Narcissus in Chains (2001) (edit title/settings)

Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Anita Blake: Animator, Necromancer, Vampire Executioner, Jean-Claude's Human Servant. Damian's Master, One third of the triumvirate with Jean-Claude and Richard. Lupa of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, Nimir-Ra of the Blood Drinker's Clan
• Jean Claude: Master of The City of St. Louis, Master Vampire, Anita's Master, Richard's Master, Owns Guilty Pleasures, The Laughing Corpse, Circus of the Damned and Danse Macabre. Anita's lover, One third of their triumvirate.
• Richard Zeeman: Alpha Werewolf, Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke Clan. Richard holds a degree in preternatural biology and has a day job as a junior high school science teacher. He is very closeted about his lycanthropy for fear of losing his job. Anita's ex-fiancee and sometimes lover, Jean-Claude's Wolf to Call
• Veronica Simms: Ronnie is Anita's best friend and her usual workout partner and confidante. A private investigator on retainer with Animators, Inc.
• Narcissus: Owner of the club, Narcissus in Chains (a BDSM club), and Oba of the city's werehyenas
• Asher: Master Vampire, Jean Claude's Second in Command, In love with Anita and Jean-Claude
• Jason Schuyler: Werewolf, Member of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, A stripper at Guilty Pleasures, Anita's friend, Jean Claude's "Pomme de Sang"
• Micah Callahan: Nimir-Raj of the Maneaters Clan. Merging his pard with Anita's pard, the Blood Drinker's Clan, they rule as Nimir-Raj (King) and Nimir-Ra (Queen).
• Nathaniel Graison: Submissive Wereleopard, Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan, A stripper at Guilty Pleasures
• Gregory Dietrich: Wereleopard, Member of The Blood Drinkers Clan, Stephen's twin brother. Like his brother, Gregory is a stripper at Jean-Claude's strip club Guilty Pleasures.
• Merle: Wereleopard, Former leader of the Maneaters Clan, Now a member the Blood Drinker's Clan
• Raina: Former Lupa of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, An extreme sadist, She often used her sexuality to manipulate other wolves into doing her bidding. She was shot and killed by Anita while trying to have Anita killed in one of her snuff films, Raina's munin now "haunts" Anita. Sometimes Anita calls her to get information or help with healing. In return Anita must do her a favor (usually something sexual).
• Stephen Dietrich: Werewolf, Member of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, One of the strippers at Jean-Claude's club Guilty Pleasures, His twin brother Gregory is a wereleopard.
• Rudolph Storr: Dolph is a police officer who was assigned to head up St. Louis' Regional Preternatural Investigation Team (RPIT) after the passage of Addison v. Clark, investigating supernatural related crimes.
• Claudia: Wererat, bodyguard of Anita and Jean-Claude
• Gretchen: Vampire that loves Jean-Claude and tried to kill Anita
• Lillian: A doctor and a wererat of the Dark Crown Clan. She frequently patches up shapeshifters in their unofficial infirmary.
• Chimera: Panwere (someone who can shift into many different animals), Ex Vampire Hunter
• Vivian: Wereleopard, Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan
• Bobby Lee: Wererat, Work as security at the Circus of the Damned. He is an ex-mercenary and has worked for and with some questionable types, including white supremacists.
• Caleb: Wereleopard in Micah's pard, Now a Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan
• Jacob: Werewolf, trying to be Ulfric
• Damian: A very old and fairly powerless vampire. Through a series of accidents and emergencies, he became Anita's vampire servant
• Rafael: Leader of the St. Louis wererats, King of the Dark Crown Clan, He has a brand in the form of a four pointed crown on his left arm, that is visible in both forms.
• Sylvie Barker: Alpha Werewolf, Geri of the Thronnos Rokke Clan
• Elizabeth: Wereleopard, Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan, She hates Anita because she herself isn't strong enough to lead the pard. Elizabeth invites Micah to St. Louis to audition for the position of Nimir-Ra without Anita's consent.
• Orlando King: One of the country's most famous lycanthrope hunters. After surviving a savage attack, he apparently "softened" his stance regarding shapeshifters and began preaching tolerance
• Willie McCoy: A small-time hood turned vampire. The first vampire friend of Anita's, he is one of only two or three vampires Anita has known before and after being turned.
• Jamil: Alpha Werewolf, Skoll of the Thronnos Rokke Clan
• Irving Griswold: A short, balding werewolf with a day job as an investigative reporter for a Saint Louis newspaper. Irving remains closeted at his day job in order to avoid discrimination, and frequently exchanges information with Anita.
• Clive Perry: Detective, Anita is curious to know what it was that he did to get transferred to the Spook Squad. He always seemed so soft-spoken and pleasant. I could never imagine Perry doing anything rude enough to piss someone off, but you didn't get assigned to the squad without a reason
• Donovan Reece: The first Swan King in a century, and that he has been destined from birth to that position, since he has a birthmark in the shape of a swan. He has been groomed for this position since he was young, though he doesn't want it. Reece is the Swan King of every swanmane in the U.S.
• Shang-Da: Alpha Werewolf, Hati of the Thronnos Rokke Clan, Shang-Da has a strong dislike for Anita due to the fact that she hurt Richard in the only way Shang-Da couldn't protect him from
• Zerbrowski: Stereotypical rumpled, smart-alec, but highly competent detective and a loyal friend to Anita. He also makes wisecracks about Anita's personal life and is a cheerful lech.
• Zane: Wereleopard, Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan, Tried to be alpha after Gabriel died, but was happy to hand things over to Anita.
• Cherry: Wereleopard, Member of the Blood Drinker's Clan, She was a nurse before they found out she was a lycanthrope, and one of the few local weres that has medical knowledge. When it was revealed to her bosses that she was a lycanthrope, she was one of the first to be laid off because of "budget cuts"; Cherry now more or less flaunts her lycanthropy via exceptionally sensual attire and behavior in public.

