It was shortly after sunset when Steve arrived at the angelic outpost. It was a short distance into the spiritual dimension from Grace Through Faith Community Church. As he entered, he disarmed himself and had to walk through a scanning device to make sure he wasn't concealing any other spiritual weapons. The security guard gave him his angelic pistol back afterward after verifying his guardian angel badge.

  He got to the other angel's office. “Lieutenant Fred,” said Steve, nodding his head as he entered.

  “Captain, thank you so much for coming. This is one of the strangest cases that I've seen recently, and I don't think it's over yet,” said Fred, “These two murders happened within an hour of each other, and this is far from our normal type of killing. Take a look at this.” Fred grabbed a brown folder from his desk and opened it, revealing two photographs of stab wounds on the victims. In each photograph, there appeared to be several tiny black veins that were coming out around the lesion.

  “That only happens from the Destroyer's weapons,” said Steve.

  “Exactly,” said Fred, “And I already checked with the Department of Divine Justice, and there's been no assignments in our district.”

  “So where are the victims?” asked Steve.

  “I have them in the room right here,” said Fred, “They don't know they're dead yet. They think this is all just a hallucination.” The lieutenant handed Steve a set of garments and said, “Here, put this on before we go in. I've used my police officer outfit whenever I've interacted with them, to help them feel more at ease.”

  “I don't think that's how police uniforms work,” said Steve as he scratched his head, “Haven't you watched the news?”

  “I don't want them to feel too relaxed,” said Fred, “I'm trying to get answers. If they think we're angelic hallucinations, they're not going to take us seriously, but if they believe that we're the police doing an investigation into who hurt them, they'll be more likely to cooperate.”

  The two angels put on the police outfits and entered into the chamber where the two murder victims were being held.

  “Hello there,” said the lieutenant, “I've brought in here Officer Steve to ask you a few more questions about what you experienced tonight.”

  “Hi,” said Steve as he opened the brown folder again to remind himself of their names, “So you must be Aliyah. He pointed to the tan-skinned curly-haired teenager, who nodded her head. “And you're Cody?” he said as he pointed to the Caucasian pimple-faced boy with short brown hair.

  Cody nodded his head.

  Steve looked at the paperwork in the folder and noticed that Aliyah was murdered at almost 4pm, and Cody was murdered about an hour later. “So Aliyah, let's start with you,” said the guardian angel,

  “What do you last remember?”

  “Let's see,” said Aliyah, “I was just at home watching some TV shows when I got a text from one of the youth ministers of church, letting me know that there was going to be a planning meeting in the afternoon, where we'd discuss some changes we'd be making for the youth group. He said they wanted me to be a part of the conversation.

  “When I arrived at the church, I noticed there weren't that many cars, which I figured was because they were only inviting a few people to the planning meeting. I went to the main room for the youth group. When I got inside, I found a note that said that Pastor Jonathan had to go pick up a few other youth helpers for the meeting and that he would be back shortly. He said to watch the video he had loaded up on the iPad while he was away, so we could talk about it when he got back.

  “I loaded the video, and it started off looking like one of our normal church youth lesson videos. It looked like it was about apologetics, how we'll defend our faith from all the secular ideas that we'll see in college. The video went over ten of the most common arguments against God, and then it gave the Christian counterargument to each. But then, it started dismantling each of the Christian counterarguments, and then it gave ten stronger arguments against the idea of a God. It went over all the problems with the origin of the Bible, and then it went over the biological reasons why humans feel God's presence, ripping each part to shreds. I started to cry, because my whole world was turning upside down.” Aliyah's eyes started to water up, and a few tears rolled down her cheeks as she recalled these memories.

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  “And you finished watching the entire video?” asked Steve.

