God's Sons

CHAPTER 1

She didn't know where she was and to make matters worse she couldn't move. Straps that tied her to thick padding, laced her upper arms and shins. Her hands stroked over a cold and smooth surface. It felt like stone. Yes, stone, like cold, polished marble. Apparently, she was laying on a slab of marble.

She opened her eyes and saw nothing except grey. Impenetrable mist engulfed her. She turned her head to the left and right, but the grey haze revealed only a few meters of sight. Then she raised her head and looked down at herself. It was just like she assumed. She was tied down on a slab of marble with leather straps on her arms and legs, bound like a sacrificial animal that waits for the deadly ritual knife.

Something freezing crawled up her left shin. What was that? A snake? She began to pull at her shackles, her torso wanted to rise against it, but the leather straps did not budge even an inch. The cold Unknown pushed itself up higher, up to her unprotected womb. She screamed full of disgust and panic, as the cold thing penetrated her and occupied her lower abdomen.

A thunderbolt shot down to the ground, followed by deep rolling thunder. Everything around her trembled. With loud crunching and roaring the stone plate under her shattered and she was free.

The mist dissipated. Around her stood tightly packed deciduous trees, whose leafs swayed in the wind as if they wanted to lure her deeper into the woods. Under her feet, she felt the grass, and the forest soil resiliently gave way at every step.

A beam of light that broke through the thick Green of the trees, attracted her attention. There, a few meters away, on one of the trunks on the ground, the sunlight was being reflected. Something was lying there.

Curious she came closer to the tree and spotted a sword on it. Around the dark leather sheet, a silver chain was slung. The red stone eyes of the reptile seemed to flash at her conspiratorially and next to the serpents head a metal amulet was lying: A hexagram in the middle of which a goats head, with twisted horns and a pointed mouth, was displayed. Her gaze traveled up towards the hilt of the sword. There a delicately made ornament formed like an angel was resting, whose brandished sword was pointing at the head of the serpent.

Around her, it was deadly silent. The wind had ceased. The branches and leaves of the trees were stiff as ice.

An undefinable growl resonated from afar. It sounded as if stones were rolled around the leafy forest floor, which came closer and closer to her. The sound grew louder and louder.

»Good morning, you hear the 7 o‘clock news. We want you to start good into the day. And always remember my motto: Condone your enemies, but never forget their names...«

Kate hit the radio alarm clock, which immediately fell silent. Confused she asked herself where she was and opened her eyes wide. Of course, Kate was at home, in her bed. She turned around and just as she wanted to drift off into sleep again, four soft paws landed on her legs with an almost inaudible bump. Seconds later another pair of four paws were balancing over her bedsheet, followed by a purr concert, which was once in a while interrupted by a demanding mew. »Yes, yes. I‘m getting up.«,Kate cawed with a tired voice. The reality slowly sank into her consciousness, which was still captivated by the strange dream. I have the same vision for over a week already and never finish it. If this continues like that, I will have to go to a shrink, she thought tiredly. With attitude, she threw herself out of bed, which was welcomed by an excited mew.

She stretched with relish and shuffled slowly into the bathroom followed by two fuzzy fourlegged pets. As always only cold water ran out of the shower head for several minutes until the temperature rose to a tolerable level for a morning. Kate stepped into the hot shower with a soft sigh while she was being watched curiously by two pairs of blue eyes, which are a typical trait of the cat breed »Sacred Birman« besides the long, cream-colored fur. The cats never got tired of watching this strange spectacle, that their beloved can opener staged under the trickling water. Finally, the daily morning ritual in the bathroom was finished, and their human housemate made her way to the small kitchen. Loving stroking around the legs should signify to their human, that it was high time for their breakfast.

»Here, Bangla,« Kate slid a full feeding dish under the kitten‘s nose, »and this one is for you, Desh.« Satisfied purring filled the room. Kate stretched and turned on the coffee machine. Then she proceeded to go to the bedroom, put on jeans, a white blouse, and a blue blazer, made her bed and stepped on something soft and yielding in the process. »Oh, no. What a way to start the morning.« The dark wood parquet was flaunted by an oily, green stain of paint, while Kates big toe slowly lifted from the adjacent paint tube. Cursing she reached for an old rag that oozed paint and cleaned up the stain. The tube flew in a wide arc into a box filled with other painting utensils. In doing so, her gaze fell upon the painted canvases that leaned stacked against the wall. The top one showed a dancer, dressed in red and black, who weightlessly circled through a crowd. But somehow the picture was still rough around the edges. Her version of the painting didn‘t want to take form. She would finally dedicate this weekend to art again.

