Читать книгу Film About the Demon. Daughter of the Dawn - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 3

The cinema was almost empty. And they said that there is nowhere for an apple to fall on these films. Annette was a little disappointed, although solitude was just what she needed now.

Her dreams were quickly crumbling. A career in Hollywood was not for her. The name of Annette Fiore never became popular, although sometimes it flashed on the strips of newspapers. She’s just a starlet and will obviously remain her until her hair is gray. The world of the movie business is cruel. Only those who have grandiose connections are promoted here. The new star, which burst into the screens with a series of mystical films about Lucifer, as a meteor, had these connections.

Annette knew that no one just became famous. Talent doesn’t matter. You can’t go through the casting with him. You, of course, will be praised, but they will carefully look in the questionnaire, what is your pedigree, whether there are star parents or influential friends. The actors are kept under control. Only those who are satisfied with the grandiose promotion in the press and on television become famous. There will be many beautiful false words that the main thing is talent, not the stars’ striving for fame. In fact, the main thing is the influential people who pull the strings and the press, and all the other necessary structures necessary in order to turn an ordinary unremarkable actor into a mega-star.

Anyone can become a movie superstar if they have the connection to do so. Anetta’s trouble was that she had practically no connections. Yes, there were two or three acquaintances who organized her the roles of the second and third plan, once even the first. By acting in films and not having influential acquaintances who organize your advertising campaign, you can expect fame as well as winning the lottery. Annette was much more beautiful than all the vaunted beauties of Hollywood, but no one noticed her, except for young guys who idly scurry about the streets in the hope of meeting at least some pretty girl. On the contrary, nowhere and no one paid attention to movie stars, except at the premieres. All of them were repeatedly abandoned women who bartered with the right people and used them to keep out talented outsiders to fame. Everyone at the film studios was someone’s acquaintances, relatives, lovers, and sometimes the children of some business partners. For someone’s creature, the green light is everywhere. Hence, there are so many mediocre stars who are completely invisible to no one without promotion in the press. Hence, there are so many articles about the legendary beauty of women and men, who look no different from ordinary passers-by in the crowd.

But the rising star could not be said to be devoid of unique beauty. Probably, in connection with her, they used some new special effect not yet known to the masses, which helped to create the impression of a divinely beautiful face. Atenais on the screen looked like a creature from a fairy tale. This is why she favorably differed from all the average stars, whose vaunted virtues exist only in articles. Curious: does Atenais have this beauty behind the scenes when he washes off his makeup? If so, then it is clear why she so quickly eclipsed all the stars who successfully made a career before her. However, if the envious actresses still have not torn her to pieces, then the patrons behind her are very powerful.

“You have no idea how powerful they are,” a hoarse voice whispered in the darkened cinema hall. Annette glanced around, only empty rows of unoccupied chairs stretched behind her. She was not surprised. The sensation was as if the voice was coming from everywhere: from above, below, and to the left and to the right. Probably it seemed.

Several people who were present, besides her, in the cinema, were hardly in the mood to joke. In addition, in order to connect some kind of audio system with insidious phrases in response to her thoughts, they had to first become magicians themselves in order to learn how to read these thoughts.

Her thoughts belong only to her. She is free to think about what she wants. But she would not have dared to tell someone at the film studios in person that he brazenly promotes the creature of people who are beneficial to him instead of selecting actors by talent. People, although they suffer from injustice, are silent so as not to lose what little they have.

“But if people had nothing left but pain, everyone would become criminals and rebels,” someone’s insolent ringing voice rang out. “And the world would have drowned in terror, as in the days of the French Revolution. I remember those times and I want a repetition.”

Annette had already convinced herself that the voice was only heard in her head, so she didn’t turn around. The heads of the spectators in front of her remained motionless. If other viewers, like her, heard the voice, they would also begin to turn around at the sound and hiss viciously.

The film began, and Anetta was involuntarily glad that the audience was few. When the rows are overcrowded, you want to run away from the cinema, like from a nest of hooligans. Someone crunches with popcorn, someone whispers with a girlfriend, some couples kiss with relish, making unpleasant sounds. Those who come to watch a movie, and not to squeeze, become uncomfortable. In the theater, it is different – discipline is the first rule there. But Anette did not like theaters. There is no full-fledged illusion of reality created by the special effects of cinema. Everything is possible in the film: show a bloody war with many deaths, demonstrate ghosts and vampires, arrange an apocalypse, create a demon.

