Divine Destruction (The Return of Divinity Book 1) (17 page)

“Don’t you have work today?” Itishree asked with a deep, cracked voice.

“No, I took it off for you.” With wide clear eyes, Aruni smiled above a large cup.

“What is that in your cup?” Itishree croaked. Her face lit with envy.

“Coffee,” Aruni said, laughing. “It’s awful but you had better get used to it now.”

Itishree harrumphed with a frown and crashed down upon one of the kitchen chairs. Aruni got up and walked the few steps into the kitchen. A few moments later she returned with a similar mug. Wanting to be fully awake Itishree drank and didn't complain.

Aruni sat across from Itishree and beamed with a look like she had found a new puppy. Her smile was contagious and Itishree found herself with a stupid grin, too.

“You made it,” Aruni congratulated her cousin. “You did it.” She made a gesture of saluting Itishree with her cup of coffee.

Itishree's smile grew even more and she clanked her cup to Aruni's. Itishree's soul was consumed with a happiness she had not felt in years. She had made a major accomplishment.

“What day is it?” Itishree said. Her smile vanished, sitting her cup on the table.

“Wednesday,” Aruni answered. “Don’t you have an interview tomorrow?”

And just as easy as the glee came, it was replaced by an excited worry.

“Come,” Aruni said, rising from the table. She reached out with her hand and Itishree took it, herself rising. “Let’s put your clothes away and pick out your outfit for tomorrow.”

Itishree exhaled and welcomed the start of her new life in America, Pittsburgh. Wherever she was.

Jobo Way

Joe Diclaro combed through the resident list for the third time. Out of the two hundred and five homes located in the Spring Hill City View area, one of these contained someone who knew about last night's giant visitor. He stood at the corner of Jobo Way and Admiral Street having parked his car nearby. With the resident list in hand, Joe walked north on Jobo Way, glancing at each house on both sides of the street as he went.

It had been a long, exciting night. Joe could see the figure plainly in his mind. How it stood there for minutes after he had arrived and then bent to one knee, as if acknowledging a higher power. Moments later the being seemed to throb, it’s light pattern changing for a moment. The nonmoving dots rearranged, coming unhinged and moving to new locations before the figure stood, turned left, and zipped across the Allegheny river valley to a location opposite the city. Having the brightest techs in DHS wakened and flown into Pittsburgh during the remaining hours before sunrise, was turning out to be the smartest decision Joe had made in his eight year career. Within two hours his small team of technical recruits had discovered and hacked every camera from the South Hills, to inside the downtown area and on both sides of the Allegheny river. From those video feeds and embedded timelines, Joe was down to a few streets of interest.

What Joe didn’t know before this morning's work was the alien flashlight had touched down somewhere in this neighborhood after chewing two F16s before appearing in Frank Curto Park.

Joe continued to walk down Jobo Way. The street was really an alley. On the right were backyards of the homes facing Bader Street. On the left, Rockledge Street. Most were usual backyards: swing sets, patios, barbecue pits. Some had garages, for those few families who could afford the luxury in this working class area. Truthfully Joe did not know what he was looking to find. Scorch marks maybe? There had been no findings of unusual radiation. No out-of-place heat sources. No unusual spectral whateverness. Neither visit by Captain Flashlight — the name one of is techs had coined for the being — had not left a detectable mark.

On his left was Spring Hill elementary school. Facing the alley were higher fences denoting recess areas, exercise and playgrounds. Joe wondered how the residents on the opposite side of the street tolerated the noise. Did the school increase or decrease property values? Walking to a corner, Joe looked down Damas Street in both directions. Again, Joe realized he did not know what the blazes he was looking for. He crossed over Damas and continued heading up Jobo Way. On his left the two-story house needed work. It had been years since it had seen a decent coat of paint and looked in a steady state of rot. Across the alley on his left was a small home with a narrow but somewhat deep backyard. Two hedge rows lined either side, like two green arms extending an invitation from the homeowners. Its back fence looked over twenty years old and in need of replacement. Next on the left was a small house with little more than a smoking stoop and an area wide enough to jam two cars. On the right, another small narrow backyard sharing the hedge. Its low fence had a car gate propped closed by half a cinder block. Ah, America.

