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

Like: don’t go to a horror movie, it’s so scary it will drive you crazy. After reading such a warning, the audience will come running like a house on fire. It’s all cleverly planned. All you have to do is applaud.

      It was getting dark outside the windows. A track of lanterns lit up on the highway, reminiscent of the Milky Way. The car headlights glittered like stars below.

      The panorama from Nikita’s window was miserable. There had once been a square below the windows, but it had been gutted to create a playground and parking lot. The rosebushes had been ripped out to make room for the basketball court, which was always empty. Only the highway behind it was lit with electric lights in the evenings.

      Evening Moscow glittered with neon signs and lanterns as if they were stars. At night, they made the simplest of neighborhoods seem appealing. Athenais, too, appeared only as darkness fell. Chat came alive as if a night star had flashed.

      “Hello!”

      She started again with a familiar word. Nikita clicked the keys irritably, issuing an accusatory tirade:

      “You’re like a vampire, you sleep in a coffin during the day, and you wake up only at night? Only you feed on energy, not blood. You’re an energy vampire who catches gullible guys in a chat room and drives them crazy.”

      The wound on his leg suddenly ached. It was absurd to claim that the creature in the chat room was feeding off his energy and not his blood. The razor was missing somewhere, after all, and a lot of blood had gushed out of the wound. Instead of being absorbed into the carpet, the blood disappeared, too. Or was he just imagining it all?

      “Are you so angry that I don’t talk to you during the day?” Athenais had accurately noted the reason for his anger. Apparently, she’d already fooled a lot of guys.

      “I’m angry that I can’t meet you,” Nikita admitted honestly.

      “Maybe it’s for the best.”

      “Why it is not? Are you really a vampire?”

      “Not a vampire. And even in the movies I did not play vampires.”

      “Then what are you? Are you an actress?

      “I wouldn’t call myself an actress.”

      “But you are a movie star, aren’t you? Or are you not?”

      “A movie star, yes! But I am not an actress.”

      “It’s a strange combination. How could it be?”

      “I wasn’t acting,” Athenais explained.

      Did she really think she was a real angel? If you look at her picture, you wouldn’t call her crazy. With her looks, you could consider yourself a goddess. Probably every perfect actress gets so caught up in the role of her characters that she stops to think of it as acting. Let her imagine what she wants.

      For Nikita, the most important thing was that Athenais was not a vampire, and therefore would not jump on him to drink blood. He was probably a dreamer, because he still hadn’t given up hope of a date with Athenais.

      “Are you Russian or a foreigner?” it occurred to him to ask. On the one hand the question was naive. Athenais knows Russian very well. On the other hand she is marked on Wikipedia as a foreign movie star. It’s possible, of course, that Russians have become accustomed to foreign cinema. And that happens. After all, art is international. Wherever a creative person finds work, that’s where she works. Foreigners were often invited to work in Russian cinema, too.

      “And what nationality are the angels?” Athenais, as usual, answered a little arrogantly.

      “Don’t fool my head with angels again. You’re alive, you’re real.”

      “All angels are alive and real.”

      “Do you count the myths alone?”

      “You don’t believe in angels?”

      “I believe in you, because I see you. By the way, how do I get you to video chat again? Are you in the mood to show yourself to me again? And what did you use the razor for? Don’t tell me the razor is a prop to make a movie.”

      “Sometimes a razor is enough to commit suicide,” Athenais replied cryptically.

      “You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?”

      “No, but others have done it.”

      “Who are the others?”

      There was a brief silence. Then the chat window was filled with dots. It meant that Athenais was typing a reply.

      “Did you know that angels are creepy, cold-blooded, emotionless creatures?”

      Communicating with Athenais began to resemble puzzles and riddles. Nikita felt like he was doing a crossword puzzle, not typing the answer.

      “You’re an angel yourself.”

      “It doesn’t matter?”

      “You blacken your own kind.”

      “There are exceptions everywhere.”

      She’s got a point. Nikita also believed that no one should be labeled or tagged. The quality of people is not determined by gender, age, or nationality. In any category there are both bad and good people. Can the same criteria be applied to the angelic race?

      “I was fascinated by your movie about Lucifer’s rebellion,” Nikita confessed.

      Athenais must have thought he was flattering her on purpose.

      “It wasn’t the movie that impressed you,” she protested. “You were impressed by Lucifer’s beautiful face.”

      That’s true! It wouldn’t have looked as good as it did without Athenaïs beauty. But she was perfect for the type. After all, Lucifer (his Old Russian name was Dennitsa) was revered as the most beautiful angel in heaven. It was his beauty that became the apple of discord. The angel became proud and decided that he had to have the world by himself. After all, his beauty was the brightest thing in the world. Because of it, the angel had to lead.

      According to the Bible, Lucifer lost his beauty after he fell. But in the movie, the angel remained beautiful. The screenwriter rewrote the Bible quite successfully.

      Nikita never would have thought that movies based on the Bible could impress him so much. He thought the Bible was very boring, and suddenly it became vivid. All thanks to the Lucifer episode that was brought to the forefront. The whole history of the world, judging from the movie, revolved around Lucifer’s fall into the sands of Egypt.

      In Nikita’s memory, a phrase he had heard somewhere long ago resurfaced:

      “How thou hast fallen from heaven, Denitsa, son of the dawn, to become king of the earth…”

      Where had he heard it? Something here seems to have been paraphrased, as in the movie. The history of the world has been rewritten in favor of the fallen angel.

      Who came up with this? You have to read the credits.

      “How does it feel to be a star? Are you very proud of yourself? Do you feel on top of Mount Olympus? Are you looking down on ordinary guys like me?”

      “That’s not what you wanted to ask.”

      “How do you know?”

      “You’ve got other things on your mind.”

      “Like what?”

      Does she really think she can read minds? That’s too much.

      Suddenly Athenais typed out the questions that had really been plaguing Nikita ever since he’d logged on to the website with notes about how crowds of fans had gone berserk after a visit to a movie, staged massacres and acts of vandalism, killed and burned temples, made sacrifices. That’s what he wanted to ask about.

      Athenais caught