BACKSTORY

Born in New York City to Irish immigrants, Valentin spent the first eight years of his life there until his family moved to Leadville, Colorado along with the gold rush. Both his parents died of tuberculosis when he was eleven and Val moved in with his older sister, Keziah, and her husband, Cornelius. Cornelius was gone fighting for the Union during the Civil War and died in combat. Once Keziah and Valentin were on their own Val started living as a boy, and the two moved to California. Keziah got work as a domestic servant while Val got a part time job, never finishing his formal schooling. Val was compelled by the allure of the Wild West and worked on ranches whenever he got the chance, doing bounties between jobs. Whatever wasn't used to support himself went to Keziah as she saved what she could to start a boarding house. At 27, Val met Ida Pasko while tailing a bounty, and the two worked together to capture and return the culprit. The pair decided they worked well together and this became routine: Val returning from months on a job cattle-herding, meeting up with Ivan, and partnering up as bounty hunters. They enjoyed the thrill, and Ida convinced their family to take on Val as a ranch hand. Ivan and Val continued to work closely together for years, taking on a particularly difficult bounty in 1886. They overestimated their abilities, getting ambushed by a criminal duo. Val was injured badly in the attack, while Ida had to reveal their vampiric abilities to kill the two surprisingly strong mortals before they could cause any more harm. Before Val bled out, Ivan made the difficult decision to embrace him to keep him from dying, trading death for unlife.