An entry to the literary games contest, organized by 
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I picked the following cards, using an online card shuffler;
-King of Diamonds: He builds his empire beneath the skin of cities.
-4 of Diamonds: A book appears on your shelf that no one remembers writing.
-6 of Diamonds: The gemstone pulses like a heartbeat when it gets wet.
-7 of Hearts: A heart is delivered in a velvet box, still beating.
The delivery guy didn't even wait for me to sign. He just dumped the velvet box on my porch and took off like his butt was on fire.
(Image generated by Meta AI)
Inside was a heart. Still beating.
Now, I've seen some weird shit in my thirty-two years, but this? This was the icing on the cake. The heart was pulsating like it was still connected to someone, which- Oh Lord! What if it was?
I called Vera right away. She's the only one I know who deals with "unusual" situations reasonably decently.
"Remy, sweetie, slow down," she said as I started to go on about the peculiar delivery and a beating heart. "Start from the beginning."
So I told her about finding that book last week. This strange book just found itself on my shelf between my cookbook and whatever Stephen King paperback I had on hand. Nobody recalled writing it, not even the author whose name was scribbled right there on the spine: Theodore Blackwater. I searched him on Google, and nothing. Like the guy never even lived.
The book was titled "Urban Archaeology" and it was packed with the strangest stuff. Blueprints of underground tunnels beneath Chicago, sketches of symbols carved into subway walls, and theories on an individual who (and I'm reading it exactly as it says) "builds his empire beneath the skin of cities."
"That's... too specific," Vera said.
"It gets stranger. I was cleaning out my grandmother's jewelry box yesterday and found this old necklace. Some kind of blue gem I'd never seen. When I washed it under the faucet to get it dirty off, the gemstone pulsed like a heartbeat when it got wet."
Vera pause for a moment.
"Remy, where are you right now?"
"Home. Why?"
"Lock your doors. I'm coming over."
She hung up before I had a chance to ask her why she was so spooked.
While I waited, I read through that dreaded book once more. There was a chapter on collectors; people who bought certain things to use for rituals. Ancient artifacts, as it turned out. The author had mentioned that these collectors used to send out invitations to potential participants.
I was losing my mind thinking about the velvet box once again. The heart had stopped beating.
When Vera arrived, she viewed everything and shook her head.
"Honey, you've been chosen for something. This Theodore Blackwater? He's not a writer. He's what we refer to as a King of Diamonds in our community."
"Your community?"
"People who recognize the old ways. The forgotten things that still happen in cities like this one."
She picked up the necklace, holding it gently so she wouldn't touch the stone.
"This is no mere gemstone. It's a locator. And as for that book? It's the Instructions. He's been watching you, probably for months already, deciding if you're worthy of whatever game he's playing."
"Game?"
"The heart tells me so. In the old traditions, a still-beating heart that brings in a velvet box means you passed some test and are being recruited."
I looked at her, so desperate to understand. "Recruited for what?"
"That's what we need to figure out before he arrives in person."
She was right to be alarmed. That night, around three AM, I could hear the sound of somebody tromping around in my basement. Footsteps where there are supposed to be none, considering my basement is nothing more than a concrete room with a water heater and some storage containers.
But when I snuck down to the basement in a flashlight, I found that there was a tunnel. A goddamn tunnel running into my basement wall, leading off into blackness.
The book was not a fiction. Someone had actually built an empire beneath the skin of cities.
And I suppose I was being asked to see it.
The question was: did I have the guts to follow that tunnel and see what Theodore Blackwater really wanted?
Or should I simply pack up and leave the hell out of Chicago while I still could?
Standing there in my basement at three in the morning, staring into that impossible tunnel, I realized the choice might not be mine anymore.
From somewhere distant in the darkness, I could still hear the muffled beat of a heart.
Still pumping away.