The sounds that filled the chamber were like unto the moans of sexual ecstasy. They echoed about in the darkness, their source as yet unseen.
“I do stir you up and summon you,” stated the man who stood behind the desecrated altar, his voice tinged with madness and unnameable evil. “I do call you forth from the most ancient times of the Empire of the Ringed Planet. I do call you forth that you may resume your domination and may establish your dominion here upon this world known as Earth.”
The man, clad as he was in a shiny black vestment robe, was seemingly of middle years. His face still showed signs of handsome distinction despite having upon it the marks of lifetimes of unspeakable wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an absolute and hypnotic glare.
“I do call you forth,” he continued, his voice rising in volume and intensity. “I do call you forth, Empress of Saturn! I do call you forth -- Szepasszony!”
With this, the strange carnal sounds increased in the chamber, now joined with a weird blue-green effulgence that began to permeate the very air.
“Come forth now, Empress Szepasszony, ancient ruler of Saturn and now soon to be of Earth!” shouted the villain. “Come forth, that I -- Magister Don Wingus -- may share your supreme power as ruler of this world!!”
Then, as the alien energies filled the chamber, the evil Don Wingus laughed a laugh of absolute insane triumph. …
My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos. I carry within my blood the vastly superior genes of the legendary Watchers of Algol, the most intellectually advanced race in all of the known galaxies, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears to be miraculous to lesser beings.
Whilst most Algolites live in elitist seclusion from the rest of the Universe, I am an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS. Assisted by the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star!!! …
“The Szepasszony?” enquired Millie Drake. “Isn’t that a sort of succubus from Hungarian legend?”
“Quite right, Mills,” I affirmed, “and I see your studies in comparative mythology have been of great use, hmmm? Forsooth, the Szepasszony is indeed remembered in the folklore of the Hungarian people as a sort of succubus or sexual vampire that drains the very souls of her victims -- but her true origins are actually much stranger than even that!”
We were seated in the library room of our headquarters, located as it is in the golden trapezoidal roof of a certain downtown skyscraper. I was clad in my usual finery, including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, and jungle boots. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.
Millie Drake -- an exquisitely beautiful young lady with hair of a rich chestnut hue, a sun-kissed complexion, and eyes an enchanting blue-violet -- was wearing a flowered dress that only served to highlight the soft lines of her slender teenage figure.
“So you say she was actually from the planet Saturn?” asked my companion.
“Quite so,” I again confirmed. “The Szepasszony was in truth a ruler of that ringed planet in ancient times, during the era of the prehistoric Saturnian Empire. It was a time when the people of that world were naturally gifted with quite potent psychic powers, particularly amongst the ruling class.”
“So, what happened? I mean, how did the Szepasszony come to Earth and become a monster from Hungarian folktales?”
“The Empress Szepasszony was known as an unspeakably cruel ruler of her world, even by the standards of that barbaric time. The Saturnians, who had already developed a rudimentary form of Space travel, eventually rose up against her, removing her from the throne of their planet and banishing her to an exile upon Earth, in a time when this planet was still in the earliest days of human civilisation. She lived for some time in what is now Eastern Europe.”
“But how has she survived until now?” wondered Millie. “Surely Saturnians don’t live that long.”
“She died eventually,” I returned, “having finished out her normal lifespan. None the less, it was soon found that she had somehow survived the death of her physical body, or at least a certain distorted essence of her being had done so. It is this that lived on and became the creature of legend, draining life energies from human beings, particularly energies of a sexual nature.”
“And now she has returned?”
“Apparently so. Our computer systems have detected energies of the type associated with the Szepasszony coming from, of all places, a near by cemetery.”
I then turned to our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.
“Kit-10,” I said, “have you downloaded all information from the main database concerning the Szepasszony?”
