Deck of Cards

By Christina Harlin

Nina Clay designs games for a living, but she never imagined she would become part of one.
Successful computer game designer Nina works the world of fantasy, mapping out a journey through Hell as her next big game release. No one knows that this particular game is her way of avenging herself on the man who broke her heart, leaving her vulnerable to darker troubles. Into her life comes James Turner, a retired attorney in possession of a game unlike any Nina has seen before: an antique deck of cards that somehow hold the power to win anything, provided the player can afford the stakes and is willing to pay the costs. The cards even come with their own brutal enforcer, the otherworldly Magus, who wants nothing more than to see gamblers suffer the consequences of their bets. Nina is inducted into a new level of risk, able to win whatever she desires, whether it be a love affair for her lonely friend, a book thought lost to time, the perfect solution to summoning a particularly frightening Satan, or the inaccessible love of her life. Perhaps Nina is invited to play only as a fellow gamer. Perhaps her part in this game is outside her control. Despite being much older than Nina, James Turner is devilishly seductive, more than ready to take the place of the man who left her behind. Were relationships meant to be this easy, or is there something else at play? Nina suspects there is more going on, between her, James, and this deck of cards, than anyone has dared to tell her. The price of winning might be higher than she is able to pay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christina Harlin
• Release date: Jan 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311776525

Christina Harlin

Christina Harlin is the author of the "Othernaturals" series, featuring the adventures of a ghost-hunting team, each with his or her own otherworldly talents, passions and secrets. Her stand-alone works of supernatural fiction are "Deck of Cards" and "Never Alone". With co-author Jake C. Harlin, she has published the outrageous parody of romantic thrillers, "Dark Web." Together, Christina and Jake conduct the podcast "Underground Book Club", where they present talk and advice about self-published writing and writers. Having worked for over twenty years as a legal secretary and paralegal in law firms in Kansas City, Christina's experiences there have played no small role inspiring her comic mystery series of Boss books chronicling the ongoing misadventures of Carol Frank. Christina enjoys computer games, puzzles, great television, movies, and novels. Christina lives in the Kansas City area with her family.

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DECK OF CARDS

Christina Harlin

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Christina Harlin

Visit the author at http://www.christinaharlin.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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The Cut-Scene

James Turner was 58 years old when he realized that he wanted children. One of the other lawyers, younger even than James himself, came to the firm one day with a granddaughter bobbing around his knees. She could not have been more than three years old, a serious-faced little darling with the shining black hair of her Asian mother, dressed in the tiniest pair of blue-jeans James had ever seen and a frilly yellow t-shirt. Every eye in the office was drawn to her as she insisted on her Grandpa’s virtues. Grandpa is very smart, she said solemnly. Grandpa has a very nice car. We have to be careful with our ice cream.

He looked at this child for a full ten minutes and the ache hit him hard, in a place he hadn’t known he could hurt. He’d been married once and had been involved with, what, eight, ten, a dozen women before and since then? Never had he thought, Time to become a father until that day, and that day, he thought, I must make this happen.

He could simply put it out there like a personal ad to the crowds of people he knew. Wealthy lawyer, age 58, looking for healthy younger woman to marry me, bear my children. Someone would be willing, a woman eager to grab at the chance for financial stability and a lifestyle that did not require her working. Even in this enlightened-sounding year 2000 this was true. But James did not like the odds on that. He was a man who liked certainty. He did not want to waste time trying to find what he considered a suitable mother for his children in the ordinary way of doing these things. That could take years and he’d have no guarantees.

One might argue that life never comes with a guarantee, and most of the time this is so. One might think James Turner had a sense of arrogant entitlement. He would agree about that to his accuser’s face, but he also possessed the means to get exactly what he wanted, and this part he would keep to himself.

He calculated what it was worth to him, what he was willing to bet against the chance. He worked on the wager for a month, for certainty’s sake, his criteria becoming a list of virtues that seemed to describe a woman too fine to truly exist: Exceedingly healthy. 35 or younger. No genetic abnormalities. Attractive. Fertile. Passionate. Not involved with anyone else, not previously married, no other children. Very intelligent. Successful in her own right. Has a strong sense of personal worth. Open-minded. Brave. Creative. Strong. Fun. Humorous. Loves games. Will want me in the same way that I want her. Will marry me, have at least one and as many as three of my children. She will be pleased with being mine.

