Читать книгу Devil’s Cinema. Crypt of the Seven Angels - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 5

Daniel arrived much earlier than twelve. Although the invitation, as he recently considered, was designated precisely this time. His blood soaked into the cardboard, and the letters and numbers were visible again. The block letters had an unusual look with curls. What printer can this be printed on? Reminds of calligraphy of the last century. It’s strange why Cordelia didn’t say right away that the time of the session was still definite.

It was so dark at the entrance that Daniel had to turn on the flashlight in his smartphone to see the road. Some animals, remotely resembling bats and lizards, darted underfoot. The graceful figures of the sphinxes at the entrance gleamed gold even in the dark. How beautiful they are! Half lions, half women with crafty faces. Daniel wanted to touch them with his hand, but he noticed that a rat with a ripped throat was stuck between the pedestal and the claws of one of the sphinxes. The impression was as if the sphinx caught it and crushed it with his paw. The gilded claws were stained with blood.

It’s just a dead pest! But Daniel for some reason immediately felt creepy and unpleasant. There was a dim light inside the theater itself. The fountain in the lobby was working. Near the lotus in its center, lights were turned on, and the streams of water were painted alternately in all the colors of the rainbow.

The angel statues were rearranged so that only one of them stood at the bottom of the steps leading to the cinema halls. The other six figures were placed right on the steps, at a great distance from each other. Each sculpture is one step higher than the previous one. It seemed that they flew up there on their own and deliberately avoided each other. Unusual decor! And everything is so luxurious. Truly a VIP zone! But why doesn’t anyone at the entrance ask for an invitation? And why are there no other visitors here? Have they already entered the hall?

The absence of guards was also striking. Since the cinema is still functioning, it must be guarded so that, for example, a gang of hooligans does not break in here. Daniel even doubted that the invitation to the session was not a joke, because there were no attendants around at all. Only flocks of blue moths nested in the corners of the floor and ceiling. The rustle of their wings made his head ache. Apart from them, there is no one in the whole building.

Daniel stretched out his hand to the flock fluttering in the corner, and immediately felt painful bites to blood. Moths don’t bite! This is against the rules of nature. And their wings definitely cannot be blue.

Cordelia came out of the hallway leading to the cinemas suddenly. Behind her evening gown was a long train, all made of blue butterflies. Silk? Yes, they are alive. They flutter. How did she sew them. Alive? Or it seems to him. He didn’t drink today. I didn’t want to fall asleep during the session, moreover, in such a strange place, far from the city. Who knows, suddenly he will be cut alive here himself, if he doze off and become vulnerable.

“Everyone here is vulnerable.”

And again voices in his head. What’s with him? Now he is no longer standing by the creepy tree, but the feeling is as if his hands are still in the ashes from the bark.

:Come on! Coming soon!” the girl did not even greet him and did not even throw a cursory glance at the invitation, which he nervously crumpled in his hands.

“They don’t even guard the doors,” Daniel complained.

“So what,” she casually waved her hand, on which a scarab bracelet flashed. The adornment looked like a very ancient museum item.

“There is no fear of a terrorist attack, robbery, hooliganism?”

“There is nothing more to be afraid of!” Cordelia walked forward along the corridor without even turning around.

“I’m sorry what?”

“We have good security. Do not worry!”

“But I didn’t see anyone.”

“You have nothing. You came to watch a movie, not meet the guards.”

She was obviously teasing him, although how could she know that this morning he met the guard specifically in order to inquire about the local creepy sights.

“By the way, what’s the name of the film?”

“Didn’t you read the title on the invitation?”

The question shocked him. He was ashamed to admit that he did not understand the words that were printed there. From the sight of the letters either his head began to ache, or it seemed that these were not letters at all, but some obscure symbols and hieroglyphs. Indeed, he needs to drink less. His director is right.

Before entering the cinema, Daniel dropped his smartphone. How embarrassing! One movement, and the means of cellular communication with the world immediately shattered to smithereens. Now, even if they begin to kill him inside, he will not be able to call and warn anyone. Everything seems to be calculated in advance?! Daniel immediately dismissed the thought. No one is to blame that he did not get enough sleep that he had everything to fall out of hand. Some of his former agents liked to admonish him that the most important thing for a star is to get enough sleep in order to properly control his actions. Not having enough sleep, you look worse, and play badly, and you can blurt out something completely unnecessary to the public or journalists. And now, from fatigue, he controlled himself so badly that he could smash his head against the door lintel, and not just a smartphone.

