Page 4 of The Slayer Seduction

I think she’s squinting her eyes at me, but it’s hard to tell through her glasses as she continues to shuffle the cards in the air.

The cards collectively end their shuffling, landing on the table in a neat stack.

“I can’t tell you what the visions are about,” she says plainly, like I’m wasting her time, as if I haven’t given her months of hard-earned money.

“Yes. I’m aware. I’m hoping that I can get some answers surrounding my future.”

“The cards will decide what you should know and what you shouldn’t.” She grabs the top card of the deck and does not turn it. Her neon-blue manicured nails split the deck, and she goes to take the top card of the split, but changes her mind, taking the next card instead. Then she splits the bottom deck again, pauses for a moment, and takes the last card.

She places them all in front of me and I stare at them, feeling sick to my stomach. I know enough about what sits before me in the three cards. Past, present, and future.

“The first card,” she says and with a thick gulp, I turn it.

I stare at it for a long moment. The dark cloaked figure stares down at the five cups strewn about on the ground. Even without Izora speaking, I know what this means for my past.

“Your past is full of loss, your mother?” she asks and I nod. “It was unavoidable.”

I glance down at Scarlett and she looks back at me.

“We can still leave, Iris,” my familiar says, and I give her a sharp shake of my head.

Izora waves her hand at me to flip the next card. I’m not so scared of this card, truly it’s that third card that scares the shit out of me. I flip it over, and unsurprisingly it’s the two of swords, the image of a blindfolded woman on her knees holding two swords across her shoulders.

“Two of swords,” Izora says, looking at me intensely, tapping a long nail against her table.

“I don’t have any major decisions to make,” I say, staring down at the card.

“It’s not about the decision. You’re blind to something, something ancient,” she says, unblinking as she stares at the card. “When the blindfold is removed, you will have a choice to make.”

“Is this me not understanding my visions?” I question her and she gives me a sharp no.

Is she sweating? She looks shaken up, still not looking away from the card.

“They’re tied together, your visions and this secret.”

“Secret?” I question her and she finally looks up from the cards and at me.

“That’s as much as I can share.”

Izora’s posture changes, and she seems far more interested in my reading now as we both look at the daunting final card. She isn’t snippy with me to turn it; she gives me time. My hand shakes as I reach for the card and what I see when I flip it has my heart sinking to the ground.

Deep down I had a feeling it would be this card, but what it could mean needs to be read by Izora, because before me is the death card. A knight in all black riding a white horse sits before me and the tarot card reader is silent.

Her brows furrow as she seemingly is listening to what her cards tell her.

“The void,” she whispers.

“The what?”

Izora shakes her head, deep in thought, as she licks her lips.

“What does it mean, Izora?” I say firmly.

“That something is coming for you, not death, but also the purest form of death ever created.”

My heart ratchets up in my chest as I stare down at the card. “It’s coming for me, not my friends?”

I only paid for three cards, but Izora must take pity on me, or perhaps she’s curious herself.