Touch the Dark

Cassandra Palmer used to be under the control of a vampire, Tony, but she managed to escape. Tony had killed her parents, and kept her because of her ability to have visions. Thus, she grew up used to vampires and other creatures, but finally she is able to escape.

She's captured and brought before the Vampire Senate, a group that oversees vampires. Two of the members include Cleopatria and Jack the Ripper (who serves as interrogator when necessary.) In this world there are also mages. One group is positive, one group evil, and they mages can carry a lot of weaponry and are thus referred to as War Mages. In fact, there is about every kind of fantasy creature you can imagine, including fairies, golems, werewolves, magic users, ghosts, satyrs, etc.

Her life is constantly in danger as she's attacked by various individuals or people who want to use her. She finds out she's also capable of traveling back into the past, inhabiting a body of a human from that time. There's an amusing scene where she has a enters the mind of a vampire treating hr injuries and it's a male; she has a male body, erection, etc.

The major control group is called MAGIC: Metaphysical Alliance for Greater Interspecies Cooperation.

Rasputin is mad (in more ways than one) and is responsible for killing vampire senators. Actually, he basically wants to take over the power.

Cassandra finds out that she is a “rogue pythia,” an oracle, related to the Oracle of Delphi. To stop what is happening in the present, she has to travel again to the past, but at the same time having to avoid becoming under the control of a particular vampire, and trying to avoid ending up as the actual full-powered Oracle, especially considering that she's never had any training in being one.

This is really a wild world of creatures, although they do have some differences from the traditional definition of vampires and others. There's lots and lots of action, and lots of humor. It's an extremely good first book in the series.

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