The Sunset Prophecy (Love & Armageddon #1) (29 page)

Adhering to his familial code of honor, Adam
’s rotund body boiled into an aura of flame, and blasted the other Seraph with a burst of fire, which the agile creature immediately dodged as it stayed low to the ground. The Seraph gripped a large piece of concrete below its forelimbs and used it to torpedo itself toward Adam with maximum velocity. The Seraph struck Adam and pinned him against the wall with one of its large talons. Realizing their mortal futility, Keelen and Matt dispersed and hid in the darkness beyond one of the arches in the cavern.

Adam used all his strength to push off the Seraph
’s claw, keeping it from stabbing him in the belly. Logan leaped and landed on top of the Seraph’s back and pounded the creature with closed fists. The creature relented and turned around, swiping Logan with its claw. The claw grazed Logan’s chest, ripping his T-shirt and skin.

While the Seraph
’s attention focused on Logan, Adam quickly used both his hands to remove himself from the Seraph’s grip and conjured a flaming leash, which he lassoed around the beast’s throat. Adam yanked on the leash, constricting the Seraph’s windpipe. In desperation, the Seraph swiped its talon backward, its flailing strikes grazing Adam’s skin, as he rode on its back in an act of bizarre celestial rodeo. Realizing that Adam was out of reach, the Serpah began striking at Logan again; this time, its claw tore through Logan’s bicep. Logan flinched in pain. He stepped back and favored his immobilized arm. He then lunged at the Seraph and pulled at the creature’s hood with his other arm, exposing its grayed face and head to the elements. It unleashed an ungodly scream. The Seraphs had a delicate, thin membrane that surrounded the back of their heads. As the Seraph fell to the ground, Adam noticed the ominous and twinkling swirl of a black hole through the translucent skin behind its head. “Why did you do that?” yelled Adam, who was still tightening the fiery noose, while trying not to fall off the creature’s back.

“
He’s burning, that’s why!” yelled Logan, staggering away from the writhing demon.

“
He’s going to try to swipe at its own head. He’s gonna try to suck us back to Caeli with him.”

The thin cutaneous layer on the back of the Seraph
’s head bubbled and smoked. Its pangs of agony reverberated throughout the cavern like a bullhorn.

Adam yelled
at Logan, “Here, get behind me and hold the leash.”

Logan wrapped his legs behind Adam
’s as he mounted the Seraphs’s back. Adam handed the fiery reins to his brother, who used the entire strength of one arm to continue choking the Seraph. Adam then connected both palms of his hands and stretched out his arms, producing a gleaming, blazing ax made of harnessed elemental combustion. Adam dismounted the Seraph and stood at its side. He gripped the glowing ax and lifted it over his head with his thick, stocky arms. The burning blade of the ax snapped downward with extraordinary force, slicing through the Seraph’s nape. Its vibrant struggle ceased as soon as its head disconnected from its thick, gray neck. Logan fell backward off the Seraph’s back, as the flaming leash dislodged from the top of the creature’s headless neck.

As Logan and Adam composed themselves from their exertion, Matt and Keelen remained hidden behind a pile of rubble.
“We have to get out of this godforsaken hell-hole,” said Matt.

“
There are pockets of darkness everywhere I look. We need to pick one of these tunnels and hope they lead somewhere,” said Keelen.

Matt scanned the cavern, contemplating which direction to take. He saw the other Seraph struggling to gain its balance. It was disoriented and concussed from
getting slammed against the craggy wall. “That’s where Logan came from, the exit’s gotta be that way,” said Matt.

“
We’re not going in the direction of that creature, are we?” warned Keelen.

“
It looks hurt...come on.”

Matt stood up and grabbed Keelen by the hand as they both raced toward what they thought was the exit. The Seraph wobbled upright and shrieked at Matt and Keelen as they approached, only to fall to the ground again. With mustered courage, Matt walked up to
the groggy winged beast. He stared at it as if it were a dying dog that had been struck by traffic, in desperate need of mercy and a quick death.

As
Adam lifted Logan from the ground, he noticed Matt pointing the pistol at the Seraph.

