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"The world is full of many terrifying mysteries that lie within the deepest, darkest depths of human knowledge, and not so luckily for Skye Mathers, Guardian of the Nexus, she's just disturbed some of the worst horrors to escape from there. Teaming up with Anabelle "Belle" Di Marco, they must embark on a mission to not only save the lives of those they love, but potentially all innocent life on the planet..."
After a brief two-page intro linking Belle to her destiny as 'The Beast Hunter', an intro that gives potential spoilers that Belle's journey is coming to an end, we find Skye and Belle waking up with collars around their necks in an unknown room in an unknown location. Belle, however, knows a bit about their necks which is a cursed object called the 'Necklace of Harmonia.' A cursed object meant to subvert the will of the holder until their last breath. So says a ghostly apparition of the woman (later introduced as Danica) who punched Belle when they came through a portal to end up where they are in issue #83.
When Belle and Skye demand to know why they've been brought here, Danica admits they've been brought to this room so that she can freed from her confines and so that Skye can kill Belle. Not believing a word of it, Skye calls her out on the bullshit she's spinning, and they both have a moment that while Skye believes she can forge her own path and doesn't believe in destiny or fate - Belle, on the other hand, does believe in those things. Going so far as to briefly recount the time she met The Fates and saved one of them (see: Belle: Depths of Tartarus). It's an interesting juxtaposition by Dave Franchini that, despite being in remarkably similar situations across their shared publication history, the two women view and see the world and the idea of 'destiny' as something to be conquered vs something to be experienced.
While they're briefly arguing over who's going to kill who, two women (Andromeda and Pasiphae) and a bull-faced man, open the door to Belle and Skye's prison - revealing themselves. It's a moment where neither of these two women feel dangerous but when Belle screams in pain it seems that Andromeda is not screwing around with the rod she's holding. A rod that seems to wield cursed magicks that can manipulate the pain threshold through their collars. When Skye demands they stop, Andromeda scoffs at the two of them and admits she can kill them at any time as the Necklace of Harmonia demands the wearer obey those of the bloodline who put it on them in the first place. In other words, Belle and Skye are all sorts of screwed and have to do exactly what Andromeda, Pasiphae and Bull-Faced Man say.
Belle and Skye are eventually brought to Pasiphae and Andromeda's father who dismisses them before he admits they're here to retrieve an item they recklessly destroyed in the past. Danica summons a portral and her brother, Mercurial, takes a green orb from her before venturing through the portal with Skye and Belle in tow. They emerge in another dimension with a spooky haunted castle that is overgrown with living fauna and corpses that are spread out all around them. As they move towards their destination the corpses come alive in a fashion similar to the zombies in Return of the Living Dead, both in mood and appearance.
Soon it becomes clear why Skye and Belle are there - to assist Mercurial with reclaiming the "item" is father is so desperate to attain. An impressive of lightning charged power erupts from both Skye and Belle as they easily dispatch the hordes of undead charging at them. When it becomes too much, Skye uses her magic to transport closer to the object which is a glowing purple flower. As Skye is about to pluck the flower from the ground, Belle gives her a swift right-cross to the jaw which sends her stumbling over. Under the control of Mercurial and his green orb, she takes the flower, standing over Skye motionless as roots from deep underground start to bind Skye in place. A monsters roar comes from the under the earth. Babisu Kourtis' artwork comes into its own here as does Jorge Cortes' coloring which plays around with different shades and palettes that lend to the dark fantasy otherworldy element.
As Mercurial goes on about his masterplan, his moustache-twirling moment is brought to a swift close as Belle summons her power from within, breaking the hold he has over her and decapitating the arm holding the green orb. Causing her betrayal of Mercurial to extreme pain, killing her, as Skye gets free from the roots that bound her, she grabs the orb and opens the portal back to Mercurial's father and at the same smashes the orb against a nearby wall.
Wasting no time, the pair jump through the portal, leaving Mercurial to be wrapped up the jaws of death as this giant monster of Kaiju-like proportions wraps him up in its tendrils are pulls it into its jaws. Leaving his father, Skye, and Belle to look on in horror as this issue of Grimm Fairy Tales rounds out on this cliff hanger.
Grimm Fairy Tales #84 is forging its own incredible path of sultry desire meets dark fantasy and its need for antagonists (often men) to own, acquire or destroy the femme protagonists who would sooner see a sword lodged in their throats. A path paved of nonstop dark magic wielding, action filled adventure that stands head and shoulders above what Grimm Fairy Tales could have and would have looked like with the release of Issue #1.
