Muriel Van Gothen

Name	Muriel Van Gothen
Race	Human
Type	Monster Hunter
Faction	Deceased
Premiere	Desideratum: Blood Bonds
Relative(s)	Absinthe Van Gothen, Roy McCoy, Molly McCoy, Calis Van Gothen

Muriel Van Gothen

"Must be a damn troll- smells bad enough to knock a buzzard off a shit wagon!"

Biography

Pre-Desideratum: Blood Bonds

Muriel was born in the Ozarks in a very small town in Missouri. It was not until adulthood that she realized why her “pappy” had moved to such a remote place in America, but it was because he was trying to keep himself and his family alive. He was a Van Gothen, the great grandson of Collette and Calis Van Gothen. He did not hunt monsters in his entire life, and preferred the quiet life of a farmer and hunter. Muriel grew up around people that liked drinking, smoking, cussing, and having a “good ol’ time”. She was tough even as a little girl, however, in her later teens is when she would discover the powers that she had in her bloodline. A lot of high school kids would go down to the White River and make out. Of course, Muriel did much more than make out and that made the wild girl very popular among the boys.

However, one night as she and a boy were fooling around, he was ripped off her. Looking up, Muriel saw the screaming boy held in a giant blue hand. Kicking and screaming for dear life, the terrified teenager was flung like a ball far out into the water. The buggane, a giant blue-skinned monster, looked down at Muriel with a wild look in his eyes. She saw what he wanted and as he lurched down at her, she kicked him square in the testicles. As the monster howled and fell over, Muriel leapt to her feet. Something instinctual took over. There was no fear or planning, she dove into the water and pulled the boy ashore while the buggane still rolled about on the ground. Half naked, she pulled him into his car and drove away. The townsfolk did not believe the tale that she and the boy told.

There had been stories of a wild, man-like creature roaming the remote, wooded hills around Douglas County from as far back as the 1860s. Looking to chase and kill, he carried a wooden club in his huge hand, threw large boulders and feasted upon livestock and they called him the Blue Man. Muriel had come face-to-face with the creature and no one would believe her. Her father took her home and as they drove the battered old truck, he turned to her and told her that she was not crazy. Her curiosity piqued, she inquired for more information and her father described what little he knew about the family history, but he asserted that monsters are definitely real and that she needed to leave them alone or something might happen to her family. He did not know that Ivor had a bounty on Van Gothens, only that all his siblings and many cousins had been killed or disappeared. Muriel listened, but she stewed over the next few days. After the first night, the other witness refused to say anything else, leaving her looking even crazier. Fed up, she decided that she would go hunting for the Blue Man and would bring back proof. She had little in the way of weapons, but took her father’s hatchet and a pitchfork before making her way out to the river.

The first night she had no luck, nor the second, but then she had an idea. On the third night, she went out into the area where she had seen it the first time and she got herself aroused. The scent carried and she heard an inhuman yell from the woods. She hid her weapons under a blanket and laid, nude, on top of it. The trap worked and the buggane stomped from the darkness. Sniffing the air, it paused and looked around, its own instincts warning that this was far too good to be true. However, it smelled no other humans within a mile or more, so with lust in its mind it rushed forward to have the girl. It came from the side, careful to watch her legs having learned from the previous encounter, but because it was focused on not being kicked again, it did not notice as the girl pulled out the pitchfork and slammed it into the buggane’s chest. Shocked, it paused a moment, but she rushed forward. Even though she was tiny compared to the eight-hundred-pound monster, because of her bloodline, she pushed it back as if they were equals. She impaled it into a tree and as it moaned in pain, dying, she took her hatchet and slammed it into the skull, killing the buggane instantly.

