01/19/2025  Early years Description Anita Blake is a petite woman of mixed German and  Mexican heritage with curly long raven hair and pale skin with scars scattered over her body. She is very direct and flippant in her speech, but is said to be highly competent in the professions she is involved in. At the start of the series, she is an animator (a person who raises zombies) and a vampire executioner. She is trained in several forms of hand-to-hand combat as well as in the use of several firearms, with her firearm of preference being the Browning BDM. Blake practices Christianity and is currently of the Episcopal faith, having left Catholicism since the Catholic Church has excommunicated all animators. In the short story "Dancing" she describes herself as being 5'3 inches tall, as well as in Laughing Corpse, Ch. 1. Blake is known to be carrying between four and five strains of the lycanthropy virus. As of Affliction, Anita carries wolf, leopard, lion, hyena, as well as several different colors of tiger. This is considered to be unusual in the Vampire Hunter universe, with very few other characters possessing more than one form of lycanthropy. Early years Anita Blake was born with the power of necromancy, a power that she inherited from her grandmother. Her mother died in a car accident when Anita was 8, which greatly impacted her throughout her childhood and adult years. When Anita was 10, her father remarried after her mother's death to Judith, whom Anita often clashed with over her powers and differences. Anita could 'see' ghosts, and raised her dead pet dog and even road kill, to her, her father and step-mothers dismay. Anita initially exerted little control over her powers, eventually leading her father to request that her maternal grandmother teach Anita how to "turn off" her abilities. Her Maternal Grandmother taught her how to control her abilities, but seeing how powerful Anita was, encouraged Anita's dad to raise her as a Christian instead of vaudun. During college she raised a professor who had killed himself-her roommate moved out the next day. Anita majored in preternatural biology and became engaged to a fellow student, who later broke off the engagement due to his parents disapproving of him dating a Mexican woman. He was her first sexual experience. This would cause Anita to remain celibate for much of the initial books in the series (until The Killing Dance). After graduation Anita was recruited by Bert Vaughn to join Animators, Inc. as a professional zombie animator, where she was trained by Manny Rodriguez and became a licensed vampire executioner. She also met Edward, and learned about weapons. During the events in First Death she met the vampire hunter Edward and received several of her scars, which includes a cross-shaped brand on her arm. 01: PM 0 Comments  (Add Comment)  | 0 Kudos

01/19/2025  Knowledge and abilities Knowledge and abilities 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. 01: PM 0 Comments  (Add Comment)  | 0 Kudos

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