Logan rushed toward where Matt was standing and yelled,
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot its head!”

“
I got this,” Matt replied loudly, maintaining focus on the downed creature.

Keelen yanked Matt by the arm upon seeing Logan
’s worried stare.

The loud bang of the gunshot crackled throughout the cavern like a quick clap of thunder. As soon as it was struck in the head, the
Serpah’s body immediately limped. Matt stood over the lifeless monster victoriously. But it was short-lived, as the ground beneath the Seraph began to crumble, crack, and collapse. The Seraph’s torso crumpled on itself as it were made of paper, and retracted toward its bleeding head.

“
What the hell is going on?” Matt asked out loud.

“
Run away from its body, dammit!” yelled Logan.

Keelen kicked her legs as high as she could and bolted toward Logan. Matt stayed back for a split second, succumbing to a moment of instinctive curiosity, and stared at the miniature swirling of matter that
commenced around the dead Seraph.

Keelen reached Logan
’s arms at the center of the chasm. Large pieces of concrete began lifting off the ground as if they were made of cotton, floating themselves toward the corpse.

The air beneath Logan
’s legs and feet fizzed and whirled. While he embraced Keelen in his arms, Logan gazed up toward the large hole above him. Like a blurred specter, he ascended rapidly through the chasm, using bursts of atomic manipulation. As a demigod, Logan was immune to the radiation he exerted, but for Keelen, exposure was dangerous. He expended himself completely, making sure he lifted Keelen to safety as quickly as he could.

Adam waited behind for Matt, who looked as if he was running
in place, as his legs were pulled by the force of the miniature black hole. Hesitating at first, Adam lunged and reached for Adam. He held onto Matt’s arms and used his immense weight as an anchor against the powerful, invisible force of energy.

“
My arms, you’re ripping them off,” yelled Matt, as the sound of smashing concrete, whirling dust, and twisting metal surrounded them.

Adam didn
’t break eye contact with Matt as he pulled him closer, eventually grappling his torso. Using the powers of incendiary propulsion, Adam climbed up through the chasm, albeit slower than Logan, with Matt in his arms. Steel, chairs, concession stands, and lighting fixtures flew down from above, almost hitting them as they ascended.

They eventually reached the opening where the center ring used to be, as pieces and chunks of the arena collapsed on themselves caused by
a downward gravitational cyclone.

Right below the arena
’s domed ceiling, Logan used one of his matter-induced charges to blow a large opening in the roof. Keelen looked down and saw Adam carrying Matt upward in his arms.

Large metallic rafters which hung two large banners, one of Matt
’s face, the other of Cesar’s, began tearing away from the ceiling, pulled downward by the force. The one with Cesar’s smirking visage slipped off from its thick, metallic, pipe fixture and struck Adam and Matt, covering them entirely. Adam lost all sense of direction, immediately halting his ascension, sending both of them plunging through the air, wrapped inside the tarpaulin.

Keelen reached down through Logan
’s grasp and screamed Matt’s name, as she witnessed both of them tumble downward into the swirling abyss. Logan was able to glide to the top of a multistory storage building across the street from the arena. As they both stood on the roof watching the Grand Olympic Hall implode inward, Keelen leaned out from the edge of the roof and cried hysterically for Matt. Logan pulled her back by her waist, making sure she didn’t accidentally fall off the ledge due to her frenzied state.

Adam felt the immense force pulling him downward. He had no choice but to burn his way through the tarp that had enveloped him, knowing that doing so could potentially scald Matt who was in his arms.

“I’m sorry if it gets too hot,” he yelled.

Adam
’s body simmered, and Matt began to squirm. The banner started melting away, but the heat was too much for Matt to take. In a natural fight for survival, Matt fought himself away from Adam’s seething grasp. Adam made one last attempt to reach for Matt, as the last bits and pieces of the banner flew down by the wayside, but the power and energy from the black hole pulled Matt’s flightless body downward, in a fantastical display of gravitational force. Matt’s blue eyes remained stoic as he plunged into the unknown, his forlorn stare etching straight into Adam’s divine memory.

