke into a loud cackle. “Oh, listen to your little teenager! You’ve trained her well to say these lies, Doctor -- or should I say ‘groomed’ her?”

“We have no time for this foolishness, Sloan,” I announced. “You must surrender the stone to us before your unauthorised usage of it brings forth chaos upon this city.”

“No, Doctor. I won’t give up the Rasputin Stone to you or anyone. Its power is mine and I want it!”

With this, Sara Sloan opened her hand and revealed the very crystal stone, just as an huge mass of the grey magical power suddenly formed around her, spinning with a force like unto a cyclone of darksome terror and accompanied with a sound like unto the sighs of a thousand accursed spirits.

“Daniel, look out!” cried Millie. “It’s headed directly at us!”

Nevertheless, we could not react before the awful satanic power hit us. It smashed into Millie and me with a force stronger than any mere physical one, sending us careening uncontrollably across the apartment.

“You will now die, Doctor!” exulted the insane woman known as Sara Sloan. “With the power of Rasputin, I will now kill you!”

Do you comprehend the horror, in truth the sheer terror of what we were experiencing? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing the hideous woman known to damnation as Sara Sloan. There we were, as our opponent unleashed the power of the strange stone she had acquired from the Russian Treasures curio shop -- the very power of the notorious mystic known as Rasputin!!

“Die, Doctor!” repeated the insane Sara Sloan. “Die, and leave me to be with the power of Rasputin!!”

I managed to struggle to my feet from where I had fallen from the powers of the darkling mist force that continued to menace me. I looked and saw that Millie had been knocked unconscious and now lay motionless -- but breathing, thank God -- near by.

Knowing what I had to do, I then turned around and waved my hand to-wards the whirling energies, causing them to halt for an instant before they then reversed their direction -- heading back at Sara Sloan.

"How... ?" Sloan stammered. "Doctor, how have you done this?!"

“What I create,” said I. “I can also control.”

“What!” Sara Sloan cried in sudden horror. “You mean… you were Rasputin?!”

“I can assure you, Sloan,” I replied, “I still am!”

The swirling grey energy had by now surrounded Sloan, howling and spinning like unto an hurricane of magical justice.

“No!’ she screamed. “No! No! Please, noooooooo!”

Within a few seconds of time, the awesome energy mist had obliterated Sara Sloan from sight. Then it blinked out of existence -- taking the madwoman with it!

I ran over to Millie and saw that she was just awakening from her swoon. I carefully helped her to her feet.

“Daniel... What happened?” she queried.

“Sara Sloan lost control of the Rasputin powers and they consumed her,” I reported. “Her physical existence has been terminated, and her soul has been dispersed into the farthest corners of Creation as punishment for dabbling in the affairs of wizards, hmmm?”

“Well, I guess she deserved that,” said Millie, having recovered with the alacrity of the young. “What about the Rasputin Stone?”

I walked over and picked up the old crystal where it had fallen when Sloan had vanished. I glanced at it a moment before slipping it safely into my jacket pocket.

“We shall take the Rasputin Stone with us for safekeeping in our own collection of occult artefacts,” I announced. “It shall trouble this world no further.”

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

DELUXE ITALIAN JOB

“So the talisman that was stolen from the Met was actually made by Leonardo da Vinci?” wondered Millie Drake. “I know some say he put occult symbolism in his paintings, but did he really practice magic?”

“Quite so, love,” I affirmed. “An interest in the occult was quite the rage amongst the artistic set during the Italian Renaissance. It was kind of a way for them to ‘thumb their nose’ at the Church, hmmm?”

We had just arrived at the Hotel Deluxe, there in downtown Manhattan, in my specially-modified golden Cadillac convertible. I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos, scion of the Watchers of Algol and intergalactic espionage agent currently assigned to Earth -- was clad in my usual finery; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, panama hat, jungle boots, Star of David necklace, and one of my favourite opera capes.

My companion, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The purple dress she wore only served to highlight her slender figure.

We parked in the hotel’s underground lot, then taking the elevator up to the fourteenth floor.

“This is where our systems at HQ detected the energy readings coming from?” asked Millie as we exited the lift; “the readings that might be the kind of thing this Leonardo Talisman could conjure?”

