by Ardeur- 14 Writers on the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series (mobi)
But with each new grim, merciless, ruthlessly necessary act of killing on Anita’s part, witnessed by Olaf—who’d only ever disdained women as weak nothings—his attitude changed. He started to see Anita as something more, and grudgingly admitted to her: “You would have made a good man.” Which, coming from him, was the highest compliment possible. And Anita, in her own dark way, understood and acknowledged that (Obsidian Butterfly). The scene culminates with possibly the most bizarre serial killer romantic moment ever (stand aside, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in Tim Burton’s movie remake of Sweeney Todd), when Anita and Olaf butcher the same monster together, he beheading it and she cutting out the heart, elbow-deep in blood. When she pulls out the heart, Olaf has to touch it. Their fingers and hands connect, and Olaf is smitten. There’s almost a kiss (admittedly on Olaf’s part only; for Anita, it’s an eeow moment).
I don’t know if the author giggled when she wrote that scene, since it was so over-the-top, but this reader certainly did, because it was immensely satisfying, in the sickest, wickedest way possible, to have Anita “out-bad” the bad guy and impress a serial killer. Seriously twisted. The Olaf—Anita moment will remain a classic.
I’m not sure exactly when the serial killer protagonist became such a hot trend, culminating in the Showtime TV series Dexter. But Olaf has certainly become a fascinating and welcome recurring character for some of us twisted and pervy (pardon my Cassie Clare) readers. In the end of Obsidian Butterfly, Olaf wrote Anita a note—ahem, love letter—before he left, hoping for the opportunity to “hunt” with her again. And it was gleeful wicked fun to see him reprise his role in later volumes, trying to take it to the next level. Laurell K. Hamilton had to be giggling when she wrote his interactions with Anita in Skin Trade.
But how does Anita feel about dealing with Olaf? With a serial killer partner, she knows exactly what he’s capable of, in terms of killing, fighting, weapons, and black ops expertise; and yes, he’ll get his part of the job done. She can rely on that, 100 percent. But unlike Edward (dependable, friendly Death, “maybe someday”), she cannot trust Olaf at all on a personal level, and for good reason. She can barely stand next to him without feeling creepy crawlies. Like an unpredictable wild thing, she knows he can and will strike, given the chance. And the other weird thing is, Olaf is a guaranteed twofer: you get death with your love. Or love with your death.
And yet, Olaf represents an extraordinary and fascinating personal challenge for Anita—and yes, on some level, an attraction—of “always holding death at bay.” Because with Olaf, death is not just a possibility, but a sure thing. Anita knows he’s biding his time. She seriously would do her best not to have to get any closer to him on the job, not even when he so gallantly volunteers to feed her ardeur—real honest-to-goodness sex that doesn’t involve killing his partner! (Skin Trade). But him keeping her on her toes is okay; it kind of hones her own deadly skills. And just maybe it reminds her not to go too far into the killer mindspace, before she irrevocably loses what’s left of her own humanity.
So far we’ve talked about the big bad human members of Anita’s work team. Now let’s push the line even further, to the even weirder supernatural baddies, the immortal ones.
Starting with “Beautiful Death,” the mother of Jean-Claude’s (and hence Anita’s) vampire line and sexy succubus powers.
Belle Morte is an enemy, plain and simple. A chronic, clear-cut enemy across the pond, over in the Old Country. She stands for cruelty and sex torture of pretty men and women of all ages, and perfumed satin sheets, and frilly stuff, and, okay, everything Anita fights against and abhors. And yet, she’s the mom of all ardeur. And ardeur, whether Anita likes it or not, is one hell of a powerful weapon. Even if she never asked for it, and kind of got it like metaphysical VD.
Belle Morte, who is first introduced in Narcissus in Chains, is only an intangible presence in the books so far, sort of like Charlie’s disembodied voice in Charlie’s Angels. Except, of course, she’s a “bizarroworld” evil Charlie in a dominatrix outfit. And she has a very nasty agenda for Anita and the gang.
