"The original Bluebeard,” said I, “or rather the real life personage on which the fairy tale character of Bluebeard was based -- the Fifteenth Century French nobleman Gilles de Retz.”
“He owned the knife that has now been stolen from that antique shop?” asked Millie Drake. “The one that was apparently used by the burglar to murder the shop’s owner?”
“Quite so,” I replied. “It is the very knife by which de Retz was believed to have sacrificed 150 children in satanic rituals.”
We were at our downtown metropolitan headquarters, located in the golden trapezoidal rooftop of a certain 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.
My companion, Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, lovely violet eyes, and sun kissed skin. The royal blue dress she wore only served to highlight the shape of her gorgeously adolescent figure.
Also with us -- there in the chamber filled with advanced electronic equipment and alien artefacts -- was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.
“So how did the knife of Gilles de Retz get to a city antique shop?” enquired Millie.
“It was only on display there, not for sale,” I explained whilst twiddling my frills. “The knife was part of the owner’s private collection.”
“The owner who has now been murdered by someone who stole the knife. But, I’m guessing, this was no ordinary burglary.”
“Indeed not, Mills. It is obvious that the knife itself was targeted by someone familiar with the stories concerning it -- concerning its use in rituals to call forth the arch-demon Beelzebub!”
“But what is Beelzebub, really?” queried Millie.
“I reality, Beelzebub was one of the Cacodemons of Andromeda who fled to Earth after losing the last Galactic War, hmmm?” I opined. “Like many of the Andromedans, he had the ability to keep his consciousness active after death, and so became the mighty ‘demon’ of legend.”
“So the thief may be planning to use the knife to summon Beelzebub himself?” shuddered my companion. “Is there a way we can find them before that happens?”
“We may only hope so,” I rejoined. “Kit-10, are your systems reading any unusual energy surges in the area?”
“Accessing now, s--,” replied the little robot in her simulated yet pleasantly feminine voice. “Results show an energy reading from the Hampden area of the city that has signatures related to Cacodemon energy.”
(It should be noted here that Kit-10, along with her numerous other catlike qualities, is possessed of the total inability to openly show respect to anyone. Forsooth, the closest she ever comes to it is by addressing me by a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and Millie by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “Attempt to pinpoint the exact address, Kit-10.”
“Daniel,” said Millie Drake, “we need to get over there right away!”
“Quite so,” I agreed whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “If anyone succeeds in fully evoking the power of Beelzebub, the planet Earth itself will be in extreme peril!” …
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!!! …
Whilst the dark of night fell over the city, a quite unusual scene was being played out in a loft apartment along 36th Street in the City’s Hampden neighbourhood. For at that time, standing behind a table draped in a black cloth was a man apparently of middle years, his visage still showing signs of handsome distinction despite being marked with signs of lifetimes of extreme unholy wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his face decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his eyes shone with an absolutely hypnotic glow. He was clad in a vestment robe of ebon hue, and wore a silver necklace of three interlocking inverted triangles.
With him was an insanely voluptuous teen brunette with luminous blue eyes and a mouth painted like an inviting scarlet gash. She was wearing only a purple halter-top, leathern miniskirt, and spike heels.
“Did I do it right, Father?” asked the girl. “Did I do it right by killing the old guy at the shop and stealing the knife?”
“You have done well, Anastasia,” replied the man. “You have done well, and now the knife of Gilles de Retz is mine, and I shall use its powers to ascend to my rightful position as emperor of this world!”
With this, the evil Magister Don Wingus looked down at the knife on the altar before him -- and at the black unholy energies that were beginning to emanate from it. …
We rode down 36th Street in my specially modified canary yellow Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”). I was at the steering wheel, with Millie Drake beside me in the passenger seat and Kit-10 between us. We pulled into a small alleyway between two apartment buildings.
“So this is where the energy reading is coming from?” asked Millie.
“Quite so,” I affirmed. “It appears to be emanating from a loft apartment in the building on the left.”
I shut off the car and we embarked from it. As we looked around, I was vaguely aware of a strange chattering sound.
“We should be able to enter the apartment via the use of the fire escape, hmmm?” I pondered. “Then we can…”
I was then interrupted by Millie Drake screaming. She had seen the creature before I did. It was a thing like unto a small apelike man with brown skin covered with coarse black hair. As it leaped to-wards me, it barred a mouthful of hideous subhuman teeth whilst emitting a loud chattering noise from its throat.
I attempted to dodge the attack, but it was too late. The grotesque little monstrosity lunged its entire form straight into my face!
In the brief moment that I had seen the creature, I had known what it was. It was a member of a tribe from deep within the jungles of the Philippines, in truth from a group of inbred natives that had maintained some aspects of the Homo erectus and other proto-human species.
The prehistoric dwarf was incredibly strong. It wrapped its legs around my throat and, as it continued its strange chattering noise, it began to tighten its grip, thus hindering my ability to breath. I realised I had but a very few seconds before I would be overcome by unconsciousness.
