“Tim Ballard is his name,” I stated. “A particularly execrable individual he is, hmmm?”
“So, what do we know about him?” enquired my companion, the lovely Millie Drake.
“Not a lot as to his origins,” I replied. “He was apparently born in Utah about fifty years ago, and has made a life for himself as a travelling con artist, making money by portraying himself as a type of crusader against certain imagined evils of society. Most recently, he has pretended to oppose ‘child sex trafficking’.”
We were seated in our headquarters, located as it is inside the golden trapezoidal rooftop 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 is an exceedingly beautiful young lady, petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The royal blue dress she wore only served to highlight the soft curves 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.
A photograph of Tim Ballard was on the computer monitor before us. It showed his visage as being heavy and somewhat rough, with icy blue eyes and greying hair.
“So this Tim Ballard,” said Millie Drake. “He sounds like a terrible person, but what is it about him that is of interest to the Kosmikos?”
“It seems that of late he has been boasting of having supernatural powers,” I explained. “In fact, at one of his recent rallies, he was apparently surrounded by a sort of red and black glow that does not appear to be the result of special effects.”
“And he is appearing tonight at the City Convention Centre?”
“Quite so, and it seems like a good idea for us to investigate. Kit-10, you should come along as well. We may have need of your information banks, hmmm?”
“Of course, s--,” replied the mechanical feline in her simulated yet pleasantly-feminine voice.
(It should be noted here that our friend Kit-10, along with her other catlike characteristics, is possessed of the singular inability to openly show respect to anyone. In truth, the closest she ever comes to it is by referring to me by a slight s-- sound -- for “sir” -- and to Millie by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“Come along then, Mills,” said I whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “‘Child sex trafficking’, hmmm? At the very least, this should be an interesting investigation!” …
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 often 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!!! …
Tim Ballard’s rally at City Convention Centre was beginning. He stood onstage before the audience wearing a brown business suit, his face set in a look of seriousness and feigned conviction.
“My dear brothers and sisters,” he began, his voice taking upon an intentionally musical tone, “I’m here today to tell you about a horrible thing that’s happening everyday in our society. I’m here to tell you about those people who take our children from us, exploit them, and use them for sex. You know this is going on because you see it celebrated in the media all the time. You know who’s doing it, too. The liberals who let all those immigrants into our country. They’re doing it. The bankers, the deep state, and the globalist elites. They’re like an octopus with its tentacles all over the Earth. You know who I really mean, don’t you? I can’t say who they really are because they control everything. But you know who I mean. The small hat tribe, in other words.”
With this, there was a murmur of agreement from the audience, which consisted of mostly elderly folks, all of the Caucasian and "protestant-evangelical" type.
“It’s this child sex trafficking that I have dedicated my life to fighting against,” continued Ballard. “I’ve gone to places in South America, where nobody even speaks English, and have rescued children who were being sold as sex slaves. But I need your help to continue doing this. Your financial contributions will allow me to continue to fight this perversion all over the world.
“My assistant, Josiah, will now take up the collection. Do be generous. Remember that all you give me will be used to fight against the bondage of child sex trafficking.”
Josiah, an horribly deformed dwarf clad in a suit resembling a miniature version of Ballard’s, commenced taking the collection plate around the room. The audience placed large amounts of cash upon it, along with deeds to homes and vehicles.
“And now, my brethren,” Tim Ballard went on, “I’m going to show you a secret. It is a secret I will use to aid in the ongoing battle against global paedophilia. It is a divine power that I have been granted!”
Then, the audience gasped in astonishment as a strange red and black effulgence began to surround the speaker known as Tim Ballard. It grew in intensity and expanded around him, adding a strange otherworldly buzzing sound to the room as he continued to speak.
“See it now!” he shouted. “See and worship the very power that I have been given!”
And then, the members of the audience began to raise their hands in grotesque worship of the extraterrestrial horror that Ballard was manifesting. …
We were approaching the City Convention Centre in my specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster, affectionately known as “Lizzie”.
