Devil’s Cinema. Crypt of the Seven Angels

Someone in a scarlet robe sensed that Daniel was looking at him and raised his bulldog face. Daniel shuddered and hastily turned away. It’s good that they are separated by dozens of rows, otherwise one could be frightened.

Self-consolation turned out to be premature. A moment and someone in red was already nearby, just in the back row. How swift he could move if he wanted to. Is he? Or is it? Daniel noticed black hands touching the back of the chair next to him. They looked more like the paws of an outlandish beast.

The creature touched his shoulder with its talons, the edge of the red sleeve nearly burning. It seemed like a fabric like silk, but it turned out to be tougher than sandpaper.

“What do you feel?”

The question was eerily sudden. Although the creature had a soft, slightly hissing voice, the thought burned through the mind that it could speak at all.

“Let go!”

Daniel lunged, but his claws were harder than metal.

“What do you feel?” It repeated as a refrain. His breath burned his ear like fire. “You look at her and feel that she belongs only to you. To the only living spectator here. Because she’s already dead. The dead may have admirers, but they cannot have lovers who own them. For this reason, many distraught fans dream of killing living stars in order to take possession of them completely. The body dies, but the picture in the frames lives forever. You buy a ticket or a video disc, and you completely get rid of jealousy. After all, the video is all that remains of it. And she’s yours. Not real, so reproduced in electronics. And who needs a mortal body?

The voice of the creature stirred a painful memory: rain, limousine, premiere, shot, belated reaction of the bodyguards. Daniel nearly died that evening. Some nutcase who allegedly came up for an autograph shot him. And the guards couldn’t help. And the marble statues in front of the red carpet… It could only seem.

“To kill a star means to take possession of it forever. Lucky you. You are in love with an already dead woman. No one will embrace her before your eyes. No one will hurt you.”

“And the film that is on…” There on the screen in the final scene Taor tried to kiss her, but ran into an angelic inaccessibility.

“The one that starred in it no longer walks on earth among people, no longer lives, therefore, watching the film, you can assume that she belongs only to you. After all, it only exists on the screen. In front of you. You look at it and you know that it is as much your property as the rolling tape or disc you bought in the store. She will not make you jealous by coming to the next premiere. She remained only inside the film. There she can no longer harm herself or others.

“Did you kill her?”

In response, only a dull, mocking laugh. Hard, sharp claws gripped Daniel’s hair and pulled his head back. He nearly hit the back of his head against the back of the chair. He had to look into the eyes of the creature that was standing behind. The madman’s eyes were terrifying, bestial.

“Everyone’s safe since she only lived in the film. Or is it not? While the body of Atenais rots many meters underground, her cast in the frames lives by itself and harasses all of us. Look! You don’t get the feeling that she is much more alive on the screen than everyone who comes here.”

Yes! Oddly enough, he had such a feeling. Daniel caught himself thinking that in some ways the creature is still right. Ono speaks like a distraught fan, ready at any moment to get a knife and stab his diva. For him, worshiping her is the same as immediately building a kind of Taj Mahal for her. It pronounces modern words, but they breathe some kind of antiquity, like from Persia or India of pre-Christian times, and it seems that it came from there. His strong black claws clenched more and more on Daniel’s shoulder, gradually getting closer to his throat. Another moment, and they will begin to choke him.

“What you need?” the guy begged.

“What do you need?” the strangler responded with a dull echo, already clutching his throat. “Why did you come here?”

“The first time to commit suicide,” Daniel admitted honestly. Now his already past desire can fatally come true if nothing is done. It is a pity that the murderer attacked him belatedly, and not before he got sick of dying. “But the second time I came here to…”

“Find out how she died.”

“Sort of,” Daniel croaked. He was gasping for breath, dense claws began to choke him, while only lightly pressing on his throat, but the air was suddenly not enough.

At this point, the final murder scene was taking place in the film. But instead of a beautiful angel head rolling across the floor, this time he saw a dazzling golden monster. At first, he crawled only in the corner of the screen, then the image scale increased. Suddenly entering the frame, the creature suddenly expanded to fill the entire screen. Its claws scraped with a heartbreaking sound and it seemed that they were about to emerge from the film. Probably, Daniel only thought that their edges slipped over the edge of the screen.

