The Sunset Prophecy (Love & Armageddon #1) (25 page)

“
What is that?” Cindy asked, turning her face away from the opening.

“
I don’t know.” Paolo tried to peer over his forearm. His squinted eyes adjusted to the white rays. He made out a collection of metallic poles with white flares at their tops, shooting reflective beams toward the ceiling like supernatural balefire.

“
Magnesium,” said Paolo. “What we smelled was magnesium. That explains the white flames.”

Labored and pale, Cindy added,
“They seem to be surrounding something.”

Their eyes fought the intense glare as they entered. A large, rectangular, metallic glass box sat vertically in the center of the room. When Paolo walked up toward the box, Cindy yelled for him to step back, as the murky smoke behind the glass began to swirl.

“Don’t touch it,” she said.

“
It doesn’t look hot,” Paolo said, glancing back at Cindy.

“
Don’t touch it, I said,” Cindy reprimanded.

The black smoke inside the box churned as if it were wind
-struck. Not knowing what to do next, Cindy began thumbing through the red book for answers. “This container looks too modern. I don’t see a depiction of it in the Apocryphon.”

“
You’re gonna have to let me touch it,” Paolo said.

Cindy shook her head. She hopped toward the professor and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
“Let me do it. You have class to teach on Monday.”

Paolo seized Cindy
’s wrist. “Are you sure?”

“
What’s the worst that could happen? Probably a little hot...a little too cold, maybe?” Cindy said, with a smile. “Electrocution? Oh, that would be bad.”

The professor inspected all the sides of the glass box
. “It doesn’t look like it’s plugged in anywhere.”

Cindy stood a foot away from the glass. The white light from the torches reflected off the glossy panes. Both their reflections
stared back at them. Cindy reached with her index finger, its tip making connection. “It’s room temperature.” She extended her hand, planting her whole palm on the glass. Her silky locks began to extend upward.

“
Cindy, I think there’s some sort of static...”

“
...don’t be silly, I don’t feel anything,” she said, smiling.

Paolo noticed her brown eyes begin to lose their color. They went from hazel, to yellow, and then to a gray color.
“Back away, get your hand off the glass,” Paolo urged.

“
It’s fine. I don’t feel anything. Let me see if I can see through the smoke.”

Cindy neared the glass, smashing the tip of her nose
against it while trying to peer through the undulating gaps between the swirls of smoke. She then felt a tingle race up her arm.

“
You see anything?” asked the professor.

“
No, it’s just billowing smoke,” she said, as she felt the same tingle in her arm race to her spine. “This feels like by one of those battery-powered massage trinkets.”

“
You should probably stop touching the glass,” said Paolo, worried.

“
Fine,” she said, trying to pull her arm away. “Um, it’s stuck.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
My hand is stuck to the glass.”

“
Here,” Paolo said, as he pulled on Cindy’s arm.

“
Ow...ow, my foot.”

“
I’m sorry, but let me pull on me adjust myself here, so I can help you pull your arm off,” said Paolo.

As soon as Paolo began gently tugging on Cindy
’s arm, he noticed a speck of red glistening at the corner crease of her lip.

“
What’s wrong?” Cindy asked, concerned at Paolo’s stare.

He swiped his finger at the corner of her mouth and held it up between their eyes.

“Is that blood?” Cindy asked, with slight dread. She spit toward the ground. Bloody sputum splashed all over the rocky floor. “Get me off it,” she said, panicked.

Paolo used measured strength in his attempts to pry Cindy off the glass, but his efforts were futile. The slight tingle Cindy had initially felt race throughout her body began feeling like violent pulsations, as if a train of marbles gently crawled and rolled right underneath her skin.
Her veins and capillaries illuminated like neon roots, making her skin thin and translucent.

“
Cindy!” Paolo bellowed. “Stay with me.”

A heaviness
settled inside her head, pushing down her eyelids. The taste of blood raced across her taste buds. The metallic-tasting liquid settled in the pockets behind her lower lip. Her hand came loose and her body fell forward. The crown of her head thumped strongly against the glass. The sound her skull made when it made impact was terrifying. Paolo lunged forward and caught her lifeless body before it thumped to the ground.