The demon has been created! The most powerful and beautiful demon performed by Athenais. How good she is! Previously, Annette scoffed at the sight of the faces of stars in glossy magazines, which were no different from the average saleswomen and hairdressers. Any young girl who sits at the checkout in a supermarket is more beautiful than all the Hollywood stars put together. So where does so much noise about the beauty of actors come from for inexperienced people in life, it is not entirely clear. With Athenais, the opposite was true. All articles about her beauty could not convey even a little bit of her charm. Either the journalists failed to do it, or words could not convey her greatness.

The film flickering on the screen was called “Angel for Nero.” According to rumors from the film studios, Anetta knew that at first they were going to give him the name “Lions and Angels”, which was changed immediately before the rental. The last name conveyed the essence more accurately. Although the film was about the emperor who persecuted the first Christians with lions, the mass scenes were only a background for the romance between the angel who came from the darkness and Nero. The plot turned the whole idea of good and evil upside down. The fire of Rome was associated with a repetition of the pogrom once experienced by the heroine after the uprising of her angels in the heavens. And there, and here she impulsively staged an apocalypse, but the viewer’s sympathy remained on her side. Although after watching the word “angel” began to scare.

Annette was not worried about the grandiose plan of equating Christian sects with evil and exalting a fallen angel. She, as a starlet, liked the heroine’s lover much more. Is it difficult to take over the whole world if your patron is the most powerful emperor in the world! In those days, Rome was the greatest empire. The demonic heroine Atenais very wisely did, coming from the darkness of nothingness, straight to the bed of the emperor Nero. From his imperial chambers, she could easily rule the whole world.

“I would have such a patron,” thought Annette, “and I would become the number one star, the same as Athenais, because outwardly I look like her.”

Although the similarity is not complete, but a beautiful image on the screen is naturally created with the help of special illumination and the titanic efforts of makeup artists. In addition, when you watch a movie in a dark cinema, everything seems much more spectacular and attractive than later on the TV screen. The same movies in the theater and on the tablet make completely different impressions. It’s all about the visuals.

Annette was struck by the greatness of the demon embodied on the screen. With a less beautiful actress, the film would not be so amazing. Let it just be that she has a slightly fresher and better basis for the efforts of make-up artists than other actresses. But how did such a beauty even pass through the wall of cinematic intriguers? Except as the intervention of the owner of the film studio or the president himself, this could not be explained. Every actress needs her own Nero, or even several, to achieve star status.

Curious who is behind Athenais? Who are her powerful patrons?

“All the demons of hell!”

Annette turned towards the sound. Someone walked behind. A silhouette in a red hood was visible in the beams of the projection booth. Just for a moment! Could it be imagined?

Something vibrated under the floor, as if a whole flock of demons were in a hurry to get out into the world, as is happening now on the screen! It seemed that the leg was touched by someone’s sharp claws. Couldn’t there be rats in the cinema?

The girl turned her gaze to the screen. The winged beloved Nero just had a rival – her twin from the society of Christians. Both roles were played by Athenais. With different hairstyles, she looked great. You can’t even tell who is better: a graceful angel living in a palace or a demoniac beggar who tried to cut her face off so as not to look like the archangel Lucifer. The skin cut from the face turned into a living mask of gold, and the demoniac girl remained a beauty and entered into a conspiracy to kill her divine double. The intrigue twisted abruptly. Palaces, wars and senate disputes were interspersed with witchcraft under the guise of religion. Fallen Angel and Nero turned out to be the perfect match.

Annette stared with envy. One crazy idea was beating in her head.

“I want to be like her! Like Athenais! I want to take away from her everything that she has, like that demoniac Christian woman who was born absolutely like her. I look like her too! I, too, can be a star like her!”

“You’re on time! She just needs a body! She cannot attend social events with wings behind her back!”

Someone touched Annette’s cheek with a black claw. Oddly enough, she was not scared. The closeness of a creature that seemed to breathe fire resembled a fragment from a film. Here in the theater, it was as appropriate as the 3D effect.