A powerful member of the Vampire Council, an irresistibly beautiful female vampire with honey-colored eyes and the ability to enhance the beauty of others, she is the one who created Jean-Claude’s vampire bloodline, and thus indirectly “infected” Anita. Belle Morte makes contact with Anita in her dreams, or through others like Jean-Claude, during moments of uncontrolled ardeur. If sex and death could mix in dark beauty, the offspring would be Belle Morte, the dark goddess of both kinds of id-driven need—undead vampire hunger and living animal lust. She is death with a strange doubled life urge, burdened not only with a vampire’s basic need for sustenance, but also the sensual desire to love, and, by extension, to propagate and breed (one might say, kind of like a virus). Is it any wonder Belle Morte meddles so in the lives of her children, whom she so loves?
Indeed, as the story unfolds, Belle Morte appears to have taken a protective interest in Anita, and her hostile “attacks” have occurred just in the nick of time to distract Anita from some other enemy’s bid for psychic possession.
There is never any trust between Anita and Belle Morte, but Anita does realize that the power she offers comes in handy. Anita is ever vigilant and wary of Belle Morte, because she recognizes that—at least in the present balance of power—this terrible, beautiful, ancient vampire is more powerful than Anita is. Full-force, Belle Morte could overwhelm her and make her drown… . And yet, she is “family,” the terrible-beautiful bloodline, and she is in some ways dark love, the kind of twisted love that Anita can understand on some dysfunctional level (Anita’s uncommitted, inconsistent uncertainty toward her guys is only a step away from being genuinely hurtful). And love, used as a weapon (as is done to great effect in the end of Skin Trade), is unbeatable.
When Belle Morte infiltrates and infuses Anita with her ardeur powers, she basically allies with her against her will, in a strange on-and-off-again, informal, temporary psychic “arrangement.” Anita uses Belle Morte’s “gift” of extended power to fight off other enemies in the unconventional way of “loving” them to death, of taking away their will and making them hers. It’s in some ways the power of the ultimate surprise—the last thing an opponent expects is a kiss instead of a stab—and a dance on the fine edge of control.
Ah, we’re back to control, Anita’s favorite problem. She has no control over Belle Morte, and is only now coming to basic grips with the ardeur. Unlike in her dealings with Edward or Olaf, her human, mortal Scary Team members, she cannot even keep Belle Morte at bay temporarily, when push comes to shove. However, she can use Beautiful Death as one does a rare and powerful ability, simply by allowing her in.
Allowing in the enemy. Talk about taking it to the edge and crossing the line!
The only problem, then, is how to kick Belle Morte back out once the job is done.
And for that Anita has to reach deep inside herself, deeper than the ardeur flows, deeper than anything, and “pull out” her inner necromancer. Once again, it’s a form of death to the rescue! Death trumps sex.
Indeed, having Belle Morte as an ally is like having raging acres of wildfire as your weapon, and then needing the cold deep water of death itself to put it out. Every. Damn. Time. At the risk of your own existence.
Which brings us to the most interesting, darkest, most elemental enemy-colleague on Anita’s Big Bad Dream Team.
Marmee Noir.
The Mother of All Darkness. The Sweet Dark. Night itself. The first vampire in the world. Unholy merde… .
Marmee Noir is part mystery, part dark, and thus the ultimate overwhelming enemy, and yet she is also the least tangible. Even less so than the long-distance psychic-phone-calling Belle Morte.
Marmee Noir first “wakes” and is introduced in Cerulean Sins, seemingly as a reaction to Belle Morte’s amassing of forces and vampire politics machinations, but more likely in response to Anita herself. It appears that Anita’s still-not-fully-tapped
necromancer powers attract Marmee Noir like primeval elemental night attracts bats.
And that scary old bat—or at least her original mortal desiccated body—lies in a secret hidden chamber in an undisclosed location (possibly sharing the lair with Darth Vader and a certain former vice president). As she grows in self-awareness, she populates Anita’s dreams as a more tangible presence, both vampire and prehistoric weretiger. Yes, that’s how creepy-weird Marmee Noir is, both vampire and shape-shifter. With strangely perfumed wind effects. And jungle noises to mess with your mind.
