"By the Eternal Spires!” I swore. “Another one!”
“What is it, Daniel?” enquired Millie Drake concernedly.
Seated behind a computer console at our headquarters (located as it is inside the golden trapezoidal roof of a metropolitan skyscraper), I was clad in my usual finery -- including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and one of my favourite opera capes were hanging from a near by hallstand.
“Another of those self-proclaimed ‘stage magicians’ who is obviously a Spectral Paranormal operative,” I explained. “According to this, his name is David Parr.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” rejoined Millie.
The girl is exceedingly beautiful, petite and perfect with her hair a rich chestnut hue, enchanting blue-violet eyes, a sun-kissed complexion, and luscious cherry lips. The tight, short, magenta-coloured dress she wore only served to highlight the soft curves of her slender adolescent figure. She had been browsing through part of my collection of old rock and roll records when I had interrupted with my disdain at what I had just discovered.
“That is the usual thing with this sort, hmmm?” I pondered. “They are complete unknowns who suddenly promote themselves as famous performers and get gigs before audiences, then utilising this as an attempt to gain power by summoning some horrid extraterrestrial force.”
Also there with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat. At the moment, she was busy with a routine systems upgrade.
“So what do we know about this Parr person?” asked Millie Drake.
“According to his internet site,” I answered, “he is originally from Chicago, and has been practicing magic since he was a child. It does not give his age, of course, but judging from his photographs I would guess he is in his late sixties. He has been doing a series of shows in the County, including one tonight at the Towson location of the Vacation Inn.”
“So what is it that connects him to Spectral Paranormal?”
“Just this, Mills. Coming from that same hotel our systems have detected a signal matching that of Qlippoth energy.”
“Oh gosh!” exclaimed the girl. “Aren’t the Qlippoth things from Hebrew legend?”
“Quite so,” I affirmed. “They are said to be the ‘shells’ that were generated and then cast off during the process of Creation. This masks the scientific reality that they are actually a type of psyche-sensual being originally emanating from the Outer Terror Galaxies, those dark realms outside the rest of the known Universe that came into being due to the coalescing of waste material from the formation of the earliest stars. The Qlippoth are horrible creatures, violent and chaotic.”
“And they now have some connection to this fake magician?”
“So it appears, love. He is likely planning to use them for some plan of world domination, as is usual with his execrable type. Here, the Qlippothic signal is perceptible in audio form. Listen.”
I turned on the speakers from our computer system and from it then was then heard a sound like unto a listen into the very realm of hellish darkness itself; an eldritch howling and roaring and screaming and a cacophonous aural maelstrom beyond any and all sane imagining.
“That is horrible!” exclaimed Millie. “Daniel, look!”
Millie Drake was indicating our friend Kit-10, who was now spinning round and round in a circle in reaction to the Qlippoth noise. I immediately shut off the sound and hurried over to inspect the robotic feline.
“She will be all right,” I said when the catlike computer had stopped her spinning, “but will have to do a complete systems reboot on herself. The Qlippothic sound has qualities that affect the equilibrium of her programming. Unfortunately, she will not be any use to us on our mission, hmmm?”
“So we are going now to face that David Parr?” queried Millie Drake expectantly.
“Quite so, my dear,” said I, fetching my hat and cloak. “To the Vacation Inn we must go, but this shall be no holiday, hmmm? Forsooth, this could turn out to be a dangerous assignment indeed!” …
My name is RUMANOS -- DOCTOR DANIEL RUMANOS, Extraterrestrial Espionage Agent and Intergalactic Man of Mystery. Even though I have the physical appearance of an human being, I am in fact several thousands of years old and do carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Aeternusians or “Watchers” of the Daemon-Star ALGOL. Originating ninety-three light years from Earth, we are the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it often appears to be “magic” and “miraculous” to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites tend to keep to themselves, preferring to live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe and thus merely observing the goings-on of the myriad races of the vast reaches around them, I am an Operative for a secret organisation known as the KOSMIKOS or Cosmic Intervention Department, tasked with maintaining peace and order throughout the farthest reaches of Space and Time. You know, “plausible deniability”, and all of that sort of thing. It is our ongoing mission to defend the weak, the unfortunate, and the innocent from those who would harm or exploit them.