He made a mental note of the list of residence he carried on the clip board. Joe had multiple sheets of paper. Each titled with the street name. Two columns of family names were arranged from the top, away from the river descending the list to the river. As Joe walked north he checked off the names from the bottom to the top. There were a few Czech families, a sprinkle of Polish, and an Italian here and there. Joe imagined these homes had been in their families for a few generations. Working class folks falling close to their thin tree, held up with shallow roots.

Next were two garages on either side of Jobo Way. The owner of the house on the left had managed to squeeze a rather nice three-car garage with brilliant red doors with a fresh roof into the width of the lot. Opposite was an older less grand cinder-block two-car garage with an apartment built over it. Joe imagined a grown child who had not learned to make their own way and was sucking the last dollars out of their parents. Hoping their parents died, leaving it all to them. Or that family was completely gone and the current resident was using the apartment to supplement the high taxes. Joe looked at owner names of the opposite properties and checked off the possibility in his mind. One was owned by a holding company. The other a family name. Joe imagined them of little character.

The next few houses on both sides of the street appeared to be in an escalating backyard dress-up war. Each had terraced landings with planters, statuary, bird feeders, and a fountain here and there. Both appeared in the process of another costly addition to the warring small nations. The effect was broken by a garage or two but held for several lots down Jobo Way. A female homeowner, dressed in a house gown and fuzzy slippers, opened her back door and stepped out for a smoke. Joe wasn’t spared the enormous curls pinned into her hair. He imagined she didn't give a care what her neighbor’s, or Joe thoughts. Joe averted his gaze from the beast of burden and back down to his clip board. Her eyes never left Joe. “Goddamn tax appraiser,” Joe heard. The woman didn’t bother to lower her voice. Joe quickened his pace not wanting a confrontation. She was one of those he would taze first, ask questions later. Thankful the next cinder-block garage broke up the heat coming from her gaze, Joe marched on.

Glancing left and right Joe caught himself going through the paces to check off this entire task. He had to stop this behavior immediately. Something was here. Somewhere there was a clue. If he wasn't paying expert attention, he would walk right by it. Joe turned around and walked back to where he imagined his observations shirked but not far enough the evil woman could see him again. Then, Joe reversed himself and began walking north again, examining each home and yard with renewed focus. He made a point to read the name, address, and what little tidbits of detail his techs had time to put together on each residence. Checking his watch, Joe noted it was still before 10:00 a.m. He had all the time in the world to turn this neighborhood upside down, if he must. Besides, he had not flexed any real power and called in local police yet. That was his next option. He would use the Air Guard training accident as an excuse to question each resident. He made a note to have his tech team create a questionnaire with a few touching questions to go with the more direct to delude the obvious, in case any of these sheep, combined, could muster an intelligence.

On his left was an almost empty yard. The back side of the house was a simple but smart red brick. The only items in the back yard were a trifecta of laundry line poles and an evergreen tree in the far back corner near the alley. The boundary to the alley was a low hedge with a small green gate a normal man could step over. Had past residents been that short? Joe refocused. Here was the yard and home of a person, not a family. There was no care whatsoever in what the neighbors thought. No backyard war here. This backyard was Sweden. This property displayed complete uncaring neutrality. This was the oddity of the alley. The clothesline poles had no line running between them. They probably hadn’t been used in a decade. The grass was mowed to a respectable level. On the right side of the yard there was no fence. This resident and its neighbor didn't care for boundaries, which meant a cooperative existence over time. Peace. Or, non-confrontation. Here, Joe decided, was a home of a lone person. He must have inherited the home from his deceased parents and focused on work, not on his outside property. Joe imagined if he stepped inside, the furniture would not have been moved in decades. This resident held a mind set within its life. No distractions allowed. Joe wrote the word “interest” next to the entry of Griffin DeLuca, and marched onward up Jobo Way.

The Beginning

“Can you elaborate on 'God's will?” Griffin asked, scooting out to the edge of the couch.

