Page 556 of Flirting with Darkness

Count Yaroslav D’Yavol Aslanov.

A man said to have the ear of the Tsar himself.

“Tain’t the Tsar who should worry ye, handsome.” The woman winked, and he noticed her dark eyes appeared to be filled with stars. “It’s the one who lives in his name. He’s darker than the older one… and the older one was already too dark by half.”

Ghost frowned, looking between the two images.

He could see the similarities now. The eyes. The jawlines.

The mouths.

“Father and son,” he muttered, staring down.

“…and grandson,” the woman added, her voice soft.

“Bastard, you mean,” he remarked sourly.

“Yes. Bastard. Yet the only true heir. The pure heir.”

Ghost frowned again.

She set down a third card, pushing it towards him.

A man with long dark hair, hair eerily the same to that depicted of his father, stood with his back to the world. A door of light opened before him. The moon shone to his side. Purple fire filled the area around him. Blood drenched the black stone.

The purple light writhed with the faces of skulls and demons.

They came from the blood, emanating out of the pitch-black stone.

The magician stood over all of it, working his magick tirelessly. Candles burned on an altar below that blinding portal of light.

A round, blue sphere glowed near them.

Slowly, the sphere morphed, becoming a giant clock. The numbers weren’t right, or really numbers at all. The odd symbols might denote time, but nothing like any clock Ghost had ever seen. As the clock glowed, the portal’s light glowed with it, beating with the same heart.

That light looked off somehow.

It looked dark, like the skulls and demon faces twisted within it.

Ghost shivered, gazing into that demonic light.

He’d stopped asking himself if any of this were real, if he’d fallen asleep in his private first-class compartment, or perhaps slumped in the booth inside the dining car. He’d stopped asking himself who the woman was, or why he’d dreamed her.

He wanted only to understand the mystery of the cards.

“Aye, ye’ll need help, little one.” The woman’s accent thickened. “You should have brought yer own with ye. But ye’ll have to do.” Her eyes grew knowing. “In the end, fate brings us what we need. It’s all or nothing, fer all of us. Everyone’s deeds get counted in the end.”

Ghost blinked.

Thinking about her words, he frowned.

His own? His own what?

Whatwould he need help with?

Killing his father?

Because he could do that just fine, all of his own.

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