The Sunset Prophecy (Love & Armageddon #1) (2 page)

T
he young man in the black hoodie and the Pumas was gone.

So was the pain in
young Isaac’s leg.

2

The Maledicted Transformation

L
ying in bed with his eyes closed, Adam Cagle gripped his white cotton sheets and waited for a reply, a twitch, or the warmth of a finely contoured blonde. Unfortunately for him, the sudden onset of stomach acid that raced up his esophagus was the only thing that greeted him that morning, the same morning where, unbeknownst to him, his life as the most successful and handsome fashion editor in
the U.S. of A
. was about to be cast into chaos.

It appeared that Adam had been quite neglectful of his role in the grand, multi-dimensional scheme of things. Seduced by flesh and purses
, lipstick and heels, drugs and spin, he was about to be reminded of his intended function within the universe, and one that he had not fulfilled.

He lifted his heavy head from one of his pillows and groaned loudly. The inside of his skull felt as if it were filled with a fistful of marbles,
marbles that collectively bashed against the walls of his cranium whenever he’d tilt his head.

You stupid lush.
Last flippin’ time you mix wine and fruity spirits.

H
is eyes opened slowly. His bedroom was blurry, as if he were looking at it through a pair of Vaseline-smeared bifocals. He raised his heavy arms and examined his hands—through the fogged lenses of his eyes, his fingers appeared thick and meaty.

A loss of control resona
ted in his voice as he said out loud, “Heather? Heather, are you there?”

No one responded.

Clumsily, he scooted out of his bed and staggered through his bedroom, catching himself on one of the solid oak bedposts. He paused and scanned his room. Shadows filtered against the wall as light splashed in from the skylight in the hallway. Adam narrowed his eyes, attempting to decipher the Lascaux-like forms that played with his head.

W
ith renewed resolve, he took another step toward the bathroom and stumbled again, this time landing against a nightstand where he kept his trusty bottle of potassium chloride, which he used to mask his $5,000-a-month coke habit. He squirted a couple of drops in each eye and blinked. The solution didn’t help clear his mirage-like shimmering vision.

“
Heather, where are you?” he whined while stepping into the bathroom. “My eyes are stinging; I kinda need your help here.”

Heather sat on a small stool by the sink, staring at the floor in deep thought; her naked back faced him as she brushed her long,
Fructis
-sponsored locks. Upon seeing the blurred siren-like form, Adam walked up right behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder to gather his balance.

Eventually, his glazed eyeballs adjusted. He looked down, and to his astonishment, he noticed a swollen pink hand blotched with diabetic rashes
, which contrasted with her young, bronzed and smooth skin. Adam snapped his head toward the large mirror and the tiny bottle of eye drops fell from his hand.

The man he knew was gone.

Heather peered at Adam in the mirror and screamed. She sprang from her stool and raced toward one of the robes that hung by the bathroom door. “Adam?” she asked, bewildered and shocked, quickly covering her naked body. “Oh my God, what happened to you? Was it the lobster?”

Adam shook his head as he stared at a pock-marked, slightly hunchbacked, 450-pound
version of himself in the mirror. He smoothed over his third chin with his hand, then the belly that overlapped his crotch and finally, the love handles that meshed with his rotund backside.

“
Adam, do you want me to call 911?”

He didn
’t reply, but he instinctively knew what he had done to deserve his sudden bout of cursed bloat.

Adam stormed out of the bathroom and clambered through the multiple high arches that separated each of his rooms. He made his way to the living room where he stopped in front of the fireplace. With controlled haste, he grabbed the scented logs from the gold
-plated cradle and tossed them into the hearth.

Heather came running into the living room.
“Adam, sweetie, what the hell are you doing building a fire? You need to see a doctor immediately.”

Adam snapped his head toward Heather.
“Get out!”

“
What?”

“
Heather, just leave.”

“
But...”

“
Now!” he screamed.