“Quite so,” I replied, twiddling my frills. “The readings seemed to show the presence of Shedim spirits, those demonic beings of ancient Hebrew lore similar to what the Muslims call jinn. An interest in both Judaism and Islam was also rather popular during old Leo’s time.”

I took an object from my pocket -- gold in colour and covered with Hebrew lettering -- and used it to scan the area.

“Spires of Daemonia!” I swore upon looking at the results. “According to the transonic mezuzah, the Shedim energy is indeed present here -- and quite powerful!”

“We need to track down the person doing this,” announced Millie. “They are probably the same one who stole the talisman, right? Then we can… Oh my gosh!”

I whirled around to see what had so startled my young assistant, and beheld an horror indeed. It was like unto a cloud of black and grey energy floating down the hotel corridor -- directly at us!!

Then, just before it reached us, the eldritch horror vanished.

“Daniel, what was that?!” Millie cried.

“It was Shedim energy,” I explained. “The very power of those disincarnate spirits that represent a race of beings which once ruled the planet. It was just a small manifestation -- a reverse echo of the much more massive phantasmal terror we shall have to face if someone has indeed succeeded in properly conjuring them.”

With this, we continued our course down the corridor, now guided by the direction from which the ghostly form had emerged. We entered the room at the far end of the hallway, my escape artist skills quickly opening the lock. It was dark inside except for two ebon black candles on top of a table which was covered by a similarly-black altar cloth. At the centre of the table was a copper disk engraved with numerous cabalistic sigils.

“The Leonardo Talisman,” I whispered to Millie.

Then, emerging from the shadows, was a figure. It was the figure of a man wearing a black business suit with a long blood-red necktie. He appeared to be of middle years, his face still distinctly handsome despite being marred with the signs of lifetimes of extreme wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage was decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an intense hypnotic glare.

Of course, I recognised him immediately. I recognised him as the renegade Algolite who has become the most dangerous and wanted criminal in all the Cosmos, and my own most persistent enemy.

“Don Wingus!” I said. “Of course. I should have known. So it was you that purloined the Leonardo Talisman from the museum, and you have been utilising it to call forth the horrid powers of the Shedim!”

“Rumanos, you meddling old malcontent,” sneered the villain, with wisps of black and grey energy beginning to swirl about him. “Not at all surprising to see you and your little friend here, but it is of no consequence. I have already availed myself of the powers stored in the talisman, augmented by my own superior Algolitish mind, to call forth the powers of the Shedim. They are under my control, and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall utilise them to aid me in my conquest of this planet!”

I quickly reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the transonic mezuzah. Nevertheless, before I could activate the device, Don Wingus raised his hand and shot forth a blast of the darksome Shedim energy, hitting the mezuzah and sending it flying across the room.

“It is too late, Rumanos,” exulted Wingus. “The powers of the Leonardo Talisman are mine, and the Shedim will now destroy your very existence!!”

At this, an horridly huge mass of the demonic energy, accompanied by a sound like unto the chanting of an hundred thousand satanic souls, suddenly burst forth from Don Wingus directly to-wards Millie and me!

Is it possible, dear readers, for you to comprehend the horror, forsooth the sheer terror of what we were then experiencing? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and myself -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing the intergalactic criminal known to infamy as Don Wingus. There we were, as Wingus released the horrible Shedim powers directly at us -- the very powers he had called forth with the aid of the stolen Leonardo da Vinci Talisman, and which he intended to use to conquer the entire world!

“The Shedim shall destroy you, Rumanos!” repeated the evil Don Wingus amidst his own mad laughter. “You shall die, and I shall rule Earth!”

The Shedim energy hit us with extreme force, sending us sprawling across the room and separating us. Then the horror really began.

Within the swirling maelstrom of demoniacal power we could see things, things beyond the ken of sanity; forms and shapes of utter screaming madness beyond all mortal endurance. There were flashings of hairy creatures with twisted horns and grotesquely glowing eyes and other things of insane otherworldly terror from outside of the realm of any possible reality.

As horrid as these sights were, it was strangely difficult to avert one’s gaze from them. Nevertheless, I struggled until I managed to do so, looking over at my dear Millie. I saw that she was similarly attempting to turn away from the whirling spectacle of horror; and I also beheld a familiar and welcome object on the floor next to her.

“Millie!” I shouted across the room. “The mezuzah!”

She then noticed what I had seen; that she had fallen just next to where my device had landed earlier. She immediately picked it up and tossed it to me.

