Josephine Powell
From Edge of Darkness Wiki
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- Tenancy: Communal Hunting Grounds, Florin
- Hunting: Communal Hunting Grounds, Florin
- Favor: Florin
Description
At 5'11", Josephine does not present a particularly intimidating appearance in height, and nor does her polite manner. The scent that permeates the air around her however is more than a little bit creepy. Any who have been inside a hospital and been put-off by the clinical disinfectant would recognise it immediately and might be put off. The added odour of dried blood adds to the effect of a medical professional gone bad. On the surface, Josephine might once have presented as the charming ideal with blonde hair and blue eyes; but this only serves to make the terror that much more disjointed.
History
Josephine was born to Agnes and Frank Powell in Chicago, during the cold January of 1919. Her father was a soldier, and he returned from the trenches of France in November 1918 to a freezing cold city and a pregnant wife. This was rather perturbing for Frank, considering he had been on deployment for...somewhat longer than six months. Being that he was a soldier, and was not a complete idiot he decided that he was well within his right to locate the father of the unborn child. Even if it didn't sate his anger entirely, it would keep the neighbours from gossiping.
Josephine's true father was Frank's so-called best friend, who had remained behind during the war to mine precious coal; and apparently Frank's wife. In a drunken rage, Frank beat his former best friend to death with a chair leg. He was promptly arrested for murder by the neighbourhood police officer, who had heard the screams. His sentencing was made worse by his attempt to beat the police officer as well. Fortunately for Frank he was given some leniency for being a veteran, and because his wife would need a father for the new baby. Instead of being executed, he was sentenced for manslaughter one.
In the meantime Agnes moved back in with her understanding parents, taking Josephine and her three considerably older brothers to be looked after. It was in the home of her grandparents that Josephine was fortunate to grow up. They were comfortably middle-class, and doted on their only granddaughter. After the initial sibling rivalry, her brothers grew to accept their new sibling. After all, she was a lot younger than they were, and without their father around it was their job to look after the family.
Agnes, being a rather outspoken woman, always said that Josephine’s intelligence came from her birth father. Coming from a comfortably wealthy family, she had an education that the less fortunate would have killed for, particularly as the Great Depression wiped out stocks and holdings. Although her family had to tighten their purse strings, they had never frittered away their earnings and barely managed to ride the wave.
She was particularly fascinated by medicine and the sciences, and after considerable effort was accepted to study medicine at the University of Illinois in 1937, at the age of eighteen. Although it was still a struggle considering her gender, her grandfather in particular was so proud that a woman in his family could prove to be so resilient and "modern", and Josephine would graduate M.D in the middle of the Second World War.
She immediately joined the WAC as a medic, in order to aid the troops and her country after the attack on Pearl Harbour. She served until the cessation of hostilities on the Western front, having been landed in Normandy during D-Day. It was bloody and gritty work, but she relished the challenge and the opportunity to prove that she was just as good a medic as the men.
Josephine returned to Chicago after the war, and quickly found herself descending into a depression. She had become so accustomed to the rush of the war, and the activity of doing something profound, that spending the days ministering to people's minor maladies no longer held interest for her. She wanted to operate to repair limbs shattered by shells, to bring soldiers back from the brink of a bloody, painful death. Her only surviving brother, in order to distract her - and himself, began to teach her how to box. It allowed Roger to vent his fury at losing his brothers, and in part to replace them with his sister. As it was it did prove a distraction for Josephine, just not the one that Roger wanted.
A couple of years later Roger found himself getting into an underground boxing ring, and after much protestation on Josephine's part, he brought her along. There were always bloody noses and broken bones that needed to be set with no questions asked, so she would fix the wounded fighters at the end of a long night. A few months later, after she had become well recognised, Roger found himself boxing bare-knuckled against a newcomer to the underground circuit. The other guy was clearly trying to vent his own demons, as he didn't stop when Roger was knocked out. Josephine jumped into the ring to aid her brother, and when the other boxer turned his fists on her, she knocked him cold.
After that she became a novelty act- fighting at the start of the night and fixing bones and cuts at the end. Roger strongly disapproved of his sister boxing with men in such a dangerous environment, but Josephine relished it and refused to give it up. Her grandparents were dead by this time, and her mother had returned to Frank so there was no one else to hold her back. Josephine despised Frank as he did not think medicine was an appropriate skill for a woman, and continually pressed her to marry and bear him grandchildren. She refused and soon her only contact with family was with Roger.
