Kate
FIRST NAME CHARACTER
Kate.jpg
Portrayed by Katee Sackhoff
Statistics
Fullname Katherine Clarke
Birthday Movember 8th
Species Shifter
Age 32
Height 5'3"
Weight 132
Eyes Blue
Hair Dirty Blonde
Occupation Paramedic, Dallas EMS

Claim to Fame

Kate's a hot-shot EMT who has come down from the big city to help with the hurricane clean up. She doesn't mean to play hero, but she's fairly good at it, truth be told.


Biography

There are a lot of strange things people tell you on their death bed. People want their last words to matter, to change the world, to help things just a little bit, even if theyd never done any other touch of good in their lives. The backs of ambulances have probably seen more great literature, dark secrets and drunken ramblings than any bar in the world. So it shouldnt have been a surprise to me when a bleeding out fang banger grabbed my hand in the back of my bus while John was trying to get him into the ER before he bled out on my bed. AB negative. Why was he fucking AB negative? Rarest blood type on the planet, we couldnt carry all those bags in the back of our bus, and there comes a point where saline just wouldnt cut it. I couldnt get a pulse on him anywhere. I couldnt believe he was still breathing, much less speaking. And I couldnt stop the blood from draining out of him. Not just puncture marks, theyd ripped open his throat. His arm. His femoral artery. V juice was the only thing keeping him going, and they didnt let me carry that stuff either. So, I sat in the ambulance with a dead man, just waiting for him to finally get there. When he grabbed my hand, I couldnt help but listen.

"Killing… everyone. The whole nest… Dont fucking care… Abby Sister Murders… The 5th street serial rapes and homicides… its all the nest. Theyre good… too good… wont ever stop…Gotta stop them. Monsters… they're monsters…" And then he was gone. Like his heart just be enough to push those words out his throat and then it was over. I held onto his lifeless hand, staring at the tourniquets Id so tightly tied, the mounds of bandages, the sightless blue eyes. Slowly, I leaned over, pulling off my bloody gloves so I could grab the jacket Id cut off of him earlier. A few moments of digging with powder dusted hands I found his wallet and flipped it open. Numbly, I gazed at the clock on the dash, and then the ID before me. "Im calling it, John…2:58 am, Michael Ronald Handley. Let'em pronounce him DOA… And then I stopped, throat suddenly dry as I looked at a number on that ID. He was seventeen fucking years old.

That really was the beginning of the end, truth be told. I should just start at the beginning. It shouldn't take too long. Life didn't get interesting until I decided to care, until I decided to pull my head out of the sand. In brief, I was born and bred New York City. My father was a cop. My mother died when I was six months old from a heart condition we'd later on find out she passed down the line. It's alright, she loved me and she left behind a lot of love in that house. It wasn't just my father and I. We always had bloodhounds. We raised them like they were my siblings. Because, honestly, they were. My parents were shifters and, one day, I'd be one too. Please save the crime dog McGruff jokes. Not because it's offensive, but because I heard it so much from my father growing up I couldn't hold back rolling my eyes. He was damn good at what he did. Most of the dogs we raised ended up putting in time on the service as well — it helped that my dad sometimes became them to put his nose in where it didn't belong. He was a charming bastard like that. I wanted to be just like him. Just like them. Serving the city, sniffing out the bad guys, taking weekends at the lake up north when they could to run free and enjoy some air without the soot and sickness that city are constantly held. Sadly, there were a few problems with that dream.

One, I was a girl. My dad was a bit too old fashioned and he though women should be safely at home, in the kitchen or having pups. At WORST, he'd let me be a nurse, a proper female profession. He pushed medical books on me as much as comic books and the local news paper. He knew I was too smart to ignore them. So I started to study. It didn't hold me back, however, from enrolling in the police academy the moment I turned 18. A rebellious streak had pretty much been inherent in me since the time I could walk. My dad was almost as enraged as he was quietly proud, his daughter would be a cop after all. Or I would have been, if I'd passed the medicals. Turns out, it probably wasn't a random heart attack that killed my mum, but a heart condition. Long QT Syndrome. The shit that baseball players and runners get when they suddenly drop dead on the course. Not always fatal, it still would keep me out of active service. I was devastated for about 24 hours, but then I picked myself up and kept going. If I couldn't be a cop, and I didn't want to be a nurse, I'd combine them and get the best of both worlds. I'd become an EMT.

