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 whats the difference? She will not live forever. Annette didnt 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 dont 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.
Its 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.