Victoria Montesi

Victoria Montesi inherits her family’s mission to protect humanity against those who would use the mystical tome, the Darkhold, a spellbook capable of summoning demonic hellbeasts to Earth. She joins the Darkhold Redeemers to keep the demons at bay.

A Secret Parentage

It all starts billions of years ago when the Elder Gods rule the newborn Earth until most degenerate into demonic beings. One of the most powerful and malignant, Chthon, inscribes his dark magic into indestructible parchment, dubbed the Chthon scrolls. Eventually Chthon’s non-demonic sibling, Gaea, spawns the god-eating Demogorge (Atum) to slay her corrupted peers. To survive, Chthon flees to another dimension; though trapped there, he leaves behind his scrolls to continue to influence Earth and ultimately return there. In the 6th century C.E., most of the scrolls are gathered and bound into the Darkhold, AKA the Book of Sins—a powerful tome containing all manner of black magic.

In the 12th century, the Catholic Church learns that one of their order, Monk Paolo Montesi, could resist the effects of the Darkhold. He uncovers the disturbing Malachy Prophecy warning of Chthon’s eventual return: “A woman born of no man and of a woman marked by sin; daughter becomes mother; then will the dark return begin.” In response, Pope Eugene III declares Paolo’s bloodline the book’s custodians, giving the Montesi priests special permission to marry and sire heirs. Over the years, the Montesi family protects humanity from those who would seek to use the Darkhold. 

When the 20th century arrives, a priest named Vittorio Montesi inherits the family’s mission. Knowing that he is sterile and that he needs to continue the line, Vittorio gives in to temptation and uses the power of the Darkhold to create a daughter, Victoria, with his American wife. Though Victoria’s true parentage lies in the deal Vittorio makes with the Elder God Chthon, creator of the Darkhold—Chthon tricks him and fathers Victoria himself. However, Vittorio remains unaware that he fulfills the prophecy while Victoria remains in the dark to her true parentage for most of her life. Subconsciously sensing that Chthon was her true father, Vittorio resents his daughter. The problem worsens when Victoria rejects her father’s teachings and familial duties as superstitious nonsense, and  when she comes out as gay. She eventually leaves to attend medical school and her father disowns her.

Victoria spends her first year of medical residency at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Rome and while living with her girlfriend, karate instructor Nash Salvato, her skepticism is shattered. Another demon, Lilith (Kiskillilla) believes Victoria is one of “the Nine” prophesied to oppose her, convinces Interpol Chief Randolph DeGuzman, a secret Darkhold cultist, that Victoria threatens Chthon’s return, prompting him to send assassins after her. When the assassins attempt to kill her, they plant a bomb that leaves Nash severely injured and in a coma. The Vatican convinces Interpol to assign Special Agent Sam Buchanan to protect Victoria as her bodyguard. Reporting to DeGuzman, Buchanan keeps him apprised of Victoria’s movements, unwittingly enabling further murder attempts. Simultaneously, Chthon’s servant, the Dwarf, begins distributing loose Darkhold pages to unwary recipients, channeling the mystic power for this through an unsuspecting Victoria. Victoria experiences disturbing visions of evils unleashed every time a page from the Darkhold is used, and awareness of the activated pages’ locations. Victoria and the skeptical Buchanan soon ally with her father’s friend, occult specialist and Professor Louise Hastings, to retrieve the cursed parchments. They soon go up against cultist Donald Walsh and his Chameleon Worms.

Psychic Connection

While acting as Chthon’s unwitting gateway, Victoria can sense the location of the Darkhold pages in use, sometimes having visions of what they unleashed; this ability apparently remains, although less focused, now that the power no longer directs through her.

She accumulates some proficiency in casting spells from the Darkhold, and can inscribe Chthonic symbols on weapons and armor to render them more effective against Chthon’s minions. 

Victoria is proficient with firearms and swords, and has some hand-to-hand training via Salvato and Buchanan. She is at least bilingual, fluent in English and Italian, and is a trained medical doctor. 

Elder God Enemies

Chthon, Victoria’s true father, creates her to be his surrogate mother for his return to Earth. He impregnates her though Doctor Steven Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, places her in a mystical stasis to pause her pregnancy but Chthon sends his minions to secure his entry into this world. He sends monstrous beings and the Midwife to undo Strange’s interference. Though the Midwife turns on the Elder God and helps protect Victoria with Strange’s help. She joins other groups as well to oppose Chthon, making it her duty to protect humanity against him. Chthon sends the mysterious Dwarf to Earth to obtain the original Darkhold pages separate from the bound tome, and the Dwarf offers people pages as a solution to their woes. Each page’s use alerts Victoria with visions.

