It's that time of the year for the Sunnydale Sidewalk Art Festival, and Buffy and the gang have been enlisted to help Joyce pre-pare for the big event. In fact, Xander's especially eager to pitch in, due to the arrival of a major hottie - a young artist named Justine. She specialises in Tarot paintings, and tells Xander that she senses much energy surrounding his aura. Xander naturally assumes his latent psychic powers have been awakened.
But Buffy's not quite ready to call the psychic hot line. She has a nagging suspicion that something about Justine is not fie by five - especially after she reaches for Justine's prized Tarot deck, which causes the artist to fly off the handle in a big way. Then there's the fact that vampires appear uncomfortable in Justine's presence. One by one, each of Buffy's closest friends seem to be surrendering their free will to an unknown, unseen force . . .