“Daniel,” said Millie Drake from the passenger seat, “do you think Tim Ballard could be a Spectral Paranormal operative?”
“Peradventure,” I pondered from behind the steering wheel, “but we should not speculate until we have ascertained the facts of the matter, hmmm? We need to find out if his claims to the supernatural are based on anything like…”
“Danger, s--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10 from beside us. “Am detecting approaching power surges of apparent extraterrestrial origin.”
“By the Triune Star!” I swore. “It appears the evidence we need may be coming to find us, hmmm?”
“Daniel, look!” screamed Millie.
Then, I looked upwards to where my companion indicated and beheld an horror. An huge conglomeration of swirling red and black energy was descended directly to-wards us!!
Kit-10 sent several shots of her nose laser at the demoniacal terror. It had no effect. The accumulation of evil continued to come down at us.
Then as suddenly as it had come, the eldritch horror vanished. We were once again riding safely down that city street.
“Daniel, what were those terrible things?” questioned Millie Drake.
“Some infernal horror that Tim Ballard sent out to protect himself, hmmm?” I pondered. “Just a show of power in hopes of scaring us off. Hopefully their identity is available via Kit-10’s knowledge library.”
“Do you have that information, Kit-10?” asked Millie.
“Accessing informational banks, m--,“ replied the robot. “Energy field is identified as a collected mass of beings of the type once found in the galaxy known as the Eighty-Eight Stygian Cascade.”
“Of course,” I realised. “The Stygians.”
“Who are they, Daniel?” queried Millie Drake.
“A particular horrific species of non-corporeal beings that were used as psychic shock troops during the earliest stages of the Galactic Wars. They are unspeakably dangerous. If Ballard has the Stygians with him, then we must lose no time in confronting him!”
We by now had entered the parking garage beneath the City Convention Centre and, after having located a space for Lizzie, my companions and I then hurriedly began to find our way to the elevator lift.
“Stay close to me, Mills,” I counselled. “We do not what other horrors that Tim Ballard miscreant may have in store for us.”
“I will, Daniel,” the young lady replied, “and… Oh my goodness!!”
I turned from approaching the lift in order to ascertain what had so startled Millie. It was a strange thing indeed, for at that very moment, running directly to-wards us, was an hideously deformed dwarf clad in a brown business suit. Before I could even react, he jumped at me and went directly over my head, then turning about in midair and landing on my upper back, his arms reaching around to my throat.
I heard Millie Drake scream as the demented dwarf then began to choke me, his grasp immediately managing to completely cut off my ability to breath!
I attempted to reach around and take hold of the dwarf, but his grasp on my throat -- powered as it was by the strength of madness -- was already causing the blackness of unconsciousness to blur my eyes and weaken my body.
Kit-10 attempted to get into position in order to fire her nose laser at my attacker, but soon realised she could not do so without possibly hitting me as well.
Then Miss Millie Drake managed to deliver a fantastic kung fu high kick to the back of the dwarf’s deformed head. It was not enough to seriously harm him, but it did make his hold on me weaken for just a fraction of a second -- forsooth, just long enough for me to succeed in reaching back and seizing him, In one motion, I lifted him up over my head and threw him several metres distant, causing him to hit the concrete of the parking garage floor at an high velocity.
“Good work, Millie!” I said whilst we hurried over to survey what remained of the dwarfish assailant.
We found that his head had hit the concrete first and split open, killing him immediately
“Daniel, who or what was it?” asked Millie Drake.
“Some little inbred monstrosity being used by Tim Ballard as an assassin, hmmm?” I pondered. “Do you have an identification information on this… person, Kit-10?”
“Accessing databanks, s--,” replied the computerised feline. “Subject identified. Name: Josiah Emery. Originally from rural Virginia. Employed as a carnival sideshow performer before becoming an assistant in Tim Ballard’s stage presentations.”
“Interesting,” I mused, “and it is a good thing your databanks now include information on carnival, circus, and stage magic performers -- since they are so often recruited by the occult terrorist underground.”