She had wanted to take some of its fur, a hand, something to prove that it was real, but she was astonished as its body simply dissipated into nothingness. She cried out in confused anger and searched all around, but other than the tracks it had left in the mud- which she knew they would say she made herself, there was no sign that the creature had ever been there, just a pitchfork and a hatchet. No blood was even left behind. She came home before dawn to find her father sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, waiting for her. He said that he knew she’d do something like this, and that he was glad that she was still alive. He told her to drop the entire thing and go back to school the next day. Monster hunting was dangerous and paid nothing. He may have been her father, but he did not know her well. Because that was a challenge as far as she was concerned. Out of spite, Muriel ran away from home the next day and never saw her parents again.

A few years went by as she roamed the U.S.A. looking for monsters. She had no idea that the fact she never stayed in one place for too long was actually frustrating Ivor’s hunters that had found she existed, but could not locate her. She would go to a city’s library and read books on the local folklore. That’s how she’d know what monsters haunted an area. Then she’d go into town to a bar and make herself as available as she could, which meant free drinks and smokes and a home base. Once a man took her home, she’d use him for money and food for a week or two, as she researched and hunted, and when the local creatures were all dead, she’d simply pawn anything the guy had of value, buy a bus ticket, and randomly choose a new town. That was her pattern and life for a decade, from fifteen to twenty-five. She had come to Utah and found out about a place called Skinwalker Ranch. Researching the folklore, she headed out that way to hunt. The ranch, itself, had been well secured and trespassers were unwelcomed, but that never stopped her before and it did not stop her now. Muriel leapt the fences and in the cover of night, stalked the fields and the nearby mesa.

Then one night, as she stood on a ridge looking down on the area, in the full moon’s light, she saw a creature resembling a werewolf, leap out of the brush and attack some cattle. It was not eating the meat; rather, it seemed to want to cause as much destruction as possible. Then, it rushed back into the brush as the people on their ranch woke to the noise. Soon, she understood that this creature was trying to specifically chase people off the land. It was only a matter of time before it simply killed the ranchers and farmers. As she hunted, she happened to spy another skinwalker. It looked different than the first, its fur brown rather than black. As she watched from the brush, it simply smelled the air. Cattle grazed not far away, but it did not even mind them. It prowled a few minutes as if it were hunting something before it rushed away. These creatures were very unpredictable and hard to track. They did not follow a set of behaviors the way most monsters did, and she grew frustrated.

Then, one night, on a nearby ranch called Tumbleweed Mesa, she saw the black skinwalker. She watched from the ridge and saw it stalking through the trees towards the nearby cattle. Finally, she had it. She leapt down and slid along the ridge, then somersaulted, and took off to put a barrier between herself and the cows. She rushed into the field and jumped. Landing, she pulled out a gun, its bullets silver, and she looked out into the trees. She saw the glowing eyes of the creature lock onto her and it rushed towards her, barreling on all fours, but Muriel simply stood. She’d fought a hundred monsters by this point and she held up her gun and exhaled as she aimed. Wrongly conjecturing that a skinwalker was related to a werewolf, she expected a single silver bullet to bring it down- and she fired. The shot hit its mark, but the skinwalker only sneered and continued forward.

Suddenly, she heard another shot ring out and saw a cowboy stand up. She had no idea that the ranch’s owner, Roy McCoy, had squatted in the bushes and watched his livestock and now, he was trying to save her life. However, even though he also shot it, the skinwalker pounced at Muriel. In a swift motion she drew a sword and deflected its claws. Now, the skinwalker was momentarily surprised because no human had ever been as fast as he was. The pair were sparing in a flurry as Roy ran towards them. Just then, the brown skinwalker that she had also seen before, leapt into the field as well. Trying to continue to hold up a defense, she glanced over long enough to see it eying the cowboy, and she wondered if she could save the man and kill two of these monsters, when it suddenly turned and jumped onto the back of the black skinwalker. Momentarily surprised, she watched as the two bit and clawed at each other before she leapt into their fight and began stabbing the black one with her sword. Roy rushed up and slashed at it with a sharp hunting knife.