James thought that he was being more than reasonable, even considerate. The description of the woman went through many variations as he carefully reviewed his choices, making sure that he wasn’t leaving any loopholes open that could come back to bite him. He wanted to include something about his being able to see his child or children grow to a certain age, but that was betting for lifespan and he couldn’t afford to wager for any more than he already was: enough time to find the woman and impregnate her at least once. Betting for lifespan was not only ridiculously expensive, it was ridiculously risky.

Then there was the matter of what to place against the wager in case he lost, and this was very difficult. He did not know if he had anything that would work.

When at last he sat down to play the card game that would deliver his desire, his career was the first thing to go. He would be disbarred and take an early retirement. He probably deserved that anyway. Then, he lost his brother Sydney. Sydney would not die, but they would never see or speak to each other again. The price of immortality through genetics was painfully high, if one demanded a woman of a very particular type.

James won the third game. The last thing he had wagered against winning was his home and all his possessions, including a game collection that had spanned fifty of his years, a book collection that spanned twenty, and all the mementoes from his travels. He was glad these had been spared. He did not think too hard about the fact that he had bet Sydney before he had bet his collections. He knew already that he was a deeply selfish man and had long ago stopped dwelling on it. He always paid his losses without complaint. If he had lost his possessions, he might have been forced to start betting his own limbs – that’s how expensive this was, and how much he suddenly wanted this thing to happen.

But he won, and now all he had to do was wait.

The next day he learned that his law license was under examination from the Illinois State Bar Association. There were no more emails from Sydney. The phone call from Enid Freeman in Kansas City came a week later.

CANTO THE FIRST

EURYDICE

Chapter One

Descent

A Saturday in March, 2001

Oh God, let me help you with that! Nina said with a bubble of laughter when she came upon James Turner for the first time in their mutual hallway.

Her apartment was on one side of the hall, his directly opposite. Her new neighbor: a distinguished white-haired man of fifty-something she guessed, as she had been watching him come and go through her peephole for a couple days now. She had been hoping to meet him at the mailboxes some late afternoon, but this was a good excuse too.

The poor man struggled under a precariously balanced box topped with several magazines and their infernal slick paper, which slipped out of it into the floor while he fumbled with keys. Nina quickly saw that the problem was the box itself, which was splitting open on the bottom and therefore squeezing its contents out the top. The more the man tried to grip it, the worse the problem became. She rushed to his aid, slipped a hand under the box and pushed the gap together, causing the contents to resettle. Then she stood quite close to him. Remove the box, and they could have been dance partners.

Just set it in my arms, she suggested. I’ve got a better hold than you.

Thank you. There now. It is rather heavy. The man waited for her to crumple under the weight but she smiled reassuringly and he returned the smile with startling charm. He spoke with precision and diction that did not sound like local Kansas City.

Peeking into the box while she waited, Nina discovered real record albums under the stack of magazines. The only cover she could see proclaimed this to be a recording of Offenbach. This was a funny coincidence. She had listened to Offenbach just recently.

The man dipped to the ground to retrieve his escaped magazines and Nina stepped lithely out of the way to give him room, wondering suddenly if she’d shaved her legs recently enough that he wouldn’t be greeted with the sight of stubble on her ankles and knees. She wore her work-out clothes still, having just walked home from her kickboxing class at the gym. Most of her thick long hair swung in a damp heavy pony-tail behind her, but one rebellious tress had come loose and was tucked haphazardly behind her ear. She was also a bit sweaty and wore no make-up. She didn’t think she smelled anything worse than warm, but if she were going to have a chance-meeting with a sexy older gentleman and his Offenbach albums, she hoped she could pass muster.

Nina gave him a quick assessment from around the side of the box as he gathered his wayward magazines. He was her height, lean but with solid, stocky shoulders, very comfortable with his body. He had a disarmingly sweet smile, a short, beautifully manicured silvery-white beard, heavy-lidded dark eyes with attractive smiling crinkles around them, and gorgeous hair, thick tousled silver brushed straight back. He was not precisely handsome – too round-edged and rough for that – but he had the sex appeal all sewn up. He had to be nearly twice her age, so she could think of him in these terms without feeling threatened by doing so. Barriers were in place.

Her new neighbor stacked the magazines back into the box she held. There. He made a motion to take the box back from her, and Nina tried to comply, but a sudden sharp pain yanked the side of her head and she howled involuntarily. A substantial amount of her damp loosened hair had become ensnared in a corner of the box, caught with surprising tenacity by dangling strip of packing tape.