“Of course, s--,” rejoined the little robot in her simulated yet pleasantly feminine voice. “I am now fully conversant in all available data and speculative theory concerning the creature known as Szepasszony, and will be able to detect the presence of the energy forces associated with the same”
(It should be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her other catlike characteristics, is completely unable to openly show respect to anyone. In point of fact, the closest she is ever able to come to it is by addressing me by a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and Millie Drake by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“Traces of the Szepasszony have appeared before in recent times, but have then been banished,” I continued, automatically touching the protective Magen David pendant that hung about my neck. “Nevertheless, the level of energy detected this time is much more severe. It is likely that someone has intentionally summoned her -- someone with knowledge and experience in psyche-sexual incantations.”
“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Millie. “Do you think it could be… ?”
“Now, my dear,” I admonished whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “Let us not speculate until we have more facts, hmmm? Mills, Kit-10, let us go on location!” …
A short time later we arrived at Pine Grove Cemetery, located as it is on the very outskirts of the Metropolitan area. I parked our specially-modified canary-yellow Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”) just outside the grounds, and my companions and I approached the graveyard just as dusk had settled over the area. The sky was heavily overcast, and the oppressive humidity was perhaps one source of the strange feeling of unhallowed dread that seemed to have settled like a grotesque presence over the entire region.
“Daniel,” whispered Millie Drake, “aren’t there some old stories about this place? I seem to remember hearing of it somewhere.”
“Indeed so,” I affirmed. “You likely read of it in your studies concerning the history of occult crime. Pine Grove Cemetery was in the news several decades ago after having been hideously vandalised by a local ‘satanic cult’. This was in actuality only a small group of local youngsters with a fetish for heavy metal music. Only one of them was even old enough to serve prison time for the offence.”
“But even if they weren’t experienced devil worshippers,” added Millie as we entered the grounds, “such things can have a lasting negative effect, right?”
“Quite so,” I agreed. “Quite so. It is likely the residual effects of that outrage that have led to the cemetery being a place where a more advanced practitioner of the dark arts, all these years later, would choose to conjure the dread horror of the Szepasszony.”
“S--,” suddenly interrupted Kit-10. “Systems are detecting archaic Saturnian energy forces quickly approaching our location.”
“Oh my goodness!” Millie cried. “Look!”
It was then that I turned and beheld an horror indeed. For, at that very moment something was indeed approaching us across the grounds of Pine Grove Cemetery. It was floating above the tombstones and surrounded by a sickly glow of blue-green effulgence. It appeared as an huge face, in truth the face of a man of distinguished diabolism. Of course, I recognised this countenance immediately. I recognised it as the visage of my oldest and most deadly enemy, the renegade Algolite who had become the most wicked villain and heinous criminal mastermind in all of Time and Space.
It was the face of Magister Don Wingus!
I heard Millie Drake scream as the grotesque disembodied face approached ever nearer to us, and I stepped in front of her in order to protect her as much as possible.
“Kit-10!” I called.
The little robot fired several shots of her nose laser at the apparition, but to no avail. The eldritch thing continued in its lurch to-wards us.
Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the face and its surrounding glow vanished.
“Are you all right, Millie?” I enquired concernedly.
“I’m okay, Daniel,” she replied, “but that face! Wasn’t it… ?”
“Don Wingus!” I confirmed. “I should have known. So he did escape from the Golden Fleece, and has called forth the powers of the Szepasszony. That was just a show of bravado; an attempt to frighten us. The forces he has conjured will be far more powerful than that.”
“So where exactly is he?” asked Millie Drake.
“Kit-10,” I said, “can you do a location trace on the Saturnian energies?”
“Of course, s--,” replied the mechanical feline. “Systems detect the energy radiating from the interior of the cemetery chapel.”
Millie, Kit-10, and I then cautiously approached the building of the small church at the centre of the graveyard. Its décor was non-denominational, but we noticed immediately that it had all been horribly vandalised as an attempt at unholy desecration.
We then perceived a voice addressing us from the far end of the sanctuary.
“Greetings, Rumanos and comrades,” said its mocking and all-to familiar tones. “We have been expecting you.”
We then beheld the form of the criminal Don Wingus himself, clad in his ebon vestment and surrounded by the sickly blue-green glow of the Szepasszony energy. With this was heard a spectral sound as of moans of fornication.
“Wingus, you infernal fiend!” I charged. “You cannot control the powers of the Szepasszony! She is a force of chaos and unfettered lust averse to all reason and wisdom.”