“Do you think that fame is just a matter of luck?” mockingly croaked a voice like an animal. “Do you want the same patrons as hers?”

“And who are her patrons?” Annette half turned. A dark-skinned man in a bright red cape with a hood froze in the back row. There was little light from the glare from the screen, but it was still possible to notice that his face was disfigured almost to the point of an animal.

If there is no psychologist nearby, then you can pour out your soul to him – a stranger in red, resembling a monster.

“The same patrons as hers could have been mine. Why was she lucky and not me?”

Someone behind him gave a dull laugh and bent down to Annette. The sleeve of a scarlet cape slapped her cheek. The fabric was hot as fire.

“The king of kings does not need patrons. He himself decides which of the rulers of the world to give power, and from whom to take away. My mistress rules over kings, heads of republics. So it started long ago.”

“This is the plot of her first film ‘And his name is Dennitsa’, for which she became famous and all.”

Annette herself did not watch this film, but according to reviews in the press she remembered that Athenais played the archangel Lucifer there, who after falling into the Egyptian desert took a seductive female appearance and began to rule over the pharaohs.

“It’s not easy to rule people,” rare gold jewelry flashed on the stranger’s black fingers, as if stolen from a museum. “She rules!”

“In her role! On the screen!”

“Everywhere! But she needs you.”

“What for? To play in public the role of her sister or a poor relative who has benefited? – or what other tricks do movie stars have?”

“That there was no second Octavia.”

Annette frowned. Octavia! That was the name of the demon-possessed Christian woman from the film who, with a charmed dagger and a magic mask, entered the palace to attack the winged mistress of Nero. She could win this fight, but she no longer survives. If the stranger speaks symbolically, then she is lured into a trap.

“I’m making you a lucrative offer,” he seemed to object in response to her thoughts.

“And if I refuse?”

Black claws scratched lightly on her shoulder under her thin blouse.

“And what will you be left without Atenais? Dullness of life and emptiness?”

Annette understood the meaning of his words only when she left the cinema on bent legs. Together with the session, the whole life seemed to end. Splendor and luxury remained behind the shabby wall along with the extinct screen. Under the doors of the cinema, only darkness reigned, the daily routine and the ugliness of filthy cities.

Where did the fairy tale go? Gloomy neighborhoods, pale neon signs, ugly faces of oncoming people are all around. The human world has become like hell. She wanted to take a knife and cut everyone, as Octavia tried to kill an angel, and then herself. Now she could be understood.

As a child, Annette read fairy tales about people who visited the land of fairies, talked there with magical creatures, and then returned back to the mortal world and realized that they could no longer live in it. How can you live among people if you have been in the company of fairies!

Annette walked along familiar streets, which suddenly turned into a cloaca of abominations. The masses of people around looked disgusting, like crowds of demons. She wanted to go back to the cinema, even if at the cost of her life. Back to Athenais and her amazing world of emperors and fallen angels.

Annette vomited violently, although she did not eat popcorn or cotton wool in the theater. The girl leaned against the wall of a shop. The vomit left on the asphalt looked like a puddle of blood in which something was stirring. From the outside it could seem that she spit out her own intestines. The whole action resembled a nightmare.

“Even if people return from the fairy world with generous gifts, they still climb into the noose, because they are drawn back to the fairies!” hummed a chorus of children’s voices around the corner ominous counting rhyme. “And there is no turning back!”

What do you mean no? There was a way back to the cinema. You just need to get money for a ticket. Annette suddenly understood the addicts who can kill for a dose when withdrawing. If she didn’t have enough little change to buy a ticket for the session, she would definitely kill someone to take the money. Has the film made her mad? Is there something hypnotic in it that acts on the audience like a drug? Some kind of psychiatric syndrome or an insidious mixture of the twenty-fifth frame with angelic philosophy? All this struck her in the brain like a strong drug.

“Do not go to the fairies to visit even once, if you do not want your soul to remain in their claws forever,” they continued to sing around the corner. “The body without a soul is only a loop. Therefore, those who have left the kingdom of the fairies also leave life. Unless there is a way back. But the doors are usually closed. A narrow gap opens only once in a century, with the arrival of a winged deity.”