Oh good Lord, said her neighbor, appearing rather distressed for her. Come inside. We’ll set that box down and find a way to free you.

She carried the box since she was the one attached to it, and followed him into his box-cluttered apartment. He directed her with a light touch on her shoulder to set the box on the long kitchen bar, a mirror image of the one in her own apartment. Leaning over it helplessly, Nina watched out of the corner of her eye as the man began to work with her hair.

Closer, he suggested. Give me a little slack here, there . . . your hair has gotten . . . this tape is so damned sticky . . . Nina cringed once as she felt a couple hairs yanked from her head, but suddenly she was loose. Her neighbor smiled. You’ve got a lot of hair, he admitted, looking at her as if taking measure.

A little less now, said Nina dryly, but she smiled back at him.

Sorry about that. He did seem genuinely sorry, and Nina couldn’t bear it.

This is how I conspire to meet all my new neighbors. Notice how I made it look like an accident?

I’m very pleased that you did. In a series of motions that resembled a magic trick to Nina, he produced two long-necked bottles of beer from the refrigerator. He turned the caps off with his fingers, with an unspoken ta-da, and then they were toasting their new acquaintanceship with the sharp clang of glass on glass.

Nina took a good swig of hers, eyeing her neighbor as she did. Some men were put off by her height, but he did not seem to be. Nina was more ill at ease with her size then she liked to admit to herself, although lots of women told her she was lucky to be tall. At five feet, ten inches, Nina matched this man’s height exactly. Her body was strongly built, with good lean muscles from her exercise classes. She was not willowy or anything of the sort. As a tall teenager she’d been teased about being a basketball player or worse, a football player, even a wrestler, and that hurt had never escaped her. Intellectually she knew that she was healthy and physically fit and she had features considered attractive: the long brunette head of hair, catlike grey eyes, a long strong nose and fair skin with a smattering of freckles and a wide generous mouth. Yet deep in her heart she thought of herself as a great lumbering Bigfoot wearing a woman’s face. Not often, but enough times to permanently make her self-conscious, men had reacted badly to the fact that she could look them directly in the eye.

But this one, her new neighbor, put her at ease and his air of gentility made her feel more feminine by the moment. That was nice, and unusual.

He told her, only after they’d had a drink together, I’m James Turner.

I’m Nina Clay.

Nina drank beer with him, leaned on his kitchen counter amidst the disarray of his moving-day, James leaning opposite against his humming refrigerator. After a few moments, she turned back to the dastardly box of magazines and records and peered in at the Offenbach.

Nice to know someone still has a record player.

Oh indeed? Is it that rare now?

She let out a little laugh when she read the title: Orpheus in the Underworld. Actually I was listening to this very piece just a few weeks ago.

Do you enjoy classical music?

Oh, I guess I do. I’m not what you’d call a connoisseur. I’m doing research on classical Hades for my work. I checked it out to hear what Offenbach had to say about the afterlife.

And what did you think?

"Not the spirit I was looking for. It sounded like dance-hall music. I thought it would be more like Mars or Thus Spake whatever-his-name-was. James Turner appeared confused by her comments, so she continued, I’m harrowing Hell."

This didn’t help. You’re doing what to Hell?

"Sorry, I’m all geeky with the jargon. I’m mapping a journey through Hell. It’s called ‘harrowing’ Hell. Just about every religion has a story about a trip through Hell—the Sumerians had Inanna, the Persians had Viraf, and there was Aeneas and Orpheus—he’s my guy—and Tundal, and some Swedish guy who went to Hell in an elevator, and Dante’s Inferno of course. It’s called ‘vision literature’ or, my favorite term, the ‘descent motif’ because that sounds so sophisticated. See?"

I do see. James Turner nodded enthusiastically for her to continue.

Well in her element now, Nina happily did so. So I began my harrowing by sticking as closely as possible to the Greek idea of Hades and the myth of Orpheus. You’re familiar with it?

Orpheus goes to Hades to rescue Persephone.

Wrong myth. Persephone was abducted by the God of Hell and forced to be his wife. Orpheus goes to bring his wife Eurydice back from the dead.

Oh, yes.