It took a few minutes before the skinwalker finally died. It was a Ute, a man about her age. The other skinwalker changed into a man as well. Also a Ute, older, around the cowboy’s age, his name was Sani Lightfoot. The cowboy just hooted in laughter, and slapped the other two on the shoulders saying, “Howdy! I’m Roy McCoy, and welcome to Tumbleweed Mesa!” Muriel never saw another human cope with a monster so well. He offered them to come inside his home and he got out his first aid kit. Sani said nothing, quietly accepting the aid as the other two had no idea that they had just slew his grandson. Muriel, however, had the first good night that she could remember in years. She fell asleep on the couch as Roy talked to Sani. She woke the next day to find Roy cooking breakfast. In the night he had apparently got her pillows and a blanket. She was shocked that he had not tried anything sexual.

They ate breakfast and he had her laughing constantly. He told her that she could stay as long as she liked and that she could have the bedroom and he’d take the couch. She did not trust such hospitality, but she was in some pain from the skinwalker battle, so she accepted. However, when he came back home that night, she found he had gone to town and bought her new clothes, shampoo, and other items that he thought that she could use. She had mentioned wanting some beer and smokes, and he had brought those too. Then he cooked dinner telling her to rest, and they sat up drinking into the night. However, when he said that he needed to go to bed, she was shocked when he took off his cowboy boots, got on the couch, and just went to bed. Again, he had not only ignored her, but he had not hit on her at all. This continued until one night she finally just kissed him, mid sentence. As she broke the kiss, he seemed a bit embarrassed and said that he was probably too old for her and did not want her to fall in love with him over that. She had seen how good of a man that he was and did not care, so she remained and eventually they wed.

Muriel and Roy enjoyed their life together. He loved having a beautiful young woman to call a wife, and she liked having a nice man that honestly cared for her. She gave up life on the road, and the pair eventually had a daughter. However, since Muriel had stayed in one area, the Nightbred finally tracked her down. There, on the ranch, they attacked. Roy was of little help in fighting the vampires, and he watched over their daughter Abigail. Muriel killed dozens of vampires over time eventually discovering that Ivor offered power for any vampire that could kill her. Years passed and by Abigail’s fourth birthday, the pair had mournfully come to the decision to place her up for adoption, too scared that the vampires would eventually kill her. Little did he know that he would see her again when Absinthe Van Gothen came to the Sanctuary. Heartbroken, the both drank much more than they ever had, the alcohol a crutch to help them with their sorrows. However, they eventually had another daughter, Molly.

When Molly was little more than a toddler, one night, a booming woman’s voice echoed through their tiny farmhouse. In a sinister, English accent, she claimed that she was Eleanora Blackwood, a witch, and that she had come to destroy Muriel. Cackling and enjoying herself, she began destroying the homestead, while the McCoys remained within their home. Inside their home, they had a hidden door. This went under the house to a tunnel that led to the barn. As Molly cried, Muriel told Roy to escape with her and run away. Roy refused as pieces of their house were torn to bits. Eleanora gave a final warning falsely claiming that if Muriel would face her, then she would spare her husband and child. Roy then understood that they would all die, so kissing his wife one last time, he grabbed Molly and fled. Muriel stepped outside and strode to the witch, ready to fight. Before Eleanora even attacked the hunter, she smirked and imploded the house- and assumed that she had just killed Roy and Molly. Yelling expletives, Muriel leapt at Eleanora and fought her as her family rode away on their horse, Bessie. Muriel died in the battle, but because of her sacrifice, her husband and daughter remained hidden from Ivor’s wrath. However, as the years passed, Roy basted in regret and anger, and tracked Ivor down, himself, intending to kill the vampire. This led him to Portland, Oregon where he met the Night Stalkers and later, Absinthe Van Gothen.

Appearance

Muriel had been wild young spirit growing up. She was a voluptuous, middle aged mother at the time of her death.

Abilities

• Blessed Blood
• Powerful Physical Attacks against Monsters

Notes and Trivia

Despite Absinthe being sent off for adoption at a young age, one can see the remarkable similarities between her and Muriel's personalities.