Spiral

Real name: Rita (last name unrevealed)
Occupation: Former exotic dancer, now professional bodyguard and executive assistant
Identity: Spiral's real identity is a secret.
Legal status: Citizen of the United States with no criminal record.
Other aliases: Sarah Piral (name on her bank account and current legal documents, Mojo thought of it)
Place of birth: Las Vegas, Nevada
Marital status: Single
Known relatives: None living
Group affiliation: Employee of Morton Jocosi
Base of operations: New York City
First appearance: May, 2004
History:

Spiral's early life was not very pleasant. She was born an obvious freak in a world where the word mutant was still years away from the public consciousness. She had six arms, and only three fingers on each hand. Her parents were superstitious and believed this to be the devil's work, the price for some transgression (the father constantly accused the mother of infidelity causing the pregnancy). They didn't feel they could let her out, and so they schooled her at home as best she could. When they did let her out, they made her hide her extra arms.

Her childhood was marked by abuse, physical and emotional, and she was allowed little freedom other than being alone in her room to play with dolls. Sometimes she'd be allowed to watch TV, but she knew that none of these people looked like her. When she got older, sexual abuse began. She started to deaden her compassion and joy for life. She resented everyone, resented being born, but she was too much of a fighter to just give up. She found joy in herself, in art, in music and dance, in staging elaborate productions with dolls. She retreated into an elaborate fantasy world where she was Queen Spiral (she made up the name from one of the few toys she was given, a Spiral-Graph), dancing queen who controlled the universe. She was not crazy at this point, she just had to make something better to replace the grim reality she already had. If she could tear down her reality, she would have.

Her life changed again when she became 17. Her mother died, and her mutation progressed turning her hair a metallic silver color. Her father beat her, now recognizing her for what she was, a mutant. All of the abuse continued and she decided in her mind that she could tear down this reality. She just had to start by killing her father. She put it off for a while, deciding how to make it just right. It was to be a piece of art in itself, a commentary. She was only 18 when she killed him, so her artistic message was a little blunt and on the nose. While he slept one night, she crept into his room and stabbed him in the heart, for not having one (though she missed the first blow, and he screamed until she cut his throat and killed him). She cut off his tongue for all the insults, his hands for hitting her (she even made sure the served hands were balled into fists before she left) and well, another part.

The police came to investigate the reports of screams, and she panicked when they knocked at the door. She retreated to her room and, not knowing what else to do, started dancing. In her made up universe, she could escape anywhere she wanted to by dancing. This time, however, it worked. She danced and finally pulled away from this dimension, slipping along randomly until she wound up in some park she remembered going to as a child on one of her rare outings. She left behind a house sealed up tight, deadbolted from the inside, and some confused cops. She knew she could never return home, and she was in trouble.

She was alone, on the streets, and she was an obvious mutant. Her fantasy world retreated, as mere survival took up more and more of her time and demanded more and more of her attention. And really, her life now, although not happy by any means, was an improvement beyond what it was before, in her opinion. Still, she really had no skills, and was unlikely to get a job in any legal way. She took to theft at first, barely getting by, (and mostly lucky because if she got in trouble, she could teleport away) but when she was just shy of 19, someone approached her with an offer. She was fairly attractive, and there were people who got a kick out of the whole 'obvious mutant' thing. She could become an exotic dancer for a new club that was opening. It wasn't to be advertised, but wealthy people already knew about it.

She agreed. It was a decent life, at first, better than the street anyway. She grew from a third stringer to one of the main attractions, taking on the name Spiral here, and started to work on improving her dancing skills. She tried new things, moving in new ways nobody could before, trying to make herself believe she was an artist, even though, at the time, she didn't feel it. It wasn't long before many of the dancers at the club were pressured to give 'special performances' to high paying clients in the back room. Some did so willingly for the extra cash, some held out, but they were the only club in town that would hire obvious mutants, and they might decide not to employ someone who didn't play along. Spiral, on account of her popularity, managed to avoid this threat for a while, but the manager kept pestering her. She had no interest. Still, other, newer faces kept getting hired, and Spiral's popularity started to slip. She was told (although not in so many words) they if she didn't start making the customers happy soon, she would have to find somewhere else to work... if she could.

Around this time, a movie producer with the nickname Mojo had begun attending her regular shows. She was disgusted by him, but he was a customer like any other and she could blot him out of her mind while she danced. He was enchanted with her, and began asking the management for private performances. Spiral refused at first, but Mojo was persistant and even made the promise that he didn't want sexual favors from her, he just wanted to watch her, privately.

She agreed. Mojo kept his end of the bargain, and began paying for her private performance regularly. He would, however, sample the other women available, sometimes even while watching Spiral.

Then, during one such performance, a monster appeared.

It appeared at first to be an older man, overweight, but not to the scale of Mojo. He claimed to have important information for Mojo, and slipped someone money to get through. Mojo was watching Spiral dance, and there were other sexual excapades and drugs going on. The time was right, and once the man was in a closed room with only Mojo, Spiral, another girl, and a couple bodyguards, he transformed into Y'Golonac. A hideous, bloated thing, with no head. Everyone screamed. Because everyone in the room was fairly decadent as it was, although Mojo was the prime target, it attacked others, too, lumbering throughout the room, blocking the door so nobody could get out. The monster used its hands to bite gaping, incapacitating wounds in the guards, and then went towards the girl and Mojo.