Mostly, Marmee Noir is just plain old “Mommie Dearest,” as Anita calls her: a straightforward elemental enemy and force of “supernature.” Calling on the inner necromancer does not work to fight off the night. Instead, Anita uses Belle Morte’s sexy ardeur gift to escape Marmee Noir’s clutches; it’s about the only thing that works against her. Sure, it’s a mere distraction, but it’s a useful one. This time, sex trumps death
As Marmee Noir’s presence continues growing like a super-weed and her psychic tendrils of awareness emerge into the world, it is also more difficult to fight her. But the vampires and others realize soon enough that something must be done. Modern weapons are used to blow up the chamber in which Marmee Noir’s body lies. The explosion gets rid of her physical body, apparently destroying it, in Skin Trade. And yet, an indestructible psychic force, she “remains,” and we can easily imagine her coming back like disembodied Voldemort from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, because power of such elemental scope and magnitude simply cannot be dissipated so easily, and Anita is not done with her.
In addition, the ability to call the great cats and ancient tigers and other heightened werepowers are a kind of perverse gift or “mark” from Marmee Noir, who has serious designs on both Anita’s inner necromancer and panwere, and wants to possess Anita’s body and come back to life in the modern day.
But where’s the cooperation, you ask?
It’s in the latter portion of Skin Trade. Marmee Noir reaches out to Anita and “asks” for her help, at the same time offering to fight their common dire enemy—Vittorio, once known as Father of the Day, the male counterpart of Marmee Noir, the one who’s risen and is about to overtake the world.
For a brief instant, they are allies. Anita allows herself to surf the power of the ancient Night (ultimate deepest death) at the same time as she directs the ardeur against their common enemy. Thwarted sexuality, Vittorio’s only weakness, works against him. (Here, I would say, Marmee Noir owes Belle Morte a box of blood chocolates.)
In the process of freely letting in and using both of her supernatural ally-enemies, Anita, the learning machine, enhances and unleashes her own personal power. Without thinking about it, she makes the enemies’ forces her own.
Now who’s the ultimate vampire?
Thus, four ally-enemies. Four faces of death. Two mortal ones she can just barely imagine defeating (Edward, Olaf), and two still beyond her, but definitely touchable with a ten-foot pole (Belle Morte, Marmee Noir).
But we can bet, as always, that Anita is underestimating her own potential.
Indeed, Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, is a yet-unknown, everchanging factor. With each book she goes deeper and further out, discovers new levels of personal darkness, her own unique flavor of power: the terrifying über-necromancer. It’s the last, ultimate enemy she must conquer.
Ah, the self… .
Always seeing mirror aspects of herself in all the enemies she interacts with is a safe way of discovering and externalizing the many faces of Death and conquering it slowly, gradually, safely in herself. She finds it easier working with these others, the enemy, the impersonal mirrors, and just maybe learning more about her own darkness, secondhand.
Reflected in broken mirror shards are the sociopath, the murderer, the sadist, the empty thing, the lusting succubus, the necromancer, the vampire, the assassin, the executioner, the night itself. Death.
Which one is she? All of them, yes. Yet, which one is truly she? Anita’s enemy-ally All-Star Team is in fact a kind of kaleidoscopic multiple-personality phenomenon. It’s as if she broke herself into several distinct personality “pieces” and laid then out before her like scary trump tarot cards to shuffle her own reading, her personal fate.
There goes The Tower, her Edward, a.k.a. certain Death, whose other face is faithful judgment.
Next in the Major Arcana, draw The Devil—convicted rapist and serial killer Olaf, master of the unfettered yet forbidden realm, able to unleash wild power over Anita.
Then comes The Lovers, dark and dual, in the beautiful face of Belle Morte, shimmering in the creative, sexual, generative promise.
Finally, the elemental force of Marmee Noir is The Chariot, rushing headlong into oblivion, yet on some level wielding perfect primeval control… .
As Anita deals each new enemy card, she remains in control also.
Because control is the last edge she has to push one day, the last line to cross all the way, without looking back. On the other side lies the mystery of self and the answer. Meanwhile, dealing these deadly “personality” team member cards is a way to procrastinate.
