Since it is part of what I have been working on lately instead of new chapters of Anomaly of the Fates and Future Distorted, I decided to give you guys a taste of the new book I have been working on. This bit is the beginning of the Prologue, introducing a new character that plays a small but important part of the overall story. I hope to finish something for posting soon. Enjoy!
Reign of Prophesy
Prologue
The streets of Itzehoe, Germany were nearly deserted. Few Europeans dared walk the streets at night since the Federated States of the Americas invaded the Confederated European Union. FSA soldiers and members of the Paranormal Apprehension Squad used the night to conduct their searches and investigate the activities of the CEU’s resistance movement; a movement heavily supported by Europe’s shrinking “paranormal” community. Tonight in Itzehoe, however, the streets were silent. The small city at the base of the Jutland Peninsula seemed to be holding its breath, hoping against hope that for just one night the citizens of the broken municipality could go to sleep without being disturbed by their conquerors.
That was not to be, however. Itzehoe had been the last bastion of Confederate resistance in northern Europe, necessitating a large FSA occupation force to put down the flare-ups perpetrated by resistance fighters gone underground. That was not what tonight’s disturbance was, however. A lone woman ran through the narrow, cobblestoned streets of the old city districts, wheezing with the effort to stay ahead of the PAS agents pursuing her. Her name was Anika Samuelson-Niebuhr and she was in serious trouble.
Six days ago, she and her loving husband Volkmar, a prominent literature and philology professor at the University of Hamburg, were happily celebrating the sixth month of their twin daughters’ births. She had met Volkmar Niebuhr when they were students at the University of Stockholm. They were slowly falling in love when the FSA invaded Norway. Knowing that there were several practicing wizards and seers in the family and how the FSA viewed such people, Volkmar asked her to marry him and move with him back to Germany. With the wholehearted support of her parents living in Thörshammer, Sweden, Anika happily married the handsome academic, settling down to blissful domesticity in Hamburg. When the war came to Germany nearly two years ago, they quickly moved out of the big city and into the smaller town of Itzehoe, hoping Anika and the children she was carrying would be safer there. Shortly thereafter, word from New Philadelphia reached the Samuelson family in Sweden; the Samuelson branch that had gone to North America nearly two decades ago had been slaughtered, the last member disappearing after PAS agents chased him into a parking garage on Manhattan Island.
Eight days ago, PAS agents in Itzehoe began asking questions about her. Where was she from? How long had she lived in Itzehoe? Has anyone ever seen her do anything unusual? Are there any other Swedish nationals living in the district with the name Samuelson?
Anika had just brought out the twins’ cake when the front door of their old fashioned cottage was kicked in, red-and-black-garbed men with guns storming through, shooting indiscriminately. Tears flowed down Anika’s pale cheeks as she remembered the spray of red that filled her vision when she watched as her beautiful babies were killed right in front of her eyes. Volkmar tried to push her out the back door, but he went down as well, bellowing for her to run with his last breath, eyes glazing with death even as Anika fled.
And run was what she had been doing for two days now. Slowly but surely, Anika had made her way to this outlying district of Itzehoe, hoping against hope that she could find a way to escape her home and get back to her family in Thörshammer. But the PAS had spotted her running past a surveillance camera behind a bank. She led them on a merry chase through the twisted streets of the ancient cobblestoned district lined with the tall, narrow houses that had stood in Itzehoe for centuries; only to lead them back to where it all began hours ago. There was the blasted bank!
“Psst!”
Anika whirled, her heart in her throat, sweat drenching her skin despite the chill Autumn night. Out of the shadows of a butcher shop flared the end of a cigarette illuminating the dirty face of a frightening man. Anika cringed back as a meaty hand extended towards her.
“Wollen Sie flüchten?” a deep, harsh voice from the shadows asked.
“Ja, ich muss sofort gehen!” Anika gasped hopefully, tears welling in her eyes as she took the proffered hand and stepped into a shadowy alcove.
A dozen PAS troopers trotted by just then, causing Anika to hold her breath fearfully. “Sie werden mit mir sicher sein, Fraulein Samuelson. Komm!”