Читать книгу Film About the Demon. Daughter of the Dawn - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 2

“Is she a real demon or is this just her role?” whispered reporters, waiting in the rain with television cameras. “Sometimes it seems that real.”

Kiril fought his way through the crowd. The fans of Athenais were innumerable. What only makes people jump off their seats and travel many miles to get a glimpse of someone they spotted in an impressive film? Star status gives rise to an idol, for which fans are not afraid to stand without an umbrella in the pouring rain and push each other almost to death. And thus it begins to seem that the star that provoked this whole situation came from hell itself.

Athenais drove the audience into temptation in a way that no idols before her did. Kiril himself, watching films with her, often thought: for her sake, you can kill.

“Are you ready to die for her right here and right now?”

In the huge, roaring crowd, it was difficult to establish who said this. But Kiril immediately determined that the voice, literally whispering in his ear, actually comes from someone who is far away. This someone was wrapped in a red hooded cape, which not only replaced his raincoat, but also gave a certain stately status. It seemed that he was hovering above the crowd, so freely he moved through it. His face under the hood was ugly. Gold earrings in the nose and lips seemed to be inserted into the rotting flesh of the corpse. From the stranger in red breathed with the atmosphere and mystery of Ancient Egypt. It seemed that the tomb in the pyramid had just been opened, and he crawled out, exuding aromas of luxury and decay.

“Anekh?” Kiril himself did not remember how he knows the name of this creature. To call him a man, he just did not turn his tongue. He probably saw him in some film, but could no longer remember which one.

He first saw Athenais herself in a film about Ancient Egypt, and oddly enough, he was extremely impressed. Although Egypt was not his favorite topic, in order to get another look at Athenais, he bought a ticket to a movie about all the eras in a row.

And now, two films about Russian history have been brought to Moscow, where she, of course, played the role of a demon who is present next to the rulers and imposes her will on them. He had already missed the first film, because it was not so easy to travel by train to Moscow from the province where he lived. Finding out where the premiere will take place turned out to be even more difficult. Such information could not be found either in the press or on the Internet. How did all these people know where to gather? Kiril himself would have gone on in an unsuccessful search for the right place in Moscow if some strange disfigured stranger had not shown him where to go. What kind of vagrants you will not meet in the capital! Goodwill was like a creature made of hell. A homeless man, apparently, from which for some reason smelled of ash, not mud. Of course, he hid for days somewhere in a cooled oven, and was not one of the burned fallen angels, about which films were made with Athenais. She herself most often played the role of Lucifer in them, who, after the fall, reincarnated, taking on a seductive girlish appearance.

Kiril did not expect that his star would ever reach Russia, but saved up money in advance for a ticket to Cannes or Los Angeles. The announcement of her arrival appeared so suddenly, as if she had forgotten someone or something here. The premiere was not in Oktyabr, where he was initially advised to go, and even less so in the Pushkin cinema, which had long since been converted into a musical hall. A creepy-looking tramp indicated the right direction, and Kiril did not even have time to shove a change on his bread. He was in too much of a hurry. The cinema he needed was called “Akhetaton” in honor of the long-destroyed Egyptian city. Kiril heard that a chain of cinemas with this name has opened luxury branches all over the world. Near all of them, terrible events allegedly took place, up to the deaths.

It was calm here so far, apart from the crush. Kiril managed to break into the front ranks. He prepared a specially purchased notebook for his autograph. He wanted to get Atenais’s autograph on coated blank paper, not on a flyer taken from the cash register, much less a photo printed on a color printer. Although now the latter has become more fashionable. Many wanted to get an autograph, but almost no one showed up with notebooks. Now they generally prefer selfies. What for? He saw high-quality photos of Atenais in magazines and so. But her name, inscribed with her own hand… there was something mystical about it.

A deafening rumble rolled through the crowd. A black lacquered car with Athenais was already pulling up. Kiril held his breath. Now he will see her, and not somewhere far abroad, but in his homeland. She seemed to have brought with her the breath of other countries, ancient civilizations and something demonic that escaped from the opened tomb of the pharaohs and captured the whole world.

