Demon mentor. Crypt of the Seven Angels. Natalie Yacobson

answer was obvious, and yet worth checking. According to rumors, a ghost can also be found in the tower. The voices were indeed muffled, conspiratorial and mysterious. She stepped higher and stopped abruptly. Now she could hear well, and she was alarmed by the words spoken somewhere above.

      She lingered in the flight of the stairs, it seems, she knew who was speaking, although she did not see their faces.

      «Beautiful as elves, they have no place on earth,» said a vaguely familiar voice, as if it had escaped from her childhood dream.

      «But to let down the most reliable partners…» objected another, not too confidently.

      «And to become twice, no, hundreds of times richer than we are,» finished the thought of the first, it seems, the most advantageous turn, at least convincing. «Kindness is not a business concept, sympathy, too, but even if it were, then it would be wiser to show it to people, I mean, to normal people, and these are all their damned clan… Yes, you just have to look at them, that’s all immediately becomes clear. Such filth is cleaned from the ground. As in a fairy tale, all the gold should be combed out of the elf’s hair and destroyed. Today is the right day. Just.»

      She stayed where she was, but instinctively she wanted to step back. Dimly, as if through a haze of sleep, snatches of phrases could still be heard to her: «all orders have already been given,» «soon down there …", «no one would have suspected us,» and finally, the ticking of the clock with a quiet sigh is time.

      Blaise scrambled and ran before she could fully understand what had happened. For so long and with difficulty, she climbed up, and now, without fear of stumbling, she rushed back down. It’s easy to break your neck, but it didn’t bother her now. If she got it right, her neck would be broken in one way or another today. And not only her.

      Beautiful, like elves… this phrase defined everything, only one people were called that. And she was from their family. Evening. Banquet. Her birthday. The day of his birth, her brother, who is even more beautiful than an elf. Their father’s proposal. She rushed headlong along the narrow high steps, but never stumbled. Maybe fear helps to mobilize all strength and dexterity. One fear overshadows the eyes of another. Now she was afraid not to fall down and get hurt, or perhaps to survive and understand that no one else had survived except her.

      And so it happened. If she had known earlier. But she found out only now, and a few hours after the incident, she no longer wanted to remember it. She didn’t want to remember anything at all. But memory, as if painfully shrank around the same events. Here is the banquet hall, here is the entrance, the open doors, in front of which she stops indecisively and realizes that the worst has already happened.

      Blood, confusion, broken objects, dead bodies, evidence of violence and devastation.

      She came too late. She was no longer expected. Probably, the intruders thought that one of their allies had twisted her thin neck on the way here, and therefore she did not appear. However, her arrival was a pleasant surprise for them. Someone grabbed her. She remembered the pain, the breath of fire, and her hope that the statues would help her. She saw the statues of angels in front of her. But they remained motionless. They could do anything with her: beat, kill, rape, and the statues would not even interfere. No otherworldly force intervened until Neil Jaudet brought the knife right to her face. He could hold this very knife over her throat, and the statues would remain motionless. But the fact that he wanted to disfigure her had an unexpected effect on them. One of the statue fell, crushing everyone who was nearby with its weight and fragments, except for the escaped Blaise. At the same time, an all-destructive fire broke out. For some reason they were afraid for her face.

      Trial lunge

      Blaise woke up with a hard feeling that something needed to be done. On the low table in front of her were scattered newspaper and magazine clippings that she had recently picked up from a junkyard. It is difficult to imagine why people spend money on glossy magazines just for the sake of barely looking through, then throw them in the trash. Are the stars really interested in the population just enough to wrap dirty garbage in their images or simply toss them into the tank along with used paper handkerchiefs and pads? It is evident that everyone who came out of the mud is valued by people no more than the mud itself. This is natural. And it doesn’t matter how much they paid as a journalist for the praises of the press to be sung. The audience cannot be fooled. Even people tired after work, looking for a distraction in tabloid gossip in the evenings, forget about them very quickly. Not to idolize anyone just for a few false lines in a magazine. It’s for the best. After all, Blaise was going to take revenge on the star.

      Angelo. He really was handsome. But how he became a star, Blaise remembered perfectly. Her father’s money helped a lot in this.

      Probably, this was the first time in all generations before, the calculating de Rozier family warmed snakes on their breasts. More precisely, even a whole nest of vipers. Blaise imagined a ball of slimy bodies wrapped around a crucifix that would crush them. She is their cross. How they became her before. She tore the cover of a glossy magazine that a passerby threw into the trash can yesterday. Angelo’s face in the centerfold evoked unpleasant feelings in her. He’s got some kind of premiere right now. Surely, today’s advertising campaign for her was paid for by her own family long ago. This is how, with a complete minus of acting talent and any capable mediocrity, they become celebrities. She hadn’t given much thought to it before. If the father wanted to help the friends of some of his colleagues with money, it was his business. But now she was disgusted.

      The character of the film was immoral, it seems, intended to hurt the feelings of some nations recently affected by the war. If it were not for her father’s money, then Angelo would have been in prison for a long time, even before the shooting ended. But money and connections work wonders. No international scandals hurt him. And why? Indignation arose in Blaise. After all, he undermined with his ideas not only people’s trust in cinema, but also in his entire country. Why should scoundrels go unpunished?

      He wanted advertising. He will get it. Advertise your self. Blaise crumpled up the cover and held it over the fire.

      Few people came. Angelo was displeased. The handsome face, recently secretly corrected by the best plastic surgeon, twisted with indignation. In addition, the audience did not applaud him too loudly. He even regretted standing in the heat for so long to attract attention. It wasn’t worth it. The flashy colorful posters for the film and those caused more enthusiasm than his persona. Or does he just think so?

      After all, this is the day of his triumph. He must have waited, when he could be on his own. His success, someone else’s death, the envy of others – it is worth rejoicing at everything. And he put on a weary smile.

      The plane that brought him here carried him to triumph. His bravado did not last long. Until someone handed him an autograph pad. Some girl. In any case, at first it seemed to him that it was a girl. He couldn’t tell with certainty. She was too different from all the girls whom he had glimpsed until now. In fact, it was some kind of absolutely unearthly creature, from the presence of which nearby he was immediately doused with a grave cold.

      – Blaze! – he didn’t even dare to say her name, but his lips folded into a sound, which, however, got stuck somewhere in his throat. From the outside it might have seemed that he looked very stupid. The ballpoint pen shook in trembling fingers. Although why was he so scared that he began to tremble? After all, there are guards and bodyguards nearby. It is enough just to give them a hint. that someone bothers him… But what can they always do against the ghost?

      They won’t even see her. What if only he sees her? Angelo suddenly felt remarkably lonely and isolated in this noisy crowd. Around the whole sea of his admirers, but he is alone… alone with his own demon.

      Heat reigned all around, but he suddenly felt so cold, as if he were right at the North Pole. It’s Blaise. Dead Blaze. Or is she not?

      If she is, then she has changed so much that she cannot be recognized. However, after