Anastasia Luccio

Anastasia Luccio is a human witch, and, to some degree, Commander of the wardens of the White Council. She first appears in Dead Beat.

Description
Anastasia Luccio is a very talented human wizard, and of considerable influence within the White Council. Nominally, she is the former Captain of the wardens, having given the position to Donald Morgan following Dead Beat — Luccio is the technical commander and Morgan is the field commander ; the position is currently empty following Turn Coat.

Captain Luccio is a calm and level headed woman who understands situations from a very logical perspective, sometimes doing things that the Council may disapprove of.

Originally, Luccio is an older woman (apparently 60 or so years old, adjusted for the wizard aging process) with gray hair. However, after falling victim to the Corpsetaker, her new body is that of a young woman, with a sweetly pretty face, dimples, and curly brown hair worn long.

She is also one of the few people who knows of Harry Dresden's family ties to Thomas Raith  and Maggie.

Biography
She was born sometime in the 1800s, in Italy.

The descendants of her family are living in all of Italy, in Greece, and a few in Algeria. Luccio has no open contact with any of them, nor does anyone know of her. However, she has a habit of secretly looking in on them every five or six years, and also looks if any of them might be a practitioner.

In Turn Coat, it has been insinuated that she was rather promiscuous in her younger days, She admitted that often modeled in the nude.

Harry Dresden
In Small Favor, due to her effective second youth (and consequent sex drive) she exchanges flirtations with Dresden, even so far as going on a date with him and possibly sleeping with him, although the wording is deliberately vague on this.

As of "Day Off", she and Dresden seem to have an ongoing relationship, though the overtones are still flirtatious and casual. Georgia refers to her as Stacy, but Dresden replies he would not use the nickname.

In Turn Coat, she and Dresden have a rather intense (and sexual) relationship, with Dresden referring to "wild monkey sex." Dresden's nickname for her is "Stacy". Having discovered that she has been mind-controlled by Samuel Peabody, who pushed her to get close to Dresden, she breaks off, however unhappily, the relationship.

Donald Morgan
Anastasia Luccio was Donald Morgan's master and is his superior as captain of the wardens. In Chapter Ten of Turn Coat, she states that she knows and trusts him, but will not let her opinion get in the way if there is enough evidence to sentence him to death.

Abilities
In Dead Beat, Harry Dresden meets Captain Luccio at McAnally's. He describes Luccio as a solid matriarch, as tall as most men, built like someone who did plenty of physical labor. Her hair is iron grey and cropped in a military cut. She wears a warden's grey cloak over clothes typically worn for hiking: jean's cotton, flannel, boots, all in muted tones of grey and brown. She carries a staff and a sword. Her gear showed sign of recent action. Her sword is a slender scimitar, light and elegant.

In Dead Beat, when Dresden first contacts her, Luccio is the Commander of the wardens and the field commander of the Council's forces in The War between the Council and the Red Court. Luccio is one of the next in line for a seat on the Senior Council. Dresden thinks she's a tough old bird.

She appears to prefer fire magic similar to Dresden's, though with much more control and a graceful air, being able to create a thin ribbon of fire, as opposed to Dresden's massive cone of flame.

During her recovery, she created a Warden boot camp,  and, following that, other training facilities for new Wardens. The training camp in New Mexico is one example.

"A Fistful of Warlocks"
In "A Fistful of Warlocks", she is hunting Alexander Page, a warlock who leads her to Heinrich Kemmler and Grevane, who have made Dodge City their haunt. She allies herself with Venator Wyatt Earp for the fight against them, winning him over with her ability to make coffee.

Dead Beat
In Dead Beat, Harry Dresden calls the wardens for help with the necromancer situation. Unexpectedly, Commander Luccio answers the phone herself. Dresden tells her that the Heirs of Kemmler are in Chicago, they have the Word of Kemmler and plan to use it that Halloween night. She says she is familiar with them and will lead a team there herself, to meet her at McAnally's. At the meeting, Luccio is accompanied by Morgan, Carlos Ramirez and two young trainees only. She tells Dresden about the status of The War with the Red Court, about their recent heavy losses, and new Wardens are needed desperately. She recruits Dresden as a Warden on the spot, giving him a cloak and not taking no for an answer.