Spiral was getting ready to save herself. She had no need to use the door, and no desire to stick around and get killed.

Y'Golonac shoved the other girl to the ground (with a gaping wound in her neck, and now his mouths bit into Mojo. Screaming, he recovered his wits enough to mutter an incantation which knocked the monstrosity across the room. He screamed for help, promising a hundred thousand dollars to anyone who got him out of there.

Money, that was the real magic word in Spiral's book. She stopped her dance designed to teleport herself and moved to him. She asked him if he meant it, and he nodded, so she told him to hold still, and she began to dance around him. She only knew how to teleport herself for sure, but she improvised and managed to bring them both to her apartment, some distance away. They were safe, for the moment.

Mojo knew the threat was far from over though, his reading of the Revelations of Glaaki contained information of Y'Golonac (which was one of the reasons it was after him). He knew he was constantly in danger, and that he had to start cutting back on his depravity if there was any hope... though he knew he probably couldn't. He figured he'd give it a try, though.

He also made an offer to Spiral. He'd hire her, for $100,000 a year, as a bodyguard.

It opened a discussion, but the terms weren't right yet. When the night was over, they made a deal. She would earn a million dollars a year and, in addition would inherit a sizeable propotion of Mojo's estate when he dies. In return, she would be his personal assistant/bodyguard, at his beck and call at all times, following any orders save some specifically forbidden by the contract (one of which was that she would never be forced to do anything sexual with Mojo or anyone else as part of her duties). The deal included intensive training for swordplay and martial arts. However, she could not quit, betray Mojo, or deliberately (whether through action or inaction) allow him to come to harm.

Spiral had no reason to trust Mojo, and Mojo had no reason to trust Spiral, so to seal the deal, they signed the contract in blood. Both Spiral and Mojo are superstitious enough to believe (erroneously) that any contract signed in blood cannot be broken without dire consequences to the transgressor.

So, Spiral started working for him, becoming his agent in most things. There was a little bit of a buzz about him hiring an obvious mutant as a personal assitant, but this was Hollywood, and he was more eccentric than most. Nobody else knew his assistant also had amazing powers, powers she continued to practice with in secret.

Mojo meanwhile dropped out of the limelight and began searching for ways out of his predicament. Nothing anybody could offer him was of any help in a permanent relief, but he learned about crafting weapons that might be able to hurt the headless monster should it come after him again. He provided these weapons to Spiral. Later, he found a way to siphon off some of his physical corruption onto someone else.

Y'Golonac attacked two more times, once in a secluded parking garage and once as a visitor to Mojo's home. Spiral was there both times and they drove him off. Then, once when Mojo was meeting with an underworld drug source who was also running a forced prostitution ring, he got mad at being (as he saw it, cheated) and Y'Golonac took over Mojo himself to attack everyone save Spiral. Not knowing what to do, Spiral made herself invisible and watched. She felt she wasn't bound to help the monster when it appeared. Once many of the others in the room were left drooling husks or dead, Mojo regained his own form, weeping and begging for Spiral to help. He remembered the horror of his will completely subsuming under something so much worse. She returned and teleported him home.

They began looking in earnest for more 'cures', as well as people who were the dregs of society to sacrifice in order to save Mojo. Spiral lacked much goodness or empathy for potential victims to begin with, and what little of her goodness she had left was soon squelched as she fulfilled her part of the contract again and again.

Recently, upon hearing rumors of a major player in the supernatural in NYC, Mojo and Spiral moved there completely. Mojo became a regular at Club Apocalypse, and, although it took some weeks of no results, eventually he was approached by Stephen Alzis. The man could do nothing for him, but, should Mojo join the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle as it's Black Bishop, and follow Alzis' directives there where necessary, he could promise absolute protection from Y'Golonac on the grounds of Club Apocalypse and the Hellfire Club. Spiral continues to serve as his bodyguard and his assistant everywhere he goes.

Height: 6'0" Weight: 164 lbs.
Eyes: Silver Hair: Silver
Unusual physical characteristics: Spiral has six arms, three on each side. Each hand has only three fingers and an opposable thumb. Her eyes and hair are both silver.
Strength level: Spiral has the strength of an average six-armed woman of her height, weight, and build, who engages in intensive regular exercise. This is somewhat more than an average two-armed woman, especially in lifting where she can use multiple arms to distribute the load.
Known superhuman powers: Spiral's joints are specially constructed, allowing them to move limbs temporarily out of the three dimensions humans are accustomed to. Using this, in combination with specialized dances, Spiral is able to create a variety of effects, including teleportation, rendering herself invisible, disrupting energy and active mutant powers, and disrupting physical barriers. She usually must have her hands free and be able to move about for the powers to work.
Other abilities: Spiral is skilled at dancing, which she does in a haunting, unearthly way. She also is very skilled with a sword and hand-hand-hand-to-hand martial arts, and knows how to use a handgun.
Weapons and paraphernalia: Spiral always carries two swords, enchanted in dark ceremonies to be able to harm certain magical beings. She also typically hides a handgun in a concealed holster.
Other notes: Mojo's connection to Y'Golonac (and Spiral's drifting towards Hastur) are not Marvel canon in any way, but solely the idea of the staff.