“Oh, but you are wrong, Rumanos,” rejoined the madman. “You are wrong, for I have conjured forth the very Empress Szepasszony herself, and have joined her essence to mine. Joined together, we will become supreme rulers of this world!”
At this, a further horror appeared there in that ruined chapel. It was the floating form like unto the phantasmal shape of a woman with blue skin, shaggy orange hair, and eyes glowing yellow. The sound of carnal moaning intensified as she began to float to-wards us.
“Behold the Szepasszony herself!” exulted Don Wingus amidst peals of his own insane laughter. “Behold your doom!”
Kit-10 fired her laser at the form of the Saturnian horror, but it had no effect. The blue-green alien energy protected it and Don Wingus from any harm.
“There is no escape, Rumanos,” bellowed the evil Magister Don Wingus. “You will now die. With the power of the Szepasszony, I shall soon rule this planet -- and you and your friends shall now be destroyed!!”
Is it at all possible, my dear friends and most loyal readers, that you can even commence to comprehend the absolute unholy terror, forsooth the complete ungodly horror of this situation? There we were -- the beautiful Miss Millie Drake, the robotic Kit-10, and me, Doctor Daniel Rumanos. There we were, in that desecrated chapel of Pine Grove Cemetery. There we were, as the renegade Algolite and intergalactic villain known to eternal infamy as Magister Don Wingus exulted in his success in calling forth the very powers of the ancient horror known as the Szepasszony; powers that he intended to utilise in his plans to conquer the planet Earth -- and indeed powers that even now -- with the phantasmagorical shape of the Saturnian hag herself -- were hurtling with deadly force directly to-wards us!!
“You will now die, Rumanos!” repeated the villainous Don Wingus. “You will now die, and I shall go on to become supreme ruler of this world!!”
The extraterrestrial energies, accompanied as they were with the hideous form the Szepasszony and the sickening noises of unholy fornication, were by now almost upon Millie Drake, Kit-10, and me.
“Of course!” I exclaimed in sudden realisation. “There is a way! There is one chance!”
“What is it, Daniel?” queried Millie. “What can we do?”
“Millie,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “My dearest Millie, will you tell me something?”
“Of course, Daniel,” she replied. “What is it?”
“Millie, do you love me?”
“Of course I do, Daniel. I love you so much. I love you more than life itself!”
“I love you too, my dear little Mills.”
“Daniel!” she said, her eyes suddenly wide with wonder. “Look! Look what is happening!”
The energy and form of the ancient Saturnian horror had now reversed their course and, in stead of hurtling to-wards my companions and me, now turned against the evil Don Wingus!
“No!” shouted the villain in sudden fear of his situation. “No! You cannot do this to me, Szepasszony! I have called you forth! I am Don Wingus of Algol! I am your master! You cannot do this to me! I… ! No! No!! NO!!!”
With this, the Szepasszony had now reached Don Wingus and completely surrounded him with her energies, the sickening sexual sounds now having heightened in intensity to the noise of a scream. Within moments, the alien energy seemed to implode upon the villain and then to simply vanish into nothingness.
I looked around the area carefully. The Szepasszony and her energy, along with the iniquities Don Wingus, had vanished from sight and all was now quiet in Pine Grove Cemetery. It was now as if the evil had never been.
“What… what happened?” stammered Millie Drake, recovering from her fright.
“I remembered something about the Szepasszony,” I explained. “You see, her powers were completely of a crassly sexual nature, without any of the refinement of love or romance. It was our own summoning of the powers of true love that banished her from this world -- and took Don Wingus with her!”
“But… where will they go?”
“Into a sort of hell; a place where those who know not the joys of love will suffer in darkness forever. In fact, it is said that the worst of them are imprisoned there sunk up to their necks in boiling excrement and semen for all eternity, hmmm?””
“Are you okay, Kit-10?” asked Millie.
“All systems functioning normally, m---,” affirmed the mechanical cat.
“Then all is truly well again, my friends,” I announced. “I shall say some words of Hebrew exorcism to ensure that all residual evil is gone from this place, and then we can be on our way.”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