Millie, Kit-10, and I then took the lift to the main auditorium of the Convention Centre, where we found Tim Ballard, surrounded by the hideously buzzing eldritch energies of the alien horrors and standing onstage before his adoring audience.
“You cannot defeat me, Doctor Rumanos!” he said upon seeing us enter the room. “You are nothing but a big-nosed globalist paedophile meddler and today we will see your end! I have the power of the Stygians at my command -- and they will now destroy you!!”
With this pronouncement, the horrifying mass of eldritch red and black terror charged directly at Millie Drake, Kit-10, and me!
Is it possible that you can even begin to recognise and comprehend the extreme horror, in truth the supreme unmitigated terror of the incredible situation in which we now found ourselves? There we were, young Miss Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and me, Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- there we were as the execrable occult villain known to eternal infamy as Tim Ballard sent the horridly buzzing red and black powers of the horrific Stygians directly at us!
Then, I looked directly at the Stygian horrors that were barrelling down to-wards us. I looked directly and defiantly at them and spoke the following words:
“Metzitzah B’peh.”
At this, the demonic conglomeration halted. It stopped for just a moment and was motionless before us. Then it simply faded away, along with the unearthly buzzing noise. All was suddenly now quiet, there in the main auditorium of the City Convention Centre.
“No…” sobbed Tim Ballard. “No, please, no. You… You took my powers away from me…”
Ballard then sank down to the stage and lay upon the floor there, weeping quietly to himself. What remained of the audience, already confused, left the auditorium.
“Millie? Kit-10?” I queried. “Are you both all right?”
“Yes, I’m okay,” said the young lady.
“All systems functional, s--,” replied the mechanical cat.
“But Daniel, what happened?” enquired Millie Drake. “How did you banish them?”
“I used some old Hebrew words of power,” I explained. “As you know, the Jewish faith is founded originally on the technology of our own Algolite race, and those words are based upon the arming sequence of the device that was used to defeat the Stygians during the ancient Galactic Wars.”
“So it’s all over now?”
“The power of the Stygians has been exorcised, and Tim Ballard is now just a blithering idiot. I will make a telephone call and then we can allow the local authorities to deal with this. Ballard will certainly be held pending a psychiatric examination, at the very least. At some time in the future, we can speak with him and obtain information concerning his connections to Spectral Paranormal, the only source by which he could possibly have contacted the Stygians.” …
Later that night, Tim Ballard sat alone in an holding cell at Central Booking. The place was quiet, as most of the staff had gone to report the odd fact of the security cameras having stopped functioning.
There was a brief shimmering light and a figure appeared standing over Ballard in the cell. It was a man apparently of middle years, clad in a black silk suit, his face still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the marks of lifetimes of extreme horrific evil. His hair was long and dark, his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee beard. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolute hypnotic glare.
“You have failed me, Ballard,” he said, his voice dripping with wickedness and mockery.
“Master Wingus!” cried Tim Ballard, falling to his knees. “I did all that I could! I swear it!”
“I gave you the power of the Stygians, yet you did not destroy Daniel Rumanos when the opportunity arose.”
“I tried my best, Master! He was just too strong, and he knows that damned Jewish magic! He…”
“No more excuses, Ballard,” rejoined Wingus. “You have failed, and you know the penalty for this.”
“No! No, Master, please!” screamed the prisoner. “Please no! I am loyal to you, and to Spectral Paranormal! Please don’t kill me, Master Wingus! Beat me! Torture me! Sodomise me again if you want! But please… let me live!!”
Ignoring his underling’s pathetic pleas for mercy, the one known as Master Wingus then simply reached forth and took Tim Ballard’s head in his hands, quickly twisting it until the man’s neck loudly snapped, then letting the lifeless corpse fall to the floor of the cell.
Then, with an evil chuckle of mirth brought about by his enjoyment of death, the villainous Magister Don Wingus vanished in the shimmering glow of the matter transit beam.
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
