towards him. Jack inched a little closer to Back Alley's door. The kid said, “I ain't gonna cut you up, if that's what you think.” He began to whisper a tuneless song, “Ain't gonna cut you up, no baby, ain't gonna cut you up.”
Jack said nothing. The long-haired man took another step forward. Smoke drifted lazily from his mouth when he added, “Do you know who I am, Jack?”
Jack whispered, “From the hospital.”
The kid smiled again. “I’m more than that, my friend.” Another step. “I figure that Other Guy has been having all the fun lately, so it's time for me to step in. You see, Jack, I’m the devil.”
Jack raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “No, you’re not.”
The kid paused halfway through his next step, lowered his foot. “Oh, yes, Preacher Man. Haven’t you wondered where I’ve been all this time? While the big guy upstairs is having all of you running around like chickens with –”
“You’re from the hospital,” Jack interrupted. “You’ve come to me so you can hear God’s word.”
The other took a quick drag of his cigarette and blew the smoke into Jack’s face. “No. I am the devil!”
“No, you’re not. Praise Jesus.” Jack was still smiling. The smell of the cigarette played across his face. Jack wondered when the last time was he had one of those. Maybe a butt on the street, but nothing to light it.
“Want one?” the kid asked, seeing where the preacher was looking.
Jack nodded.
The kid was in his face, holding the cigarette out of reach. “I only got one pack, friend. You trying to steal Satan’s stuff?”
Something recent in Jack's mind turned over. Someone hitting him, someone turning his ears. He growled, a low, rumbling sound.
“Hey, Man, be cool, I'm not -”
“Ahhhhhhhhh!” Jack grabbed one of the kid’s ears with his left hand and squeezed. He stepped forward. His right hand couldn't compete with the cast on his wrist, so he settled on pressing it against the long-haired, greasy head. The kid stumbled backwards, one arm still held outward so as not to lose his smoke. Before he hit the far wall, his knees buckled and he went down.
Jack towered over him, twisting his ear. The kid whispered a scream, the pain in his head overwhelming the common sense to make as much noise as possible and bring help. He slammed the lit end of the smoke into the fabric of the jacket, aiming for Jack’s hand but missing and hitting the arm instead.
It had the same effect, however. Jack let him go, stepped back and patted at the burn mark, sparks of red and yellow where the burning tobacco had lodged into the fibers. Even after the smoldering was extinguished, Jack continued to pummel his sleeve, picking at fibers to be sure they weren't going to start back up. To save the coat given to him by Mary.
Al l the while, the kid knelt, prostrate before him.
Jack stopped, at length, and looked down. The kid looked up, then quietly asked, “Is it gonna rain tomorrow?”
Jack took a moment to collect himself, then finally said, “Yes.” He was panting.
The kid smiled again, chuckled softly. “It better not, my friend.” He rose. Jack kept his place, afraid of losing his advantage, however brief. The kid took a couple of steps away down the alley. He looked back, then was gone, lost in the darkness around the corner.
Jack’s heart hammered in his chest. Had the kid just threatened him? Couldn’t be. He was proclaiming God’s word. He patted his left hand fingers against his right sleeve, feeling the cast beneath, fearful that the burning would spark back up. The coat no longer smelled like Mary. It smelled like cigarette, and burning fabric.
He turned for the door, intent on pouring water over the mark before he forgot. Michael was standing just to the side of the door, his black skin cloaking him in the shadows. The angel looked down the alley, and when he turned back to Jack, he simply shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m thinking I should probably spend more ‘quality’ time with you. Full time, I mean. What do you think?” The angel laid a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe get you a soda or something while you’re preaching. Keep you out of any more trouble.”
Jack smiled. The angel was with him always, and would not let anything bad happen. “He...” Jack nodded back down the alley. “He wasn’t really –”
“No,” Michael said, laughed and changed appearance, just a little. For a moment, he looked more human than Jack could remember. The blessed angel coming to Earth to help God’s children see the light. They walked together back into the shelter.
He'd said something about getting a soda, too. Jack remembered that.
40
The clouds began forming later that night, rolling out from various points across the globe. Many of these had been expected by the forecasters. The initial reports were of no concern.
“Rain starting this morning, ending by mid-day,” said the meteorologist in Providence, Rhode Island.
“Rain starting late morning, possibly continuing into tonight,” said the woman to her audience in San Francisco. “Tomorrow should be sunny and warm, in the high seventies in the Bay Area, mid- to upper-eighties across the bridge.”
“Clearing tomorrow.”
“Clearing tonight, mid-sixties tomorrow and partly cloudy.”
The reports from the Midwest began as “Sunny all day, but with a chance of a storm front moving in along the jet stream....” to “Looks like a storm is brewing from the west, and rain should be coming in tonight....” to “Well, everyone's wrong
“Rain is expected...”
“Rain today, maybe into tomorrow, depending on when this massive storm front moves off.”
Within the various weather bureau offices, meteorologists were not smiling. There was no camera to broadcast their fear to the millions of homes across the country and the world. Phones rang from every desk and coat pocket. Inboxes filled as one regional office emailed questions of those in other arenas. Weather-related internet sites could not keep pace with the sudden changes, nor with the surge of traffic coming their way from people wanting answers.
Few associated the weather with the sudden, sporadic loss of cellular service in many phones, or the flickers of digital static on cable television stations. One man did notice these occurrences, however, and they worried him greatly.
By nine o'clock in the morning, Eastern Standard time, April twenty-ninth, the weather experts stood at their desks or those of coworkers, looked at large screen radar maps in central tracking stations, watched with growing horror the former high pressure areas push out to sea. In their wake, low-pressure symbols dotted computer- enhanced maps. These low-pressure zones appeared like ghosts over the next hour, having no valid reason to be there.
White images on the satellite broadcasts spread like milk over a kitchen table. Meteorologists stared at the screens, felt their stomachs tighten.
Over every land mass, the digitized images of clouds grew, confirmed by satellite photographs. Every ocean and major body of water was smooth, untroubled. The low-pressure over the land squeezed in, held in place by the wall of high-pressure atmosphere stalled over the seas.
As the color images changed from white to blue, the people in the weather bureaus became the first to understand what was about to happen.
God was preparing to wring these phantom clouds out over his people.
* * *