As a Darkhold Redeemer, Victoria faces all manner of demonic foes, including the Mother of Demons, Lilith, and one of her own making. When she uses a page from the Darkhold to bring her lover Nash out of a coma, she becomes all-powerful but has to stop the demon Monstrosity that the page brought forth who attacks her Redeemer teammates.

Allies Against the Darkhold 

Thanks to the Vatican intervening in the attacks against Victoria, she meets her bodyguard, Interpol agent Sam Buchanan, who is at first a skeptic of the otherworldly things that they ultimately experience together. The pair consult with occult specialist Louise Hastings about the Darkhold cultists, and soon find that repeated use of the Darkhold spellbook weakens the dimensional barrier between Earth and Chthon’s K’lay, AKA Other-Realm. 

To oppose Chthon, the trio forms the Darkhold Redeemers, and together they track the pages’ use, and collect them to prevent further usage. They add the erstwhile unwilling Chthon servant, Modred the Mystic, and Louise’s grandson William Hastings, AKA Jinx, to their crew. With her psychic page-location sense, Victoria leads the Redeemers to face off with several Darkhold page users. They Redeemers also ally with the Midnight Sons against Lilith and the Elder God Chthon. 

Victoria also allies with Doctor Strange against Chthon, and Strange becomes invested in protecting not only the world from the Elder God’s wrath on Earth but also in Victoria’s safety.

Chthon sends his minion, Midwife, to deliver Victoria’s child (actually Chthon). When Victoria faces death, Midwife, having been created by Chthon to value and protect life, she sides with Victoria against Chthon and his other more monstrous minions.

Victoria later joins the Children of the Midnight Sun to protect the Darkhold. She and her colleague, Yuvraj Sign, work with the Anti-Carnage Taskforce and the FBI to track down the Darkhold which Cletus Kasady, AKA Carnage, stole and planned to bring Chthon to Earth. The taskforce consists of Eddie Brock, AKA Toxin, Manny Calderon, John Jameson, AKA Man-Wolf, and they come upon Jubulile van Scotter who had encountered Carnage. Carnage attempts to transform her into a hybrid symbiote with the Darkhold, but it seemingly fails. Victoria hopes that Jubulile’s nature helps them turn the tide against Chthon.

Visions of Demons

While Victoria’s girlfriend Salvato remained in a coma, Salvato’s parents had transferred their ailing daughter to Summertide Convalescent Home in New Hope, Connecticut. At Victoria’s behest, the Redeemers set up a home across the street, allowing Victoria to visit whenever not chasing down Darkhold pages. Salvato showed signs of recovery under Victoria’s care, but rapidly deteriorated during her absences.

During one incident, a demon killed Hasting’s daughter Caprice, and the group takes in Hastings’ now-orphaned grandson Jinx. Soon thereafter, DeGuzman convinced Buchanan that Victoria was faking her visions and was secretly in league with the Darkholders, explaining why the cultists kept finding them. On DeGuzman’s orders, Buchanan delivered Victoria and Hastings to his superior, but they escaped with Jinx’s help, and were reunited with a penitent Buchanan, who finally accepted that he was in love with Victoria and saw through DeGuzman’s deception.

When another Darkhold page transformed the Daywalker vampire hunter Eric Brooks, AKA Blade, into Switchblade, and made him obsessed with wiping out all things supernatural, he turned on his fellow Midnight Sons. Knowing he would not hurt normal people, Victoria tried to act as a human shield for Modred, but was slain without hesitation. Hastings restored Blade and resurrected his victims using a counter-spell from the Darkhold, but Victoria wondered why he had been willing to kill her. Investigating the gateway through which Chthon’s power was flowing to Earth, Hastings discovered the truth of Victoria’s conception, but hesitated to tell her friend. 

Salvato’s doctor’s then informed Victoria that her lover was dying. The Dwarf offered her a Darkhold page to help Salvato, and Victoria took the opportunity. Despite her family’s history of being incorruptible, she becomes possessed by the page, and while it offered her healing abilities, it also unleashed the demon known as Monstrosity. Monstrosity attacked both Buchanan and Jinx, and mortally wounded Jinx in the fray. Monstrosity disappeared as Victoria appeared, her body wreathed in flame with an energy emanating from her whole being. She healed Jinx’s soul and body and then attempted to use those same powers to restore her lover Salvato. But Salvato convinced Victoria to reject the power and destroy Monstrosity before dying moment’s later. With the possession over and her powers gone with it, she questioned why she was so easily corrupted since her father Vittorio’s heritage supposedly protected her.

Victoria started suffering from morning sickness, and she assumed she was unwell; however, she was unknowingly pregnant with Chthon, possibly due to her use of the Darkhold. When the Redeemers were alerted that Lilith had opened an interdimensional rift in Salem Fields Cemetery, in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, they joined the Midnight Sons in trying to shut it. During the conflict, Morbius, the Living Vampire, AKA Morbius, came under Lilin Bloodthirst’s control and murdered Hastings. Victoria later discovered a letter that Hastings had written outlining her findings about Victoria, confirming Victoria’s own growing suspicions. 