  Aliyah answered, “The tablet wouldn't let me turn it off, and all the doors were locked so I couldn't leave. I kept hoping that the video would start to actually defend the Christian faith in the end, but it didn't. When it was over, I tried to pray, and I couldn't. I felt like it was just me in the room, by myself for the first time in my life. I wanted to ask God to show himself if he was really there, but my voice wouldn't even let me say the words. I felt a cold emptiness inside as I realized I'd been alone for my whole life.”

  “Then what happened?” asked Steve.

  “I'm not sure,” said Aliyah, “I think I must have fainted or something.”

  “Where's her guardian?” Steve asked Fred.

  “My parents were at work today,” said Aliyah, not realizing he was talking about her guardian angel.

  “No trace of him,” said Fred, “I checked his most recent radio reports, and it seems like his last one was this morning.”

  “Oh, I think I remember one more thing, I had this piercing pain in my chest,” said Aliyah who paused after she said this, “Oh my God, did I have a heart attack? Am I about to die? Please, I don't want to die!”

  “Don't worry, we'll be here for a while,” said Steve.

  “Okay,” said Aliyah, taking a few breaths to calm down.

  “Now Cody,” said Steve, “Why don't you go ahead and tell me what happened with you.”

  Cody looked up. “Well sir,” he said, “I was skating over in the parking garage with a few friends when my girlfriend texted me, saying that she wanted to show me this video when I got home. She told me to text her when I got to my room, and then she would send me the video. I got home a little after four and let her know, and she sent me the video. But it was weird. She was always the more religious one. Like I believed in God and wanted to go to heaven and stuff, but she was the one who always wanted to go to church every Sunday and the Christian club every Wednesday. But the video she sent me was all about disproving the existence of God.”

  “And you watched the whole video?” asked Steve, “And did it convince you?”

  “Ehh,” said Cody, “The video made sense, but I think after watching it, I realized believing in God wasn't very important to me in the first place. I was mostly just doing it to make my girlfriend happy, since I knew it was really important to her. But now that it seemed like she was going all atheist, I got really excited, because I always wanted to do shrooms with her. I grabbed my phone to text my friend who could hook us up, but I think I bumped my head or something because the next thing I knew, my head hurt, and then I woke up here.”

  “And his guardian?” Steve asked Fred.

  “Same deal,” said Fred, “No trace.”

  As he said this, someone knocked on the door.

  Both angels slowly went over to the door, each with a hand ready to grab their weapons. Fred slowly turned the handle and cracked open the door. When he saw who it was, he opened it all the way.

  “Robert?” said both angels in unison.

  The angel that came in was wearing a blue ripped up suit and tie that was worn out in several places, with the seams disconnected at the edges. The suit was completely wet, with a few pieces of seaweed hanging off the edges and a little water dripping down the tail of the jacket.

  “What happened?” said Fred, “I was wondering where you were this morning.” He grabbed a towel from a closet and handed it to him.

  “I think I may have some answers for you,” said the wet angel as he used the towel to dry the saltwater off his head and clothing, “These two victims were instrumental in ruining the life of the boy I was guarding, Michael Butcher.”

  “The Butt-Toucher?” said the two teenagers in unison.

  “You were the guardian for that disgusting pervert?” asked Aliyah, “How could you let him get away with his disrespectful behavior!”

  “Oh my gosh,” said Cody as he turned to Aliyah, “I didn't even recognize you earlier, you're the one who went on the first date with the Butt-Toucher! Your story helped me to even coin that term! I've always wanted to know, what was it like to feel that first touch? Can you describe it for me in as much detail as possible?”

  Aliyah turned and looked at Cody with cold murderous eyes.

  Cody was unfazed and persisted in trying to talk to Aliyah about her first date with Michael. Aliyah tried to play it cool for so long, maintaining her feminine composure, but after a minute of Cody's persistence, she quickly lost it. She started saying everything on her mind to Cody, using words that would break the average person's bones.

  “Let's go back to your office to talk,” said Steve since they could barely hear themselves think over the teenagers' conversation, “Make sure these lovebirds know there's a security camera in this room. I feel like there's a lot of sensual tension in this room.”