I began treating Long QT syndrome with beta blockers in hopes it'd be enough I wouldn't drop in the middle of some emergency treatment, and began studying to be an EMT. The books my father had pushed on me for all those years actually turned out to be helpful, and I found my shifting gifts to give me a strange ability. Sometimes, in the worst of cases, I could smell out the sickness. Or if they were OD-ing, my nose often told me what drugs they were on before I even had to ask. It never smelled good. It smelled like death, rot, decay and sickness. But unique sickness, and that was more than enough to make me shoot fast through my ride alongs and straight into a career as an EMT on the big streets of New York City. I had dreams then. I wanted to make a difference, to be a hero, to save lives, to change the world. What I actually did was cart a lot of drunks off the sidewalk, a lot of homeless crazies into a warm bed for the night, a few drug addicts searching for their next fix and the occasional major coronary. What they don't tell you in the comic books is that being an EMT is about being a witness and a babysitter, not a hero. But I kept on.

Over ten years into my career, I came across Michael Ronald Handley. Seventeen year old fang banger. Bleeding out and still fighting. Terrified, but determined. He was the closest thing I had seen to a hero in a long time, and he died on my table. I didn't even bother with the paddles. I knew he was gone long before those last breaths. I didn't know he'd change my life forever, though. His words stuck in my head. My father was long retired to the desk job of being a police commissioner, 61 being too old to be running around the streets. But he worked for the NYPD and he had seen all the cases Handley mentioned come across his desk. He'd sniffed out evidence, draw out suspects, only to hit a lot of powerful, concrete barriers from people hire up than him. Whatever this nest was, they were big. They were cruel. They didn't think the laws applied to them and, sadly, until that week, they hadn't.

My father didn't want me to pursue it. He said it was too dangerous, I had no jurisdiction, and it'd be a quick way to get myself killed. He was probably right. I laid off for a few weeks until I hit another scene. I didn't even get to talk to these kids. Girls, dressed like hookers because they were too young to know better. Three of them, hiding youth under red lipstick and big hoop earrings. Throats torn out. Bodies ex-sanguinated. Eyes unseeing. I knew it was them. I smelled the same scent on their clothes, on their skin, as I did on Michael Ronald Handley. Before I knew what I was doing, I was growling. Loud. After that shift, my partner asked to be switched to another bus. I didn't care. I needed a fresh start anyway. I had a mission then. I was going to be a hero.

It took about a year to really track them down. I worked double shifts, trying to get on every case that could be their work. I'd come back to the scenes of the crime in my bloodhound form, scenting the ground, trying to get through sewers and drainage to the vampire, stomach twisting aroma I knew too well. I dreamt about that scent, whimpering in fear and growling in anger. I wanted to taste their blood beneath my teeth until they turned into unseeing clumps and stringy, gummy flesh. But I knew I couldn't do it alone. I wasn't a policeman. I wasn't a werewolf, or a vampire. I was one lone woman who could turn into a big, floppy eared slowpoke attached to a super-nose. I needed evidence. I needed back up. I needed something the higher ups couldn't ignore. So I began my quiet stalking.

Over the next half year, I tracked them to three different nests. I got photos, barely. I got a few blood samples off of my victims. I got patterns and profiles. At least twice, I nearly got myself killed, but my ability to shift saved my life, dropping into the New York City rat shape that I knew so well after years of being in the town. But after the second time, I knew I was in trouble. They'd be after me soon. They knew something as going down. I had to act fast.

That night, I brought everything straight to my father. I kept looking over my shoulder. I felt their non-existent breath on the back of my neck. Could they smell me as easily as I smelled them? I explained everything to him. The photos, the crime scenes, their hunting grounds, their identities. I brought up the old cases he'd been trying to ignore and drew all the parallels. And I begged him not to do this alone. They'd kill him as fast as they'd kill me. As I gave him the last camera, the one not even yet developed, I scented something sickeningly familiar on the air. They were there. They had followed me straight to the precinct. I was fairly certain I was a dead woman.

"Run, baby girl, run." My father growled out, apparently too easily reading my body language. I leaned over and kissed him fast, "Tell the boys I love them." And then I did just that. I ran. Out the back exit, into the alleyway. I thought I had almost slipped them and then they were just THERE. Faster than I could blink. Arms around by body, fangs in my throat, fingertips in my side. I felt ribs crack and hot blood spill down my neck. I couldn't even scream. In fact, I did the only thing that came almost natural, I shifted.