What about Anita’s own personal trump card?
Why, it’s Death, of course.
In Tarot, the Death card signifies not ultimate destruction, but change and the great unknown.
Will Anita ever face it?
The final revelations are yet to come.
Vera Nazarian immigrated to the United States from the former USSR as a kid. She sold her first story when seventeen, has been published in numerous anthologies and magazines, seen on Nebula Awards Ballots, honorably mentioned in Year’s Best volumes, and translated into eight languages.
A member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, she made her novelist debut with the critically acclaimed Dreams of the Compass Rose (Wildside Press, 2002), followed by Lords of Rainbow (Betancourt & Company, 2003). Her novella The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass (PS Publishing, UK) made the Locus Recommended Reading List for 2005. Her collection, Salt of the Air (Prime Books, 2006, expanded and reissued by Norilana Books, 2009), contains the 2007 Nebula Award-nominated “The Story of Love.” Recent work includes the 2008 Nebula Award-nominated fantasy novella The Duke in His Castle and the Jane Austen parody Mansfield Park and Mummies.
Vera lives in Los Angeles. In addition to being a writer and awardwinning artist, she is also the publisher of Norilana Books. Visit her website: www.veranazarian.com.
I was interviewed by a sex therapist, for her radio show, who had a habit of guessing the backgrounds of her guests—off air, of course. She was almost always right, or at least in the ballpark. We talked and laughed and I answered questions on air. Afterward she judged from what I wrote and how comfortable I was with her questions and the call-in questions that I must have been raised in a very sexually comfortable household where information was freely shared. i had to tell her no. my grandmother taught me that sex was bad, my body was dirty, and men were evil and wanted only one thing, and that one thing would be unpleasant and they were animals to want it. Her advice before my first wedding was to lie back and it would be over soon. The radio show host was quiet for a moment and then she said, “You’re remarkably healthy for your background.”
Grandmother was a deeply unhappy woman, and tried her best to share that unhappiness with me. She gave me so little guidance that I turned to the library for sex information. I was the best-informed virgin in my high school, to the point where girls who were having sex came to me with questions. I have to say their unhappiness and lack of information after having had actual sex helped keep me uninterested in crossing that barrier until college. I educated myself through books not just about sex, but about the larger world outside the small rural town I lived in. I had no parents, no couple to emulate, and no marriage that I saw as happy around me, so I grew up free to remake that part of my socialization with very few preconceptions.
I didn’t realize that my att
itude toward sex, relationships, men and women interacting, was so different from societal norms until very late in life. I knew that men in college had trouble dating me more than once—or rather, that they and I came to a mutual agreement that one date was enough. i dated on my own terms, and saw no reason to compromise. I compromise better now than I did in college, but not on everything, and not ever on some things. That set me apart from most women, though I didn’t know it, but what really set me apart and still does is my attitude toward sex and gender roles. First, I don’t pigeonhole people by gender roles. My grandmother raised me to be the boy. Because she didn’t have a man around the house, I was it. I value that because it meant I didn’t think like a girl, or a boy, but as myself.
I still don’t understand why everyone is weirded out by the sex in my books. Sex is normal; it’s what we do for the species to survive, so why does it scare people so? Maybe it is the biologist in me, but I think it’s also the fact that I had to create my own sexual identity with almost no help, because all the help offered me was negative. I rejected it. I would not be limited by such unhappiness, I would find my own way, and I did. I am now happily married and my husband, Jonathon, has no problem with the fact that I put the same time, attention, thought, and research into my real sex that I put into my fictional sex. My first husband was disturbed by the fact that I thought so much about it. He seemed to feel it should be natural and not so planned. Spontaneity is great, but prior planning prevents poor performance is not just a phrase for the military. I treat my sex life the way I treat all my life: carefully, with thoughtfulness, planning, goals, and a constant desire to improve my skill set. Jonathon has adopted my paradigm and thinks it works just dandy. It’s nice to be with someone who thinks this is a plus and not a burdensome minus.