Heather grabbed the dress and heels she
’d willingly shed last night in the living room. Her last pleasant memory of Adam was that of a fit man who owned a six-pack, toned arms, barrel chest, eyes colored like the bluest sea and wavy hair like a wind-spun field of wheat.

“
Adam, you need help,” she shrieked, her eyes watering.

Adam glared menacingly.
“Out!” he bellowed.

All Heather saw was a stranger who dismissed her concern
with callous, brutish indifference. An injured beast had implored for her sudden exit so he could marinate in his own pain.

Sobbing, she exited the penthouse
, slamming the door behind her.

Adam didn
’t flinch at Heather’s reaction. Instead, he grabbed a match from the top of the fireplace, lit it and calmly tossed it onto the logs. He sat in his chair, bowed his head and waited for the fire to take hold. “Jrue, I submit, for you are my one true lord and father. I succumb to your overreaching power and guidance,” he breathed through his clenched teeth.

Embers whirled through the
air; cinders glowed, illuminating the walls of the salon with color, overwhelming the morning sunlight that blazed through the wooden blinds. The fiery grate flashed its traditional red and yellow glow and then flickered into a haunting blue splendor.

“
Lelantos,” remarked the gruff and sonorous voice from the flames.

“
Why have you cursed me like this, Father? I still serve you,” Adam said, his voice cracking with restraint.

“
You have succumbed to the lesser plane of existence.”

“
I haven’t forgotten why I’m here,” Adam implored. He then grabbed one of the rolls from his belly which popped out as he sat on his chair. “This punishment is inequitable.”

“
You have been searching for three years now. You are distracted. You must find Theolodus before it is too late.”

“
I know...I know in my heart he’s here in L.A., which is why I took this job. I’m going to eventually find him, while maintaining our end of the bargain. The traitorous bastard has a taste for supermodels, actresses and art.”

The flame was skeptical.
“I don’t trust your judgment, Lelantos.”

“
Lord, I have met women who have his mark on their necks. Beautiful women…connected women. The trail leads to Los Angeles. He’s here. Grant me more time, please,” Adam begged.

The
sapphiric blaze erupted in laughter. “Three years, Lelantos. The only success you have accrued in that time has been your own.”

The embers grew larger as they spit out of the fireplace like the tracers of a nocturnal battlefield.

“If Theolodus stays on this plane, war is all but guaranteed. The course of the Prophecy cannot be altered.”

Adam crouched. His meaty knee hit the floor like Atlas balancing two
Earths on his shoulder. He asked, “Is there any way you can grant me my previous form as I continue my search?”

“
Your current form is sufficient to locate Theolodus. You say his presence is near. We do not need the excesses of Earth bestowing further distractions upon you.”

“
But I need every advantage I can get for my search. I ask one last time to grant me my old form.”

The flame remained silent.

Adam wobbled upright and reached down for more logs.

“
No need to feed my flame,” Jrue said. “I’ve said my piece. Your commitment is no longer tied to the temptations of Earth. You must find Theolodus before the Ides of May.”

“
That is just a few weeks from now,” declared Adam.

The flame flickered down to its last remaining crimson cinder and Jrue
’s voice echoed one final time before trailing off into the empty chasm between dimensions: “Don’t be tempted by humanity. It is a fleeting moment in time,” he said. “The preservation of Pit is your priority.”

Adam stared at the fireplace as i
t grew dark. His fists tightly closed as he realized his final days on Earth were going to be spent inside this grotesque vessel.

He lumbered toward the solid oak desk by the large archway and picked up the cordless phone
. He activated the speaker function and dialed his assistant. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a long cloth tape measure and wrapped it around his waist.

“
Spencer...” he said. “...Spencer, can you hear me?”

“
Yes, Mr. Cagle,” replied the soft male voice on the line.

“
How come you don’t say something right away when you answer the phone? That’s really annoying.”

“
I...I was toasting a bagel, sir.”

“
Listen, I need you to go to the nearest Big and Tall and get me a suit. Make sure the waist is 54 inches.”