Cindy heard a rush of water race through her ear canals. The sound fizzled and hissed for a few seconds,
and then her hearing quickly normalized. The chatter of men, hurried men, awoke her senses. She was in an office, the same office that was in the boat-shaped building, the one with the scattered papers on the ground.

A thin, bald, middle-aged man with tattoos on his neck stood behind the desk, instructing other men who wore suits that would
’ve been fashionable 30 years ago. Light grays, navy blues, gold cufflinks.

“
This is it,” the bald man said. “You’ve all be chosen by Adonai to maintain humanity’s current direction. From here on out, you do not let anything interrupt what has been in motion for the past 2,000 years.”

“
Uriel, what about Thalia?” asked one of the finely dressed men standing next to Fisker with the thick, black sideburns, and clean Adonic face. “Why must she remain alive? Her mere presence alone risks the entire harvest.”

“
Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with the ratification of the Concord, but what I know is that Thalia’s influence on mankind was far too great for her to be sacrificed as if she were a dog. Her techniques and cooperation have been essential. However, her exposure to the elements of this plane have severely weakened her as you can see. She does not have much time left, I presume,” Augustus Fisker said, as he glanced over his shoulder, and gazed at the rectangular, metallic box that held a frail, raven-haired woman against the back wall of the office.

The vision of Augustus Fisker, the men, and
Thalia on the floor of the box, clearly suffering and in anguish, was real, but Cindy knew this was happening in her mind. Her senses were active, though. She could touch the floor, smell the burn coming from the fusers of the old Xerox machine in the office, and hear the faint gurgling of Thalia’s cough behind the glass.

She felt compelled to vocalize, but the flesh underneath her tongue was dry.
Her vocal cords felt anesthetized. But she forced words from her mouth, unintelligible, but in her mind, words, nonetheless. “Thalia, I’m here...I’m here with love,” she intended.

Fisker and the men didn
’t hear Cindy, but Thalia stopped her heavy, intermittent breaths and slowly lifted her head. The skin on her forehead was milky white. Her eyebrows angled optimally with divine cosmetic geometry, and her eyes, hypnotically dark, as if staring into a black chasm filled with mysterious grandeur, penetrated Cindy deeply. Thalia’s thick, scarlet lips did not move, as her visage was enough to communicate with the mortal who had somehow stumbled upon her presence.

“
Are you here for a blessing?” the maternal voice echoed, weakly.

Cindy felt the ground underneath her shake. She stood up and faced
Thalia, as the office began to dissolve. A smoke-filled abysm took its place. She and Thalia stood on a thin slab of bedrock surrounded by perpetual darkness: their prison. Cindy quivered and stood stone-faced, knowing full well that she was now in the presence of a goddess.

29

Gratitude

“
M
y neck looks like it has a neck,” Adam said, while he struggled to button the top of his shirt. “Just look at this bulge. It looks like I have some sort of goiter.”

“
There’s nothing else we can do,” Spencer added, while sitting on one of the rusted stools in the locker room of the Grand Olympic Hall. Adam just finished directing where to place
Estil
Magazine
’s promotional material, such as banners, streamers, and signs.

“
The photographers...they’re gonna be salivating.” Adam managed to pull the bulge up through the collar. He cinched his necktie around the collar of the shirt. Spencer shook his head, as the knot resembled a black silk diaper.

“
Here, let me get that for you,” said Spencer. He stood from the stool, approached Adam, and adjusted the necktie with great care and precision. “Now, how’s that look?”

Adam turned toward the mirror. He let out a deep breath.
“I can’t wait for this to be over.”

“
You mean the fight?”

Adam turned around and looked at Spencer.
“Yeah, the fight.” He paused. “Spence, I need you to go home now. Spend the next few nights with your family.”

“
Family is in Ohio, but a couple of days relaxing with Ajax doesn’t sound too bad—Ajax is my cat, if you didn’t already know.”

“
I knew that,” Adam smiled. “Fly to your family. Take it out of your expense account. I won’t care,” he said, placing his hands on the sides of Spencer’s shoulders.

