Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins#1(1992)

In New York, a dwarf with an evil sneer delivers a black envelope to a music producer named Donald J. Walsh. Upon opening the envelope, a tremendous evil overwhelms him. Hour later, when he returns home and is confronted by his angry and armed wife, Zephyr, Walsh takes the gun away from her and shoots himself in his chest but doesn't die. Instead, Chameleon Worms begin emerging from his body and attack Zephyr, going down her throat and choking her until she dies. In Rome, Italy, first year resident Victoria Montesi suddenly has a mental image of Zephyr's death while having lunch with her roommate, Nash. While Nash is away from the table, Vicki is accosted by Fabio, her supervisor at the hospital where they work, who insults her, calling her a mongrel because of her half-Italian/half-American parentage, and telling her that he's scheduled her for 18 hours of E.R. duty, starting that night. When Fabio reminds her that she shouldn't have rejected his offers to "help" her, Vicki replies that she's heard that he needs help in that department. Angered, Fabio grabs her and begins manhandling her but then Nash returns and knocks him to the ground. As Fabio's date calls for the police, Vicki and Nash quickly leave the scene and return to their apartment. When Nash puts her key in the lock, it triggers a bomb that explodes, seriously injuring both women. Vicki remains unconscious for three days, during which time she has a dream about a worm-monster who attacks her. When she awakens from the nightmare, she finds three men waiting at her bedside: her colleague, Dr. DiFinizio, her father, the priest Vittorio Montesi, and an Interpol special agent, Sam Buchanan. Vittorio tells the two other men that Vicki was targeted by evil forces because the Montesi family is charged with safekeeping the Book of Sins known as the Darkhold. When he reminds Victoria that she must be ready to take up the burden, she again rejects the idea, angering him by her defiance. As she lists her reasons for defying him, Vicki suddenly experiences a brief hallucination in which the three men also appear as worm-monsters. Vicki keeps quiet about the scary mental lapses she's been having and, remembering that Nash was with her during the bomb blast, asks about her. DiFinizio reveals that Nash's mind is intact but her body isn't, prompting Vittorio to callously remark that Nash won't be practicing karate anymore. Vicki responds by angrily ordering them all to leave her room. Buchanan stays behind long enough to tell her that, while he doesn't believe in that mystical crud, somebody does and they're willing to kill for it, so Interpol, at the Vatican's request, has assigned him to protect her, and he is going to stay with her until the danger is passed. Vicki rejects that idea and orders him to leave, so Buchanan does. Meanwhile, back in New York, Johnny Blaze approaches occultist Professor Louise Hastings outside her hotel and escorts her to an alley where they meet up with Ghost Rider who reveals that he has had a vision which foretold the coming of Lilith – the Mother of Demons, and now they seek out potential allies in their crusade to stop her and her evil brood. Ghost Rider thinks that Hastings and the other people in his vision may be in terrible danger. That night, Vicki secretly sneaks out of the hospital and takes a walk, unknowingly escaping the ninja assassin who later snuck into her room and killed a nurse before discovering that the shape under the bed covers was just a stuffed bear. Other members of the group of ninjas in service to the cult known as the Darkholders ambush her, but Buchanan arrives and helps to protect her. Once the ninja all are incapacitated, Vicki tells him about her visions and that she must go to New York. Buchanan reluctantly agrees. Elsewhere, Lilith has been having her child Nakota use her special vision to show this failed attack to some Darkholders. Since Lilith wishes Vicki dead, believing that she threatens the Darkhold and the possibility of Chthon's children returning from exile, the Darkholder whose mask presides agrees to a temporary alliance and gives some of their ninja to her. Lilith has her son Doc reshape them into faster and stronger minions who she plans to use to kill Vicki. ]] After traveling from Rome to New York City, Montesi and Buchanan drive to the Walsh estate in Long Island, the place from Vicki's dreams. Finding that the crime scene has already been breached, they enter the house and eventually find a black envelope, but as soon Buchanan picks it up, Hastings calls out, ordering him to put it down immediately. Although Buchanan reacts by pulling his gun on her, Hastings and Montesi instantly recognize each other, and Vicki tells Buchanan that Louise Hastings is a professor of archeology at Oxford, an occult expert and the only