Chat with a Demon. Daughter of the Dawn. Natalie Yacobson

angel’s flesh.

      Athenais feigned horror. She herself was stunned that she had struck an unarmed man. And she’s a good actress! She plays it so naturally! It’s like it’s really not an act.

      The special effects are over the top. The angels grow claws. Their wings turn black. Angels fight in flight like birds of prey. Angels transform, becoming monsters.

      Nikita’s eyes dawned on him. The sounds of an unfamiliar language somehow made his ears hurt. He watched Dennitsa’s legions fall, but the torture scenes had to be replayed later. The angelic bodies writhing on the stakes were shocking.

      In the following shots, the bloody desert was replaced by a valley of ashes. The sands absorbed the ashes. The angels were recovering. Centuries of torture must have passed before they rose from the sand already monsters. There was nothing beautiful or graceful left in them.

      But Athénaïs is still beautiful. She’s a maiden, no matter how you look at it. And according to the Bible, Dennitsa was male, like all the angels. Athenais must have been aiming for a strong female role.

      Nikita once watched an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Metzergenstein.” There, too, the main male role was turned into a female role to make the story more expressive. But there it did not look sacrilege. Using his meager knowledge of the Bible, Nikita remembered that all the angels, even though they had maiden beauty, but for some inexplicable reason, people appeared in the guise of boys. Are there any exceptions? Or is religion adjusted to the patriarchy? Strange, then, why angels are ascribed feminine beauty.

      Making Lucifer a girl turned out to be a very successful plot move. And for Athenais, it was a sensational role. Such a role is worthy of all the awards. The actress underwent a metamorphosis that not everyone could play. The haughty look of the ringleader was replaced by an all-consuming sorrow. When the angels fought for her, Athenais disliked them, though they were beautiful, but now that they had become burnt monsters, she realized that she deeply sympathized with them.

      Her name is now Alais. For Nikita, it was hard to pronounce. The “a” sound was unaccustomedly hard. He couldn’t twist his tongue to pronounce it that way. It sounded like the name of an Oriental genie. It meant something. Nikita missed that, although starting with Fall of Angels, the movie was dubbed into Russian. Underneath the dubbing, English phrases were guessed.

      In English, Nikita knew only the most mundane lines, so he was glad that the film was dubbed. Reading the credits is quite tiresome, live dubbing is better.

      Something squeaked outside the window, as if someone hit a pigeon with a slingshot. Nikita was distracted from watching for a second. It seemed that some dead bird had actually crouched on the balcony. What an abomination! How many neighborhood boys could bully. If he were their father, he would have taken away their slingshots long ago and taught them decent behavior. It’s a shame that some parents are irresponsible about their children’s behavior and raise juvenile bullies.

      He was spoiled for a romantic moment. Alais wandered across the barchans. Not flying, exactly walking. In the Sahara she realized for the first time that she could walk. Her wings had become a mere decoration. From her feet Alais left a path in the sand. Where she walked, the sand turned golden. Soon the entire desert glistened with gold, but a sad fate awaited the robbers who entered it. Hungry monsters tore them apart.

      And then a wounded warrior wandered into the desert. His blood attracted the fallen angels, but Alais recognized him as the defeated Pharaoh, and something in her snapped. Before, she had watched emotionlessly as her monstrous legionnaires tormented men; now she felt pity. She seemed to see a reflection of herself in the defeated ruler.

      “Your troops are dead,” she said. “My troops are almost dead… or worse than dead.”

      The monsters hissed unkindly. They swarmed across the desert. Never mind that the sand is full of gold and jewels. Above all these riches roar the legions of death.

      “I will raise your armies from the dead, I can do it. Here on earth all is in my power. It’s a pity the enemy I want to get is left in heaven.”

      She must have meant Michael. She ended up with him quite tragically. She was a split second away from victory. Maybe she didn’t need to win in heaven, though. Falling into the wilderness, Alais realized that she was now mistress of those sands. The place of exile became her kingdom. And then suddenly a human king was dying at her feet. Why had she decided to help him?

      Could she love him? She didn’t seem to. Alais kissed Pharaoh on the forehead only to be branded a slave. Her kiss froze a red seal on his skin. Did Pharaohs only wear oureaus to conceal such a seal?

      Alais had managed to raise entire armies from the dead. It had cost her nothing. All she had to do was recite a spell! Upper and Lower Egypt were united. Pharaoh Menos became a debtor to the demon. All his descendants became slaves of Alais. An era of terror began.

      The movie lasted about two hours, and the action managed to go all the way through eternity. The screenwriter managed to cram an entire list of kings and queens into the script, running their stories through Dennitsa’s biography.

      Back in the desert at the dawn of time, Alais heard someone dark and disembodied calling to her. The creature from the black mist assured her that it was the black part of Alais. Then a black statue appeared in the pharaoh’s palace. From it the same voice was calling. Only Alais could hear it.

      Nikita missed the frightening scenes of bloody rituals and sacrifices. Even for him, it was too much. And he still thought his nerves were strong.

      The movie was slowly starting to drive him crazy. He should choose another hobby instead of watching the horror movie, but Nikita could no longer tear himself away from the movie. The mysteries of Ancient Egypt were fascinating.

      After the first movie, “Mistress of the Pharaohs”, he started watching the next one, “And His Name Is Dennitsa.” The title was a little overwhelming. Why him and not her? Maybe it was the wrong translation? It turned out that the translation was correct. The plot drew a parallel between the sun god Aton, the black creature sleeping in the sands, the pharaoh Ehnaton, and Alais. But the main character was a handsome young man named Taor. It was around him that the intrigue was built. Taor became a warlord at a very early age. He quickly gained the status of a hero and made many influential enemies, who made intrigues at court to drive him out of the world. Taor had to fight tribes of savages who strongly resembled monsters. Somehow he won. It seems his patron was someone from heaven. Michael, Nikita thought. How strange!

      A Christian archangel became the patron saint of a pagan Egyptian? Something didn’t add up. Taor had no intention of embracing Christianity, but he behaved according to Christian canons, that is, he was ready to sacrifice himself unselfishly, even for the enemy. Every Christian should be like that, but, alas, they are harder to find than a needle in a haystack. It was only on the screen that such a guy was easily found and began to beg Pharaoh to spare his enemies. Not a guy, a hero. If all people were like that, the world would be a kind and safe place where nothing bad would ever happen to anyone. Taor didn’t want to hurt anyone. He was perfect in the literal sense of the word. He was truly the chosen one of heaven.

      And such a guy fell in love with the devil!

      The epic drama was rapidly turning into a shocking horror movie. Taor spotted a beauty with wings behind the Pharaoh’s throne, and all his good intentions went to hell. Though he saw that Alais was cruel and made bloody sacrifices, he was willing to compromise all his principles for her sake.

      Only Alaïs was not ready to accept the sincere feelings of the commander in love. It seems that Taor was so good-looking that it is simply impossible not to fall in love with him. He’s handsome, and a great warrior, too. Alais had made kings her slaves, branding them with the magic mark of submission. So what was it about Taor that displeased her? That he’d been chosen by the Archangel Michael? To win him over to her side would be a victory. Alais could have taken her revenge, but she was in no hurry.