This is Vee's great-grandpa, Ulysses Hosea Verdugo, an old once banished monster whose career lasted too short after he was banished for killing a human in self-defense.
Hosea was born on December 4th, 1878, in what would be modern-day Monstropolis. Born at the cusp of the Second Industrial Revolution of Monstropolis, Hosea witnessed the beginnings of modernization in scream energy and innovation in door production and scream canisters. Monsters were starting to prove that this alternative energy could be more effective than waterwheels and manual energy and could be harvested reliably.
Hosea attended the old University of Monsters and Scaring (Monsters University before it modernized its name in the 30's when Scaring became a profitable career to pursue after the fear of war and starvation skyrocketed human fear).
He pursued literature studies initially before switching halfway through his college track and pivoting to Scaring after accidentally startling the dean at the time with his glowing blue eyes and giant silhouette in the dark. He was on track to become one of the first in a line of new scarers aiding in the research and progress on scream energy.
His first five years he spent in a new startup company that was the proprietor of the new, untested doors of a private commissioned door technician and researcher at the time. During this time, he fell in love with a swamp monster in the humble, water-wheel-powered town of Marsh Meadows, a singer, by the name of Nadja Marisol, a voracious romantic and future matriarch of the Marisol line.
However, Hosea encountered a human in 1911 who was much older than the file stated and was armed. Upon being attacked, Hosea reacted in self-defense and killed the boy.
The company needing to keep its energy source alive and maintain the heresy of humans being toxic in order to keep monsters from attacking--they always advised to retreat in dangerous situations--they decided to banish Hosea through one of their experimental doorways. This company would later be known as Dread Imminent and Associates, a research facility and manufacturer of most banishment doors.
Hosea spent 45 years in the human world.
During this time, Hosea stole what he could for food and hid himself away from humans after several found his appearance frightening. That is, until he encountered a nightclub in London. The ladies of the establishment had found Hosea passed out in the back and had helped revive him after he'd fainted from dehydration. He'd played along to the idea that he was a circus runaway freak, as strongmen were a thing, and Hosea had already hidden his extra eyes with his hair, and extra legs with poorly tailored wide pants. He hid his bat-like wings beneath his shirt and vest, tightly bound.
He'd shave his face and arms to take on a more human appearance, then acquired a job as a bouncer for a while. If anyone gave the ladies trouble, Hosea would throw them out. He was the only trusted man in the building as he had absolutely no interest in the women beyond upholding order and respect towards the women in the club who'd saved his life.
He quietly dispatched the owner of the club after one of the girls had come out of his office in tears, and so the club passed ownership under new management. Soon after, given that the new owner was careless with clientel guidelines, a fight had broken out, and Hosea had stepped in. Hosea had long had a vampirism trait to be able to suction nutrients from his fangs, but it had caught him by surprise when instinct took hold, and he'd used it against the violent patron who'd been about to strike one of the girls.
Hosea was chased out, his friends turning on him out of horror at seeing him kill a man in plain sight.
Hosea had left London after mythos of a "vampire" had begun to spread around the city. Suddenly, there was no place to hide. He'd hid on a boat to Mexico, then, on its way there with oil-drilling equipment that he could easily hide his bulk behind. In Mexico, still on the run he used his fangs to drink from livestock as food was scarce unless he took the risk of stealing from grave altars. Soon, there were rumors of a "Chupacabra," a creature that drank the blood of their goats and other livestock.
Before long, Hosea's luck ran out again after he was caught and tranquilized. Upon waking, his wings were gone, leaving behind scars that would never be covered with fur again.
He was caged in some biologist's home lab, he discovered. In a terrified rage, he broke free and murdered the man before trying to exit the house.
Entering one of the rooms, he found the bedroom of a young child. Scaring the kid, in a last-ditch hope that perhaps the door would open to let him through, he was in luck when the door activated--someone was using the door in the monster world.
Hosea bounded out and trotted away, as far as he could, to the only place he knew he'd have family, hopefully, still waiting for him in Marsh Meadows. But by 1956, his wife and child were already gone and generations had passed, given Marsh Meadow's high mortality rate as an underdeveloped town.
But he managed to meet the only baby girl from his bloodline to inherit his hooves and his wife's fins, Vee. A beautiful baby girl was born on October 30th of 1960. She'd been born a poor swimmer, and given her parents were in the midst of several disputes and disagreements, Hosea took on the role of carrying his great-granddaughter around so she would not be swept away by the currents.
He'd often sing to her, old songs he used to sing with his wife, Nadja, and things he'd heard from his good years in the nightclub in London.
He'd live to see his beloved great-granddaughter grow for five years before passing away in 1965.
His last hope was for his baby girl to live a happy life and never need to go into scaring, a job that scarred him for life and cost him everything. His intense hatred for humans and the scaring industry and its lies went with him into the grave with a deep wish that the legend "Old Vampire of London" would die off with him.
That is, until a young painter would depict a vampire that had escaped through his window in 1987.
BONUS:
Vee is half-leech on her dad's side, and has her Hollow fangs from Hosea, so while she does have vampirism traits, she does NOT have hypnotism at all as most vampire mythos state lol
