Another lovely short from Cassandra Bick Chronicles. This time it's Cass and Laclos working in tandem to find a rogue vampire on streets of London right on Christmas Eve.

I feel like I'm warming up to Laclos more and more. He is such a cheeky and charming bugger, who makes you snicker with his delightful pranks.

“Ah, then I shall not detain you further… once you have obliged me with your English tradition of a kiss under the mistletoe, of course.”
“There’s no mistletoe tonight, Laclos.”
I should have known a little thing like that wouldn’t stop Laclos, of course. He clicked his fingers and an enormous vampire appeared beside us, one in a stream of faceless, nameless bodyguards he seemed to be working his way through lately. The vampire’s face was expressionless, but without being told, he produced a sprig of mistletoe from nowhere and held it above our heads. “A wise man makes his own opportunities,” Laclos purred, and it was so shameless – so Laclos – that I actually laughed out loud. Then he pulled me into his arms and kissed me, and I wasn’t laughing any more.

There is some sadness in this story too as Cassandra works in a homeless shelter helping out just before Christmas and tells us why she can't stand this holiday. There is Medea and Kate too and a touch of Christmas spirit :) Recommended, intriguing and definitely makes me want to read more of this series. ( )

If you haven't read Dark Dates yet, (something you need to rectify right now) this short story does contain some spoilers. It's Christmas time in London and Cassandra is feeling down. Christmas is a time of celebration and family but when your parents are dead and all of your friends died when you were in college, it's not hard to get a little bit depressed. Her lover Cain is off doing his things and that leaves the vampire Laclos to attempt to gain her attentions. He is most certainly not above bringing his own mistletoe to secure a Christmas gift.

Wanting to give back to the community, Cassandra has decided to maintain her yearly ritual of working at a shelter. Things go fine until a drunk man is denied entrance after claiming that a vampire ate his friends. Of course the workers at the shelter see Billy as just another one who has lost his way and give his tale little credence but Cassandra, with her ability to sense the supernatural is sure that Billy is telling the truth. Determined to get to the bottom of what is going on, Cassandra enlists the help of Medea and Katie. Is there a rogue vampire preying on the population of London and if so, can Cassandra bring this to a stop without further endangering herself, her friends or her business?

I kind of love that Laclos is one big walking vampire stereotype. Seriously, a vampire who wears glitter, how can you not giggle at that? Sinclair has once again filled her story with plenty of pop culture references and though Cassandra declares that she and her friends are not like Buffy and the scoobies the warmth and the budding relationship is clear to see. I look forward to seeing how the relationship between Madea, Katie and Cassandra goes. Clearly, Madea has moved from being an employ to someone Cassandra can count on.


I continue to have the same problem with Cassandra as I did in Dark Dates. Unfortunately, every woman she sees is more beautiful than her and she seems to walk around with a constant sense of inferiority.

While I was wearing a black dress now liberally streaked with glitter, she looked the epitome of style, as ever. Her red dress clung to every curve – and they were curves worth clinging to – jet black hair piled up in a loose chignon and secured with jewelled gold pins, the outfit completed by heels that would put me in hospital but that didn’t impede her elegant glide. Always beautiful, tonight she was radiant; her coffee coloured skin glowed, eyelids lined with kohl and slicked with some iridescent shade that brought out the dark chocolate of her eyes. I would have envied her, but some levels of beauty simply make envy redundant, and all you can do is admire them like a natural phenomenon. It would make as much sense to envy a sunset. Besides, despite her ability to render all women in the vicinity invisible to the human eye, I really liked Medea. (page 5)

While I am tired of the ass kicking, bomb exploding female protagonist there has to be some middle ground between that and totes, everyone is more beautiful. The idea that someone is nice despite the fact that they are physically attractive is a problem. In this vein it makes women competition for each other than potential allies and friends.

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