Currently assigned to Earth, I protect its people (both upon their own planet and across the eternal void) from the hideous manipulations of the arch-villain known as Magister Don Wingus, along with his dangerously-seductive daughter, Anastasia, his lieutenant, the perverse black magician known as Vince Wilson, and the rest of his occult terrorist organisation, Spectral Paranormal; as well as from alien invasions, mad scientists, mutated monstrosities, power-crazed dictators, and indeed all manner of menace. Assisted by my friends -- the incomparably beautiful young Hollywood starlet Miss Millie “The Girl From Beyond” Drake, and our catlike robot known as Kit-10 -- I am the living icon of Algol on this world. I am a Knight of the Eternal Spires. I am the professor of the impossible, the purveyor of Pure Mystery, the saviour of the Cosmos, and the sword of justice from the planet Daemonia. I am the cosmic crusader. I am the stellar swashbuckler.
These are my memoirs. This is my story.
I am -- THE DAEMON-STAR!!! …
In one of the rooms of the Towson Vacation Inn hotel, a man was adjusting the necktie of his tuxedo. He was a thin man of medium height, with grey hair and rather sharp, hawkish features. He observed his appearance in the mirror with a look of smug self-satisfaction on his face.
“All is going well,” he said to himself, his voice tinged with madness. “The show is about to begin, and I shall conjure the very forces that I can then utilise to bring myself into being as the dominant force upon this world.”
As he spoke, a grotesque sound, like unto the chattering of an ape, mixed with a strange subhuman muttering, came from a near by closet.
“Don’t worry, my friend,” said the man, turning to-wards this. “You will be of help to me as well, in aiding to destroy any who would dare to oppose me, as your kind has aided our Spectral Paranormal agents in the past.”
The man then picked up a black top hat and cylindrical “magic wand” from a near by table. Then he turned to-wards the wall, in truth to-wards a portion of the wall on which had been newly painted a symbol -- a symbol as of three interlocking inverted triangles.
“Now, before my performance begins,” he intoned, “I call upon the forces of the Qlippoth, the very essences of darkness and of un-luminous formless void. I call upon them to move against any and all who might oppose me. I call upon them to seek out and destroy any who would be my enemies. I, David Parr, soon to be master of the world, do command it!” …
Millie Drake and I were just entering the County in our specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster, affectionately known as Lizzie. The sun was just setting.
“So, Daniel,” said Millie Drake from the passenger seat beside me, “what else do we know about this David Parr person?”
“Not much, really,” I replied from behind the steering wheel. “He apparently won some magic contest called 'Fool Us', which is run by a couple of elderly comedians in Las Vegas. The would-be ‘illusionists’ who enter that thing seem to not even realise that they are being mocked and viciously made fun of, hmmm?”
“This is when he was a child?” wondered Millie.
“Not at all,” I corrected. “That was just a few years ago. Yes, a middle aged man taking a ridiculous ‘talent competition’ seriously. He even has it featured on his website like it is the major accomplishment of his life.”
“That’s just silly!” giggled the girl. “Anything else?”
“Just that, according to some who know him, he did at one time have a sexual relationship with the hideous transvestite known as Wendy Wylde, who -- as you know -- is thankfully now deceased.”
“Well that’s just horrible! He must be an awful person, and… Oh my gosh, Daniel! Look!”
Millie Drake had noticed something approaching our vehicle from behind. I looked into the rear view mirror to see what it was. What I beheld was an horror indeed, in truth an ungodly terror beyond anything known to this existence.
It was an huge mass, a conglomeration of ebon black shapes, shapes of things and beings like unto parts of shells of insects and arachnids and crustaceans and of other things indescribable in any language of the sane world. It hovered behind and just above us, and was approaching quickly. It began emitting a sound like unto the one we had heard back at headquarters.
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “It is a manifestation of part of the Qlippothic forces themselves!”
I then heard Millie scream as the demonic maelstrom came up right over our heads and began to descend upon us!!
I turned a lever on the controls of the car and, in an instant, we were suddenly propelled forwards at an absolutely amazing speed -- in sooth, at a speed that is beyond that possible from any normal automobile engine. I glanced back and saw that the Qlippoth were now about a mile behind us, and were quickly dissipating into invisibility.
“We outran them!” cheered Millie Drake. “Daniel, we outran them!”
“Quite so, love,” I affirmed. “The special modifications I have made to Lizzie are quite useful, hmmm? However, realise that what we have thus far seen is only a small portion of the forces of the Qlippoth. What David Parr has in store for us at the Vacation Inn will definitely not be so easily defeated. Ah, here we are.”
