Devil’s Cinema. Crypt of the Seven Angels. Natalie Yacobson

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,