“Do you want to visit the place of Atenais?”
“That is, to become a star?”
“Something like that.”
“It would be cool.”
“But it will be very expensive.”
“Are you offering me a deal?”
There was a long silence. What if all this happens in a dream? There are no monsters that come to your home, even crawling off the TV screen to offer a stunning career. Annette was not afraid of the monster, but that his proposal would be a trick. To promote a starlet into a celebrity, you need not a scarecrow from the movie, but an influential patron from the real world.
“If you were looking for profitable acquaintances, then you found them,” Cialas claws stroked her cheek, slightly scratching, but the touch was pleasant, as if the hot rays of the tropical sun were touching the skin.
The deal also promised to be pleasant. You just need to ask him more about the price, but the multi-pair look of Cialas has already penetrated her brain, informing that she will not be required to join a sect, or trade in drugs, or espionage, as from ordinary worthless stars. Just a little blood.
“But it will not hurt at all,” Cialas embraced her with all his limbs, and on the screen of the dying TV the footage of the fall and uprising of the grandiose winged armies of Alais was still spinning.
“I want to be her,” Annette just thought aloud, when golden claws painfully cut into her chest, drawing some symbols on her flesh.
“And you will!” promised Sialas. “But not forever.”
What does it mean? Not forever! But what’s the difference? She will not live forever. Annette didn’t understand why the multi-colored pairs of eyes narrowed so slyly, but she nodded anyway.
Black sands
Egypt, deserts
Sam woke up in the dark of the tent. The feeling that someone had called his name was very clear. The hiss still hung in the void:
“Samuel!”
The face of someone burned was frozen on the retina of his closed eyes, although Sam certainly did not see anyone. Unless only in a dream.
Did he dream about a demon? Or maybe a dead man? Skin burned to a state of black coal is more a characteristic of a ghost than a living being.
They say that before death, people hear that they are called by the name of the voice of the dead. The excavations in Egypt proved to be exhausting. The expedition was exhausted to the point of exhaustion, but so far no one has died. Unless Leah was slightly hurt, but not during the search for artifacts. Some madman tried to cut the skin off her face with a knife. He shouted something like this:
“You have no right to be beautiful when we are all burned!”
If only Sam translated correctly. His knowledge of both Arabic and Ancient Egyptian was limited to a set of dozens of phrases. He could understand some of what was said, but not all. Something had to be conjectured. For example, the fact that the madman was most likely offended by the sight of a woman without a burqa. This is what it means for foreigners to be far from the crowded beaches where tourists rest. Leah, who always carried a can of gas with her, received several minor cuts. The attacker fell into the ground at the first sign of persecution by a group of archaeologists. Sam did not see exactly what happened, because he was busy installing the equipment at that moment. Only one coincidence seemed strange to him – on the eve of Leah found on the sand the corpse of a black bird with clipped wings and the inscription in hieroglyphs on the sand: “While we, creatures of heaven, crawling in the desert, birds have no right to fly.”
Unlike Sam, Leah was a conscientious archaeologist, fluent in several foreign languages, including the dead, such as Latin and ancient Egyptian. But the found bird could hardly be considered an artifact, if not for one curious detail stuck in a dead beak. Some kind of gold item. Leah plucked it out and took it for herself to cleanse and establish its provenance.
Leah was interested in everything down to the smallest detail. If one day the equipment for excavation breaks down, then Leah herself will take a shovel and begin to rummage in the mud in search of the tombs of the pharaohs. Why is this fragile blonde so attracted to Ancient Egypt and all its deceased dynasties? Sam himself was at the dig, because there was nowhere else to go. The place of the curator of the museum, which he was aiming at, turned out to be occupied by some thugs employee. People often find it difficult to settle down somewhere without dating. You have to take on either the job for which you can be recommended by one of your friends, or for the one that turns up.
Sam did not regret that he was in the sultry deserts for only one reason – Leah and Jane were here – two adorable beauties with chiseled figures and doll-like features. But for some reason they cut only Leah because of her beauty. She probably turned up on the path of some crazy or fanatic at the wrong time. In life, everything is decided by chance: someone is lucky to walk down the street a moment before the disaster, and someone gets straight into an accident.
Sam believed that it was worth believing in Fortune alone. It only depends on her whether they will unearth something worthy of a sensation or not. In the darkness, the sands outside the tent entrance looked black. It feels like the desert is full of ash.
Sam closed his eyes for a moment, and it seemed to him that hundreds of mutilated, burned creatures were screaming in the black sand. The picture turned out to be frightening even for a grown man. Sam looked for a flashlight. He used to use the flashlight button on his smartphone, but without recharging the phone turned off a long time ago. Here, in any case, is not the area where you can catch calls and Internet services. So where does the feeling come from that a movie is on an extinct smartphone screen?
Somewhere nearby there was the rustle of film, as if an old-fashioned camera was filming, and reels were spinning.
