Mansion on the Hilltop - Prt. II

~~~

Her car was careening through the red lights and several cars honked at her reckless behavior.

Iris knew there was only one place she can go to for help. She had gotten to know them when she first started to exhibit signs of the Marked's abilities, and they had helped train Iris and kept her off the demons' radar since she was five.

He had helped to stop the nightmares that troubled her sleep and kept the monsters at bay. In was only a coincidence that he discovered her close to the edge of jumping off the cliff  on a family camping trip and convinced the then distraught Iris to gain control of her abilities to lead a normal life.

This small band of magicians had their guild in an abandoned military bunker not far from the city outskirt. They had performed all over the country and the leading magician was an ex-marine, who has gathered a group of ex-con men and other street thugs and turned them around for good. But he was still not someone her family would associate with.

But then again, none of her family knew of the magicians, they did not even know she was a Marked. Only those gifted in the Light could recognize the curse placed on her soul.

Not willing to succumb to her fate and having chosen to serve Trinity, Iris was in her third year studying theology in school.

Pulling the car to a short stop, tires screeching on the asphalt road, she got out of the car and entered straight into the magicians' guild.

"Help, Rollin, this is Iris, help me!" She barged into the steel door despite the receptionist's protest and charged all the way up the stairs.

"What is all this commotion about?" Vale, Rollin's assistant, poked his head from behind the table full of miniature stage devices.

"Vale, where is Rollin? I need his help, now!" Iris banged on the table, "I have to go back, or everyone will die!"

Vale was trying his best to stop the frantic girl from roaming aimlessly in the offices and her wild gestures were catching unwanted attention.

"Unhand her, Vale. It's your lucky day that I am in, lassie. Now tell me what happened and we can go from there." Rollin, the leading magician, appeared from a revolving door, accompanied by his apprentices.

Iris told him of the woman who could grant earthly wishes as well as immortality and the strange villa on the hilltop that trapped the church goers in a time different from the reality they were in.

"This sounds like a portal demon to me, Iris." Rollin said thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "You certainly have a way of attracting bad attention."

"I don't care what they would do to me, but I want to release the saints. They are innocent, ordinary humans." Iris grit her teeth and looked pleadingly at the magician, who at his spare time, was also an exorcist.

Taking a rifle from a weapons cabinet, Rollin calmed her down by giving her an emblem in the shape of a cross and selecting from a few magicians under his employment, they drove back to the villa at day break with a plan.

~~~

When she motioned them to infiltrate the villa from the basement garage, Iris herself went back in from the gate she exited from. This time, she braced herself to confront the matriarch as the gate clanked shut and would not budge again.

There was no one in sight and the stillness made Iris nervous. She tried several doors but all led back to the atrium. She was starting to panic again. Knowing there were several floors to the mansion, she started to climb upwards and ended up on the third floor of the atrium.

Everything was rose-colored and the interior has shifted to a tomb-like vault, albeit well-decorated with motifs and elaborate columns. She was breathing lightly on a balcony, trying to find a way to escape when the matriarch showed up at the floor below. 

Behind her, Iris stopped her breath, was Rollin in his military garb and he was aiming his sniper shotgun at her. "No," Iris said aloud, "not Rollin! You can't control him."

Laughing and looking at her powdered fingers with the brightly painted nails, the matriarch said: "Well, that would teach you not to invite unwanted guests to my house. Lesson number one, don't ever go up against a hungry demon thirsting for a Marked's soul. It would be a pleasure to see you fight against the man who supposedly saved you life."

"How did you know?" Iris gingerly moved away from the balustrades, trying to dock from the aim, but Rollin just followed her every move.  From the cold sweat sliding down his face, Iris knew Rollin was still conscious and was trying his best to repel the demon's mental control on him.

She knew she could kill him easily with her abilities, but in that way it would put her in the same position as the matriarch and commit a sin she could not erase. This was what the matriarch wanted and she would not give in to her.

When the gun ceased its shaking, she knew Rollin had lost the internal battle. She whisked out the cross Rollin gave to her and as she had guessed, Rollin would not shoot where she has placed the cross in front of her.

This frustrated the matriarch and under her order, Rollin too climbed up to the narrow gangway and went behind her to shoot. Iris had no choice but stabbed him with the dagger he has prepared for her. She had sworn to never use her abilities and break the protective seal on her sanity.

