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

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