It was a sunny day in downtown Manhattan when Miss Millie Drake arrived at the Rothstein Company department store. The establishment was celebrating its eightieth anniversary at this location, and the entire area was hung with signs and streamers announcing this, along with promotions of the special offers and entertainments that the venerable store had set up that day for their always much-appreciated shoppers.
Millie Drake herself is an exceptionally beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and sun-kissed skin. The powder blue dress she wore only served to highlight the shape of her slender youthful figure. Nevertheless, there is indeed much more to Millie than her physical attributes. She works with me as a secret agent of the Algolite Kosmikos, and has proven herself worthy of the highest respect in this vocation countless times over.
With her that day was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.
“This should be a fun day, Kit-10,” said Millie. “Too bad Daniel couldn’t be here, but he had to stay at headquarters and finish the complex mathematical formulae to counteract that wandering black hole in the Seventh Ruby Galaxy. He needs to remain completely undisturbed to do that, since any interruption in the calculations could be dangerous.”
“Of course, m--,” replied the mechanical feline. “This unit is fully programmed in the theory of quantum mathematical calculations.”
(It must be noted here that Kit-10, along with her other catlike characteristics, is completely unable to openly show respect to anyone. In fact, 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”.)
“I know that Kit-10,” offered Millie, “but the calculations required an organic mind due to the nature of the anomaly and… Oh look! The store is having a shoe sale!” …
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.
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!!! …
Millie had just purchased three new pairs of shoes and was now busy looking at an assortment of designer handbags.
“What do you think of this one, Kit-10?” she enquired, holding up the shiny silk purse that had caught her eye.
“This unit does not create product reviews, m--,” replied the little robot.
With this, Millie giggled delightfully and decided upon buying the handbag. At the department’s self-checkout counter, she scanned one of her numerous payment cards and then put the purse in a shopping bag before cheerfully skipping on to yet another department in the large Rothstein’s shop.
And so did Millie Drake (alien secret agent) and the robotic Kit-10 continue their shopping trip that day, there amongst so many other department store shoppers. Forsooth, it is an event that would have been rather mundane compared to their usual employments, save for a quite odd and grotesque occurrence -- an occurrence concerning one of the entertainers that the Rothstein Company had inadvertently hired to help celebrate their anniversary.
For at that same time, as Millie and Kit-10 began to browse the department store displays, another individual was preparing to take the small stage that the company had erected in the very centre of the shop. This person was a dark haired girl or young woman, small of stature and clad in a long green dress. As she gazed into an handheld cosmetics mirror, her eyes began to glisten and shimmer with an eldritch red effulgence.
“This is that day,” she said to herself, her voice tinged with madness. “This is the day that I shall show my power to an unsuspecting world. This is the day that the Celtic spirits show their ascendance over this world, with me as their commanding mistress! This is the day I show my right as queen of all! This is the day that Aurelie Greenwolf returns!”
A few minutes later, the person known as Aurelie Greenwolf had taken the stage, doing a rather hackneyed “magic act” that was only meant to serve as a prelude to her actual occult conjuration.
“Oh my gosh!” exclaimed Millie Drake upon beholding this. “Isn’t that… Aurelie Greenwolf?”
“Affirmative, m--,” replied Kit-10.
“She has returned and is back using her ‘magic act’ to attempt to bring the ‘Celtic spirits’ -- actually various alien entities that invaded Earth in past times -- forth in this reality,” said Millie, taking a small silver cylinder from its hiding place on her person -- a cylinder that is actually her transonic lip-gloss, “We must stop her.”
“You cannot stop me, Miss Drake,” sneered Aurelie Greenwolf as a surge of red and black paranormal power appeared around her. “You can do nothing, and I shall use the Celtic power to rule this world!”
With this, Aurelie Greenwolf sent forth a terrifying blast of energies at Millie Drake, a blast that sent the transonic device flying from her hand and sent Millie herself careening backwards across the department store floor!
Do you recognise the horror in this situation, my dear friends and readers? There she was, the wonderful Miss Millie Drake, being attacked by the evil occult powers of the horrid Aurelie Greenwolf -- these being the very powers derived from the alien entities that the villainess intended to use to subjugate the human race to her own perverted will!
“You will now die, Miss Drake!” screeched Aurelie Greenwolf. “You will die -- your body and soul seared by the power of the Celtic spirits! You will die, and I will rule this world!”
None the less, there is one thing that the wicked Aurelie Greenwolf had completely overlooked -- that being a robotic feline known as Kit-10! The mechanical cat had just avoided the edge of the powder surge that had so affected Millie, and now turned directly to-wards the evil Aurelie Greenwolf and sent a bolt of her nose-laser directly at the villainess!
The blast was not enough in itself to seriously hurt the wicked young woman, empowered as she was by the alien “spirits”, but nevertheless it served its purpose. It caused Aurelie Greenwolf to be annoyed -- forsooth, annoyed enough that her concentration suddenly dropped.
The results were quick. The barrage of alien power that had been sent at Millie Drake abruptly halted, and Millie was able to regain her composure and also to retrieve her transonic lip-gloss from where it had fallen just under a display of colourful sport shirts.
Millie quickly programmed the device to a certain setting and aimed it to-wards Aurelie Greenwolf. A strange humming sound emitted from the transonic, and the darksome force suddenly changed direction -- flying directly to-wards its former “mistress”!
“No! No no no!” screamed the villainess. “This cannot happen to me! I am Aurelie Greenwolf, the Celtic Magician! I want to rule the world! I… I... !”
With this, the evil Aurelie Greenwolf suddenly just blinked out of existence, the dark energies going with her. Then all was quiet in Rothstein’s department store -- except for the smattering of applause from the customers who assumed what had just transpired was only part of the day’s entertainment!
“Thanks, Kit-10,” said Millie Drake, returning the device to its secret pocket in her dress. “You distracted her enough that I was able to set my transonic lip-gloss to the exorcism that Daniel programmed in case we ever encounter any residue of the ‘Celtic spirits’. I guess that worked to expel them properly?”
“Of course, m--,” answered Kit-10. “The enhanced human known as Aurelie Greenwolf has been banished to a prison dimension, and my sensors are showing no more evidence of ‘spirit’ activity in the area.”
“Well, it’s good that it’s over then,” announced the beautiful Miss Millie Drake. “Now, I want to buy a new hat for Daniel!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