“The instructions are given to me as needed. The content of everything I'm to do is within me, in a manner of speaking, but instructions don't devolve until events take place. Then, the next step or steps are shown and made clear.”

“But what does that mean exactly?” Griffin's patience was wearing thin, but he tried to temper himself with who was sitting across from him. For fuck's sake he needed to be careful.

“As an example,” Gabriel said. “I know where we will meet the prophet tomorrow. I know where we must go in order to begin announcement of God's intentions. And I know it will be dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Griffin wasn't liking this either. Danger had not been in this conversation, and Griffin certainly didn't want danger.

“Yes, somewhat dangerous,” Gabriel said, back to his matter-of-factness. “Even now, there is an agent searching the neighborhood, looking for clues to my location.”

Griffin bounded off his couch with a small shrieking noise.

“That is a big deal in our current police state Mr. Archangel,” Griffin checked the windows, moving from the living room to the kitchen. From the kitchen window above the sink he caught a glimpse of a man with a clipboard, walking north on Jobo Way, the alley behind his house. The man was wearing a what looked like a city services outfit, with gray slacks, white shirt, and an orange reflective vest. Griffin noticed as he disappeared behind his neighbor's cluster of trees. He could have been a water meter reader or a pet enforcement officer.

Griffin returned to the living room, his eyebrows dancing the Macarena.

“What the hell have you done?” Griffin shouted.

“My automaton version made a fantastic entrance, killing two pilots,” Gabriel said, looking away for the first time.

Again Griffin could feel shame radiating from the Archangel.

“This is happening already,” Gabriel said. “I can feel what you’re feeling.” Griffin stood dumbfounded in front of Gabriel. “You killed two pilots?” He asked the Archangel. Gabriel said nothing as he continued looking away from Griffin. Griffin could feel a sorrow from Gabriel. He made his way back to the couch and sat on the edge. “What happened with the pilots?”

Gabriel told him in horrific detail but with an emotional void. Now and again Griffin could feel the sorrow darken from within Gabriel. It was like the pain Griffin felt when his parents had died. A deep suffocating pain. When Gabriel mentioned a pilot, and then again the next pilot, Griffin learned there were two. Along with the pang of emotion, came a dire memory, and then a visual of a dying object. He could see these in his mind’s eye. The first pilot was a dying flower. When Gabriel talked of the second pilot, Griffin felt the Archangel’s regret, a past memory of grief, and the image of a blind woman.

Gabriel fell silent.

“I’m sorry,” Griffin said. “What does my government know from last night?”

“Your government knows only what they saw,” Gabriel said. “They know nothing of me, my intention, or origin.”

“I’m not going to pick up tomorrow's paper and read ‘Angels Seen Over Pittsburgh?’” Griffin made a hand motion in the air, indicating the lighting of a marquee.

Gabriel sat silent for a moment. “There are few of your neighbors who saw me enter your housing area last night. Fewer still have thought of the religious. None will piece the data together until we have arrived in New York…”

“Wait! We're going to New York?” Griffin couldn't take any more of this. He didn't know if he was going to have a stroke or wet his PJs next.

“Yes… and…” Griffin cut the Archangel off.

“No, please stop. Don't tell me any more, Mr. Angel.” Griffin put up a hand in protest. “I don't want to know what happens. It’s clear I can't stay here. If I do, I'll be imprisoned offshore somewhere secret and never be heard from again. That’s what this government does.”

They both looked at one another.

“You are ready to begin?” Gabriel asked.

Griffin never liked being forced into anything. It happened often enough at work. Choosing from one ineffective health plan over another. Being given a project he knew couldn't be delivered just in time to have it ruin his annual review. Or, refusing to meet one-on-one with a female co-worker known for accusing other male colleagues of improper behavior. Then Griffin would be labeled for not following through with his work responsibilities. No matter how Griffin explained the circumstance from his point of view, it was always overruled from the standpoint of “gain” from the company. Once you reached the top of your pay scale, it was either take a higher role of responsibility or be toppled.