Quotes edit see section history

• “I felt like I needed a button that said, 'No, I don't want to have a bondage three-way with you, thanks for asking, though.”

  Anita Blake

• “Ours is not reason why, ours is but to do and die.”

  Marco

• “Sometimes the greatest wounds are the ones we try the hardest not to inflict.”

  Anita Blake

• “The true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn't matter has been seeing too many small knives.”

  Anita Blake

• “Yeah, already dug. I was about half way to China and still throwing dirt in the air.”

  Anita Blake

• “Sex, guys, turning thirty, vampires, werewolves. You know, the usual.”

  Anita Blake

• “You look like a pornographic space man. If you were wearing street clothes, you might have gotten a hug.”

  Anita Blake

• “I would move all of hell to reach your side, you know that." "You French guys do talk pretty.”

  Asher, Anita

• “The only term that came to mind was orgy-sized.”

  Anita Blake

• “As Jean-Claude's lady wishes, so shall it be.”

  Faust

• “I never argue with a lady, especially one that can beat me at arm wrestling.”

  Igor

• “His energy is very blue, and yours is very red, and they mingled." "So you got what, purple.”

  Rafael, Anita

• “Love is such a bitch.”

  Anita Blake

• “The Nimir-Raj is not a pomme de sang, a mistress, a dessert, no matter how delectable. He is an entree, a very, very main course, and I wish to be the only entree at your table.”

  Jean-Claude

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• “The only true happiness, Richard, lies in knowing who you are—what you are—and making peace with it.”

  Highlighted by 69 Kindle customers

• You can bandage a wound, set a broken bone, but not caring . . . you can’t cure that, and you can’t recover from it.

  Highlighted by 69 Kindle customers

• Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man’s heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six. Funny how phallic objects are always more useful the bigger they are. Anyone who tells you size doesn’t matter has been seeing too many small knives.

  Highlighted by 68 Kindle customers

• Every ruler should strive for his people to love him. But if they cannot love you, then make them fear you. Love is better, but fear will do the job.”

  Highlighted by 62 Kindle customers

• Sometimes the greatest wounds are the ones we try the hardest not to inflict.

  Highlighted by 61 Kindle customers

• “We dislike most in others what we hate most in ourselves,”

  Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers

• I knew that no matter how bad you feel, or what horrible thing happens to you, that the world just keeps on going. That the rest of the world doesn’t even realize that the monsters are eating your heart.

  Highlighted by 51 Kindle customers

• The world, the creation as a whole, is designed to move forward, to keep on keeping on without any one individual person. It feels damned impersonal, and it is. But, then, if the world stopped rotating just because one of us was having a bad day, we’d all be floating out in space.

  Highlighted by 43 Kindle customers

• “The heart wants what the heart wants, Dolph. You don’t plan on making your life complicated, it just happens, and you don’t do it on purpose, and you don’t do it to hurt the people who love you. It just turns out that way sometimes.”

  Highlighted by 42 Kindle customers

• Some say that that moment during sex when you both have an orgasm your auras drop, you blend your energies, yourselves together. You share so much more than just your body during sex, it’s one of the reasons you should be careful who you do it with.

  Highlighted by 28 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• St. Louis, Missouri
• Narcissus in Chains: The BDSM club owned by the Oba or King of the werehyenas.

Organizations edit see section history

• Regional Preternatural Investigation Team: RPIT, usually pronounced "Rip-It", is an extension of the St. Louis Police Department charged with keeping the peace between the human and supernatural communities by investigating all crimes with a supernatural aspect, and apprehending and/or exterminating the guilty parties. It has only recently been formed, largely as a half-hearted effort to placate the liberals and the press after the groundbreaking Addison vs. Clark case. Its remit is to investigate all supernatural crimes, whether it be committed against humans or against the supernatural beings themselves, including Vampires, Lycanthropes, Zombies, Ghouls, and more. Derogatorily known as the "Spook Squad", it is not considered a positive career move to join it, and it is comprised mostly of police officers who have aggravated their superiors in some way or another.
• Animators, Inc.: One of the most successful animator companies in the US. Although having begun as a small business in a spare room above a garage, it has grown, moving to bigger and better offices and hiring additional animators and secretarial staff. Though primarily aimed at raising the dead, the nature of the business has attracted other clients who wished to utilize the animator's expert supernatural knowledge, especially after vampires won civil rights. The firm usually receives contracts to have the dead raised as zombies, usually as witnesses in legal cases, setting will disputes, and sometimes as a last chance to have a word with a loved one who has passed away; Anita's place of employment

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Ma Petite: French: When used as an adjective it translates to honey-sweet. It is also a cute double entendre that refers to Anita's height.
• Triumvirate: this is a specialized term within this series to refer to a grouping of a Master vampire, her/his human servant, and the Master's beast to call. Jean-Claude, Richard, and Anita are one triumvirate.
• Ulfric: Alpha of the werewolves.
• Lupa: female head of the werewolves, submissive to the Ulfric.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Obsidian Butterfly, and followed by Cerulean Sins.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Laurell K. Hamilton (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Craig White (artist) (Cover Artist)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3558.A443357 N37 2001
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Some sexually explicit scenes and profanity

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Fantasy › Series
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Erotica › Adult Fiction
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Fantasy › Dark
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Fantasy › Urban
• Books › Romance › Vampires
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Authors, A-Z › ( H ) › Hamilton, Laurell K.

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Laurell K. Hamilton: Author's Website

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history