Her brother married soon after, and settled down into a respectable career as a butcher; and soon a father to a baby boy. Josephine however, did not settle down at all. She became more and more ingrained in the fighting ring, and became distant from even her brother; although he alone of her family she missed terribly sometimes.
In 1952 a stranger wandered into the ring and offered to take on all comers. Simon Renfro butchered them one-by-one, and set on the ground. In a logical panic the spectators and remaining fighters fled for their lives. Josephine had been in the back room at the time, after setting a boxer's leg but hearing the stampede came out to see what the fuss was. Seeing the bloodied stranger, she sought to knock him to the ground. It appeared to amuse him considerably, so instead of simply taking her as a meal, he embraced her to keep her around as a pet.
Unfortunately Josephine could not so easily leave behind her humanity, and several months into her Requiem became obsessed with trying to cure vampirism. Although she initially learnt some of the local rules and Traditions from her Sire and Nathaniel, his very first Chiden; Josephine could not accept that she was really dead. She began to experiment on the homeless, trying to find the cure for what she was convinced was a new and despicable disease that was ravaging the people who called themselves Kindred. It took her with a fervour that had not gripped her since the War, and her experiments rapidly became more and more violent and deranged.
This continued for a number of years, until the local Prince discovered what was occuring and Josephine was run out of town. The Haunt had time only to flee with the clothes on her back, and a curious verbal speech pattern that she... unwittingly adopted from her Sire, and his Sire before her.
Chicago had been the only link remaining to life long gone, and it was the wake up call that she needed to accept that she would never cure what had happened to her. It was not a disease at all, but a new Unlife that she could embrace... or go mad. She spent a very long time wandering and learning, competing in local underground fighting rings when she could but never staying too long in one place. She never ventured into cities for fear of upsetting powerful local Princes.
Josephine arrived in Sacramento in the middle of 2011 to an Invictus Domain that she was terribly unfamiliar with. She was able to meet briefly with the then-Priscus Dirge, but was left mostly to her own devices. Initially she was able to find conversation mostly with Anastasz Veres, and slowly began settle into the swing of things, if not find her niche at the start. Eventually things were not to go her way entirely and remain quiet. Only a couple of months into her Sacramento Requim, Doctor Powell was rendered into torpor during a Blood Hunt for Dirge. She was prone for only a few hours, but during that time she suffered from horrific visions, nightmares of a past that threatened to rear its savage head.
At first, noticing that when she was awakened from torpor, Josephine was more than a little out of sorts, Veres offered to assist her. Having participated in her first Ordo Dracul meeting, out of curiosity, a short time before, his suggestion was to write down her nightmarish dreams and reveal them to every Ordo member at the next gathering. Being a private Kindred at the best of times, this di not sit well with the Haunt - although she did try and keep a "diary" of sorts. The images her mind concocted grew worse, until she decided to take the drastic action of returning to Chicago to see if facing one of her fears head-on would absolve her. Instead of helping, this typically hindered her further. As she spoke to her oldest, and last-surviving brother on his deathbed, Josephine's Sire revealed himself and made attempts to manipulate her into returning to his side. His instruction was quite simple: come back to Chicago, in secret or he would Embrace her grand-niece, Abigail.
The moment that Josephine returned to Sacramento she sought the aid of Whip Grigoriev, and together they led her Sire into a trap. So arrogant was he to believe that his Childe was still under his complete sway that he came to the barrens of Sacramento to meet her. There, Josephine finally summoned the strength to take him down. From there, Simon was taken to a small hut and tortured unto his Final Death by Grigoriev, as Josephine watched.
Eventually, Josephine began to find her footing in Sacramento; although her history continued to dog her steps at inconvenient moments. She began Priscus Grigoriev's student, Whip of the Nosferatu, a newfound member of the Lancea et Sanctum and more recently, rediscovered her desire for medicine... this time without the kidnapping and experimentation of the homeless. She resides in Florin, and has opened a private clinic, which on the surface is run by Thomas Roth.
Whilst aiding her chosen Domain how she can, Whip Powell wrangles with her Vice. Her grand-neice is currently in Sacramento; a woman the age of Josephine when she was Embraced, a woman who has everything Josephine can no longer have... Not that Abigail Powell is aware of that.
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