I caught the transonic mezuzah and, quickly programming the proper setting, raised it on high.

“Be gone, foul spirits of the Shedim!” I said. “Hashem the God of Israel commands it!”

With this, the awful dark energies that had surrounded Millie and me suddenly reversed course -- in stead heading directly to-wards Don Wingus!

“No!” Wingus bellowed in sudden consternation as the black and grey demonic energies surrounded him. "No! Nooooo!!”

Then the Shedim energy suddenly imploded, folding inwards upon the evil Don Wingus. A moment later, with a sound like unto a tearing of worlds, both the power and Wingus simply vanished.

I glanced around the room whilst scanning it with the mezuzah. All was now quiet.

Millie ran over and embraced me. “Is it gone? Has it taken Don Wingus with it?”

“Quite so, my dear,” I assured her, returning the mezuzah to my pocket. “The power of the Shedim could not resist the rite of exorcism. It turned upon the one who conjured it, and now both the demonic energy and Wingus have been imprisoned in the dimension known as Hell.”

“But what about the Leonardo Talisman?” queried Millie.

I picked up the old copper disk from the table and put it safely in my pocket. “It can now be safely returned to the museum. This experience has drained the last of the power that was stored in it. This particularly dark part of the otherwise brilliant legacy of Leonardo da Vinci -- artist, polymath, and occult experimenter -- is at an end.”

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

DREAM EVIL

“Olympianoid energy?” wondered Millie Drake. “Is that really what it is?”

“So it appears, my dear,” said I, rechecking the readout on my device before returning it to my pocket. “According to the transonic mezuzah, our instruments at headquarters were correct. There is indeed an energy signature here at the Hotel Grande of the type associated with the Olympianoids, that immensely-powerful alien race (related to our own Algolitish kind) that visited Earth during the Bronze Age and became the ‘gods’ of the ancient Greeks and Romans, hmmm?”

We had arrived at the downtown hotel that night, utilising our mentalist abilities to prevent any undue attention being paid to us. I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos, extraterrestrial espionage agent -- was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, panama hat, Magen David necklace, and one of my favourite opera capes.

My assistant, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and sun-kissed skin. The pink dress she wore only served to highlight her slender figure.

“So Daniel,” she said. “You said this might have something to do with all those weird dreams people have been having lately, right?”

“Quite so,” I affirmed. “The energy seems to be specifically of the type associated with the Olympianoid known as Somnus, himself a scientist who did a series of experiments with the humans of that time. He was attempting to find out if he could increase Earthling psychic abilities by stimulating their dream cycles.”

“And this is why he is remembered as the Roman god of sleep and dreaming?”

“Quite so, love. His experiments were non-conclusive, and…”

“Oh my gosh!” Millie suddenly exclaimed. “Look!”

I whirled around to see what had so startled my companion and beheld some weirdness indeed. We had by now arrived at the lounge behind the hotel’s entranceway, little used at this late hour. What I saw was a floating mass of black and blue energy, pulsating with a steady eldritch rhythm -- and heading directly to-wards us!

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the weird energy vanished.

“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “That was only an echo, a small part of the Somnus energy. When it manifests in full, it shall be far more perilous, hmmm?”

We had by now taken ourselves to the part of the hotel our instruments had determined as exhibiting the strongest emanations. It was a currently-unused ballroom at the far end of a corridor leading off the front lobby. We cautiously entered the room and investigated further.

“Daniel, look!” cried Millie, indicating something at the far end of the room. “Isn’t that…?”

It was a figure clad in a black business suit with a long blood-red necktie. He appeared to be a man of middle years, his face still distinctly handsome despite being marred with the results of lifetimes of extreme unhallowed evil. 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 intense hypnotic glare.

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

“You!” I exclaimed as we approached him. “Don Wingus. I should have known. So it is you that is conjuring the powers of the old Roman god Somnus, and thus causing the strange dreams that have been plaguing people of late, hmmm? All this no doubt in an attempt to further one of your evil schemes.”

“I have already achieved more than even you can imagine, Rumanos,” sneered Wingus, as wisps of the black and blue energy began to play about him. “Using knowledge found in certain ancient books, augmented with my own Algolitish mind powers, I have evoked the remnant of the experiments of Somnus, using it to enter the minds of the humans in their sleep. This ability I will use to bring them under my power, that I -- Magister Don Wingus -- may take my rightful place as supreme ruler of this world!”