The intonations became mocking and threatening. It feels like it’s not children who are singing, but monsters imitating children’s voices. Annette glanced around the corner. Children’s figures were dancing there. In the darkness away from the lantern, they seemed ghostly. It’s not Halloween today, but they’re wearing costumes with wings and horns. Pranksters, in a word! One of the children glanced at Annette. He saw her, even though she was hiding around the corner. His eyes and grin were not childish at all. He could still paint his lips a bloody color, but where did the children get their red eyes?

The shocked Annette turned away and walked away, back to the dark movie theater called Akhetaton. Despite the late hour, the audience was invited to the next session. The ticket cost twice as much as the previous one, but she paid without hesitation.

“In order to get back into the world of fairies, a man of heads at everything,” the children’s choir caught up with her here. “But what are you going to do if the back door is closed?”

The door of the shabby building, oddly enough, really resembled a mythical creature with a hole-mouth, eyes-bas-reliefs and a ring instead of a handle. How did Annette not notice this on her first visit? They said that “Akhetaton” is a chic chain of cinemas, but here only the cast-iron door, decorated under the mouth of a manticore, was chic. When you enter it, there is a feeling that the cinema has swallowed you and will not let you out. And in his womb they show horror films about the rebellion of angels, and how demons take over the world.

For some reason, children on the street sang about fairies, but according to the Atenais films, fairies, elves and all magical creatures are just a cohort of rebel angels who were the least guilty and partially retained their beauty. But there was even more evil and deceit in them than in full-fledged demons. All magic comes from the fallen Lucifer. But for some reason, magic was practiced in the Christian community. To understand everything, you need to watch the film twice, Annette assured herself. In fact, without glancing at Atenais’s beautiful face again, she would definitely fit into the noose.

The house is now lonely and empty. Parents died long ago, and the only living sister Leah, the twin of Annette herself, left for excavations in Egypt six months ago. You shouldn’t wait home any time soon. Leah might not have returned from her archaeological trips for years. Who would have liked the first film with Athenais, because Ancient Egypt and the demons who settled in it were shown there in all its splendor. When demons appear, archaeological secrets no longer remain. Their appearance explains everything.

Annette herself was stuck in the era of Nero’s reign. It was so strange for a frivolous person who did not appreciate history that it was worth laughing. History books and films used to make her sick. She went to this film only because she was in a confusion of feelings. For depression you don’t think about what to treat. Athenais completely healed her and led her into a world from which there is no way out. Because demons live here and the essence of the whole universe is revealed.

“Came again!” a voice called her from behind. Together with him, this time strange sounds were heard, as if a reel was spinning and a film was rustling. Hasn’t the cinema already switched to new display technologies? Although it is old, you can expect anything here. There was also something archaic in the voice behind her, as if he were calling from a tomb in the deserts of Egypt where Leah was now stuck.

“Everyone comes back, but no one breaks out!”

What could this mean? Annette was no longer going to enter into discussions. She was captivated by the film. She wanted to see only dazzling footage, and not listen to an ominous stranger.

Titles flashed across the screen like crawling insects. Scarabs! Leah had a variety of scarab ornaments. The letters glittered like precious beetles crawling out of the box. Strangely, except for the name Atenais, Annette did not remember anyone from the credits. Who is the director of her films? Who are the producers? Who are the production designers and cameramen? Who are the make-up and costume designers? It was as if they weren’t all there. The titles themselves resembled the ligature of hieroglyphs. It seems that they, like an Arabic letter, should be read not from left to right, but from right to left. No matter how hard she tried to read, Annette did not recognize the names of Atenais’ assistants who played all the other roles. Who, for example, is that dark-haired handsome man who played Nero? As soon as Annette tried to find him with a glance in the credits, a severe pain hit her head. She had to close her eyes for a moment.

The film, oddly enough, turned out to be different. She remembered exactly that she had bought a ticket for a repeat session. However, a new film with Athenais was on the screen. It seems “Waters over Atlantis”. The tape showed an ancient fantastic civilization, which was inhabited not by people, but by terrible mythical creatures: winged, terrestrial, underwater. Many of them crawled straight out of the waves to bow to the golden throne of the deity played by Athenais. The deity’s name was Alais. How consonant with the name of the actress. Alais was winged and all-powerful. Once she was the very archangel Dennitsa who raised a rebellion in the heavens and fell. Now her army of angels, turned into monsters, built their frightening civilization on the bones of humanity. All went well until a mirror appeared in the throne room. Where it came from, Annette overlooked.

