The horror icon Vampirella returns to her roots, courtesy of Bram Stoker Award-winning author Nancy A. Collins (Sunglasses After Dark)! Vampirella is sent by the Vatican to investigate the kidnapping of a little girl by Ethan Shroud and the Chaos Cult, only to become the centerpiece of a ritual invoking Lady Umbra, the sister-bride of Chaos, that leaves her marked as a living sacrifice to the dark goddess who rules the shadows. Hunted by the Mallus Maleficarum, an elite hit-squad of monster-killers also known as "e;The Witch-Hammer"e;, she finds her world abruptly turned upside down... and herself unexpectedly allied with the strangest bedfellow imaginable!