It’s time to get out of here, flashed through his head. Someone in red behind him just loosened his grip. Probably, he, too, stared at the creature ready to crawl into the auditorium. The illusion that the movie was about to end and it would burst in here was so real that it became scary. But someone from behind was not afraid, he just seemed to be waiting for this creature. A chuckle was heard behind. It was as if fire breathed in the face from the screen. The creature’s eyes looked into the auditorium. They were bright emerald green against the golden bones of the face. Then they began to sparkle with all the colors of the rainbow, like a kaleidoscope. Looking at them is like getting hit hard on the head. The look seemed to shock. Daniel quickly wriggled out of the black claws and rushed to the exit from the auditorium. Something crawled behind him, and so on to the very doors, until he bumped into the marble back of an angel standing there. Amazingly, the angel really turned out to be marble. Not a mannequin, not a papier-mâché doll, but a heavy massive statue, like in a cemetery. It is strange how Daniel did not bump into it at the entrance, because it stood almost right next to the doors.

As soon as he left the threshold, it turned out that no one was chasing him. Maybe someone in a red robe was just a joker or an unemployed actor who wandered around the cinema, trying to show his talent at least here. The claws could be false. It is a pity that they left a rather deep mark on the neck.

Daniel looked for Alais, but she was nowhere to be seen. He came here partly because he really wanted to see her again.

Only Cordelia was here today. She laid out cool paraphernalia for the upcoming Halloween on a table in the vestibule: severed fingers and ears, and a set of bloodied needles of various sizes. It all looked pretty realistic. Daniel wonder if she’s going to sew such ridiculous decorations to her dress. Or will she trade them right here before the horror movie starts, when more of the audience comes? Is there ever a lot of people here? Every time he came, everything was empty.

“You seem to be from the same family,” she said unexpectedly. “You and the statues.”

She meant, of course, the angels.

“You are very similar in faces. If you, too, were made of marble, then you would not be distinguished.”

But he was alive. Daniel felt embarrassed that he was compared to statues that would be more decent to stand on graves or in a crypt than here in a cinema.

“All of you, Rosier, are twins.”

“My family has a different surname.”

“But of course not the pseudonym under which you went to act in films.”

“Not that one,” he admitted honestly. “How do you know about the Rosier family. Few people remember these legends now.”

“There used to be one of their estates nearby.” Cordelia threaded a large needle with a thread of such a rich scarlet hue that it could not be distinguished from a blood vein.

– Seriously? I didn’t know. There are two places where ghosts live.

“And why did you decide that ghosts live here?”

“Many people talk about this in the city.” Well, not quite so. There were rumors that the movie theater was cursed, but for Daniel, there was not much of a difference between cursed places and haunted houses. Probably because he has never visited either one or the other.

“Rumors often distort the truth.”

“And you…”

“I’m just sewing,” she retorted, not letting him finish the thought. And he just wanted to ask if she knows about something that is not rumors, but the truth. It would be interesting to know the truth about this cinema. Why is it still open, although officially everyone considers it closed for a long time? Why is there bad news about him? Why was it nicknamed the Devil’s Cinema? Does the name have some mystical overtones or is it just a metaphor related to the terrorist attack that once took place here? What is devilish about this place besides the horror films that are shown here?

Cordelia was just starting to sew red thread through one of the ghastly things that looked like severed flesh. It seemed that blood was oozing from the toys along with the thread. Interesting! Will they host a private Halloween party here? And will many VIP-persons be invited to it at once, and not just one? But Cordelia didn’t hear any questions as she began humming as she sewed. Realizing that nothing could be achieved from her, Daniel turned and walked towards the exit.

“Daniel,” she called out to him, using his real name, not a movie pseudonym.

“Yes?”

“You’d better stay close to the statues and away from Alais.”

He was definitely not going to follow this advice. If not today, then tomorrow he will definitely find her here. You just need to go to the Devil’s Cinema more often.

