Dear reader, you may wonder how our vigilante came into being, how she decided to place her life upon this cold and lonely path of superheroinism. This is that tale, the Origins of Eldritch!

It is early morning in the park and over the hill the sun barely rises. But this tantalizing display of nature's natural wonder is superseded by a different display. For standing naked within the park is a woman! Her beauty competes -and wins- against the rising sun but despite her appearance it is her actions that draw the eye. For she floats above the ground with her arms out and palms down. In front of her floats a vicious looking dagger whose presence alone seems to mar the beauty of the scene. A low chant tumbles from her lips, the words indistinguishable to the few people passing by.

Even were it loud enough to make out, this chant would remain indecipherable for the ordinary citizens passing by. But an unmistakable lilt of malice rolls from her tongue and for some ancient beings, the very utterance of these syllables would ignite a long-forgotten fear. Yes, this mournful tongue stirs a memory of a memory. For these words are so old that nearly all records of them have long since rotted away to dust, the memory of those dusted pages faded from the minds of man, and those men long-since dead in graves long-since rotten over.

In ages past, long before the rise of the modern era, a kingdom of men grew in great and terrible power on an island in the Mediterranean. This kingdom enslaved its women through the use of dark sorceries. Chained mind and body they were unable to foment resistance to the lascivious and cruel appetites of the inhabitants of the island. These men who called themselves masters of women were able to do so only through the power of a twisted mage -Thorm Athow! The only price he required of the men from the island was the most beautiful girl of all to bend to his own twisted chain.

Yet this girl, Belinda the Brave, would not submit! She resisted his hypnotic glare and cold irons. Aware she must seize the chance to end his foul magic far from the watchful eyes of his cronies she hatched a plot. Feigning submission, she retired alone with the malicious creature to his private villa where she turned upon his wizened form. Striking him with the closest bladed object she could reach she plunged a dagger deep into his scaled breast and thereby freed the women of the island. But dark sorceries have a price.

This price demanded an eye for an eye, a prisoner for a prisoner. For each woman that fell to chains the dark toll grew ever greater. When Thorm Athow fell, the black price could not be satisfied, so it seized the one that denied it! The same instrument of Belinda's freedom became the same instrument of her imprisonment. Her soul fell into the dagger for an eternity. Nevertheless, eternity may not be so great, for that dagger is the selfsame blade that now floats in front of the chanting woman practicing her ritual in the park!

This woman is none other than Belinda Athow the grandchild of Belinda the Brave and Thorm Athow! How many generations have passed since her ancestor freed the island's captives none can say. Yet each female of the line carries the name Belinda in honor of the sacrifice, and the name Athow so they never forget the price!

As to how she finds herself here in America, they say the greatest fury is a woman scorned. Those fools who speak such have never seen the fire of a woman chained then freed. Upon regaining independence, the women of the island concentrated the rage and suffering of those long years imprisoned and enacted a magic to wipe the memory of such an act from the world. They sunk the island whole! Though none living knows this secret, some still speak in hushed tones of the demise of the lost city -Atlantis! Unaware it was the city's own women that enacted it's descent to the depths!

Belinda the Brave's daughter escaped the destruction by throwing herself in the net of a passing fisherman, no doubt the origin of many a mermaid tale. Living among the Italians along the coast, she raised a family and began studies into the occult arts desperately seeking a way to free the woman who sacrificed everything for her line. Forced to flee when the rise of the Third Reich and the Führer's obsession with occult threatened their survival the family absconded to the country that took up the mantle of their progenitor, the land of the free and now home to descendants of the Brave, America!

Now, finally, many long years of study and toil have paid their due. When divers uncovered the dagger last year, Belinda Athow knew she finally had the chance to repay the debt her family owes. Many sleepless nights and long years of study culminate in this moment! Even the lack of modesty does not give her pause, the fire in her breast burns for her long-suffering sister and naught but freedom will quench this particular desire. So it is with a flourish that she completes her Atlantean cant and pauses. For a moment, all is still. Then! A woman who could be her mirror leaps forth!

To the gawking passersby this scene of early morning indecency has just become doubly interesting. For one, Melvin Jacobson, this morning holds a different fate. For the twisted chains unearthly hunger remains unabated and reignited by the loss of prey they latch into his heart, momentarily weakened by the presence of two unearthly beauties. But Melvin is of strong stuff, and the tendrils of corruption are weak from the cant that forced them to relinquish Belinda the Brave, so his story will continue another time.

For the disoriented Belinda the Brave, this world is unfamiliar and wrong. Confronted with her rescuer she asks in frantic tones, "Who are you, what is this and where am I!?" Her frightened and anguished tone betrays the fear that haunts her. In an unfamiliar world, she knows not if this is a new and more horrible prison than the last.