As I spoke, we were pulling into the hotel parking lot. We soon found a space and exited the car, hurrying to-wards the Vacation Inn -- and indeed to-wards whatever unholy horror awaited us! …
A few minutes later, Millie and I exited the elevator lift onto the sixth floor of the hotel, where we found the ballroom in which David Parr’s stage magic act was already underway. We walked in and beheld him onstage --- performing what was a rather staid and hackneyed series of sleights and similar tricks; in truth, the simple routines of any want-to-be “illusionist” who has read a couple of children’s books on the subject or, even worse, looked it up on the internet.
The audience was small and watching politely without much enthusiasm. There were seats available up front, so Millie and I took these.
From the stage, David Parr had obviously noticed our arrival. He turned to face the audience and smoothed back his hair with his hand before speaking.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he began, “it appears we have a couple of distinguished guests joining us this evening. Please welcome Doctor Daniel Rumanos of Algol and his underage understudy, Miss Millie Drake.”
“Daniel, what should we do?” Millie whispered to me.
“Let us go along with it for now,” I replied.
We therefore went up on to the stage at a smattering of applause from the audience. The magician known as David Parr then continued his patter.
“I’m so glad you both could be with us tonight,” he claimed, “because you can now be a witness to the greatest and most amazing act of conjuring ever performed. Because right here in the Vacation Inn Ballroom, I -- David Parr -- am going to call forth the powers of ultimate darkness; the very forces of the Qlippoth!”
“That is complete and utter madness, Parr,” I returned. “The Qlippoth are not something you will be able to control. They are total chaos. If you thus call them forth unchecked, they will spread evil over the planet until they consume all.”
“Oh but you are so wrong, Doctor Rumanos,” he countered. “The Qlippoth are quite under my control, due to the occult techniques I have learned as a Spectral Paranormal operative. I shall use them and the power they have granted me to gain power over this planet, with the Qlippoth as my enforcers! But don’t worry. If the Qlippoth are something that is unpleasant to you, you won’t have to be here to experience them -- because I have something else prepared to deal with you!”
With this ominous pronouncement, another figure then emerged from the backstage area. It was like unto a large, thickly-muscled manlike form, dressed only in an incongruous pair of Bermuda shorts. His skin was dark, and much of it covered with coarse hair of a deep orange colour. He walked upright but with a decided long-armed slouch, and his face was a living nightmare of apelike bestiality. As he approached, a low muttering and chattering sound issued from his throat.
“This is my friend, Willie,” explained Parr. “He’s from a village in a remote part of Borneo that is known for its orangutan prostitutes.”
Then, before I could react, the horrid ape/human abomination suddenly let out a screech of challenge as he leaped directly to-wards me!
Whilst all of this was occurring, the audience was still watching politely. To them, it all appeared to be part of the expected show!
The impact of the ape-man (or man-ape) upon me took us both off the stage to the pit area. I landed with extreme impact and could not recover before the horrid creature was upon me. I felt his huge hands on my throat, and realised they were squeezing tighter and tighter, cutting off my ability to breathe.
Knowing I needed to quickly stop his hold upon me, I just managed to lift one of my hands and put a thumb into an eye of the terribly monstrous miscegenation known as Willie. He screeched again, this time in pain and indignation, as the resultant relaxation of his hold allowed me to break free of him and to then deliver a blow to his midsection that took him a few steps back away from me.
Millie Drake gasped in horror at what was happening and, with that profound courage that (along with so many other aspects of that beautiful and fantastic young lady) has made her so wondrously invaluable to me both personally and professionally, jumped down from the stage and approached the position were my fight with Willie was raging on.
At the same time, the villainous magician David Parr had moved on to the next phase of his plan of satanic criminality. He had closed his eyes in concentration and, holding his magic wand aloft, was speaking an horrid occult invocation:
“I call you forth, Qlippoth, shells of creation and remnants of primordial power! I command you to appear and to bestow your infernal energies upon me! Come forth, O Qlippoth, and give me your blessing -- your blessing that I may then become the supreme ruler of this planet!”
As he spoke, the hideous horror of the Qlippothic maelstrom began to appear, swirling in absolute ebony chaos above his head.
My battle with man/ape hybrid had now taken us to the side of the ballroom near unto one of the large windows that surrounded it. I punched him several times in his horrible simian face, but this was of little avail against the incredibly strong abomination. He responded with several blows to my own head and body that were nearly beyond my ability to endure. I knew that something had to be done -- and quickly -- if I was to defeat Willie and then to deal with the terrible black magic of David Parr.
