Within the golden trapezoidal rooftop of a certain downtown New York City skyscraper is found our secret headquarters, filled as it is with electronic equipment and numerous artefacts that we have collected during our storied career as Operatives of the Kosmikos and investigators of the unknown.
“The information should be coming in soon,” I said. “The computer is currently searching for the location of the energy reading we detected.”
I was clad in my usual finery; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, jungle boots, and Magen David necklace. My panama hat and opera cape hung from a near by hallstand.
My companion, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and sun kissed skin. The purple dress she wore only served to highlight her slender figure.
Also with us was Kit-10, our mobile personal computer that resembles a small mechanical cat.
“So Daniel, what did you say the energy reading was?” enquired Millie.
“It is difficult to countenance,” I admitted, “but the reading seems to indicate… Abraxas energy! Interestingly, a two-thousand year old relic talisman of Abraxas was recently stolen from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hmmm? A guard was stabbed to death in the process, and the security cameras were interfered with in a way that erased any footage that could have helped to identify the thief or thieves.”
“That’s terrible! Wasn’t Abraxas something worshipped as a god by the Gnostics?”
“Quite so. That second century heresy blasphemously considered Abraxas to be the most powerful being in existence. In reality, Emperor Abraxas the Great was a warlord from Galaxy 242. Having run out of new worlds to conquer, he used the combined mind-power of his myriad subjects in order to project himself across the Cosmos. He ended up here in the Milky Way Galaxy, soon finding his way to Earth in a time ages before the existence of the human race. The act of projection had sent him mad, and he was soon captured by the Gargouillios of Mu, who put the tyrant in perpetual slumber in one of their inter-dimensional prisons. There he remains, despite the attempts of the Gnostics and that of a few other cults to awaken him and bring him back to this reality.”
“So the energy means that someone is trying again?”
“Indeed so, my dear Mills. Abraxas energy is the combined mental power of the ancient inhabitants of Galaxy 242, being brought forth to pave the way for the return of the great conqueror himself, who waits in sleep for a chance to subjugate Earth and countless other worlds. Ah, here it is!”
I looked at the main computer screen to see what the system had located concerning the location of the energies.
“By the Eternal Spires!” I swore. “The Abraxas energy is emanating from the location of the former factory of the Sugar Me Sweets company. The building is abandoned now, since the firm moved to a larger facility in suburban Connecticut, hmmm?”
“We need to get over there right away!” announced Millie Drake.
“Quite so,” I agreed whilst fetching my hat and cloak. “Kit-10 had better stay here. Her systems still have not fully recovered from our gothic nightclub assignment. As for us, my dear Millie, we must face whatever insane individual or group which, after committing that outrage at the museum, is now attempting to bring back Emperor Abraxas!” …
At that same time, in the aforementioned former location of the Sugar Me Sweets corporation, two figures stood behind a table in a darkened room. On the table was an old pewter talisman about three inches in diameter, on which was carved an image like unto a grotesque gamecock. Wisps of black light played around the ancient relic.
One of the two appeared to be a man of middle years, clad in a black business suit with a blood-red necktie. His face still showed signs of handsome distinction despite being marred with the results of lifetimes of unspeakable iniquity; 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 hypnotic glare.
Next to him was an insanely voluptuous young brunette with luminous blue-green eyes and a mouth painted like an inviting scarlet gash She was clad only in a tiny red bikini.
“It is the time, Anastasia,” said the man, his voice tinged with unholy evil as the dark powers began to swirl around him. “I have the Talisman of Abraxas, and the mental energies of the ancient inhabitants of Galaxy 242 are at my command. Soon, I shall bring forth the old Emperor Abraxas himself and subjugate even him to my superior Algolite will. I shall use him as my super-soldier in order to subjugate this planet, then we shall go on to other worlds and conquer all!”
“But, father,” replied the girl, “won’t Doctor Rumanos try to stop you again?”
“I do not want to hear anymore about that meddling flamboyant poltroon Rumanos! He will not be able to stand against the Abraxas power that I have enhanced with my own masterful will. No one can stand against me; and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall very soon take my rightful place as ruler of countless worlds!” …
Night had fallen when Millie Drake and I arrived at the old Sugar Me Sweets building in my specially-modified canary-coloured Edwardian roadster (affectionately known as “Lizzie”). We parked the car and entered the abandoned building, dimly lit as it was only by the street lights shining through its dusty cobwebbed windows.
We had only been exploring the building’s corridors for a short time when a thing of horror happened.
“Gosh, Daniel!” cried Millie. “Look!”
I gazed upwards to see what had so alarmed my dear companion and beheld a thing of utter madness. It was a swirling ebony cloud of evil floating several metres above the floor -- and it was heading directly to-wards us!
“By the Triple Star!” I swore. “That is a manifestation of the mental powers that first brought Emperor Abraxas to Earth. It is the combined force of the minds of the inhabitants of Galaxy 242!”
As the swirling black terror approached us and Millie clung to me in fear, we heard that it was accompanied by a sound, forsooth a noise like unto a darksome buzzing and chirping and clicking and growling and barking and howling that all together made a definite reverberation -- a chant of the name of the very ancient conqueror himself:
“Abraxas! Abraxas! Abraxas!”
Then, as soon as it had appeared, the hovering horror vanished.
“Daniel, where did it go?” queried Millie.