Alais’s reflection came to life and emerged from the mirror as her double. Such a double could be left to rule in his place. Alais was profitable. After all, she secretly flew away from her monstrous people on business. But her double imagines himself to be her and decided to seize power for herself, as she once tried to take power from the Almighty herself. A fight was brewing.

The view of Atlantis somehow reminded Annette of an old visit to Leah’s dig. Then she met a disfigured madman in the sands. He shouted something about the fact that some sight of magic would ruin her.

Annette did not regret that she came to the cinema, although it was the path to death. The film sucked her in like a whirlpool vortex. From the viewing, there was a painful sensation, as if someone had inserted red-hot needles into her pupils. The session had barely begun, and blood was already flowing from her eyes. She hasn’t looked for ten minutes yet, and there is no way to look further. Everything around is darkening, there are some whispers in her ears.

“When you leave the hall, look around and see how many spectators have already committed violence against themselves and others after they were here before you!”

The disfigured man in the sands was right. The spectacle of magic has driven her to the point that now maddening voices sound in her brain. The red and sticky substance ran down her cheeks, turning into tears of blood. The sands underneath the pyramids at the excavations also cried in human blood, according to Leah.

The film was on. It was difficult to see behind the bloody veil. But the blood from the eyes is still a small price to pay for the fact that you want to see the real biography of the devil himself on the screen.

The cinema is full of creepy creatures, and a minute ago the chairs were empty.

Now all around was a sarcastic giggle, claw scratching and the sound of black leathery wings. Annette wiped her eyes and looked at the row in front of her. Beasts with fur-covered faces, twisted horns and spiked foreheads gazed at her. And all these animals behaved like a civilized public. This is hell!

“Go away, everyone!” Annette stepped on someone’s claws that crawled out from under the floorboards and scratched her ankle. Oddly enough it was worth breaking into a cry, as the hall was empty. Only a few heads of some spectators in front looked at her in bewilderment. These are ordinary people with simple human faces; no membranes, no horns, no claws!

The blood from the eyes stopped flowing, but there were red marks on the fingers. The eyes hurt. Annette had no handkerchief with her, and she stained her skirt and blouse with blood.

The tempting voice of Alais, who won, sounded from the screen. Her double was so severely crippled that he himself turned into a monster, consisting entirely of gold plates. The golden creature was crawling across the screen, overgrown with thorns and tentacles of solid gold. It opened many pairs of multi-colored eyes at once and stared at the audience.

Annette shuddered. It feels like it looked into her soul. Could some demon see her from the screen? Or is it the nerves are naughty? Even a nosebleed is usually enough to make even the most persistent person panic. And her blood was just pouring out of her eyes. She could have gone blind! But she didn’t go blind just to look into the hypnotizing eyes of the creature, which rearranged the letters of the name Alais and called itself Cialas. Mirror copy Alais became a monster of gold. With its golden limbs, it killed as easily as with knives. It was moving fast, like a centipede, and it seemed that it was about to slide off the screen.

The feeling that the demon from the movie was about to invade the hall was so real that Annette jumped up from her seat. And that’s it! The film ended abruptly. There were no end credits on the screen. The seats in the front rows were empty. Was Annette the only spectator for the entire session? Of course, it’s very late now, but there is always someone in the theater, at least three or four people. For a single viewer, the film is unlikely to be rolled out. But that’s how it happened. No one around. The screen is dark and empty, and the golden creature, as if slipping from it, is already standing next to her in the empty hall. How did it get here? Did it really come off the screen? Immediately, many clawed hands reached out to her face.

“The same!” dozens of pairs of sparkling, like precious stones, rainbow eyes stared at Annette’s face. “One face, but two of you! What you need!”

These claws are like knives. And they all reached out to caress her face. She seemed to be caught in a ball of sharp razors, but managed to recoil. Cialas’s claws slid only along her elbow, and oddly enough did not cut, but only burned. And then a light suddenly came on in the hall. There are only empty rows of chairs around. The golden being is no longer among them.