Delicious coffee smell lured her into the kitchen, where the two cats chewed their meal appreciatively. Kate drank her coffee standing up, cleaned the kitchen unit, gave Bangla and Desh a parting kiss and set off to work. A day like any other, it crossed her mind as she squeezed into the overcrowded daily subway of New York City. The people around her were daydreaming or reading the newspaper. Everyone was on their own.

Get off the subway, up the station, move along one block, through the revolving door into the massive bureau complex, greet the porter, into the elevator, ride with some other unwilling people onto the 6th floor, then out into the open space office and collapse into the chair: day in, day out the same. I have become exactly what I never wanted to be: a functioning city dweller, who hates her job and hopes for something to pull her out of her lethargy.

Kate grimaced and ruffled her hair, which looked like it hadn‘t seen a comb very often, as usual. She turned on the computer, put on her headset at the same time and pushed the blinking button on her phone. »Good Morning, this is the Multi Medex Cooperation,« she trilled friendly into the microphone. »My name is Kate Wilson. How can I be of service?«

Finally, lunch break! Kate went to her colleague Lucy, who was talking insistently into her microphone while gesticulating wildly, as always. She had to chuckle, and the almond-shaped eyes of the petite Asian blinked at her amused. Kate pointed demonstratively to her wristwatch and Lucy nodded so severely, that her long straight hair fell into her face. In mere seconds the conversation partner on the other end of the line was choked off, and the Asian threw her headset on the desk. Kate laughed. 

»It‘s always the same with you. You even forget lunchbreak from working so much. You seem to be having fun with your job.«

»Sure. Don‘t you?«

Kate muttered something inaudible. »Let‘s go to the bistro next door.I‘m starving.«

The bistro was well-filled. Kate and Lucy enjoyed their lunch. Lucy pulled the stunt of keeping to talk with her mouth full, and Kate couldn‘t keep in the laughter over the cheerful flood of words.  »Hey Kate, I have got news from Charlene. She will conceive her child soon.«

Kate hesitated. »I thought that she wasn‘t ready yet. Isn‘t she still in the 6th month?«

»No, that wasn‘t true apparently. She was a little confused with her, umm, conception date. She must have overlooked the first signs of her pregnancy. Anyways, it doesn‘t matter. The main thing is that she finally gets her child. How long did she hope to become pregnant and it just didn‘t work.«

»Yes, I know, it was a difficult time for Charline and Martin. But you probably know that better than me, Lucy, since you are closer friends with Charlene than I am.« Lucy bent over the table to Kate and began whispering: »Right, she also told me, that she discontinued the antidepressants immediately after she was sure to be pregnant. She was in such high spirits when we met at that time. I haven‘t seen her like that in a long time. However, I don‘t believe that she will come back to the office again. She certainly wants to be there for her child only.« The two women fell silent and dwelled on their thoughts.

»Oh dear,« Kate looked at her watch, »our break is long gone. We have to go.« They quickly left the café and rushed through the constantly moving stream of people back towards the office building.

Kate halted abruptly when a young, attractive woman paraded towards her. In the crowd, it was impossible to avoid her. The woman stopped directly in front of her, looked at Kate with disinterest and seemed to wait for her counterpart to clear the way. Kate stared at her mesmerized. Never had she seen such a beautiful woman. The stranger was a little taller than her, very slim, but still curvy. Kate guessed her to be in her early twenties. The long, strawberry blonde hair swirled around her even face in long, flowing waves. Dark green, slanted eyes looked her over coldly under beaming black, curved eyelashes. The red mouth, whose utterly curved line could drive every man crazy, puckered up into an arrogant smile. A bewitching smell came from her and the fur, that was loosely draped around her shoulder amplified the slightly evil aura that surrounded her.

Lucy pulled Kate to the side. »Hey, what‘s wrong? Are you maybe going for women lately?«

The sexy stranger strode on undeterred. Men stopped and turned around with an open mouth. »Well, I honestly have to say, this was the most erotic woman I have ever seen, and I really don‘t care for women, you have to believe me.«

Lucy chuckled. »Look at all those guys all drooling.« They stepped through the revolving door into the lobby of the company building. »No wonder, that I have no luck with men,« Kate said while she pressed the elevator button, »they are just going after the exterior.«

»What‘s your problem? You are looking good too. You can‘t tell me, that the boys don‘t like your dimples.« Kate grinned, and two adorable dimples appeared on her cheeks. »Yes, sure,« Kate nudged her elbow lightly into Lucy‘s side and stepped into the elevator. »Men think I‘m comical. But that‘s it for the most part.«

»How about we go to an after-work-party this evening and liven it up?« They had arrived at their cubicles. Kate looked at Lucy apologetically.

