“So the talisman that was stolen from the Met was actually made by Leonardo da Vinci?” wondered Millie Drake. “I know some say he put occult symbolism in his paintings, but did he really practice magic?”
“Quite so, love,” I affirmed. “An interest in the occult was quite the rage amongst the artistic set during the Italian Renaissance. It was kind of a way for them to ‘thumb their nose’ at the Church, hmmm?”
We had just arrived at the Hotel Deluxe, there in downtown Manhattan, in my specially-modified golden Cadillac convertible. I -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos, scion of the Watchers of Algol and intergalactic espionage agent currently assigned to Earth -- was clad in my usual finery; including a frilled poet shirt, purple velvet suit, panama hat, jungle boots, Star of David necklace, and one of my favourite opera capes.
My companion, known as Miss Millie Drake, is an exceedingly beautiful young lady; petite and perfect with luxurious chestnut hair, enchanting violet eyes, and a sun-kissed complexion. The purple dress she wore only served to highlight her slender figure.
We parked in the hotel’s underground lot, then taking the elevator up to the fourteenth floor.
“This is where our systems at HQ detected the energy readings coming from?” asked Millie as we exited the lift; “the readings that might be the kind of thing this Leonardo Talisman could conjure?”
“Quite so,” I replied, twiddling my frills. “The readings seemed to show the presence of Shedim spirits, those demonic beings of ancient Hebrew lore similar to what the Muslims call jinn. An interest in both Judaism and Islam was also rather popular during old Leo’s time.”
I took an object from my pocket -- gold in colour and covered with Hebrew lettering -- and used it to scan the area.
“Spires of Daemonia!” I swore upon looking at the results. “According to the transonic mezuzah, the Shedim energy is indeed present here -- and quite powerful!”
“We need to track down the person doing this,” announced Millie. “They are probably the same one who stole the talisman, right? Then we can… Oh my gosh!”
I whirled around to see what had so startled my young assistant, and beheld an horror indeed. It was like unto a cloud of black and grey energy floating down the hotel corridor -- directly at us!!
Then, just before it reached us, the eldritch horror vanished.
“Daniel, what was that?!” Millie cried.
“It was Shedim energy,” I explained. “The very power of those disincarnate spirits that represent a race of beings which once ruled the planet. It was just a small manifestation -- a reverse echo of the much more massive phantasmal terror we shall have to face if someone has indeed succeeded in properly conjuring them.”
With this, we continued our course down the corridor, now guided by the direction from which the ghostly form had emerged. We entered the room at the far end of the hallway, my escape artist skills quickly opening the lock. It was dark inside except for two ebon black candles on top of a table which was covered by a similarly-black altar cloth. At the centre of the table was a copper disk engraved with numerous cabalistic sigils.
“The Leonardo Talisman,” I whispered to Millie.
Then, emerging from the shadows, was a figure. It was the figure of a man wearing a black business suit with a long blood-red necktie. He appeared to be of middle years, his face still distinctly handsome despite being marred with the signs of lifetimes of extreme wickedness. His hair was long and dark, and his visage was decorated with a thin moustache and goatee. Most of all, his pale eyes shone with an intense hypnotic glare.
Of course, I recognised him immediately. I recognised him as the renegade Algolite who has become the most dangerous and wanted criminal in all the Cosmos, and my own most persistent enemy.
“Don Wingus!” I said. “Of course. I should have known. So it was you that purloined the Leonardo Talisman from the museum, and you have been utilising it to call forth the horrid powers of the Shedim!”
“Rumanos, you meddling old malcontent,” sneered the villain, with wisps of black and grey energy beginning to swirl about him. “Not at all surprising to see you and your little friend here, but it is of no consequence. I have already availed myself of the powers stored in the talisman, augmented by my own superior Algolitish mind, to call forth the powers of the Shedim. They are under my control, and I -- Magister Don Wingus -- shall utilise them to aid me in my conquest of this planet!”
I quickly reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the transonic mezuzah. Nevertheless, before I could activate the device, Don Wingus raised his hand and shot forth a blast of the darksome Shedim energy, hitting the mezuzah and sending it flying across the room.
“It is too late, Rumanos,” exulted Wingus. “The powers of the Leonardo Talisman are mine, and the Shedim will now destroy your very existence!!”
At this, an horridly huge mass of the demonic energy, accompanied by a sound like unto the chanting of an hundred thousand satanic souls, suddenly burst forth from Don Wingus directly to-wards Millie and me!
Is it possible, dear readers, for you to comprehend the horror, forsooth the sheer terror of what we were then experiencing? There we were, the lovely Millie Drake and myself -- Doctor Daniel Rumanos -- facing the intergalactic criminal known to infamy as Don Wingus. There we were, as Wingus released the horrible Shedim powers directly at us -- the very powers he had called forth with the aid of the stolen Leonardo da Vinci Talisman, and which he intended to use to conquer the entire world!
“The Shedim shall destroy you, Rumanos!” repeated the evil Don Wingus amidst his own mad laughter. “You shall die, and I shall rule Earth!”
The Shedim energy hit us with extreme force, sending us sprawling across the room and separating us. Then the horror really began.
Within the swirling maelstrom of demoniacal power we could see things, things beyond the ken of sanity; forms and shapes of utter screaming madness beyond all mortal endurance. There were flashings of hairy creatures with twisted horns and grotesquely glowing eyes and other things of insane otherworldly terror from outside of the realm of any possible reality.
As horrid as these sights were, it was strangely difficult to avert one’s gaze from them. Nevertheless, I struggled until I managed to do so, looking over at my dear Millie. I saw that she was similarly attempting to turn away from the whirling spectacle of horror; and I also beheld a familiar and welcome object on the floor next to her.
“Millie!” I shouted across the room. “The mezuzah!”
She then noticed what I had seen; that she had fallen just next to where my device had landed earlier. She immediately picked it up and tossed it to me.
I caught the transonic mezuzah and, quickly programming the proper setting, raised it on high.
“Be gone, foul spirits of the Shedim!” I said. “Hashem the God of Israel commands it!”
With this, the awful dark energies that had surrounded Millie and me suddenly reversed course -- in stead heading directly to-wards Don Wingus!
“No!” Wingus bellowed in sudden consternation as the black and grey demonic energies surrounded him. "No! Nooooo!!”
Then the Shedim energy suddenly imploded, folding inwards upon the evil Don Wingus. A moment later, with a sound like unto a tearing of worlds, both the power and Wingus simply vanished.
I glanced around the room whilst scanning it with the mezuzah. All was now quiet.
Millie ran over and embraced me. “Is it gone? Has it taken Don Wingus with it?”
“Quite so, my dear,” I assured her, returning the mezuzah to my pocket. “The power of the Shedim could not resist the rite of exorcism. It turned upon the one who conjured it, and now both the demonic energy and Wingus have been imprisoned in the dimension known as Hell.”
“But what about the Leonardo Talisman?” queried Millie.
I picked up the old copper disk from the table and put it safely in my pocket. “It can now be safely returned to the museum. This experience has drained the last of the power that was stored in it. This particularly dark part of the otherwise brilliant legacy of Leonardo da Vinci -- artist, polymath, and occult experimenter -- is at an end.”
***** DANIEL RUMANOS AND MILLIE DRAKE SHALL RETURN