With more imminent world-ending threats to deal with, Doctor Strange placed Victoria in a mystic stasis field which stopped time around her. He then hid her away and protected her with a dozen impenetrable enchantments. Though, Chthon sent his minions, including his Midwife, to pull her out of stasis. They somehow breached all of Strange’s mystical defenses, including Victoria’s stasis-field. Victoria awoke and expressed hesitance after Strange insisted he put her back under—though she did not want to spend eternity in nothingness. He reminded her about the cost of her giving birth, that a world was at stake, and she, without hesitation, allowed him to proceed. Though Midwife knew that the stasis would kill her and as Strange did not want her blood on his hands, he stopped the spell and left to fight back Chthon. 

As she delivered the baby, Midwife assisted but realized that Victoria’s life was more important. Strange realized Chthon was vulnerable and used the purity of Victoria’s soul to drive him back to his prison dimension, ending Victoria’s unnatural pregnancy. Though his minion monsters attacked and the Midwife immediately came to Victoria’s defenses since her entire purpose was to protect and bring life into the world. She then offered to stay with Victoria and help her recover from the terrible ordeal.

Later, Victoria joins the Children of Midnight (possibly the Redeemers renamed) to continue blocking Chthon’s return. She worked with the FBI when symbiote-empowered serial killer Carnage stole the Darkhold, Victoria tracked Carnage down to Jakarta, Indonesia where her agents identified a Darkhold cult leader as Brother Gregori. Victoria’s associate, Yuvraj Singh, informed her that the Darkhold cultists captured Carnage and the Darkhold. They arrived in Jakarta Old Town and found all the cultists dead. They boarded a ship, the Caspian Sea, to track down Carnage and Victoria realized that Carnage may be immune to sonic weapons but could be weak to Chthoinc magic. When they boarded the ship, they discovered Carnage’s trail of symbiote biomass, which told Victoria he could not infect others with his symbiote without a Chthonic alter. While on the ship, they found Brother Gregori bound, who warned them that Carnage was unstoppable. The taskforce was attacked by symbiote-human hybrids and Victoria called for a retreat.

Victoria reminded the group that getting the Darkhold from Carnage was their highest priority. She directed her associates to plant explosives in the ship. Working alongside Eddie Brock, Victoria and Eddie searched the ship for the Darkhold. When she sensed its presence, she pressed her symbiote activator which revealed Eddie’s other half, Toxin, and Carnage appeared as well. Victoria demanded that Carnage hand over the Darkhold, and instead one of their crew, Claire Dixon, appeared as a transformed symbiote calling herself Raze. Victoria fired her weapon at Carnage, which was loaded with ammunition scored with Chthonic symbols. In the battle that followed, Victoria battled Raze and cut her arm off with an enchanted sword, and their taskforce escaped to their yacht before the ship exploded. Carnage survived and ended up on an island in the Timor Sea. Victoria, with her anti-Carnage crew, followed thanks to one in their group, Jubulile van Scotter, who could sense Carnage. On the island, they encountered Broodlings of Chthon, which attacked them. Though they escaped, Carnage was not so lucky and ended up being roasted by the Broodlings over a bonfire. Though Jubulile’s connection to Carnage affected her ability to function and while she relived her memories, Victoria faced a choice: help Carnage to save Jubulile. While Toxin freed Carnage, Jubulile mentioned a temple in her fever, and at this moment, Victoria knew Chthon was close. They found their way to the temple, and during that time, Victoria informed Manuela of her past with Chthon and ended up flirting with her. Their efforts to stop Chthon came too late. Once in the temple, Raze, who had survived the boat’s explosion, killed Singh and Chthon rose. 

Jubilile then fully merged with a symbiote, having previously absorbed one from Eddie, and became exactly what Victoria hoped she would be—a defender of humanity. Jubilile attacked Chthon while Victoria and the others retrieved the Darkhold from Carnage. Man-Wolf arrived and kept Carnage busy. About to cast a spell, Victoria realized the book lacked the page needed. Manuela produced it having torn it out months ago, and Victoria flirted with her again, saying she was becoming indispensable. Vicky cast a spell to increase Jubulile’s ability to absorb light and dark psychic power, and Jubulile then used Claire’s symbiote, transforming her back into herself. In defeating Chthon, the Anti-Carnage Task Force faced Carnage, but Claire used what symbiote she had left to trap him, which cost her her life. The task force left the island and Victoria departed to take the Darkhold to the Children of the Midnight Sun for protection, and parts ways with Manuela and the task force.