Demon mentor. Crypt of the Seven Angels. Natalie Yacobson

to her what he did to this cute boy, her brother. He didn’t touch Blaise. So why is this eerie bleeding gaze directed specifically at him?

      Empty and inexpressibly stern eyes of the angel looked into the soul, making it freeze. Framed by ruby tears, they looked especially cruel. They reminded of some ancient and crushing, nameless biblical evil. But Alistair believed neither in God nor in the Bible, even serving at the altar. For him, everything connected with higher powers is just a routine of promotion and, in general, an empty phrase. He cannot be afraid of what he does not believe in. So why is he so scared then?

      He tried to get to his feet from the cold stone slabs, but he did not immediately succeed. The whole body ached, the limbs ached, as if recently they were trying to tear them off. It was as if he had been beaten at night, in a dream, in a locked church. The beautiful image of the holy princess Catherine on the fresco at the altar always seemed to him personally more like a witch. In his dreams, she took suitors from young maidens instead of giving them. Although lately, more often than not, young men have begun to come here to pray to her for good luck in love. Like brother of Blaise once did. He came here to pray for a meeting with a virgin who resembles his secret love, his sister. Alistair lured him here, promising to calm his mental anguish. Here he would gladly make his victim any other who liked him. Some drugs in wine for the sacrament and more persuasion. He always lured his victims to communion, so it was much easier to get them drunk. Communion is a terrible ceremony. It can be of great service to any of the most unrighteous suggestions.

      The blood and body of Christ. And some opium. And the person is ready for anything…

      But now it was the bloody tears of an angel that did not leave his head.

      On the one hand, this is even good. In those narcotic visions that occasionally visited him, he no longer needed any special interpretations. Alistair knew what these vivid, dreamlike pictures meant. If in his visions someone cried blood, then this meant the imminent defeat of this person. But Blaise was already amazed. She was defeated and buried under the rubble of a destroyed building. Everything is already in the past.

      However, the vision has been so intrusive so far. As if an angel crying with blood, after his defeat, again went to fight and punish those who defeated him. Alistair could not help thinking about who became the winner precisely after his defeat. Devil! He was defeated before becoming himself. Those who the world knows him. And who he would never have become if he had not lost that first battle. They said the devil had a beautiful face. Like Blaise. He wonder what it will be like if he reappears.

      Patrons and enemies

      She dreamed of evil.

      This is not the first time. Everything was repeated almost as in life. Only in dreams did evil become overwhelming. The events that recently took place in reality were supplemented with details, as if drawn by the hand of an unearthly creator. Nothing so incredible could actually happen. But the dreams lived on their own.

      In her dreams, she returned to the events of the night when she was deprived of everything. She now had seven patrons and seven enemies. The even numerical ratio was slightly striking.

      Only in reality there were only enemies left. And there really were seven of them, not counting those who are in any way connected with them. But there were no patrons. Only something symbolic remained of them – the statues in the crypt. But there were no statues inside the dreams. The angels were alive, hiding in nothingness and persistently inciting her to something. They were present somewhere nearby. You could feel them, hear them, even catch a glimpse of them, but they remained elusive, as if they had nothing to do with her in a dream. In a dream, they were like air, and you know that it is all around you, but you cannot catch it with your hands.

      Dreams lined up in an amazing world, like a pyramid. His staircase went up somewhere. And Blaise could almost feel her steps.

      Well, one step, one more, almost all the steps of the narrow stone staircase are already behind. Even turning back was scary, but she was not afraid to look down even from a dizzying height. Probably, this was passed on to her from her ancestors – the feeling that the wings of an angel are about to grow behind her back and, as a result, she is absolutely fearless. Well, okay, even if all family legends are a legend, and still she sometimes felt absolute power over the motionless frozen world lying below, all buildings and people will remain forever there chained to the ground, and she seems to be able to take off. Blaise threw her head back and burst out laughing so that her sonorous, hysterical laugh echoed from the stone walls in frightening echoes. If anyone wins the bet, it will be her. After all, there was some kind of bet? What exactly, in a dream she did not remember.

      Even before the banquet begins down there in the great hall, she will already be upstairs, in that bastion where you cannot climb, because soon it may collapse. So they said… for many years, and he still stood, dangerously tilted, but so unshakable in his unattainable height. Clock Tower of Angels, Blaise read the name from the battered pages of family chronicles and now called the tower just that. It seemed to her that the title had a meaning. Who if not winged creatures were able to build a building that would surpass even the modern skyscrapers located nearby in the dark ages long ago? And also this tower, as if no one except the rare chosen ones noticed, so they were in no hurry to demolish it, at least Blaise wanted to think so. She wanted to believe in magic in a world in which no one else believes in it. It might not be true that if the tower collapsed, winged creatures would pick her up and pull her out, but she wanted to believe it. And she believed with all her heart.

      So self-confident! Yes, she was just that. Why can’t she clench her thin fists and break through even a monolithic wall with them? Isn’t she from the Rosier family? Better yet, consider that she is not one of people, but of angels. In any case, her appearance seemed to confirm it. With such a beauty as hers, it is difficult not to fall ill with megalomania. Botticelli’s paintings faded in front of her truly angelic appearance, living people could not take their eyes off her. And besides, she is also a rich heiress. Rosier’s heirs. Well, does she have little reason to be proud and consider herself invulnerable.

      Beauty and innumerable capital, slightly darkened by the shadow of age-old secrets, gold and curse, all this was so inspiring.

      But now she was going to prove her courage, climb the tower, signal to the friends who remained below from the very height and return back even before the banquet began. They are already preparing snacks, champagne and some special golden-red wine, the secret of which is known only to Rosier. Today her father is going to tell her and her brother something special, but Blaise did not know for sure whether he would do it right at the banquet or whether there really were those dark secrets in their family that could not be told to anyone except the heirs. Well, in any case, today is the right day, the day of her seventeenth birthday. Her birthday and her beloved brother. And it took it into her head to throw out such tricks on this very day. But when she was offered a bet, she could not resist. She simply had to prove that she was bolder than everyone, bolder than her brother, braver than her father, bolder than those mysterious and clearly hostile people whom her father invited for some reason to this holiday, although she had never seen them before among his acquaintances or partners in business, nor among its competitors.

      Competitors, Blaise scoffed at her, barely remembering that word. She herself was out of competition. When she inherits her share in family affairs, she will have no rivals. She just won’t let them show up. In addition, she is absolutely sure that no one living on earth can compete with her, just as she is sure that only she alone had the recklessness to climb a crumbling tower. Today, here in the height among the ancient stone walls and stairs there is only one, and also the proximity of the collapse and the memory of the past. Not a single living creature can be here.

      Perhaps she should have turned back when she heard voices.

      However, Blaise did not turn. On the contrary, it rushed upward with such speed that it stumbled over a step and almost flew downward. She was able to hold on and restore balance. And death was so close, as if someone whispered in her ear, but there was