Knowledge and abilities
Category: Uncategorized

• Necromancer: Anita is one of the most powerful living animators in St. Louis at the beginning of the series, with her powers eventually making her one of the strongest animators in history. Her level of ability has been shown to exert power over both vampires and the undead, with her being capable of raising lifelike zombies.
• Combat Training: Anita has a black belt in Judo as of the first book. In Obsidian Butterfly she is also studying Kenpo Karate. Later (Affliction) she started MMA training. She works out regularly, first with her best friend Ronnie "to be able to outrun the bad guys" when she needs to, then with Circus of the Damned guards. She credits Edward (Federal Marshall Theodore "Ted" Forrester, The Death) for much of her training in weapons, primarily handguns and knives. She is primarily right-handed, but she can fight with her left hand.
• Detective Training: Though she rarely uses these skills in later novels, Anita has been involved with many investigations with RPIT and in the later books with the FBI. Her police contact, Rudolph Storr, routinely requires her to engage in independent crime scene reconstruction in order to obtain an analysis—Anita's reconstructions are almost always correct and frequently include insights that the police have missed. Anita thinks like both a cop and a monster, according to some, which is what makes her so insightful.
• Supernatural Experience: Anita holds a bachelor's degree in preternatural biology and is a trained Vampire executioner. She is able to resist the mental influence of Jean-Claude's, a vampire who is also her love interest. In the later books Anita has given Damian, her Vampire servant, the fourth mark. This does not interfere with Jean Claude's marks. It is uncertain if this unconventional fourth mark grants Anita immortality.
• Triumvirate Member: Anita is a member of a "triumvirate" with Jean-Claude and her additional love interest Richard Zeeman (The Killing Dance). At first the only effect is their powers boosting when they are together, even more so when touching. (The usefulness of the triumvirate varies with the interpersonal conflicts between Richard, Jean-Claude and Anita.) In later novels she creates a secondary triumvirate with Nathaniel as her wereleopard to call and Damian as her vampire servant.
• Vampire Powers: The combination of her necromancy and her membership in the triumvirate has caused Anita to develop a series of powers formerly seen only in Vampires, which includes the ardeur, a sexual power that allows her to feed from other supernatural creatures and humans.
• Vampire Marks: In the Anita Blake world Master Vampires can create a mystic link with a human or with an animal to call. The creation of such a link is a four-step process; steps are called marks and it is understood that a Master Vampire "gives" the marks to subjugate a human or wereanimal. A human which received all four marks is a Human Servant to Master Vampire; a wereanimal (or siren, or ghost, or selkie, etc.) which received all four marks is The Animal to Call (as opposed to an animal to call). Each mark gives both sides of the marking process new abilities. Without any mental precautions a pair Master Vampire - Human Servant may become one personality in two bodies (Kiss the Dead, Chapter 45). Anita Blake received unknowingly the first two marks from Jean-Claude in Guilty Pleasures, then the third mark in Circus of the Damned; then Master Vampire Alejandro took her over with all four marks, which made her capable to kill Alejandro with her bare hands, thus wiping all marks. In Killing Dance Anita Blake accepted voluntarily the first three marks from Jean-Claude to save his life and Richard Zeeman's life. In Incubus Dreams, Chapter 13 Anita Blake, acting as Master Vampire, accidentally gave all four marks to both Damian and Nathaniel Graison, thus forming her own Triumvirate of Power.
• Power Mimicry: "It was almost as if the more often I was used by, or borrowed magic from, someone else, the more likely it became that their magic would become part of my arsenal." Anita discussing this ability in Chapter 47 of Danse Macabre.

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