Anita Katerine Blake works as an Animator which means she has the power to raise the dead. This talent came to her through her mother's side of the family and she was taught how to control it by her Grandmother Flores. But as the series progresses you see that there is far more to her than this "night job". Think of her as Buffy with attitude. Anita Blake is a petite woman of mixed German and Mexican heritage with curly long 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 Hi-Power. Blake practices Christianity and is currently of the Episcopal faith, having left Catholicism since the Catholic Church has excommunicated all animators.