“Don’t go to her premiere!” Kiril’s brother, who was now on a business trip, warned. He himself had already seen Athenais and hinted that she was dangerous. For Mikhail, everyone was dangerous. Carrying out special tasks of the FSB, he suspected everyone and everything. If a star is involved with crime, then for fans she is unlikely to pose a danger. Although Michael said something about the fact that the threat associated with Atenais does not come from the underworld, but from other dark forces. It is curious if Mikhail has not been damaged by his reason, being too responsible for his work. Even his voice on the international telephone line sounded like the admonition of the madman Renfield from the Bram Stoker novel.

“If you look at her, you will perish! Her films have a program of world destruction. More precisely – pushing people to self-destruction. These films are capable of influencing the subconscious, driving the viewer into a complex psychological trap.”

“Why, then, is not an order issued to ban them?”

Silence hung in the receiver.

“There are too influential people behind her.”

“Who? Politicians? Presidents? Dead kings from her films? Or is Satan himself?”

“The latter is most likely,” Mikhail’s voice reminded him of a patient. “The king of kings is the devil. And she is him.”

Delirium of the insane! Kiril hung up the phone, not giving a damn about how much the international call cost, to give him this warning. Emails alone were not enough for Mikhail. It was necessary to tell him that he had already watched all the films with Athenais and was not crazy, did not even acquire any passion for self-destruction, except for freezing to death in the rain, waiting for his star.

Let the limousine that brought her look more like a coffin for a vampire, and the bodyguards look like demons in uniform black suits. But she herself is like the sun. Here is that rare case when the appearance of a star surpasses her photographs and the image in the frame, and not vice versa.

“The sun! Shine! Evil! Dennitsa!”

Who spoke this empty set of words? The crowd chanted only the name of the star. And someone was whispering in Kiril’s ear, like a demon who climbed right onto his shoulder.

“The sun from antiquity shines to destroy us all. It just took him too long to burn our world. It’s already here.”

Someone seemed to scratch his ear with claws. Kiril turned around nervously. What other fans will not come up with to drive him out of the front rows! Only no one touched or scratched him. They only pushed, but it came out spontaneously.

All the fans were eager for Atenais. He himself did not consider himself a fan. He tried to catch her eye from afar. He came because she called him. From the screen! The feeling that she was calling him from the films, like through some kind of window, came long ago. And then he dreamed of her. In his dreams, she was a real demon, not a cinematic one. And he obeyed her, coming to her call.

Atenais was not wearing an evening dress. A long scarlet robe, woven by dragons, he had already seen in films. For some reason, the golden angel head combined with it looked frightening. Kiril caught himself thinking that Atenais, who was nearby, began to scare him, and not just beckon. Some overwhelming power emanated from her. It seemed as soon as she shed her robe, and real black wings would move under it.

He wanted to say “I love you” as soon as she came closer, but now she was already there, and her tongue did not move. The lips were numb. It seemed that next to him a living statue, which shines like the sun, and its beauty hurts the eyes.

As if by magic, Athenais, almost oblivious to the others in the audience, stopped right in front of him and grabbed his hand instead of taking a pen and notebook. Kiril felt how he crashed into the low metal partitions at the aisle. Only they shared it with his dream. Atenais’ face breathed cold, but it seemed that she was now dying in fire, like a real dragon.

Her gilded fingernails ran over his wrist and cut in a way that a knife would not have been able to do. How did she do it? Blood flowed instantly. And the crowd around took everything for granted. Precisely, there are rumors about her that she signs autographs with the blood of fans, Kiril recalled. That’s why she hasn’t given one yet today. When she gives them, blood flows. His head was spinning with blood loss. If such a deep wound is not bandaged, he will die. But no one was in a hurry to call an ambulance, or at least sympathize. Everything was perceived as a special effect, and, frankly, from the outside it resembled a scene from a horror movie.

Atenais, as if nothing had happened, dipped the tips of her nails in his blood and signed an ornate autograph in a notebook. Already losing consciousness, Kiril could not figure out why the coveted autograph scares him off with a thick bright red color.