Spencer felt strange. He hadn
’t taken a day off since starting with
Estil
, or even asked for one, yet here was the hardest working editor in all the land insisting his staff take a vacation.

“
Are you going to lay us off or something? Are you dying, with this weight gain and all?”

“
Nope,” Adam said, peering straight into Spencer’s brown eyes. “I want you to do one thing while you’re gone, and that is to think about all the good you’ve done in your life. Call everyone you love and tell them how much you love them. But make sure you keep a mental list of all the good you’ve done in your life; you never know if that’s going to come in handy in the next few days.”

“
How come you’ve been sounding as if the end of the world is approaching or something?”

Adam put on his size 74 blazer that seemed as large as a
circus tent and adjusted his belt, whose tightness was somehow making his perpetual heartburn worse. “We’ve had our run, don’t you think?”

“
Wow, why such a fatalist?”

“
Humanity had a chance to change. Think about it, Spencer. We’ve gone all out with our stories of selfishness, shallowness, fluff, and glorification of the inane to the point of absurdity. We pounded stupidity over their heads and yet, they kept eating it all up like pigs at the trough. What else could I have done?”

“
I don’t know, maybe start focusing on the good of mankind...”

“
...in a fashion magazine? Really? It wasn’t up to me to make humans recognize their shameful ways, my friend. Now, look at them. It takes some insane, last-minute revelations of their own corruption for 30 percent of them to take to the streets, but it’s too late, Spencer. Go home now. Don’t look back.”

Even though Adam
’s words were borderline crazy, his inflection was eerily sincere. Spencer swallowed hard and bounced up and down with slight anxiety. “You really think something is going to happen?”

“
Look around you. Something big is gonna happen. I’m letting you know because you’ve been my best employee. You’re a good guy and I want what’s best for you.”

“
You’re freaking me out, Adam. You sound so sure.”

As soon as Adam made it a point to peer into his assistant’s eyes, his eyeballs shot out small bursts of
flame. Spencer took a step a back, startled at Adam’s sudden freakish display of power. “How’d you do that?”

“
Go...” said Adam, with a gentle smile.

Spencer didn
’t hesitate. With his heart racing at the speed of a Maglev, he backpedaled and waved at Adam with a quivering hand, but also with sorrowful eyes. Ones that longed for Adam’s direction, and ones that still sparked with admiration for a mentor. A mentor that was quite literally larger than life.

“
Thank you,” said Spencer, before exiting the locker.

Adam nodded. Tracy stood at the locker
’s doorway, as Spencer sped away.

“
Can I come in?” she asked

“
I’m decent,” Adam said.

“
Why was he in such a hurry?” she asked, walking into the musty locker room.

“
He couldn’t wait to see his family.”

“
I never thought Spencer was a family man.”

“
Well, nothing like revolution in the air to make someone change their perspective on things.”

“
Mr. Cagle, according to the promoters, they’re expecting half the projected attendance for tonight’s fight. Things are getting dicey out there, with the protests increasing in attendance.”

“
It doesn’t matter. Things must continue as planned. I need your eyes and ears to be ready. This is going to be the best article you’ll ever write, you got me?”

Tracy nodded.
“On another note, Mr. Cagle, I still haven’t received confirmation that Logan Drake is gonna make it.”

“
You met his girlfriend, right?”

“
Yeah, I gave her his ticket.”

“
Believe me, if she’s at the fight, and Logan Drake is who I think he is, he’ll be here.”

Adam
lumbered away from Tracy for a moment and readied himself in the mirror one last time before exiting the locker room. He was confident that his brother would make an appearance at the fight. “I’m ready, my lord,” he said to himself. “I’m prepared to leave this wretched plane and have humanity fend for itself, as prophesied.”

Tracy stood behind Adam, her face contorted with mild confusion.
“Everything all right?”

Adam turned his head.
“Remember, you’re seated in the press box. In case of an earthquake, make sure the table you choose to go under is the sturdiest table in the entire arena.”

“
What? Why would you say that?”

“
We’re in L.A. where earthquakes happen all the time, and this auditorium is older than dirt.”