Millie and Kit-10 would have helped me if they could, but it was to no avail. The young lady would have been no match for the savage strength of the thing, and the robotic feline could not safely get in a shot from her nose-laser.
Fortunately, my own superior intellect and experience worked against the primitive ape-man. Whilst he was still throttling me, I reached around to the back of his head and applied a bit of pressure from my fingers to a certain point. With this, the savage dwarf went limp and passed out, losing his grip on me and falling to the pavement.
“Daniel, are you all right?” Millie cried concernedly.
“I am fine, love,” I assured her. “But it appears that whomever we are tracking is expecting us, given that they sent that creature to attack.”
“Oh my gosh,” said Millie. “Do you think it could be… ?”
“Let us not speculate until we have more evidence, hmmm?” I admonished. “Kit-10, stay here and guard this creature whilst Miss Drake and I continue to investigate. If it awakens, blast it.”
“Of course, s---,” agreed the computerised cat.
Millie Drake and I then climbed the fire escape to the top storey apartment. The window lock soon yielded to my abilities in escapology, and we thus entered the building. In a few minutes of searching, we had found them.
What we found was a man and a girl standing at a black covered satanic altar. The man was wearing a darksome vestment robe and the girl was young and voluptuous. On the altar was the very knife of Gilles de Retz.
Around the whole scene swirled a chaotic and hideously silent ebony energy, blacker black than black can be.
“Greetings, Rumanos, you old meddler,” said the man. “We have been expecting you. I see you managed to get past my Filipino friend. You see, I do like to hire ethnic minorities, however inferior they may be.”
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 criminal in all of Time and Space.
“Don Wingus,” I said his name. “I should have known. So you did escape from Leviathan.”
“Oh, of course, Rumanos,” he replied with a wicked chuckle, “and now the very knife of Bluebeard is mine, along with powers I shall utilise to establish myself as ruler of all!”
“You ungodly fiend,” I charged. “You stole that old knife from a local antique shop -- and murdered the store’s owner in the process!”
“Oh, my little cutie here took care of that for me,” he replied. “She is indeed becoming rather adept at such things.”
“At burglary and stabbing people, you mean. You must be quite proud of your daughter. She is a chip off the old block, hmmm?”
“Oh indeed,” agreed Wingus. “She is a part of my legacy, just as meddling in and attempting to foil my plans is the main part of yours. But your legacy ends tonight, for you and your little girlfriend here shall now feel the powers of Beelzebub!”
And with this, the darkling energies suddenly shot out directly to-wards Millie Drake and me!!
Is it possible, my friends and readers, for you to comprehend the supreme horror, in truth the extreme demoniacal terror of this bizarre and grotesque situation? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and myself -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, facing the evil of the intergalactic criminal known to eternal infamy as Magister Don Wingus. There we were, as this same villain summoned forth the eerie powers of the demon Beelzebub, powers that he intended to use to make himself ruler of the world!!
The blacker than black energy shot directly out to-wards Millie and me, and I knew that there was no escaping it. I stepped in front of the young lady so as to shield her as much as possible from the full force of the power.
“How noble of you, Rumanos,” mocked Don Wingus. “Nevertheless, you will now die!!”
“Father,” suddenly interrupted Stacy Wingus. “Father, please don’t hurt Doctor Rumanos. I want him! You promised I could have him to play with when you came into your empire over the planet.”
“Stacy, you stupid strumpet!” shouted Don Wingus in anger, slapping his daughter hard across the face. “I have told you that I am sick and tired of your ridiculous teenage ambitions concerning that accursed Daniel Rumanos!”
Seeing Wingus thus distracted, I leapt forwards and delivered a blow of my fist to his head, causing him to careen backwards.
It was then that a particularly odd thing occurred. The eldritch black Beelzebub energy that had previously been focused at us suddenly reversed its course and began flowing directly at Don Wingus and his daughter.
“No!” bellowed the villain in outrage as the demonic energy surrounded him. “No! You cannot do this to me! I am Magister Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of the Universe! No! Nooooooooo!!!”
With this, the energy totally engulfed Wingus and his daughter and, within moments, they had vanished completely. The energy was gone, and all was quiet.
“Daniel, what happened?” enquired Millie.
“The Beelzebub energy turned on Wingus when he lost control. It has taken Stacy and him into another dimension, where they will receive their deserved punishment.”
“The knife is gone as well.”
“Yes, the knife of Bluebeard is no more, as it was being used in the horrid plans of that Algolite criminal. The savage ape-man will have also vanished, since it was one of Wingus’s minions.”
“That’s good,” said Millie. “But we should go check on Kit-10 now, right?”
“Quite so,” I agreed as we went back to the fire escape. “After all, we would not want for anyone to mistake her for an alley cat!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