»You know, that my two house cats are easily offended if I leave them on their own for that long. Let‘s rather go out on the weekend, then my cats were entertained all day long, and I have a pass in the evening. You can even decide where we are going.«

Lucy planted herself in front of her blonde colleague and grinned widely. »What about the karaoke bar, the Planet Rose?«

»Oh no, I can‘t be seen there anymore.« »Why, you put on a great show after you drank three Strawberry-daiquiris.«

Kate sighed and shook her head. »I made a fool out of myself, and you were mightily amused. « The Asian innocently opened her dark almond eyes wide. »But that‘s not true. The people had so much fun when you presented your unique version of »We are the champions« to them.«

Kate giggled. »Yes and the whole bar chimed in with the shouts for an encore.« Lucy exploded with laughter too, but immediately fell silent and pointed at the door with her head.

Mrs. Marsh, their team leader, stood at the door with her legs apart and her arms akimbo. The dark red sweater that was a bit on the large side for her, as usual, was hanging widely over a blue plaid skirt. Just a few months ago you could have labeled Mrs. Marsh as massively overweight. Then she decided overnight to do a crash diet, the happy outcome of which was the loss of several pounds, but unfortunately, it left a large skin apron. Another adverse side effect of her weight loss marathon was her bad temper, which she took out on Kate and Lucy with a passion. It wasn‘t that Mrs. Marsh was of cheerful disposition at pudgier times, but the shenanigans on her employees increased to the same scale as her pounds shed.

A few days ago, she was even more ill-tempered than usual and called Kate into her office for a top-down-feedback out of the band. »Mrs. Wilson, I would like to talk to you about your work performance.« Kate nodded briefly and pressed herself deeper into the chair that was offered to her by her manager. »Lately I noticed, that you are not keeping on task with the necessary vigor anymore.«

»Why? What gives you that idea?«

»Well, I have the feeling that you don‘t like the work that much. A colleague of your team shared that with me as well.«

»And may I ask which one of my colleagues claim something like that?«

»I can‘t disclose the name due to privacy concerns. This statement just confirmed my impression of you. You are missing the joy at your job.« »No,« Kate immediately responded, even though it wasn‘t the complete truth, »I love to be here, and I‘m having fun with my work. You see, the thing is, that ...«

»That may be true,« Mrs. Marsh interrupted her with a harsh voice, »but, if I compare your achievements with those of the other employees, you are definitely in the lower third. Your colleagues process more customer calls than you and their client satisfaction is also way higher than yours. « Kate turned her gaze towards the window and tried desperately to hold back tears. »So, Mrs. Wilson put a little more effort into your work in the future and stay one or two hours longer in the evening. Your colleagues do that often as well. Then your desk will be cleaned on the next day and ready for new challenges. You will see that your enjoyment of work will grow. But in the end, no one forces you to stay here. If you know what I mean?« »Yes, I understand. Is that it?« »Yes, that‘s it. You may return to your position now.«

With a lump in her throat and seething with anger, Kate left the little office. Lucy asked full of empathy, whether it was terrible and Kate answered that she didn‘t care what Mrs. Flabbelly thought of her. From this moment forth the team leader got her nickname. Sometimes Kates conscience pricked her about it when she entitled her manager like that, but she could at least blow off some steam like that if the hidden indignities and peaks of the superior became more than she could cope with.

»What‘s there to laugh about? I want to laugh too. It‘s great if the colleagues have that much fun at work.« The sarcastic tone of the team leader set the two friends into a position of attention.

»Yes, sure,« Kate answered sweetishly and turned towards the source of the voice. »If you want you can accompany us on the weekend, Mrs. Marsh. Then we all would have something to laugh about. It would certainly be nice if we could get to know our team leader a little better privately, too.«

Mrs. Marsh raised her upper lip, showed her big teeth and responded in a similarly sweetish voice: »I would love to, Mrs. Wilson, but my husband is waiting for me, and he doesn‘t like it when I hang around somewhere on the weekend. But thank you for your offer. Please go to work now; lunch break is long over.«

The team leader left the open space office at a hurried pace. Kate winked at Lucy, rolled her eyes proudly, to sit down at her desk dutifully.