“
Is this for a new feature or did all those days of ignoring your personal trainers finally get to you?” Spencer said, with a light chuckle.

“
Spencer, I don’t know...of course not…just don’t ask any questions, do what I say, please,” Adam commanded, as he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror.

“
Sir, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

“
...enough, Spencer. Bad morning.”

“
I’m sorry, sir. I have those, too. Inseam, sir?”

“The same as always.
And a dress shirt. Long sleeves.”

“Very good, sir.
What color should the suit be?”

“
Dammit!” he said, growing angrier, the longer he stared in the mirror. “Any stupid color will do, all right?”

“
Yes, sir. I’ll be over as fast as I can.”

Adam hung up the phone and flung it across the salon, breaking the mirror into several pieces, as his fractured and distorted image reflected back at him
.

3

At the Crossroads of Fate

K
eellen Grant was lying flat on her back on a wooden stage inside a small theater when she realized that Matt’s butt didn’t make one of the old chairs in the theater creak and crack like it usually did around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. She reached for her cell phone, swiped the lock screen and sighed heavily when she noticed her cell phone service had been interrupted.

“
Really? You had all day to shut off my phone, but you chose to do it now?”

She was at the end of her acting class with method guru Stan Morris in a little studio at the end of an alley off Sunset and
Cahuenga. Stan was known around town as a miracle worker. However, some thought his eccentric nature added to his allure—actually, they thought he fell somewhere on the spectrum, but his prodigious talent kept him from receiving a proper analysis.

He would have his pupils lay on their backs on the cold, hard stage, and would instruct them to recite nonsensical chants as a means to channel the spirit of their inner characters. Not the spirits
, as in the
Spirit of ’76
, but actual spirits of the specter type: ghosts. Keelen was desperate for work, any kind of work, so she plunked $200 of her hard-earned money—money she’d earned working evenings at the Thomas Click Gallery—for a weekly session with Morris on the recommendation of her agent.

Keelen stood firmly on stage
, discontent waxing her smooth face. She felt the assigned monologue about the transgender, Jewish, World War II submarine captain was a portrayal that was just a bit out of her personal range.

“
I can’t do this,” she whined to Stan.

Stan, who was in his late
fifties, with scraggly gray hair and a matching beard, sat in his chair, legs crossed. He narrowed an eye. “You know, Keelen, if you want to get some work around this town as an actress...” Stan paused and then placed his finger over his tanned and creased forehead. “Let me rephrase that, okay? Actresses are just toys. If you want to be a successful artist—the keyword , artist—you must tap into your inner Chakri and channel one of your ancestors, preferably one who was in the Navy, or maybe someone who was an actual submarine captain.”

Keelen gave Stan a funny look and
pretzeled her arms across her chest. “All my ancestors were stay-at-home moms and a couple were cobblers,” she explained, shaking her head. “I really, really want to do this. I try everything you tell me to do, but it’s all so complicated.”

Stan shrugged.
“If you’re not ready to channel what you don’t know is living inside you—inside your heart and ruminating inside your nervous system—then you are not ready to sacrifice your entire being for this sacred art form.”

Stan
’s words were sincere and passionate, but beyond Keelen’s practical approach to acting.

Keelen glanced down at her phone and cleared her throat.
“Mr. Morris, is it okay if I use your phone? My boyfriend should’ve been here by now to pick me up for work.”

“
Of course.” The eccentric guru waved his hand and turned his squeaking swivel chair toward his students on the stage. He closed his eyes and continued his repetitive hums.

Keelen walked toward a small office near the studio entrance and picked up the beige
office phone and dialed Matt’s number. She paused and stared up at the clock which hung over the office door and let out a deep sigh, which made the ends of her thick, brown hair kick up into the air for a moment.

“
Matt, where are you? I can’t be late to work anymore,” she said, with a subtle crack in her voice. “Call the studio. My cell company disconnected my phone.”