“I’m not going further with you,” she said at the door. “There is no spare place left for me.”

“But there are plenty of places!” Daniel saw from the doorway that the whole hall was empty.

“There’s only one invitation for you,” Cordelia explained to the dull.

“And what does it change? The seats are all unoccupied, and there are five minutes left before the session, no more. Usually, in cinemas, no one is acting up, if a more convenient place is free, then the audience can easily change seats on it. Apart from special screenings, the auditorium is never completely occupied at movie shows. And here there are just no guards who will expose the free rider.” Why is Cordelia hugging so tight? Is she too proud to enter without a ticket?

“Anyone else coming?” Daniel asked after all. “Or I’m the only guest.”

“Take your seat and wait for the beginning,” she nodded dryly.

“Where is my place?” he didn’t even look at the invitation. Since Cordelia is here in charge of the controller, then let him conduct it herself. But she did not step into the hall. She just explained:

“In the very center!”

And that’s it! Her chic train of butterflies rustled behind the slammed doors. Daniel felt trapped as they closed. It looks like there will be no more spectators. The whole room is empty. The screen is blank. No one is around. Only the luxurious rows of chairs upholstered in purple velvet. The hall itself is good! It’s beautiful here, like at the royal court. The velvet is clearly real! The walls are gilded. The curtains at the entrance are also velvet. More like a sophisticated theater than a movie. But the blank screen in the center spoils the impression.

An animal slipped between the rows. He nearly fell as it ran over his leg.

He did not immediately notice the seven marble winged figures, which were scattered on the sides of the auditorium and one even at the stage. Did they come here themselves? Or are they just duplicates of the statues he saw at the entrance? It seems that there is nothing surprising in the fact that such eerie decorations are present here as well. It was more fitting for them to stand in a crypt or in a cemetery. Monuments on graves are most often decorated with such sculptures. Although here they may turn out to be just papier-mâché mannequins, light decor details. The appearance of marble is probably only an illusion. He wanted to get up and touch them to check it, but for some reason he did not dare. The beautiful white faces of the angels looked so sinister, especially when combined with pointed ears and long claws on white fingers. And their smiles are too predatory. It seems that they see everything with their empty white eyes without pupils.

Daniel turned away from the figures. For some reason he immediately got sick of watching the film in their presence. This will not be a session, but hell. It feels like seven white pieces are watching him closely. And why are there exactly seven of them, as well as in front of the entrance? Does this number mean something?

He did glance at them again. The light had already started to go out. The figures at the end of the rows were indistinguishable, but the same mystical decorations suddenly appeared in the seats of the auditorium – winged statues sitting right in the chairs and made so skillfully that their hands lay flat on the armrests, and their wings surrounded the back of the chair. There were also exactly seven seated figures, and they were scattered throughout the hall at a decent distance from each other. Well, the decoration came out of them cool and mysterious, but why didn’t he notice them when he entered? All the chairs a minute ago were empty. Or did the figures become visible only in the darkness? Did some kind of lighting turn on inside them? They are slightly phosphorescent. And if they had just been dragged into place, then why did he not hear any noise. He never went deep into his thoughts so that he did not notice anything around him. And now, Daniel noted that the light went out too suddenly. Usually in the cinema it is extinguished in stages, allowing the audience to get used to the semi-darkness, and then suddenly full darkness came at once. Only the figures in the chairs shone. Their presence was very uncomfortable. They are not alive, but the feeling was that they themselves flew here.

The instinct of self-preservation actively warned that they would now attack him. Someone walked through the rows. Daniel clearly heard footsteps and the grinding of metal on the floor, but turning around, he could not make out in the darkness even just a vague silhouette of the controller. But one of the angelic figures suddenly turned its head right at him. More precisely, he did not see how it turned its head, but before all the angels looked at the screen, and not in the direction of the chairs. And now, suddenly, one of the marble faces stared straight at him. The angel was sitting right in his row, only a dozen chairs away. Has he really sat here before? When Daniel took his place, the whole row was definitely empty. The feeling was that the next moment the marble fingers would touch the arm of his chair and squeeze his hand until he fainted.

Everything could be attributed to the 3D effect, but the film has not even started yet, and Daniel himself has no glasses. Or are there special ways to impress the viewer in this privileged area?