Finally, Kate could return to her apartment after work. She felt empty and worn out as if all of her energy was ground up between unlimited calls. But her mood improved immediately after Bangla and Desh greeted her joyfully. Kate made herself comfortable with her dinner on the couch in the little living hall, put her laptop in front of her on the narrow coffee table and turned it on. A message appeared, her younger sister Susan was online. She turned on the webcam and microphone, and a few seconds later the girlish face of her sister appeared. Her hair, which was just as blonde as Kates, was tied back into a tight ponytail as usual.

»Hi Susan, how are you?« »Oh, hello Kate, great, that you stay in touch. I‘m fine.« In doing so, she grinned like a Cheshire cat and revealed her braces.

»You still have to wear those braces? I thought the dentist was satisfied with your teeth now.« Susan‘s lips immediately covered the tight wire in her mouth. »He said I should keep it for another six months. What about you, did you meet someone new?«

Kate sighed. »No. I think that nothing will come of it with me anymore. I am a basket case. The New York men and I  don‘t fit together.« »Jeez, Big Apple is said to have so many singles, the right ones gotta be among them. You are not short of opportunities to meet people. If you wanted you could go to a different club every evening and still wouldn‘t have seen all of them in a year. « Kate shook her head. »It‘s not that wild out here, and besides, I don‘t have the necessary change to be able to go partying every evening. My salary isn‘t that lush.« She saw the disappointment in Susan‘s face. Her sister imagined the city life to be exciting and colorful. Kate couldn‘t even hold it against her, after all, Auburn was deadly boring, and the teenagers were forced to either waste away at home with their parents in front of the television or meet in some public places. Once again Kate was happy to have left her hometown behind her.

»Why don‘t you try to exhibit your artworks in a gallery? Who knows, one or two people might like it.«

»Oh no, there‘s no use to it. There are so many young, aspiring artists. I‘m just one of many. You can only be successful if you stand out.«

»Just why did you have to drop out of your art studies?«

Kate closed her eyes, the well-known lump was stuck in her throat again, and she had to swallow. »I‘m sorry, I didn‘t mean it like that.« »It‘s ok. It‘s just that mom and dad predicted, that I couldn‘t live off of my art.«

A door was opened behind Susan and Kates mother, Alexa Wilson, poked her head inside. With her blonde, short hairstyle and her slim figure, she seemed much younger than she was with her 49 years.

»Who are you talking to, Susan?« Kate saw her mother looking at the monitor curiously. When she recognized her daughter, she shone with joy. »Oh, it‘s you, Kate, I haven‘t heard from you in ages. Your father and I already started worrying.« Kate suppressed the wish to roll her eyes ostentatiously.

Now, this starts again. When will mom finally understand, that I am an adult and live my own life? Oh, she will never forgive me for moving to New York.

»When will you revisit us? Your father said that he doesn‘t even know what you look like anymore.«

»Soon, but at the moment I‘m swamped. We have to do overtime at work and...«

»You let yourself be exploited. I told you in the beginning, what do you expect to happen, when you take such a bad job. You have to work until you drop for a poverty wage. And then you also have this apartment on your hands with that excessive rent.«

Kate switched off mentally. She saw, how the lips of her mother moved, but the words passed by her unheard. It was always the same old story, and usually, it ended with her mother asking her with a look of expectancy when she would come back home. But she didn‘t want that. She had enough of that provincial town, in which there was an unspoken competition of who would mow the lawn in front of their house the fastest and the cleanest every weekend. And living under the same roof as her parents was something, that she couldn‘t see anymore.

When Alexa Wilson mentioned the name Ray, she was wide awake again. »Ray? Did you meet him?«

»I just told you about that.« Her mother‘s eyebrows puckered angrily. »I met him in front of the Wal-Mart. He asked about you.«

»Really? What did he want to know?«

»How you are and whether you have a new boyfriend.« »You hopefully did not answer to that, did you?«

»Of course. I told him, that you are working yourself to death in New York and that you are still single.« »Oh boy, it‘s none of his business.«

»Why not? I have the feeling that he is still getting his hopes up.«

»Pshaw, but he has a girlfriend again.«

»Oh, that‘s nothing serious though. Who knows, if you would show up here more often, maybe it could work with you two again.«

»Never in a million years!«

»I can‘t understand, why you are struggling against that so much.« »Because he only kept criticizing me at the end of our relationship. He always found something to complain about; even my figure didn‘t do it for him anymore.«

»He never understood your decision to go to New York to study  fine arts.« »Of course, because he doesn‘t even have the faintest idea about art.« »It‘s better if we talk about something else, you‘re always getting a little scrubby with this topic.«