It was then that Millie Drake approached the hybrid monster from behind and delivered an expert kung fu kick to the back of his apish head. This did not cause much pain to him, but the surprise of it was enough to take his concentration off me for the moment, allowing me to quickly deliver my own series of kicks to his hairy body, and then one final blow to his head.
This sent Willie hurtling through the window with a resounding crash of breaking glass. With an horrendous scream of terror, the awful creature fell to his death on the concrete pavement six storeys below.
“Gone ape,” said I.
We quickly returned to the stage and beheld that, whilst Millie Drake and I were contending with the ape-man, David Parr had indeed called forth the demonic powers of the Qlippoth. The humongous swirling blackness of their combined forms hovered just a few metres above his head.
“You must cease this insanity now, Parr,” I challenged. “As agents of the Kosmikos, we cannot allow you to bring chaotic evil upon this world!”
“No, Doctor Rumanos and Miss Drake,” continued Parr, “you cannot stop me from taking my place as ruler of Earth! To prove this, I shall now give a demonstration of the magical control I have over the Qlippoth -- a demonstration that shall destroy you both!”
David Parr then again closed his eyes in concentration as the Qlippoth hovered over him.
“Forces of the Qlippoth at my command,” he intoned, “take them!”
At his order, the mass of swirling demoniacal chaos then suddenly raced to-wards our position, right there on the stage of the Vacation Inn Ballroom.
Millie Drake screamed, and I held her close protectively as the horrendous maelstrom of Qlippothic terror engulfed us!!
Is it at all possible, my dear friends, that you can even commence to understand the supreme terror, in truth the massive demoniacal horror of this unprecedented situation? There we were, Miss Millie Drake and myself, surrounded by the evil forces of the Qlippoth, those unholy beings shuddered about in the ancient legends of the Jewish people; forsooth, the very forces that the execrable magician and wicked Spectral Paranormal agent, the unhallowed and hideously immoral David Parr, had conjured in his mad bid to establish himself as supreme ruler of planet Earth!
Within the chaos, Millie clung to me in abject terror as the forms of the Qlippoth whirled around us. From them came forth continuous claws and feelers and tentacles and antennae and other appendages unexplainable in any language. They were getting closer to us with each revolution.
“Millie,” I said, “I need for you to tell me something.”
“Yes, Daniel,” she replied. “What is it?”
“I need for you to tell me this,” I explained. “Do you love me? I mean really and truly love me?”
“Yes, Daniel, I do,” affirmed the girl. “I do love you. I… I love you more than life itself!”
“I love you too, my dear little Mills,” I told her. “Now, hold on tight.”
Then I took a deep breath and chanted the words of the prayer:
“SHEMA Y’ISRAEL ADONAI ELOHENU ADONAI ECHAD!”
With this, everything then suddenly changed. The Qlippoth immediately cleared away from us and in stead headed directly to-wards David Parr.
“No!” he bellowed in sudden terror. “No! You cannot do this to me! I am David Parr, the magician! I called you forth and therefore I should be obeyed! I should rule the world I… I… No! No! Nooooooooo!”
Then the Qlippothic chaos totally surrounded and engulfed him and, a few moments later, they just blinked out of this existence. They were gone as if they had never been, and the execrable magician and sodomite known to extreme infamy as David Parr had been taken with them.
Then something grotesquely surprising happened. The audience, still thinking this was all part of the performance, applauded!
“What happened?” asked Millie Drake, ignoring this.
“The power of the old Hebrew prayer, energised by the force of our love, cleared the Qlippoth away from us,” I explained. “Then, feeling themselves defeated and needing some energy sustenance in order to return to their home in the outer darkness, they turned on the evil magician who had called them forth and absorbed his very being before leaving this reality.”
We noticed that the audience was by now filing out of the ballroom, believing that the entertainment was concluded.
“Now that our assignment is complete, we can return to headquarters and check on Kit-10,” I said. “I will make a call to one of our local contacts in order to provide a cover-up ‘explanation’ of this matter in case the County Police Department makes any enquiries. By the way, Mills, how would you like to visit ‘Corned Beef Row’ with me tomorrow, hmmm?”
“Sounds great, Daniel!” replied the girl.
“After this experience,” I mused as we left the hotel, “we could certainly use to have lunch at a kosher-style delicatessen!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
