A powerful clairvoyant, Cassandra "Cassie" Palmer has had
her fill of being used by the magical community. After she
runs away from the vampire Mafioso, who's controlled her
from childhood, Cassie exacts her revenge by setting him up
in an entirely human and red tape kind of way. She alerts
the Feds. Embarrassed, her former captor, Tony, decides to
get a little revenge of his own by having her killed.
Vampire justice.
On the run, depending a little on the kindness of
strangers, a little on her phantom friends but mostly
trusting her own instincts and living by her wits, Cassie
learns how to survive on the streets. When she finds her
own obituary posted on her office computer, Cassie knows
that Tony has tracked her down and it's time to run again.
Calling for spirit backup, Cassie goes to warn her roommate
Tomas to stay away from their apartment for awhile. While
she's explaining things to Tomas, they're attacked by
Tony's vampire goons.
Cassie and Tomas manage to survive the attack and inflict
heavy casualties on the attackers with the help of some
ghostly allies that Cassie manages to conjure up. Cassie
realizes during the fight that far from being a helpless
human Cassie is bound to protect, Tomas is in fact a
vampire with formidable fighting skills and has been
fooling her by appearing to be human. Not an easy feat,
since Cassie was raised in a vamp stronghold. In short,
Cassie is again under the control of a master vampire. A
really hot master vampire this time, but she realizes she's
still being controlled.
Tomas "escorts" her to the headquarters of the "Senate," a
powerful group of vampires who also have a decidedly fixed
interest in Cassie and her powers. It's the why of all this
that puzzles her. Clairvoyants are regarded as the lowest
of the low by the rest of the "magics." Cassie doesn't have
a lot of free time to ponder her importance to the vampires
and their various allies and enemies. With the help of her
ghost servant, Billy, Cassie escapes the vampires'
headquarters, which are located outside of Vegas, and heads
to the big city where more than slots and neon signs await
her. Dark mages, white knights, witches, a lone pixie,
satyrs, vampires, weres and even a shrunken head are lying
in wait -- some to help, some to hinder and some just want
to eat her. Who's a girl going to trust? All she wants are
some straight answers to 10 or 20 questions and to be left
alone. Fat chance. What happens in Vegas is supposed to
stay in Vegas, but in Cassie's case, it doesn't only follow
her around the world but through time itself.
Fast paced and heavy on the action, TOUCH THE DARK packs a
huge story into its 320 pages, with lots of mythology and
character backstory to absorb. I thought at first that
there might have been another book in the series that I had
missed, but this is Chance's debut novel. A blend of
fantasy and romance, it will satisfy readers of both
genres. The story isn't completely tied up at the end and
leaves everything open for a sequel (or series) leaving
good guys and baddies both in the mix to meet and battle
another day. Cassie's destiny is far from settled and her
troubles are far from being over.
Like any sensible girl,
Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking
Mafioso she
escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with revenge in
mind, she's
forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.The
undead senators
won't help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself
working with one of
their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master
vampire- and
the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to
pay.
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