Has Leah brought her camera with her to capture the impressive finds she is counting on? If she took something more modern, miniature that can be put in a handbag. It is unlikely that Leah or anyone else from the archaeological group has at least a movie projector with them to show filmstrips. So why does he hear the rustle of film all the time and film footage flashes before his eyes? In the frames, again, the faces are burnt to a coal complexion. Only they don’t belong to people. People have no horns, no thorns on their skin, no wings, no temples that diverge in the form of axes.
Sam still managed to find and turn on the hand torch, which ran out of battery. For an instant, a narrow beam of light snatched out from the darkness something like a working movie camera, over which monstrous winged shadows were brought down. Someone was sitting nearby, but not a monster. Some beautiful golden-haired creature with a girlish body, clawed hands and black wings. She gracefully brought the golden claw to her lips. Sam dropped his flashlight in fright. He was not afraid of the monsters, but the girls were afraid. Why? Because there is something frightening in her eyes, like on film?
“We fell into the sands of Egypt!” hissed someone sneaking into the tent, and immediately the phrase was picked up by hundreds of voices from the desert. Yes, there is a whole army! Sam raised the flashlight, shook it until it started working again. There was no one in the tent. The black sands outside the tent also looked uninhabited.
It’s dark outside, even if you gouge out your eye. Nevertheless, he wanted to walk. The need to warm up had nothing to do with it. It just became unpleasant to lie in a cramped tent alone with an impending psychosis. Ever since he came here, all sorts of devilry has come into his head. This is probably how the hot heat affects him. Even the desert is beginning to be associated with a place burned to ash, like the inside of a furnace.
“We fell into the sands of Egypt,
In the ashes! On fire! In blood!”
A chorus of hysterical voices continued to whisper in their ears. Since the voices followed him relentlessly wherever he went, Sam assumed they were auditory hallucinations.
Nothing, it’s too early to get scared. Tropical fever happens to those who move to a hot zone from a cool climate. And people also have sunstrokes. The heat affected his brain.
The sand crunched unpleasantly under the soles of his sandals. There is nothing under it, although Leah thinks differently. It was she who inspired him that a whole army of ancient immortal pharaohs was sleeping in the sands. You should not communicate with a crazy girl, even if she is very cute. Leah is too fixated on her profession, which has already become something of a hobby for her. All her idols are relics wrapped in bandages, in a word, mummies. They will not rise from the tombs, but something alive in the deserts definitely dwells. Some force gathers here like a cloud. A sandstorm is probably approaching.
Sam was extremely amazed that he had made his way to the structure, something resembling a small pyramid, the entrance to which had been opened. Soft orange light pours from inside the opening. Someone lit oil lamps there? What was happening was like a dream. Only a bird, headlong flying past, scratched his cheek with a claw. The pain was real. It means not a dream.
“Exactly in time!” Someone in a long robe that covered the whole body appeared as if out of nowhere. A powerful figure blocked the passage, reminding of giants. Sam was glad he was boxing. It might come in handy now, but the stranger didn’t attack him. A hand with long, sharp claws, each the size of a razor, delicately beckoned to a pyramid in which something was moving.
“The time for the night session has come. Do you want to watch a movie?”
Movie?! Sam was dumbfounded. This is an opened pyramid, but inside it something similar to a movie projector really works, you can hear the rustle of film. The image is not visible, but obviously, both frightening and attractive sounds come from the soundtrack. And above all this, the ancient Egyptian images and stucco figures of the gods open their mouths.
And this is a session! Inside the mausoleum! No comfy seats, no popcorn, and most importantly no tickets. Judging by the sounds that came, it was clearly not about an educational scientific film about an ancient civilization. There was a spectacular action movie about a grand war and demons. Sam remembered the golden vision in the tent. Will the film feature the same fairytale character? If so, it’s worth the risk.
Just one soul
Moscow city center
“Come in, sit down!”
Kiril’s legs were numb. It was hard to believe that the superstar herself invited him, a simple guy, to her hotel room. And the room did not look like a hotel room. There was a pyramid-shaped fountain at the door. Multicolored lotuses floated in the water. Incense smoked on the tripods, which made his head spin. In the wall alcoves were statues of the beast-like Egyptian gods. They seemed to be squinting at the guest. Probably, this effect is created by smoke and semi-darkness. It looks like it’s not a living room, but a temple.
Only a bed under a thick canopy reminded of palace luxury. But the place for the guest was set aside on the couch. On a mahogany table was a tray of brandy and two rock crystal glasses.
A first aid kit would be more useful to him now than alcohol. He nearly fainted outside the cinema from blood loss. There he was found by agent Athenais, gave him his business card and explained where and when to come. So you can get caught in the arms of the mafia. What if the star keeps drugs, collaborates with criminals and is looking for a fool among fans who can be framed? Instead, Kiril thought only about whether to buy roses and condoms before going up to the top floor of the skyscraper hotel. The hotel was called Akhetaton, like the cinema. The building was somewhat reminiscent of the pyramids. Inside, everything is in Egyptian style, except for amphorae with lush bouquets of red roses. They are more like Roman ones.
“Go away!”
Is it the flowers whispering? They are so deep red that they remind of blood. And he was still wondering whether to buy roses for her. There are more of them here than in the flower shop! And the hotel itself inside resembles an ancient temple.