Her descendant, armed with the knowledge of modern psychology, understands immediately her disorientation and explains the nature of the world. Relating to her progenitor the advancements of modern equality, she espouses the ideals of feminism. Yet all this is ignored, Belinda the Brave knows nothing of 'feminism' or 'equality' for her world was one of suffering until she affected her freedom. She interrupts her prattling savior to ask again, "Who... who are you?"

Pausing the lecture, she replies "Belinda Athow, your granddaughter of many greats."

With mounting horror Belinda the Brave realizes her daughter survived, as a carrier of the blood of her hated foe, Thorm Athow! Suddenly overcome with disgust she recoils from this living reminder of her suffering, then possessed by an unearthly knowledge gleaned from witnessing Thorm's dark arts at work she leans forward and seizes her child by the hair and mouth. Then she plants an invasive kiss upon her lips. At the ghostly touch, Ms. Athow attempts to recoil suddenly discovering she lacks control over her own body! Belinda and Belinda are now one! Yet only the Brave controls the body. Consumed by a rage she reaches down to the selfsame dagger that imprisoned her and binds her child to the wicked metal.

Then she casts her influence through the memories of her imprisoned daughter and rips knowledge of the world from her. Soaring high into the sky the sight of a woman attacked in an alley not far from the park interrupts her retreat. Down she flies to the scene of the crime and all the while a seething rage prompted by the memory of her own abuse rocks her. She lands, or rather strikes, upon the head of one attacker and then slashes out with the dagger to another. The final one she takes into her arms and flies back up to peak of the building where she then returns him to the ground, without her assistance! The blood does not satisfy her anger, but it does provide her with small satisfaction to see those shapes that remind her of Thorm Athow suffer as she wishes he could suffer.

So Belinda the Brave becomes Wiccan, a dark vigilante that enacts a horrible justice upon men in the city. Long struggling with her descendant's pleas for a return to the righteous path her fight takes her to a mall one day. Just as Malefic, a villainess of flammable disposition and burning beauty strikes. There she seeks to destroy this vile sign of anti-sisterhood. Wiccan might have flown on were it not for some measure of remorse. However buried beneath her crimes, some semblance of the woman that sacrificed everything for the sake of her sisters yearns for the same righteous path that her daughter desires.

Finally united for a moment in intention, both Belindas struggle together to save the mallgoers from Malefic's flames. Near a shoe store they witness her wanton destruction nearly take the life of a young girl out to purchase a birthday gift for her friend. Momentarily distracted by the effort of saving her they sustain grievous injuries at the hands of Malefic. Armed with the knowledge these injuries will prove fatal, Belinda the Brave reclaims her shattered honor. She fully binds her daughter's spirit to the dagger in an effort to save her the demise of the fleshy vessel and does her best to ensure Malefic will fall with a desperate strike.

Malefic's flames prove out in the end, leaving a discarded dagger and departed soul of Belinda the Brave, forced to watch on from some higher plane as her final act of good is erased by the dark flame flinger Malefic.

With her failure, the young girl in the shoe store might have faced an untimely end. Yet while heroes often are made, in some deserving few a latent spark resides. In moments of crisis that spark ignites into an inferno hungry for the chance to save others and right the wrongs. What better kindling could there be that the wicked torrent of fire from Malefic? Within this heat, a heroine is born as Hailey Juniper Penze reaches for the dagger in a bold attempt to save her life. She succeeds barely, unable to finish off the incapacitated Malefic due to the tender nature of her heart and battered body. Sadly for the forces of good, she loses consciousness just as a fellow villain escapes with Malefic's slumbering form.

A few nights hence a pact is drawn. Belinda Athow allows herself feel the same desire for vengeance that overtook her grandmother of many greats for just a moment and agrees to instruct young Hailey in the Eldritch arts in return for a promise to seek out wicked justice against Malefic. However, the innate goodness of Hailey helps temper this iron rage into a steely resolve. The pair forge an agreement to work together to save innocents and defend the weak. Hailey vows to bear forth the torch that Wiccan lit, but never to forget the trial she failed. To remember that she bears a terrible responsibility to wield her powers only in service of good and not in anger or rage. To know that the selfsame mystical ability to do good serves as a double edged sword granting the same awful ability to harm when wielded poorly, and that even the most virtuous can succumb to the darkness within.

But none of this knowledge will aid her now. After all, she faces a far worse foe tomorrow at the school dance! Against the charms of Theo Trelio, no magic spell will save her! Join us next week as Eldritch comes face to face with the Belinda's demons in "Sins of the Mother!"