Down into a dog, then a rat, my head spinning for the abrupt changes and the blood loss. I was still losing blood, but not nearly so fast. The wounds weren't quite so vicious in this form, but I didn't have long. I slipped down into the sewers and began to run off. All I knew was that I had to get out of the city, and fast. I hoped what I had left would have made a change. I didn't have time to wait and see.

Honestly, I don't remember much of that night. Between bloodloss, panic, adrenaline and half madness, it was a nightmare of running, breaking into a clinic, cleaning myself up enough to get out of the city and never look back. I took a train up to New Haven, half passed out in the back of the big metal bullet rocketing across tracks. Once there, a taxi got me to the airport and I decided to fly to the next best place I knew might need my help. The south. I knew a hurricane was coming and if it hit, the gulf coast could very well be in shambles. I still had my paramedic's license, and I heard they were accepting volunteers from all over the country. So I flew down there for the hurricane and worked the worst, first few days. However, as things begin to calm down a few days later, Im realizing that that area too has nests upon nests of vampires. So I've decided to go a bit away from ground zero. Just far enough to get out of Louisiana, but still in the wake of the hurricane's destruction. That's how I've found myself signing up for service with the Dallas Emergency Medical Services and back into hurricane clean up. And, truthfully, I'm beginning to feel like more of a hero down here than I ever was pulling cowboy detective shit up home. But I miss my dogs. I'll need to get a bloodhound soon. Life ain't right without them.


Character Details


Kate is a white hat through and through. She believes in taking care of people, leaving the world a slightly better place than she found it. Of course, those morals were a lot more black and white before she spent over ten years between being an EMT and then a paramedic on the streets of New York City. She knows the law isn't always on the right side, and the human condition seems innately miserable. It doesn't mean she's given up. She still tends to let kids off who weren't really trying to break the law, cart people to rehab for the 12th time after 11 failed attempts, and promises the crack whore of a mother a chance to hold her baby at least once before child and youth services takes him away. She keeps hoping that the next tiny, good act might be the one to turn someone around. That being said, she knows it's not likely.

Other personality traits come from being raised part bloodhound, almost literally. She's undyingly loyal. Once someone has earned her heart and her friendship, she will stand with them through hell and back. Man's best friend. She tends to like to stick her nose in where it doesn't belong, literally and metaphorically. She can't resist a good smelling candle, freshly bloomed bush, or the musk of sweat on a man's chest any more than she can resist town gossip and a gory news story. Lastly, she's tough as nails. To survive as a New York City paramedic, she really has been to hell and back. She doesn't let the insomnia, the danger or the pain of the world get her down. Once she's hit rock bottom, she hopes she can only go up, and the only way to go up is to survive the worst of it all.


Relationships

Name Race Relation Notes
<Name> <Race> <Relation> <Description>

Character Gallery


Logs

Title IC Date OOC Date Quick Description
Down With the Sickness September 1, 2010 September 1, 2005 Chloe is at the Pool Hall to try and find an old aide from the mayor's office. There, she runs into Kate who makes her a tad ill, and a stranger with a winning streak.
Dont Fear the Leaper September 7, 2010 September 7, 2005 Bethany has her quiet moment at the park interrupted when Bones drops in. Kate overhears their conversation and lends her medical experiance.
Who Guards The Guards? September 8, 2010 September 8, 2005 David, Mignonette, and Kate collide at SMU during refugee operations.
In Short, A Redneck Has Arrived! September 9, 2010 September 6, 2005 Kate, the bloodhound, has her quiet afternoon is disturbed by an ornery Murphy in a truck.
No Harm Intended September 10, 2010 September 10, 2005 Kate gets disturbed while working on getting totally wasted in The Grisly Bar when she notices Tucker who obviously took a wrong turn to end up there.
An Introduction to Vampire Ethics September 12, 2010 September 12, 2005 Kate tries to relax at the White Rock Lake after a hard day while she is stalked by Tucker. Marius approaches them, spreading occasional fear.
An Exchange of Prisoners September 15, 2010 September 15, 2005 Kate decides to take matters into her own hands to reclaim her daisy dukes and Murphy's stash ends up the unfortunate victim of a vengeful kidnapping!
Mm...Sandals! September 16, 2010 September 15, 2005 Murphy takes his revenge on Kate's sandals. Whoopin's ensue.

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