Later, Capiorcorpus lets Luccio wound her body, and then switches bodies with her. Dresden shot Capiorcorpus while she occupied Luccio's body, the bullet impacting just over her right cheekbone. Luccio survived in Capiorcorpus' previous body.

Proven Guilty
In Proven Guilty, due to her injuries and new situation, she gives up active control of the Wardens to Morgan — although she is still the technical commander of the Wardens while Morgan commands the field. She has started up a new training camp.

Luccio supports Harry Dresden when the Merlin wanted to strip him of his Warden status and the rest of the Senior Council overruled him.

White Night
In White Night, she had also ceased taking part in actual field combat, instead training new Wardens.

As a result of switching bodies, she allowed Morgan to become head of all forces while she recovered. Her new body, that of a young brunette woman, lacks many of the strengths of her original body. Specifically, she can no longer make the Wardens' enchantment breaking swords. Whether this is due to a lack of physical strength or magical strength or both is unclear. It is because of this that Dresden has not been given one of these swords (rather than the assumed reason, a lack of trust).

"Day Off"
In "Day Off", Anastasia Luccio finds that Harry Dresden is involved in a mess at his own home, in which Andi Macklin and Kirby are infested with psychophagic mites and Molly Carpenter has all but destroyed Dresden's lab. She winds up helping him to put everything to order.

Turn Coat
In Turn Coat, it seems that Luccio is going along with the Merlin to keep Dresden in the dark about Morgan being an accused murderer and a fugitive. Dresden feels a bit betrayed because of their relationship. Ana appears to Dresden by an alley entrance, they discuss Morgan, she asks for his help.

She goes with Dresden to the Raith estate to confront Lara Raith about mental tampering of Evelyn Derek and the hit by Binder and his Grey Suits. While there, she is injured by the Naaglosii attack. Ana overhears Justine talking to Dresden about Thomas and on the way back Dresden ends up confirmng that Thomas is his brother. She talks about her family. Ana tells Dresden the things she recalls about his mother and how she challenged the White Council to change the Laws of Magic to make them more just. Luccio explains the consequences of doing that. She says that the Laws are not about justice, they are about controlling power, and protecting mortals from Black magic. And that the Wardens were ordered to watch Margaret LeFay.

Molly attempts to peek inside Luccio's mind to find out if she's been tampered with, suspecting that she's in a perfect position to use Dresden. Molly is certain that someone did. It turns out that her new body has lessened her psychic defenses, normally deeply ingrained in wizards over a hundred years old, and that she and many of the Wardens are being controlled by the traitor, Wizard Samuel Peabody. It was during this time that she "sleep-murdered" Aleron LaFortier without remembering it. It is not known the extent that Wizard Peabody controlled Luccio. She states that she was (and still is) fond of Dresden, so their relationship may not have been completely forced, but having done that under coercion forces her to break it off.

"Love Hurts"
In "Love Hurts", Harry Dresden contacts Luccio in the hope to get information on three suicides. She denies having information about this problem, and reminds him it is up to him retrieving such information.

Changes
In Changes, Anastasia escorted Harry Dresden and Molly Carpenter from the "peace" gathering in the Senior Council Residence Hall arranged by Arianna Ortega and Gregori Cristos just when Dresden was about to land himself is a lot of trouble. Ana took them to the Worry Room where they talked about warlocks and the Paranet. She learned about Dresden's daughter and promises to help him from inside Headquarters. Later, Ana sends Dresden a note via Warden Chandler (Steed) telling him that getting the note means she's been taken out of action is some way and to trust Chandler. Steed's note said Ana's message was that Dresden should not come to Headquarters at all and that he is "On His Own".