“It was only an echo of the true terror we shall have to face,” I pondered, twiddling my frills. “It dissipated after appearing to us as a warning.”
We continued on through the old factory building, eventually coming to a large room in which was what we sought; for here we beheld a table on which was the missing Talisman of Abraxas, and behind which were two figures -- a man in a dark business suit and a barely-clothed girl.
Of course, I recognised them immediately. The man I recognised as my oldest and bitterest enemy, the renegade Algolite who has become the most wanted criminal in all of Time and Space.
“Greetings, Rumanos and Miss Drake,” he mocked. “We have been expecting you.”
“Don Wingus!” I said his name. “I should have known. So you did escape from the Cocoanuts, and it was you that purloined the Abraxas talisman from the museum -- murdering a guard in the process!”
“Oh, my little cutie here took care of that bit,” he grinned, touching his daughter inappropriately on her buttocks. “She has become quite adept with the knife.”
“Yes,” I said, “I recognised your daughter Stacy as soon as I saw her whorish self, hmmm?”
“She is useful to me in many ways, and will be by my side when I call forth Emperor Abraxas the Great and use him in my conquest of worlds!”
“Wingus, not only are you utterly mad yourself, but you also have fewer scruples than a German pornographer. Even if you succeed in bending Abraxas to your Algolite will, the powers you have summoned here are immensely dangerous. You cannot assure keeping them in your control.”
“You are so very wrong in that, Rumanos. The Galaxy 242 mind-power energy is already completely under my command -- as I shall now demonstrate!”
With this, the black energy already swirling around Don Wingus suddenly shot forth to-wards Millie Drake and me; a blast of dark mystical power that hit us like unto a rush of absolute terror.
“Do you feel it now, Rumanos?” exulted the hideous intergalactic terrorist Don Wingus. “Feel the power of the Abraxas energy as it destroys your very existence! Then I shall use it further to bring forth the ancient galactic conqueror himself -- that he may aid me in becoming ruler of scores of worlds!!”
I must wonder, dear readers, if you have the ability to even commence in comprehending the sheer horror, forsooth the complete and utter terror of what we were then experiencing. There we were, the lovely Miss Millie Drake and me -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos of Algol. There we were, facing the evil Magister Don Wingus and his horrid daughter Anastasia. There we were, being attacked by the power of the combined minds of countless inhabitants of the 242 Galaxy, energy that the wicked Wingus intended to use to bring back the insane Emperor Abraxas the Great -- whom he himself could then use as an alien super-soldier in his own bid to conquer Earth and myriads of other planets!
“You will now die, Rumanos and Miss Drake!” repeated Wingus amongst peals of his utterly insane laughter. “You will now die as a demonstration of the powers I wield through the Abraxas energy -- powers I shall soon utilise to bring forth the ancient conqueror himself, that he may aid me in becoming supreme ruler of countless worlds!”
The awful power of the alien energy was having a supremely detrimental effect on Millie and me. We saw phantasmal forms around us; the ghostly images of the ancient inhabitants of Galaxy 242 -- creatures like unto intelligent arachnids and octopi and centipedes and other eldritch horrors. We felt ourselves weakening into a state that would soon cause us to fall into unconsciousness -- or worse.
All the while, we heard the demonic chant:
"Abraxas! Abraxas! Abraxas!"
Then suddenly I in stead heard the voice of Anastasia Wingus.
“Father, no!” she pleaded. “Don’t do this to Doctor Rumanos! You can kill Miss Drake if you want, but please leave him for me! I want him! Please let him live so I can have him, father! Please?!”
“Stacy, you low-down hoochie-koocher!” roared Don Wingus in anger whilst slapping his daughter across the face. “Your sickening obsession with that closeted flamer Daniel Rumanos has got to stop, do you hear me?! I shall no longer tolerate it!!”
Millie and I then noticed something. The darkling energies were no longer hitting us with any force. I managed to step forwards and deliver a kung fu kick to Don Wingus, hitting him directly in his midsection and sending him sprawling.
With this, a curious thing occurred. The Abraxas energy that had previously been sent against us then turned itself on Don Wingus, surrounding him and this daughter and, within a few seconds, completely immobilising them.
“No!” bellowed Don Wingus in sudden terror. “No! You cannot do this to me! I am Magister Don Wingus, the rightful ruler of worlds! You cannot… ! No! No! Noooooooo!!”
Then, the entire force of energy vanished, taking Don Wingus and his daughter with it.
I looked around the room. All was quiet and the horrors had gone.
“Are you all right, Millie?” I enquired.
“Yes, I’m okay now,” she replied. “Are you?”
“I am fine, love. It appears the energy has had no lasting ill effects on us.”
“But what happened?”
“When Wingus was distracted,” I explained, “he lost his control in focusing the energy on us. It immediately recoiled against him and, due to a sort of snapback effect, has taken him and Stacy out of this reality, forsooth into one of the ancient intergalactic prisons of the Gargouillios, where they will be held forever in complete isolation from all other beings.”
“So what about the Abraxas Talisman?” Millie asked.
I carefully examined the old relic before securing it in my jacket pocket.
“Interesting,” I pondered. “The ancient artefact has been completely drained of energy, and can be safely returned to the museum, hmmm? The final link of Emperor Abraxas to this Universe has been severed, and the galaxies are free of his tyranny forever!”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