Keelen glanced at the clock o
ne more time, hung up the phone. “Screw it,” she said, to herself. “I’ll catch the bus.” She rushed the stage and picked up her purse, and soon after she hurried down the steps that led to the theater floor, the heel of one of her boots stomped on the top of her classmate’s hand.

“
Ow, what the f...” Bruce yelled. “My hand...what are you doing?”

“
I...I’m so sorry…are you okay?” Keelen said, as she stooped down where Bruce writhed in pain. “Are you able to move it?”

Bruce sat up and favored his hand.
“Dammit, I think it’s broken.”

St
an rushed down from his chair, swooping in at Bruce’s side. Bruce was Stan’s number-one client and the star of TNT’s
EMT without a Cause
, a show about rogue EMT’s who raced ambulances for money.

“
Someone, get some ice,” Stan yelled, his face wrinkled with panic, as if Bruce were a downed soldier in combat.

Keelen shook her head in dismay and scanned all the frowns and scowls of her classmates.
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” Their faces remained stilled. “I know this is going to sound bad, but I have to go. My ride didn’t show...so...uh...I need to catch the bus...I hope you all understand.” She didn’t want to get fired, and the prospect of facing life as an unemployed, undocumented Canadian was a dreaded circumstance she wasn’t prepared to handle.

She pivoted on the heels of her cheap, imitation leather boots and flew out through the studio doors like a gutless thief on the run. Keelen crisscrossed the maze of gridlocked bumpers and the orchestra of car horns on
Cahuenga. It was a typical minefield for the smallest of minorities in all of Los Angeles: pedestrians.

She landed onto the tire-scuffed curb and was greeted by Francisco, the cherubic busboy who worked across the street at Maxwell
’s, a quaint coffee shop that had that familiar 60s look with the large windows and the sharp angular roofs every film depicted as the L.A. scene.

“
Sup, Keelen,” he said, temporarily pulling his eyes away from the new smartphone he just picked up at the budget cell shop.

“
Hey, Francisco,” she said, doing her best to catch her breath. She squinted at the bus schedule on the pole. “The bus I need to catch comes at 6:45...what time is it?”

“
6:48,” Francisco replied.

“
Has the 6:45 bus already passed?”

Francisco looked up and casually said,
“I’m afraid so.”

“
Shit.”

“
It looks like 7:05 for you. Where you gotta be?”

“
Work,” she said.

“
I thought you were an actress?” he asked. “I still haven’t seen you in anything.”

“
That is why I work, Francisco.”

“
I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude, just curious,” he said apologetically. “It seems everyone has to work two jobs in this town just to survive.”

Keelen
’s always alert and perky eyes sagged with worry as she began to run the various excuses she hadn’t used in her head. “Dammit, what do I tell my boss?” she mumbled to herself. “God, I feel so bad for stepping on that guy’s hand.”

“
Tell your boss you got mugged.”

“
What? No! I already used that one,” she said. “Is there any way I could use your phone, please?”

“
What happened to yours?” he asked.

Keelen frowned and gestured a throat
-cutting motion as she pulled out her phone.

“
Yeah, I know the feeling. That’s why I went prepaid.”

She dialed her roommate, hoping she
’d give her a ride to the gallery. As she placed Francisco’s phone to her ear, a jangle of honks cracked and rolled throughout the busy street, drawing the attention of even the most distracted pedestrians and motorists.

A pale thin arm
extended and waved from the driver’s side window of a lime-green, late 90s Beetle. Cindy Lu, her roommate, had preemptively—nay, psychically—heeded Keelen’s cries for help. Keelen’s soured face quickly morphed into a smile. She handed the phone to Francisco and wrapped her skinny arms around his round torso. “Thank you so much.”

Cindy
’s Beetle braked in front of the bus stop, raising the screeching honks behind her into a crescendo. She stuck her head out the window, scowled at the traffic behind her and yelled, “There are two lanes, asshole...you can use the other one, you know!”