Adam commenced his ascension, using all of his godly strength to fight through the insurmountable haul. As he looked above, the starlit sky opened up to him. The entire roof of the arena had collapsed. Adam pulled back his lips and strained his upper body, as he struggled to climb the last few meters in the air, where the pull of the black hole could no longer touch. Adam made eye contact with his brother on the roof of the storage building. Logan caught Adam by his forearm and pulled him in.

The entire Grand Olympic Hall, and the square block it rested on, sidewalks and all, was sucked down into the black hole.

Keelen wailed, flailing away from Logan
’s grasp and his attempts to calm and soothe her.

“
Where did he go? Where did Matt go?” she bawled, slamming her fists on Adam’s jutting stomach as Logan continued to hug her tightly.

Logan grabbed Keelen by her arm and jerked her toward his chest.
“We need to go,” he said. “Compose yourself.”

“
Where’s Matt?” she yelled. “Who
are
you, Logan?”

Adam turned his head and looked out toward the horizon. A swirling black cloud of starlings, two miles long, approached from the east. The cackle of other birds, such as ducks, and crows followed behind. The aviary swar
m headed westward; fleeing something. Beyond the city’s skyline, Adam and Logan could see a dust cloud hovering above the tallest peak of the outlining San Gabriel Mountains. A tremor or something rising out from the mountaintop had eerily jettisoned brown scud into the night air.

Reborn

P
aolo knelt over Cindy’s lifeless body and administered CPR. “Come on,” he said, thrusting his hands on Cindy’s chest with despair. “Breathe...give me a breath, goddammit.”

Her heart
had stopped beating ten minutes ago. Paolo was alone with the smoky glass box and spooky spires of white flame. The only time he stopped the compressions on Cindy’s chest was when the tremor that collapsed the Grand Olympic Hall hit. Luckily, only pebbles and dust fell from the ceiling inside the cavern.

Paolo whipped his head and glanced over his shoulder as the sound of footsteps startled him.

“Who are you?” asked the youthful, male voice.

“
Mr. Labeouf,” replied Paolo, who was both surprised and terrified that the actor found him and Cindy underneath his home. “I...I’m Professor Rivers, linguistics department, USC.”

“
Who’s she?” Shia asked calmly, as he approached Paolo with slow, measured steps.

“
This is my partner, Cindy. Please call an ambulance. She’s not breathing. Please help,” pleaded Paolo.

Shia crouched and grabbed Cindy
’s wrist, checking for a pulse. He turned toward the professor. “You think I’m gonna call an ambulance? Really? Oh hey, we received a call for an injured girl and we discovered a scene out of
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
in Shia Labeouf’s basement. No...not gonna happen.”

“
But she’s dying.”

“
I don’t care. How the hell did you manage to find out about this anyway?”

“
Please, sir,” Paolo begged. “I know we shouldn’t have trespassed...”

“
...I’m not a doctor. There is nothing I can do,” Shia said, dryly. “Now I need to figure out what I’m gonna do with you.”

“
Let me take Cindy to a hospital.”

“
Seriously, I can’t have you going back to the world, letting everyone know about all this.”

Shia stood
up and inspected the glass box. He checked for cracks or a breach. Paolo remained on the ground, still trying to pump blood through Cindy’s heart. “How could you be so selfish?” asked Paolo.

Shia looked down at the professor.
“Who isn’t?”

“
What are you getting out of this?” asked Paolo, in a strained voice.

“
Are you kidding me? I got a great deal. Fame, women, money, fast cars, and I’m going to a wonderful place after the Earth is wiped clean. I can’t say the same for you or your friend. It sucks, it’s not fair, but if you were in my position, wouldn’t you do the same? Come on, be honest.”

Paolo drew his eyes to the side in reflection and remained silent, while still trying to will Cindy back to life.

“There are probably only a few hours left. How about you leave your friend here, and you come up with me? We’ll have a couple of beers, reflect on a life well spent, and just wait. Wait for the earth to open up and swallow the entire city in spectacular fashion. It will be like a summer blockbuster, but real, none of that CGI bullshit.”