From somewhere behind there was the mechanical rustle of a spinning reel. A golden scarab was crawling across the screen. How did he get there? No, it’s not real. Daniel looked more closely. In fact, the show has already begun. The screen lit up, as if some gates had opened from within. No commercials before the movie starts. Amazing! The credits went straight away. He had never seen a gold title before. And the letters are strange. He couldn’t read them. Or double in his eyes? The scarab crawled between credits in every frame.

Someone touched Daniel on the shoulder. He did not turn, fearing to see that one of the statues was already standing right behind him. Better not to spoil your nerves once again. All the same, the doors of the hall are now closed, there is nowhere to run. Until the session is over, it is worth enjoying the film. However, instead of enjoyment, many questions arose. At the beginning something like “Lady of the Pharaohs” flashed in the credits. Strange, but still understandable. Probably, it was about some kind of goddess. But the next line, highlighted in especially large print “And his name is Dennitsa” evoked frightening associations. Dennitsa is one of the names of the devil, it seems, the one under which he gained fame in paradise. The name of the most beautiful angel! Bible! Daniel remembered some of it. But how are the biblical devil and Ancient Egypt connected? In those days, no one had ever heard of the Bible. Therefore, no one knew about the devil either.

Daniel was confused. The feeling of being inside the screen was strong and without the 3D effect. Rapidly flashing footage of ancient palaces mixed with some kind of horror, as if sucked consciousness into a funnel. What if this feeling does not go away, but remains with him forever. Consciousness swept through the ancient Egyptian halls and pyramids, past bloody wars, witchcraft and the rituals of burying mummies, as if in search of something. Luxury mixed with horror, which only intensified the all-encompassing nightmare effect. It seems that this is not horror, and not a historical drama, and not an action movie, or a biblical story, but all together. And it all has a kind of crushing realism.

The film was about a golden creature that has conquered rulers since the beginning of time. It crept across the screen. Its claws were palpably close. Palaces, temples, pyramids remained behind it in the frame as a background. The time of action was in fact not only the Ancient Egypt, but all eternity, from the war in the heavens to the present day. But the main action, apart from numerous digressions to the twenty-fifth frame, was concentrated precisely on Egypt during the reign of Akhenaten. His commander Taor, who returned with a great victory, at the moment of honoring the hero noticed a beautiful winged creature whispering advice to the pharaoh, and fell in love with her. This creature was the biblical devil who ruled the local kings like puppets. This creature, contrary to biblical descriptions, had a girlish face and body. The creature was called Alais, and this name contained some kind of magical wording. Alais was cruel to the point of horror and sacrificed people to resurrect the army of demons from the desert sands. Taor was noble and inclined to self-sacrifice so much that he could be called a true Christian, although no one knew about Christianity at that time. And such a generous guy, ready to beg Pharaoh for forgiveness even for those who intended to kill him, fell in love with a creature performing bloody rituals. Love for Alais so overshadowed his brain that he was ready to give up all his own beliefs. But Alais, as it turned out, is not capable of loving anyone at all. The rejected young man, not finding a place for himself, wandered through the deserts and met the Archangel Michael himself, who put a dagger with two dragons on the hilt in his hand, capable of killing Alais.

What a special effect! It was even painful to look at Mikhail, so he shone, and the dragons on the dagger moved and hissed as if alive. And here is the only goodbye kiss in the tomb. Taor sacrificed himself only so that a monster would come to replace the angel. Everything fused from gold plates, clawed, multi-armed, like Kali, vaguely resembling a precious scarab.

The frames flashed like a top. Pyramids, mummification rites, a fallen army rising from the sands, deserts, rivers, palaces. And everywhere it is. Dazzling! Overshadowing the mind! Spooky! And beautiful.

It was already crawling across the stark darkness of the screen. It reached out with golden claws to Daniel’s throat. It breathed heat and fire into his face. It was near. Already in the hall. Between his row of seats and the previous one. He was willing to swear it. He even had a chance to feel the touch of hot metal claws on his neck, to look into bleeding sand-colored eyes, sparkling from under a pile of thin gold plates twisted with bizarre symbols.

Is this a creature from hell or from Egypt? In any case, it is here and now he will die, as all the pharaohs who did not obey him died.

And suddenly the light came on. There was no golden monster around. And the film did not come out of his head. For some reason, the story of Taor and Alais felt like a cutting pain in his mind. Daniel was never sentimental, but now he involuntarily wondered: why did all the greatness of history end in tragedy? Why these two, as if created for each other, could not stay together.

Of course, he did not voice the question out loud, but someone’s ringing voice boldly and mockingly answered him from the other end of the hall:

“Because she was the devil!”