It was in our secret headquarters that it began; that horrid experience in which I faced a threat I had thought -- forsooth, hoped -- to be long-buried. We were looking over some files of our recent cases, before relegating them to the archives.
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, officially known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with rich chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The pink dress she wore only served to highlight the wonders of her slender youthful figure.
Also with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles nothing more or less than a small mechanical cat.
Our HQ is located within the golden trapezoidal rooftop of a certain downtown New York City skyscraper, and contains our advanced electronic equipment, as well as numerous artefacts that we have collected in our storied career as investigators of the strange and unknown; indeed artefacts not always of terrestrial origin.
“I say, my dear Millie,” I began whilst entering some filing codes into the main computer console, “how about when we finish this, we go to that new Indian restaurant on Fifth Avenue, hmmm?”
“Sounds great, Daniel!” cheered Millie Drake. “I hear it’s really good, and… Oh my gosh!!”
I could tell that Millie’s sudden exclamation was not one of enjoyment, so I turned around quickly to see what had happened to her. What I beheld filled me with dread. A strange dark light had briefly surrounded her before again vanishing, and she had slumped down in her chair and was now motionless.
I hurried over and checked for Millie’s heartbeat.
“She seems physically unharmed,” I said. “Her heart is steady and her breath is regular, but she has suddenly gone unconscious. Kit-10, are you registering anything in the area that could have so affected her?”
“Scanning, s--,” replied the robotic feline in her simulated yet pleasantly-feminine voice. “Detecting some energy surge previously hidden from my sensors. Attempting to ascertain its origins now.”
(It must be noted here that Kit-10, in addition to her other catlike characteristics, is completely unable to openly shown respect to anyone. In fact, the closest she ever comes to it is by referring to me by a slight “s--” sound -- for “sir” -- and to Millie Drake by “m--” -- for “ma’am”.)
“Anything, Kit-10?” I enquired.
“Hidden energy surge seems to be of organic origin;” replied the robot, “its characteristics a mixture of Algolite and Wotanian.”
“By the Triple Star!” I swore in sudden horror. “Algolite and Wotanian! That can only mean…”
By now I had moved Millie to a near by emergency cot and covered her with a blanket. I fetched my hat and cloak from the stand and began to move for the door, checking to see that the transonic mezuzah was secure in my jacket pocket.
“Kit-10,” I said, “look after Miss Drake, hmmm? Her natural Algolitish self-healing powers should help her recovery. I need to find the one who has done this -- no matter the consequences!” …
My name is Doctor Daniel Rumanos, and I carry within my blood the heritage of the mysterious Watchers of Algol, whose technology is so sophisticated it appears as magic to lesser beings. As an operative for an organisation known as the KOSMIKOS, I protect Earth from all manner of menace. I am -- The Daemon-Star! …
At that same time, in a secret location elsewhere in the city, a woman clad in a white robe like unto a convent habit sat brooding. Her eyes were dark, her hair red in colour mixed with grey, her facial expression bespeaking madness.
“It has begun,” she said to herself, her voice low and whispery. “At last it has begun. I have come forth against you, and will finally prove myself your superior. I shall strike against all that you love until nothing remains. I shall destroy your life!” …
Now that I knew for whom I was looking, it did not take long. I could feel the presence, the very call of blood-kin, as it spun around in my mind like a mad carnival ride -- bringing thoughts and emotions supposedly buried so long before.
As soon as I hit the street I concentrated. I focused my mind and let myself be taken, utilising the now rarely-seen power of the ancient Aeternusians who are my own forbears as a Watcher of Algol. I found myself psychically teleported to another location in the city, an area near the Bowery where I was standing before a small rooming house. The door was unlocked and I entered, moving down the darkened front hallway to the room where I knew I would find the one whom I sought.
I entered the chamber, dimly lit as it was by one small desk lamp. Then I saw her. The woman sat in a chair wearing a white garment like unto a convent habit, her grey-red hair flowing long down her back. Her dark eyes narrowed as with disdain as she beheld me; they narrowed with a look I knew could only be described as hate fuelled by complete and utter madness beyond all reckoning by those who know not the ways of darkness.
I recognised her as I knew she did me. I knew her as one from long ago, as one lost so many years before; as one who was at once family and at the same time completely alien to my own values and very perceptions of life.
“Greetings, Miriam,” I said to the woman who sat brooding before me. “It has been a long time indeed, hmmm? Greetings… my niece.”
“Hello, Uncle Daniel,” she replied, her voice a low-toned mockery of speech. “Did you like what I did to your little girlfriend? It is just the beginning of the devastation I will bring to your life.”
“Miriam, why have you done this?” I questioned. “I brought you to Earth long ago, when I was first stationed here as an Agent of the Kosmikos. I hoped you would find a life for yourself, peacefully amongst the humans, even allowing you to utilise the surname Rumanos. Nevertheless, you just vanished and have not been heard from all these many years. You have become like unto a thing of legend, almost as if you had never had an actual existence.”