"Well, that’s all just fine, except that I needed to map out a more terrifying Hell than the Greeks would provide. Their afterlife doesn’t have the panache of a good Christian Hell; for the most part there’s no punishment except for a few really obnoxious, famous sinners—mostly people who pissed off the Gods—and I realized that I’d confused some things. In my mind, I’d seen Orpheus traveling through Dante’s Inferno, not classical Hades."

Are you writing a book?

No. I’m designing a computer game.

His face sparkled with interest, a very appealing thing to see. James Turner cocked his head and urged her to go on.

Well, our company has composers for the music. I wasn’t precisely looking to swipe music from Offenbach, but it doesn’t matter because Offenbach sounds like French cancan music.

She finished her beer, and in the silence began to realize how much she’d just said aloud, how quickly and relentlessly she’d said it. Her face flushed a bit. That was a lot of talking I just did. This game development is all I’ve been doing for months. I lose my social skills.

No need to apologize. You’re passionate about your work.

I sound like such a nerd.

Well, everyone’s a nerd about something. I was enjoying watching you talk.

If this guy had been twenty years younger, Nina might have blinked at the forwardness of that statement, but since he was her father’s age and oozing charm, she let herself feel complimented.

I love games, she said, and gestured at his boxes and shelves. You’ve got beautiful games.

Her eye had been caught by a stack that she could see through the kitchen doorway, comprised of various wooden boxes. These were board game sets; checkers, chess, dominoes, Othello, backgammon, Scrabble, and at least three that she could not identify by name. They appeared to be fine collector sets, not the cheap plastic things one could buy in toy stores. The chess board was set up on the floor, displaying green jade and white marble pieces on a gold-trimmed marble board. Almost as if he had been expecting a visitor, wasn’t it?

In response to her compliment, James replied, Thank you. I collect games.

Board games?

Any kind that suits me. The board games are there, but I have boxes of others. You enjoy these kinds of games, too?

I like playing them. I don’t collect them. My chess set is plastic. Her smile faded as a familiar ache struck her heart. At least its familiarity made it unremarkable and she went on, hardly aware of the shadow that had crossed her face. I have to use a thimble for a missing pawn.

Would you like to see them?

Before they went into the apartment’s large living room, James Turner produced another set of beer bottles and disposed of their empty ones. In the living room she took note of the three display cases, tall and cumbersome wood cabinets with multiple shelves. At present they were empty, probably just reconstructed once the movers had gone, as evidenced by the tools in the floor. Even in pieces, they must have been formidably heavy. Before her were at least a dozen containers spilling over with bright and unusual things: beautifully bound books, a large record collection, magazines, mysterious carved wooden boxes, hand-manipulated puzzles of various shapes, odd wind-up clocks, gift bags that only hinted at their colorful contents, small models of games, fine editions of classic board games, carved and glazed cups of dice, bound packs of playing cards, some dog-eared and some sharp as razorblades. How she would have loved a few hours to go through those things one at a time, as if she were an archeologist carefully pulling and brushing little bones from the ground.

But Nina went with James to the chess set first, because she understood that in a collection of games, the chess set was the introduction. She knelt on the floor beside it, and James knelt opposite her. He was the jade, and she the marble.

I learned to play chess when I was thirteen, said Nina, pushing a pawn forward. A teacher told me that you could go anywhere in the world, and meet someone who knew how to play. Even if neither of you spoke a word of each other’s language, you could still sit down and have a game. I thought that was, I don’t know, romantic? So I joined the chess club.

James had moved out his first pawn; Nina responded. As easily as this they embarked on a game, for out came his knights, flanking the foremost pawns. Nina asked, Are you a viciously good chess player?

I am an acceptably good chess player.

Well I am viciously good, but lucky for you I haven’t played in months and I’m a little rusty.

Nina was good; she’d had weekly practice with a good opponent for almost six years of her life. But she found that James played differently, perfectly willing to sacrifice a number of pieces he did not consider important for the sake of a four-piece powerhouse offensive that was going to blast right through her line of defense. She was unaccustomed to this philosophy of play.