“By the Eternal Spires!” I swore. “Wingus, you are utterly mad! You cannot control the powers of Somnus. Even he was forced to halt his experiments. The powers are just too unpredictable.”

“Oh, but you are incorrect in that, Rumanos,” he returned. “I already have the powers completely under my control -- as you shall now see!”

At that moment, Don Wingus suddenly raised his hands to-wards us, causing a stream of the darksome energy to burst forth directly at Millie and me!

“Feel the energies of Somnus!” he mocked as we staggered backwards from the blast. “Feel the powers that shall desiccate your very minds!”

Do you recognise the horror in this situation? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing the horrid villain known to infamy as Magister Don Wingus. There we were, as he released the bizarre powers of the ancient Roman god Somnus directly upon us -- forsooth, the same phantasmagorical energy he intended to use in his insane scheme to conquer the planet Earth!

“Feel the powers, Rumanos!” he repeated amidst peals of his own mad laughter. “Feel the powers that are mine; the powers that shall destroy your mind before I go on to use them to become ruler of Earth -- feel the powers of Somnus!!”

The energies had by now greatly increased, imprisoning Millie and me in a swirling maelstrom of ghostly black and blue power, accompanied with a moaning and howling sound like unto the voice of the very harbingers of doom.

“Daniel, this is so terrible…” said Millie. “It makes me feel so tired and… sleepy.”

“I know, my dear Mills,” I told her. “It is the power of Somnus. Fight it! We must stay alert and find a way to defeat this outrage.”

“There is no hope for you, Rumanos and Miss Drake,” announced the villainous Wingus. “The Somnus energy will render you unconscious, then it will fill your sleeping minds with dark dreams -- dreams of absolute gloom that will shatter your very souls!”

The horrid energy had by now increased even further. Millie and I felt ourselves as if trapped within a whirling hurricane of darkling phantasmal horror, in truth a sinister cyclone of absolute despair.

“Take my hand, Millie,” I said, reaching out for her. “Take my hand and concentrate. Remember some of the good times we have had together; when we have been to sunny beaches and concerts and the so many beautiful things we have seen together, hmmm? Think on these things and ignore all attempts to take those memories away!”

I then felt that beautiful lady’s dear little hand in mine and, with the assurance of her touch, I overcame the lethargy of sleep enough to reach into my pocket and retrieve the transonic mezuzah.

“The time has now come,” said I whilst activating a certain setting on the device, “to awaken out of sleep, hmmm?”

Suddenly a sound emanated forth from the mezuzah. It was a noise like unto an alarm clock, and it was accompanied by a light like unto the dawning of day. At once, the dark energy of Somnus began to flee from us, reversing its course and heading towards the evil Don Wingus in stead!

“What!” he cried in sudden fear as he realised what was happening. “Rumanos, you accursed meddler, what have you done?!”

“I simply programmed the mezuzah to send forth a signal of morning coming,” I explained; “of a time when the dark powers of sleep are at an end.”

“No!” bellowed Wingus as the black and blue Somnus powers engulfed him. “No! No! You cannot do this to me! I am Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of this world! You cannot…! No! No!!”

Then the phantasmal Somnus energy imploded, surging inwards upon the evil Wingus. In a split second it vanished -- taking the Algolite criminal with it!

“‘To sleep; perchance to dream’,” I quoted. “I think not!”

I looked around the room. There was no sign of the dark power or of Don Wingus. The horror was gone.

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

“Yes, I’m okay now,” she smiled.

“Excellent to hear, love,” I said whilst returning the mezuzah to my pocket. “The powers of sleep are useful when properly controlled, but quite dangerous when misused.”

“So what happened to him?” enquired Millie Drake. “Where did the Somnus energies take Don Wingus?”

“Well, that sort of depends on what symbolism one prefers, hmmm?” I pondered. “Dreamland; the Land of Nod; something like that, I suppose. In any case, it is an inter-dimensional realm from which he shall not easily escape.”

“Well, that’s good!” cheered my companion.

“I say, my dear Millie,” said I as we began to exit the ballroom. “It is only a little after midnight. Since our work here is done, let us leave the hotel and find an all-night cafe where we can have a couple of highly-caffeinated espressos, hmmm? For some reason, that sounds quite appropriate!”

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