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Spoilers: Crimson Death
This article or section contains spoilers for 2016 novel Crimson Death.
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Micah David Callahan arrives to St. Louis in Narcissus in Chains as the Nimir-Raj of the Maneaters Clan. After he merges his pard with Anita's pard, the Blood Drinker's Clan, they rule together as Nimir-Raj (King) and Nimir-Ra (Queen). Micah also becomes the coordinator of the Lycanthrope Coalition, as well as Anita's live-in lover and closest companion. He, Anita, and Nathaniel form a ménage à trois, and are planning a commitment ceremony together in Dead Ice.
Micah shares an antagonistic relationship with Richard Zeeman, who feels that Micah has usurped his place. On some level it also rankles Richard to know that he should be able to win a fight against Micah thanks to sheer physical superiority, and yet Richard knows that if they ever fought for real Micah would kill Richard, because Richard would hesitate and Micah wouldn't.
Description[]
Micah has chartreuse yellow/green leopard eyes that won't shift back to human eyes. This is a result of too much time spent in animal form, forced by Chimera. Before Chimera had forced Micah into his animal form, Micah's eyes had been brown. The change also permanently damaged his vision, as leopards are nearsighted, and lost some of his color vision, although not as much as a leopard would. He wears prescription sunglasses to both hide his eyes and to see better, although he hides this fact for years. By the time of Crimson Death he has also got clear-lensed prescription glasses that help him both read and see farther away.
Another mark of Chimera's sadism is Micah's nose, which was broken so thoroughly and so many times that it takes a long time to return to its original shape, even with the help of transformations.
Micah is about the same height and same size as Anita, with rich brown hair, delicate triangular face, and very large genitalia (as noted several times by Anita). He is extremely easy-going and practical.
History[]
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Micah was turned into a wereleopard in an attack during a hunting trip with his uncle and cousin, who were both killed. The initial leader of his pard, Merle, stepped down when he couldn't protect his people from Chimera, and Micah became the Nimir-Raj for doing that in Merle's place. Micah volunteered to take Chimera's punishments on behalf of the weaker pard members, and as a result was forced to remain in shifted form for extended periods of time, which left him with permanent leopard eyes.
In Narcissus in Chains Micah comes to St. Louis at the invitation of Elizabeth to audition for becoming their alpha. He was also secretly ordered by Chimera to take control of the pard. After meeting Anita and recognizing her as a Nimir-Ra to his Nimir-Raj Micah comes to her seeking sanctuary for his leopards and a way to escape Chimera. Micah is nearly killed as a result of his switched alliances, but is healed when Anita uses her powers to draw the life from Chimera and share that energy with Micah and Richard, killing Chimera.
Between Narcissus in Chains and Cerulean Sins Micah helps to establish and becomes the coordinator of the Coalition.
By the time of Dead Ice, Micah, Nathaniel and Anita are an established ménage à trois and planning a commitment ceremony complete with rings, although they'll need to be worn in right hand because Anita's upcoming marriage to Jean-Claude takes precedence for her left hand's ring finger. Anita would marry all three of them for real, if she could, but as it is, a legally non-binding commitment ceremony will have to do. When their other lovers, especially the weretigers who are worried about an ancient prophecy, push to being involved in the ceremony, Micah is the one who negotiates with them. He doesn't actually want any new people included in their working domestic arrangement, but is practical enough to put the common good above his own desires, especially if it brings significant enough other benefits.
One such benefit comes from Dev, Anita's golden weretiger to call, when they realize that when Dev, Anita, and Micah all touch each other at the same time, they create a loop of power between them. When they experiment with this phenomenon, both Dev and Micah are able to choose from Anita's metaphysical beasts another animal form to transfer into, and they both keep that ability even after they break the connection. Micah's new animal form is a black weretiger, and he hopes it will help him as a representative of the Coalition to settle disputes between or within other animal groups without having to fight or use sex as a bargaining chip.
Family[]
Micah's family is introduced in Affliction. They live in Boulder, Colorado, and Micah returns to them after years of separation when his father is gravely ill. Micah stayed away from them to keep them safe from Chimera, who would have used them to manipulate and hurt Micah.
Micah's father is Rush Callahan, who is the local sheriff, and his mother is Beatrice "Bea" Morgan, who works at the local university. Together they had Micah, Jerry, and Beth. Micah's parents divorced when he was a teen. Micah and Beth closely resemble their father.
Micah's brother, Jeremiah "Jerry" Callahan, is younger than Micah and older than their sister Beth. Jerry divorced his first wife Kelsey, who was his high-school sweetheart, after two years of marriage. He's remarried a nurse named Janet who works at the local hospital, and in Affliction they've been together for two years. Jerry works with his brother-in-law at an engineering firm, which is how he met Janet. After the divorce between his parents, he sided with his father.
Beth is the youngest of the three Callahan children. She used to live with her mother and stepfather. In Affliction, she is 22 years old and in college.
Micah's mother, Bea, married Ty Morgan, a co-worker at the same college where she works. Bea and Ty have three sons and one daughter: Twain, Hawthorne, Frost, and Fen. Frost and Fen are genetically Rush's children, and Frost looks very closely like her sister Beth and their father Rush. Micah notices this, and he learns that his father has been in a relationship with his mother and stepfather.
Powers & Abilities[]
Micah is an Alpha Wereleopard and while not as physically powerful as other Lycanthropes, Micah is metaphysically very powerful. Micah has the standard enhanced physical abilities of a Lycanthropic wereleopard (to a heightened degree as an alpha) in addition to some unique metaphysical powers. Some of his metaphysical abilities include:
- Call Flesh, or heal wounds, with his touch. In particular this includes him licking at the wound. It's possible that this healing ability is limited to other wereleopards.
- Enhanced Shapeshifting: Able to shapeshift quickly, without being tired or ill from the effort. He was also able to stay in full animal form for extended periods of time without losing his mind or becoming permanently transformed. He did, however, lose the ability to shift his eyes back to human form.
- Partial Shapeshift: As a powerful shapeshifter, Micah can shift only parts of his body at a time. For example, he can summon only his claws. He did this to slash Jean-Claude's throat - an act to determine his similar status to the master vampire.
- Multiple Animal Forms: In Dead Ice Micah gains a second animal form, that of a black weretiger.
- Nimir-Raj: As Leopard King, he is metaphorically connected to all his leopards in his pard and can call the beast of any leopard less dominant to him.
- Mated-Pair with Anita Blake: As Leopard King to Anita's Leopard Queen, Micah can communicate telepathically with Anita and share power with her. When Anita killed and absorbed the life-force of Chimera, she used this bond to share that life-force with Micah, healing and enhancing him and their leopards.