friend of her father's that she's ever loved. Hastings reveals the the police flew her in to help after an ancient parchment was found at the murder site in that black envelope. Hastings reveals that the parchment is one of the fabled lost pages of the Darkhold, and reveals to Vicki that the Darkhold was authored by Chthon, the greatest of the Elder Gods, so that his/its power would endure and summon it home from exile. As Hastings continues to fill Vicki in about the Darkhold, including the fact that she's translated the found page and has discovered that it describes a spell for immortality as a swarm of worms, Walsh, his body consumed by the Chameleon Worms, drops down on them from the ceiling and begins attacking Buchanan and Montesi. Moments later, Hastings turns on the lights, signaling to Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze who have been waiting outside and who instantly crash through the window of the mansion on their motorcycles. Johnny fires at Walsh with his Hellfire shotgun, but Walsh manages to reform himself and flee, escaping down a sink drain. However, Buchanan manages to grab some of the worms and trap them inside of a glass jar. Bringing the jar with them to Hastings' room at the Golden Plaza Hotel, they force them into forming into a duplicate of Walsh's head and proceed to interrogate him. Walsh reveals that, after opening the envelope given to him by the Dwarf, he was unable to read the words on the page inside but was nevertheless able to speak the words that summoned a being who called itself "The Other" and offered him immortality. Walsh accepted only to find that it meant him spending eternity as a rotting pile of worms passing for human, doomed to a life of decay except when tasting the living warmth of others. Walsh states that he can't be killed, since the worms are invulnerable when together, and that he will remain alive as long as a single worm survives. Watching from afar via Nakota's eyes, Lilith finds this information useful because the Chameleon Worms will keep their targets too busy to defend themselves. As dawn arrives, Vicki is asleep while Hastings had gone for a stroll to a nearby park as part of a plan she's developed. Hastings returns to the hotel room just as Vicki screams after waking up and finding that the worms have been multiplying so that there will soon be enough for two Walshes and that the others have homed in on the location of the trapped worms. Once Ghost Rider has pulled Vicki away from the worms that have been advancing on her, Hastings tells her to run for the park and orders Blaze and Buchanan to avoid any gunfire. Followed by the reformed Walsh, Vicki tricks them into stepping in front of an oncoming bus which splatters them apart. The worms quickly reform but the delay has been enough to enable Vicki to reach the park and reunite with the other four, but then Lilith, three of her Lilin and the transformed ninjas arrive and attack. As Hastings uses her own gun to prevent Buchanan from firing his gun, Ghost Rider and Blaze discover that the ninjas are strong enough to withstand their blows. Only after Ghost Rider's Hell Cycle arrives and knocks some of the ninjas over does Blaze discover that they're not human anymore, freeing Ghost Rider to stop holding back, but not before one of them has managed to stab Vicki in the leg with a thrown dagger. Now unable to run, Vicki is soon confronted by the worms who have multiplied enough to form two humanoid Walshes, both of whom grab hold of her. However, before they can kill Vicki, the presence of the Chameleon Worms attracts a massive flock of birds. As Hastings had hoped, the birds swoop down and eat all of the Chameleon Worms, preventing Walsh from reconstituting himself. Since the worms were only invulnerable while together, being pulled apart by the birds makes it possible for them to be killed by being eaten. Blaze turns his gun towards Lilith and fires a Hellfire blast into her shoulder. Lilith doesn't wish to risk further injury at the hands of Blaze, Ghost Rider and the "self-appointed Darkhold Redeemers," so she has Pilgrim teleport himself, her and Doc away, leaving Nakota behind to flee on foot. As the quintet discuss the night's events, Vicki reveals that she had a vision of another page while she slept and she intends to stop any Darkhold pages that turn up. Buchanan says he will be with her because he's supposed to be protecting her, and Hastings refuses to miss the chance for firsthand occult research. Unnoticed by the group, a single Chameleon Worm has survived the birds and thinks itself to be free until it is stepped on and crushed to death by a curious individual who is observing "this Montesi" from a distance – Modred the Mystic. Elsewhere, in the Library of Congress, the Dwarf approaches a new victim, an arsonist who is having trouble with his bomb, and offers him a light.