Sweating and panting, Paolo ceased his attempts at resuscitation and just sat back on the floor. He took his off his glasses and began sobbing.

Shia stood over Paolo. While looking on solemnly, he bit his lower lip. A spark of empathy could be seen in his stilled eyes. “Hey, man, I’m sorry, all right? I had no choice.”

Paolo looked up with his cheeks flushed.
“What do you mean you had no choice?”

“
So, you’re a professor?” Shia asked, leaning against the glass box. “Is that something you always wanted to be?”

Paolo paused. He wiped the tears from his eyes took a deep breath and responded, while still looking at the ground.
“What?”

“
How’d you end up becoming a professor?”

Paolo relented.
“Well, my father made it clear that after high school I was to go to college.”

“
Why?”

“
Why?” Paolo asked, looking up, with his lips still quivering over Cindy’s fate. “I don’t know, because he wanted what was best for me?”

“
But this is what you wanted to do, right? Your boyhood dream was to become a professor...a professor of what, again?”

“
...linguistics.”

“
So, you grew up with the dream of becoming a linguistics professor...”

“
...no,” Paolo interrupted, as he cleared his nose. “I wanted to grow up to be a professional baseball player. I wanted to play for the Dodgers. I was a lefty. I wanted to be Koufax...which my father didn’t approve of because Koufax was a Jew, but that’s who I wanted to be.”

“
So, your father, who wanted what was best for you, demanded that you go to college and not follow your dream?”

Paolo nodded as he gazed down at Cindy, helplessly.
“I...I guess.”

“
I’m sorry to hear that,” Shia said, with a sly grin. “I didn’t have the opportunities you had. I didn’t have anyone pushing me. If you failed, I’m pretty sure your father and mother would’ve probably still supported you one way or another, financially. I didn’t have that option. I didn’t have anyone watching my back, which is why I took the deal. Do you understand now?”

“
I’m not here to argue about the dynamics of our upbringing; my friend is dying,” Paolo said, his voice irritated and growing coarse with frustration. “Are you going to help me?”

“
No,” said Shia. “I’m not. I gave you an opportunity to convince me and you didn’t.”

Paolo stood up and grimaced.
“What? Convince you to do what?” he grumbled. “Wait...wait, okay, hold on. Look, you’re right I would have taken the deal, too. I was way too self-involved with my own privileged upbringing that I couldn’t comprehend your circumstance. There, is that better?”

“
Sarcasm?” Shia asked, with a chuckle. “We have time for sarcasm now?”

The floor beneath Shia and Polo began to shake again. A small quake
—around a 4.0—swayed the lanterns on the wall and the spires of white light. Shia’s face looked more concerned than Paolo’s as soon as the shaking stopped, which made Paolo take notice. “You look scared. I thought you had a grip on your fate?”

Nervous, Shia
’s voice vibrated. “Part of me is kinda happy you showed up, actually.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Listen, if we open this here box, we’re gonna die. But there’s a chance that my fuck-up could be corrected.”

“
What are you talking about?” Paolo said loudly, in frustration. “I don’t care what’s in the box anymore; we need to help my friend.”

Shia walked up to Paolo and flashed him a crazed look. The long locks he had grown, probably for a movie, twinkled against the light, as they were greased in sweat.
“I want to correct my mistake, I’ve sold out humanity. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I need you to convince me to open this box up. Tell me it’s all worth it. Tell me that the promise of everlasting life is worth trading in for a chance at saving mankind.”

A frazzled Paolo began tugging at his hair and pacing the cave like a madman, desperately trying to conjure some type of solution to Shia
’s question.
How do you convince anyone from rejecting everlasting life,
he thought. “Who approached you with this deal?”

“
A bald man approached me at an audition when I was 12. He knew of my work as a child actor. He said he studied up on my circumstances. He promised me that I’d get more callbacks if I agreed to some vague deal. I didn’t believe him, but he told me that if I said yes, and promised to keep my mouth shut, I’d get more callbacks. He was right, I got three callbacks the next day. When I was 16, and after getting some major work, he found me again outside a trailer I was using on set, and asked me if I agreed right then and there if I’d hold up my end of the bargain, which involved keeping this box tucked away in my home. Of course, I said yes. So they transported this glass box you see before you, via freight, and delivered it into my basement. They titled me a Kronotos, Guardian of the Blessed Sacrament. Some guardian, though, am I right? Because your dumpy ass made it here somehow.”