“But here I am, Uncle,” she countered. “Here I am. I have hidden amongst the Earthlings long enough, and I have now returned to destroy your reasons for living.”
“Your very existence is a thing of madness, of demoniacal darkness,” I charged. “Your mother…”
“Your sister!” she interrupted.
“Your mother engendered you,” I continued, ignoring her taunt, “through unlawful intercourse with one of the Wotanians, the alien race that visited the northern regions of planet Earth in the far past, becoming the ‘gods’ of the heathen Scandinavian and Germanic peoples. True, they were originally an offshoot of the Watchers of Algol, but the Wotanians took a different path than the philosophical discipline of the Algolites. They became corrupt and diseased with passions, and any crossing with them was expressly forbidden to us.”
“My father was a man of war and conquest, unlike the Watchers who sit in elitist judgement over the Universe. Indeed, it is my Wotanian powers that give me an advantage over you.”
“You have no advantage, Miriam. You are insane.”
“Insane, am I? We shall see how ‘insane’ I am as I continue to strike against you through your silly Millie. Then, when she is gone, I shall visit a certain little Yeshiva in the city of Allentown. The wards you have put up to prevent it being invaded are no barrier to me as your close kinswoman. I shall destroy it. I shall burn it to ashes -- along with all who reside there!”
“No!” I shouted in complete and utter horror at the evil I was hearing. “No! Miriam, I will not allow it! Do you hear me? I will not allow it!”
“You have no choice, Uncle,” she replied, a strange dark glow beginning to flash around her. “The powers I have as a combined Wotanian and Algolite are beyond even your abilities! Even you cannot stop me!!”
With this, the darksome glow suddenly flashed forwards against me, a grotesque radiance of orange and dark blue with an horrid overlay of blood-red effulgence. It hit me hard and sent me stumbling backwards against the wall!
Do you see the terror in this situation, my friends? Do you comprehend the extreme and unmitigated horror, the unholy dreadfulness and ungodly repulsion of what I was then experiencing? Can you understand the fear, forsooth the utter shock, of what I had just heard and what I was even now encountering?
There I was -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos, Watcher of Algol and Operative of the alien espionage organisation known as the Kosmikos. There I was, facing my long-lost niece, the utterly insane Miriam. There I was, as she boasted of her plans to disseminate all that I love and cherish; a threat I knew that she, in her absolute mania, would have no scruples against carrying out. There I was -- as she unleashed a current of alien energy of a type forbidden to existence in any decent world; forsooth an energy of absolute hybrid horror!
“This is the power I have, Uncle!” said Miriam Rumanos in insane exultation. “This is the power I shall use to destroy all you hold dear!”
The strange light, the orange and dark blue light mixed as it was with a blood-red overlay, flashed around me, bringing dark feelings of depression and thoughts of degradation and dishonour like unto nothing I had before experienced
“Your life is mine!” continued my insane niece. “It is mine to utterly destroy!”
From within the pain, I reached into my pocket and retrieved the transonic mezuzah. I pointed the device directly at my mad niece and, activating it, heard the familiar whirring sound of its function. Within a few moments, Miriam began to squirm and shake as the energies she commanded then vanished from the room.
“What have you done?!” she screamed. “That feels like… No! It cannot be!!”
“It is indeed a setting that simulates the effect of Evaerlium,” I confirmed, “that exceedingly rare element that is detrimental to Algolites. This type, however, has been especially altered to only have an effect on… hybrids!”
“No, Uncle, No! You cannot do this to me! Please, Uncle Daniel! You cannot do this! I am your family! Will you not show mercy on your own niece?!”
“You hurt Millie. You caused pain to my beloved, and have threatened others I love and am promised to protect -- and by all the sovereign might of the Daemon-Star I have sworn that none shall ever do that without facing an unforgiving retribution!”
Miriam Rumanos continued to cry out in pain and shock for a few moments as the setting took its result. Then, in a split second of time, she was no more, her very essence torn apart and scattered to the farthest corners of Time and Space.
After carefully deactivating my transonic device, I looked around the chamber there in that old Bowery rooming house. I was alone and all was quiet. The horror had gone. I returned the transonic to my pocket and took out one of my colourful handkerchiefs, using it to wipe away a single tear that had fallen down my cheek, before I exited the building.
Thus ended the legend of my unhallowed niece, Miriam Rumanos -- alien hybrid horror hidden amongst us as a quiet and seemingly harmless woman. Thus ended an extended legacy of horror that should have ceased long before.
My dear Millie Drake soon recovered from the attack she had undergone. Now we, along with our friend Kit-10 and with the awesome power of Algol, do continue our noble crusade against any that would threaten planet Earth -- all the while never mentioning the supreme eldritch horror which I have here, once and once only, disclosed to you.
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