It was scintillating and erotic to Nina to lose a game of chess. For years she’d played across the table from a man she intensely desired, and in his relentless taking of her chess pieces, breaking through her defenses, catching her cornered and fighting, she had learned to be thrilled. It was the closest thing to a physical tangling that they ever had together. She never threw a game because playing fair was part of the fun, but oh my, when he came at her, how her blood had pounded. Queen and bishop and knight, his long hard fingers on the tips of the nubby little pieces. When she’d push over her king in defeat she’d feel as if she’d just gone three rounds in the bedroom. What dark and kinky fun that had been. The memories were so vivid that she had to make repeated mental adjustments just to stay cogent: she was not with William now, but with her new neighbor. And she must be vigilant about dredging up William-memories because they held no lasting warmth. It would be a shame to let them color her perceptions of this perfectly nice man who sat opposite her today, cross-legged on the floor like a kid and effectively whopping her at the game.

Still, it was hard to break associations between objects and sex, and when James checkmated her, Nina was slightly flushed. To meet his gaze was difficult. He’d surely see the silly wantonness in her eyes.

She tipped over her king gently on his beautiful chess board, and then she sighed.

Well fought, said James Turner.

That was really fun. But I’m sorry—I’ve got to get home. I’ve got a hundred things to do today and a deadline on Monday morning.

James rose gallantly and offered her a hand, helping her to her feet in theory more than practice. Thank you for the game, Nina.

Thank you for the beers, James.

Nina felt a sense of melancholy as she moved to leave. Since she barely knew the man himself, maybe it was leaving those mysterious boxes full of games that made her sad. Strangely, though, she felt as if their chess game had told her almost everything she needed to know about him.

He opened the door for her. Come visit me again. Any time tomorrow, or Monday night, if you’d prefer. I’ll show you more games and you can tell me more about yours.

I’d love to, she said.

Chapter Two

Chorus

Nina had a life marked by the passage of Sundays. Throughout her childhood these were the Lord’s Days, meaning church, and behavior a cut above normal. But once she was finished with church (and she finished it as soon as she moved out of her parents’ home), a different religion seized her. Her Sundays were then marked by gatherings of her friends, and for years this tradition was held every bit as zealously as her parent’s attendance to the House of God.

Now she was down to one friend, but their Sunday meetings continued out of force of habit, or simple comfort. Sunday afternoon meant Pat Allison was in Nina’s apartment, deciding with Nina what they would eat today and where they might go.

Pat was spying through the peephole of Nina’s door, just as Nina herself had done many times in the past days. This peeping they did was the start of an odd phenomenon that would overtake Nina’s life for the next few weeks: her door, James’ door, and the hallway in between would become a space of maneuvering as complex as a chessboard full of pieces. Knocking and open doors and that brief space of hallway would come to haunt her sleep.

Pat asked, Someone has the apartment now? Took long enough to fill it. The rent here is outrageous.

I just met him yesterday afternoon. Nina raised her head from her searching under the couch and told Pat, He’s just about the most charming devil I’ve ever met. I’m already half in love with him.

Pat looked vaguely alarmed; the alarm was in her words even as she tried to sound impressed. Really? Does he live over there by himself?

Yeah, I think he’s on his own.

Tell me about him.

I’ve been peeking at him for the last few days, after I saw all the ritzy furniture the moving guys were bringing up. Looked like expensive stuff. Then when I got a look at that devil himself? Oh my. Nina had resumed her search. Her fingers touched something slick but it scooted away. Her muffled voice from under the couch: Strong, fit for his age, very attractive – white hair, gorgeous white whiskers. He’s older, probably fifty-something.

Sounds like Santa Claus.

I wish. I’d sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas.

Pat laughed, and knowingly said, Wife probably kicked him out.

With a mild grunt of disapproval, Nina asked, What makes you think that?

Trust me on this, Pat said, folding her arms. If he’s getting an apartment at that age, it’s because his wife just kicked him out. Probably caught him cheating with a woman half his age.

At last Nina caught the elusive Gamefreak magazine with her fingertips and dragged it out, then sat on her heels and began thumbing through the advertisements for computer games. Regarding James, she said, He didn’t have that kicked-out look.

You don’t mind living across the hall from a single man? Pat, who also lived alone, felt her female aloneness more sharply than Nina ever had. She was paranoid about being raped. Pat had a large protective dog, a rifle in her bedroom closet, and pepper spray beside her bed. And in Pat’s opinion, even if they were not menacing rapists, men simply were not to be trusted. If a man was not actively with a wife, then he must be up to no good. This was what a bad marriage had done for an already skeptical Pat.

Flipping pages, Nina replied, He’s really nice, Pat, honest.

So he talked to you?

A secret little smile burst across Nina’s face, as if she’d done something naughty. Yes. We played a game.

A game? Pat considered Nina