Filming

All footage from Jane burned out. It seems that this should not have happened. In the evening, a fire broke out unexpectedly. While Daniel sat in the Blue Lotus session, his filming partner and several co-workers tried to escape the fire. There were people killed, someone was severely burned. Nobody knew exactly what happened. It was assumed that pyrotechnics broke out. There was probably some problem with it.

It is fortunate that the scenes with Daniel’s participation were not touched by the fire. The cameras and most of the equipment also survived. It seems that the fire broke out only in order to take away Jane herself and her labors, invested in the film. According to Daniel, the damage was minor. Although the actress was famous, she was not at all suitable for the role of a dark fairy.

Daniel watched people scurrying around, and a picture persistently climbed into his head: someone in a red robe was picking the film with his claws, and the film was burning from his touch.

“It’s strange that no one had the idea to use fire extinguishers,” scraps of conversations and the howl of sirens of the already departing police and ambulance cars reached Daniel. If he had come here an hour earlier, he himself could have become a victim.

“The fire started and went out by itself,” the director slapped him on the shoulder. “Well, isn’t it amazing.

“What will happen to the film now?”

“We will continue to work with you, but we have problems with the main performer.”

“Is it true that all the episodes filmed with her can no longer be restored?”

“We’ll have to cut these scenes from the film.”

“But they were the most spectacular of all that was planned.”

“There is no way to re-shoot anyway.”

There was only one burn left from the charred films. The smell was disgusting.

“How is Jane herself?”

“She was placed in the city hospital. The doctors there are not brilliant professionals. They cannot say anything for sure after a preliminary examination. And even an approximate diagnosis cannot be knocked out of them.”

“I didn’t notice that there is a hospital in the city.”

“Not surprising. The building is tiny. A couple of dozen patients can fit there at most. What is this wilderness? And what a loser Jane is. You have to be a complete fool to go where everything is on fire.”

“And what exactly happened to her here. I still do not understand: does she have fractures, or did she receive severe burns?”

“We need another star. More fortunate.”

And he went to look for her. To an abandoned cinema.

At night the Blue Lotus was always open. Yes, what’s there. It was open around the clock. Nobody knew about it. Except those chosen ones who were invited here. Take that freak in purple robes who walked around town and handed out invitations to teenagers. He chose them according to some special principle. Only those who were dressed like a goth, for example.

Daniel remembered there was a threat. This one in red robes can still attack him if he is lurking here in the cinema. Although all that happened could be a simple joke. Funny. In a horror session, different tricks are probably permissible in order to get more fear. Here is someone in red and tried. I wonder who he really was.

At night, Alais was found easily. A small buffet is located behind the lobby. There are still popcorn stalls, drink counters, sugar skull counters, and empty round tables. There was not a soul around. And the beauty was doing some tricks with fire. Orange streams curled between her palms, flew from her lips. Everything that happened seemed more like a 3D effect than a reality.

“You didn’t get into the fire?” instead of greeting, Alais looked at him with a grin. “I’m happy for you.”

“How do you know about the fire?” the question left his lips before he remembered the mass media, which, of course, should be available here as well. Surely, there is a TV or Alais herself is hiding an iPhone in her jeans pocket. She could see the summary of today’s news. They always appear on the Internet before the paper editions can report.

“Fires are beautiful, but destructive,” she said. “I love the way fire looks, but it burns you.”

“Who, us?” Daniel did not understand. And Alais simply didn’t answer. Orange highlights played in the air in front of her face, turning into pillars of fire.

“What about Jane?” involuntarily burst out from him, although how could she know. She doesn’t even know Jane, unless she watched films with her.

“Let’s just say she was kissed by an angel… with stone lips.”

Are these charades again? He felt cold and somehow unpleasant, as if a flock of ice ants had run through his body. Breath even caught for a moment. What does it mean when a statue kisses you? You can suffocate. It is possible to get fractures of all bones in the body under the pressure of stone hands. But is it possible to burn from the breath of the statue? Do statues breathe fire like Alais?