“
What did he tell you would happen if this box were compromised?” asked Paolo.

“
In reality or in dreams?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
Well, the bald dude said if anything were to happen to the box, I’d lose my career and eventually, my life. Then in my dreams, this horrible-looking demon, with small teeth and galaxies for eyes, warned me that my entrails would be spread all across the 110 if something were to happen to this box.”

Paolo stood up and faced the glass box. He turned to Shia
. “Her hand got glued to the box...you should have seen it. Do you know what’s going in there?”

“
Of course, Thalia and I have had many conversations.”

“
Is she alive in there?”

“
She’s neither dead or alive. She just
is
,” said Shia.

Paolo leaned down toward the floor and picked up the Apocryphon. He walked up to Shia and opened the book, flipped through the pages, and eventually landed on the page which showed the process of
Thalia’s imprisonment. Next to the representation of Thalia, a jester was drawn with his tongue out and holding a sword. “That’s you?” asked Paolo.

Shia nodded.

Paolo flipped through three more pages. He showed Shia a depiction of people burning a in a sea of fire. Below them was another group drowning in water, and the next page showed others roasting like pigs. “How do you feel about all this?”

“
Horrible. Like I said, I think I sold everyone out.”

“
How about you help me get Thalia out then?”

“
I’m scared of dying.”

“
Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know you’ll be doing the noble thing if you release Thalia. Are you really prepared to live with yourself knowing that everyone you loved will not join you? Your mother, father, siblings, friends, people that watched your back are all going to disappear, poof! Just like that,” Paolo said snapping his fingers. “Used, absorbed, made to suffer. Something tells me all this can be prevented.”

“
If I open this box, I’m as good as dead, do you hear me?”

“
I’ll join you. I’m prepared to join you in death. There’s a reason Cindy made it here. There’s a reason she was determined to rescue Thalia.”

Shia breathed deeply through his nostrils and pulled the side of his thick, black hair in a display of agitated indecision.
“I really want to live forever, you know?”

“
Who’s to say you still can’t?” Paolo said, patting Shia on the side of his shoulder.

“
You have no idea what’s involved in all this, do you?”

Paolo shook his head. But he was unfazed as he was determined to release
Thalia for Cindy.

Shia walked to the glass box and dug into one of the pockets of his tight, black skinny jeans. He procured a rondure, similar to the one Cindy found and which Paolo now had in his possession. He faced the glass box, hands at his side, his Chucks squared with his shoulders. Paolo watched
, his eyes glued on Shia with intensity. Shia grabbed the bottom corner of his jacket and gripped it tight, nervousness trembling his long, narrow digits.

“
Whatever happens, put in a good word for me, okay?” said Shia, flashing Paolo a nervous smile.

“
Of course,” Paolo said. “You do the same for me, too.”

Shia nodded and stood on his toes as he placed the rondure in the indentation that was at the top of the box. He blinked. A long blink, in fact, it was more like he closed his eyes for five seconds then reopened them.

Suddenly, they were no longer in the same place...

Dizzy with confusion, Shia
gulped at the man leaning down into his car window.

“
Step out of the car,” demanded the officer.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Step out of the fucking car, or I’ll do it by force.”

“
Wait, I know you,” Shia said as he looked up at the officer through the rolled-down window of his yellow Murciélago that was pulled over on Sunset Boulevard.

The officer was Augustus Fisker. His unmistakable neck tattoos visible just above his collar.
“You’ve been drinking. I can smell your breath from here. Step out, now.”

Shia looked over his shoulder. A group of fast-moving photographers convened at the back of his car. The flashes from their cameras blinded him.

Augustus grinned. “It’s over, Mr. Labeouf. You had a wonderful opportunity and you pissed it all away and for what? So, you could save these animals that treat you like dirt and who don’t appreciate you?”