Cindy worked mornings at
Trance
, a coffee shop off Beverly Boulevard which claimed to be the only coffee shop in town whose beans were purported to grow in a magical orchard in Honduras. Their top blend supposedly gave its drinkers the power of temporary clairvoyance. Keelen swore the coffee was just laced with meth, but Cindy, who claimed to be a medium, disagreed.

“
Get in the car. I have everyone behind me pissed off,” Cindy hollered through the window.

“
I’ll stop by the café sometime,” Keelen said to Francisco, as she quickly hopped into the passenger seat.

“
I think I’m done with Stan Morris method acting classes,” she said to Cindy.

Francisco waved at Keelen as he leaned against the bus stop sign.

“Why?”

“His methods aren’t for me and I think I broke Bruce Davidson’s hand
.”

“You what?”
Cindy exclaimed, before slamming her foot on the gas pedal and whipping Keelen’s neck back, escaping the flurry of angry honks.

“
How’d you know I was without a ride?” Keelen asked.

Cindy wink
ed at her.

Keelen shook her head.
“In all seriousness, how’d you know I needed a ride?”

“
I sensed you were in trouble.”

“
Really?”

Cindy giggled.
“Not really, but someday I’ll be able to. Anyway, here’s the scoop, Matt called me and said you needed a ride.”

Keelen crossed her arms and huffed.
“So, what’s his excuse this time?”

“
You’re so hard on him,” Cindy said. “He told me to tell you his trainer had to leave for New York tomorrow morning. He had to move up his Thursday training session.”

Matthew Nix was an aspiring boxer out of Pacoima, a working
-class suburb in the San Fernando Valley. Not just aspiring, but one of the best boxing prospects to come out of the greater L.A. area since Oscar De La Hoya.

Matt was forced to become a roughneck brawler. He had to, as he was the only blonde
-haired, blue-eyed kid growing up in a neighborhood with one of the toughest Mexican gangs in L.A. He earned the nickname
El Guerro Veloz
, due to the lightning-fast jabs he’d quickly developed while dusting up bullies who were sometimes three to four years older.

Matt had a wonderful support system, not only because he was the best hope L.A. had as a potential gold medalist in the upcoming summer Olympics, but his chiseled face and ripped body, which he always put on the line whenever he laced up the gloves,
were ripe for a slew of commercial endorsements.

Keelen sighed.
“I swear, I’m gonna lose Matt.”

“
You’re so negative.”

“
How could I not be? He’s going places and I’m still working at this hell-hole of a gallery and I can’t land a paying acting job to save my life.”

Cindy stopped her Beetle with the distinctive broken brake light in front of a strip of small boutiques on Melrose. Keelen quickly stepped out of the car.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Cindy said.

“
Yeah?” Keelen said, as she slouched through the passenger-side window and grabbed her purse.

“
He’ll never leave you. You’re a great girlfriend and he seems to have his head on straight. No self-respecting man is going to pass you up.”

“
Thanks.” Keelen smiled appreciatively, but with doubt sucking the optimistic gleam from her cerulean-hued eyes.

“
Listen, if it all goes to hell, we have each other,” Cindy said.

“
Oh, yeah? I don’t know about that.”

“
Really?”

“
I’m kidding.”

“
Good. Because I think destiny has brought us together. You and I are in for some big things, just you watch.”

Cindy was a
n oasis of calm. The reputation of Los Angeles as a notoriously fake city was true, at least for Keelen. Friendships came and went like the local copycat, Korean-owned frozen yogurt shops that boomed and busted every month. And there were times where she would befriend a fellow ingénue at an audition, meet up with her at a bar and a week later, never hear from her again. In a city of transient people and businesses, Cindy was a constant friend, a much-needed one, as Keelen traded her dull life with guaranteed healthcare in Canada for one of extreme risk and fleeting fame in L.A.

“
You gonna take the bus home, or are you going to let pride slide tonight and let me pick you up?” Cindy asked, smothering her hands over the psychedelic rubber covering that encircled her steering wheel.