About such pyrotechnics, which allows you to create the effect of fiery sighs, he had not even heard. But in this old, long-boarded up cinema, they have stepped far beyond modern technological progress. Alais breathed out fire like a beautiful dragon. And she deftly controlled this fire, because it did not burn anything except what she liked to burn. Ordinary fire-eaters cannot do that. And no smoker can do this. Although smoke and fire are different things.

“You wanted to ask me about something?” the beauty behaved so dispassionately, as if breathing out fire, like a dragon, was something quite natural for her. “Didn’t I warn your first request?”

“Which request? I didn’t ask for anything.”

“Not aloud,” Alais just looked at him with piercing sparkling eyes, but inside everything shrank. He preferred to reflect on the fact that her eyes were like gems shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow than that he wanted to get rid of Jane. But Alais saw right through him.

“I like to fulfill wishes. Naturally not as simple as can be performed with human hands. Where people are powerless, I interfere. But your conscience is clear, you didn’t make a wish about yourself and didn’t express it out loud, you just really wanted to. When you really want something, it can come true.”

“Do you really believe that?” That if you really want something, then it will happen.

Instead of answering, another fiery sigh and a slight laugh in time with the hissing of fire. Daniel stumbled back. He was afraid that now his face would burn. But Alais was not aiming at him. She didn’t burn anything at all, she just played. Even the low headliners did not look sooty. Not to mention the walls or tables, over which the fire just hovered.

“Is there a cinema or a circus?”

“How do you like it better?”

“I suspect that under the sweat there is a whole menagerie of lions, leopards, panthers and other predatory animals.”

“Have you already heard the noise under the floor of the cinema?” She slyly narrowed her eyes and laughed.

No, he did not hear anything under the sweat, but in the cinema there was always something scraping and grinding. So the beasts, if they were present, had to be invisible.

“I remember there were excellent circus arenas in Rome, where Christians were sacrificed to lions. Those were good times. Bloody, spectacular, somewhat grandiose.”

“Do you remember? So you watched a movie about it?”

And again, in response, laughter and a light stream of fire. Daniel felt the heat of the flame on his face, but it did not burn, only warmed.

“We have films about the Ancient Rome, and about the Ancient Persia, about India, about Atlantis, about the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, as well as about the Templars and about the French Revolution, and all with the participation of that angel who attracted you just like before you led crowds of spectators to…

She hesitated.

“For what?”

“Never mind. There are many films here. So you can come here every night. Probably, one day you will find showing something new for you. But for which film will be shown exactly on schedule, I can not vouch, this is in charge of the projectionist.”

Was it the creature in the red robe that scared him? Daniel shivered unpleasantly, as if feeling the touch of black claws again. It is better not to look around and not to look for traces of a disgusting-looking creature.

“And the films are stored on reels, or digital cinema projectors are already installed here, or even some more modern and sophisticated technology than I know. Some new cinema equipment and stereos are not being tested here?”

“How did you decide?”

“The effect is too stunning. I’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

“You just went to films only with your own participation and only because agents and managers forced you to attend premieres.”

How did she know? Alais did not see the contracts he signed, but spoke about the clauses of the contract with greater knowledge than the lawyer who viewed them.

“But I loved watching different films before I started filming myself.” Daniel tried to smooth out the awkwardness.

“And I like to create works of art myself more than to view what others have created.”

“And what art do you do?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“I just thought…” He was embarrassed to even say it out loud. What he dreamed of became too desirable. “We will have tests soon.”

“And you thought that I would stoop to act in films. With common people? Defile in front of the camera, probably even undress in front of the camera, as is usually done only on the panel, grimace like a monkey and obey the director’s commands?”

“I don’t know which royal family you are from, but my family was also ancient and noble, but I have sunk to that.”

“You wanted to become famous, to become a star. You can be understood. In addition, your noble family has long ago thrown their fortune into the wind. Ruin and want lead people to do many things that you would not do in the days of wealth and prosperity.”

She spoke like this, she has whole cellars here bursting with gold bars. Her wicked words touched him to the quick, but he did not pretend that he was offended.

“Have you never dreamed of becoming a star? In adolescence, for example, almost everyone dreams of this.”

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