With a hiss, the matriarch flew towards her, revealing her true manifestation.

~~~

She had sprinkled the demon with the holy water and watched it melt and scream in pain and the mansion trembled with the demon. She has stabbed it multiple times with the dagger and broke the vial containing the dispersion spell prepared for her from the magicians without using her own abilities, thus preserving the seal on her sanity.

She ran then, dragging the wounded but unbounded Rollin with her. Together they went down the endless stair cases but still no exit to the outside.

In the parlor, confused guests and her family were pounding uselessly on the unbreakable windows. They were still trapped in the house.

The side door, Iris remembered now. There was another flight of stairs from the side door leading down into the cliff face with a Rosetta glassed door-frame.

No portal demons would leave a place completely sealed. There would always be a back-up exit. That must be it, Iris thought excitedly. The house was crumbling and imploding on itself. She ushered the guests down the narrow flight of stairs and with all her might, threw a vase at the glassed door-frame.

The door-frame pulsated with a white energy so intense that she had to shut her eyes for a moment. But alas, the vase only bounced back and broke on the stone steps. The rumbling would not cease and it would not be long before the villa folded on itself, taking everything with it to the dark dimension Iris did not want to dwell on.

"No, I will not give up!" Iris shouted and ran back up the side door and sure enough, strange dimensions were all swirling and imploding inside the atrium. She finally released a bit of her power and unlocked the spirits trapped in the villa.  "Break the glass and I promise to set you free!"

Drawing away her life force, the unlocked spirits of bygone victims shattered the glass door-frame, creating a portal to the outside world.

~~~

When they had all come out of the portal, all were stunned at where they've ended up. They were no longer on the hill but outside a department building teeming with people on the other side of the coastal city.

 

The sun was just setting down below the horizon.

Her father was waving for a cab to take them home and no one seemed to remember anything.

Rollin had disappeared out of view, not willing to disclose their relationship to her family, but Iris was all too glad his wound was shallow.

Stroking her little brother's hair, Iris hugged him tightly in her bosom.

"Are you okay, sister?" His soft hazel eyes inquired curiously.

Smiling, Iris replied peacefully: "Yes, brother, I've never felt better."

END

~~~

Mansion on the Hilltop - Prt. II

Mansion on the Hilltop - Prt. I

~~~

It all started with the visit.

Thinking there can be no harm in attending the home meeting with the brothers and sisters from the church, Iris accepted the invitation gladly.  The host family was a business client to her father's patient, who happened to express a great deal of interest in converting to Christianity.

When her father bumped into the patient by chance while out shopping, the host family's matriarch, if there was still such a thing nowadays, was with the patient. Iris' father, naturally, had immediately made friends with the matriarch and showed her his family photo.

Upon seeing Iris in the photo, the matriarch volunteered to open her renovated villa for a home meeting for Iris' church, saying she too was seeking spiritual guidance but had never quite found the right church group.

That lazy afternoon on her way home from college, Iris picked up several saints and her younger brother and drove them to the newly furbished Tuscany villa on the hilltop.

She parked the car on the sloped drive way but did not go into the basement garage, since she would have to leave the meeting early.

The villa was painted white and yellow and they had to go up several flights of stairs to enter into the marble-columned, carpeted parlor. The hostess welcomed them warmly, her magenta lipsticked mouth wide enough to swallow all the visitors.

On the left hand side of the villa, a gated community of high-rise luxury apartments were just a few minutes' drive from this singular mansion on the hilltop. Iris wondered why there were no other luxury homes beside the mansion. But then again, who in their right mind would want to build their home into a sheer cliff-face. From a distance, one side of the villa appeared to be suspended in mid-air.

The atmosphere was gay and normal and as the number of guests started to increase, some moved into the hallways of the villa.

Iris wondered why the hostess did not simply put them all into the large chamber hall further back. The hall was inlaid with fantastically sculptured rose-colored sandstone in unidentified styles and striped alabaster marble columns, with the floor paved in gold-flecked basalt and indoor balconies and mezzanine balustrades inlaid with onyx motifs. According to one gossiping guest, the real entrance to the villa was on the other side of the large hilltop estate and the parlor they were in used to be the family den.

But of course, they weren't that important to start with.

In contrast to the somber, regal yet somewhat ancient reception hall leading to the deeper parts of the mansion,  maybe it was not that bad to stayed in the contemporary, white-fur padded parlor, with the filtered afternoon sun keeping the room in light, while the shadows casted by the columns and the air-conditioning offered the guests respite.

Iris looked at her laughingly conversing parents eating refreshments with the seated saints and felt suddenly ill at ease. Her instinct was telling her that something was not quite right.

She pretended to follow different groups loitering in the hallways, but was actually peeking into the uniquely decorated rooms from all the widely opened doors. After all, she reasoned, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to tour a wealthy family's home.

"That's odd, why leave all the doors ajar? Aren't the family afraid someone might steal something or intrude into their private quarters?" Taking a bite out of a quiche in the kitchen, Iris muttered under her breath, "the confidence they have in people is truly amazing."

When she discovered a side-door leading to the chamber hall, Iris quickly scanned for nearby people and assured, took a long look into the dimly illuminated arabesque hall. High ceiling hung with metal-wrought Arabian lanterns, the hall was covered in a dirty blood-red color, the effect accentuated ever more by the rose-colored walls. Upon closer scrutiny, the patterns on the arches and keystones were like silk-threads of blood vessels...

"Hello there!" Jetting her face quite literally in front of Iris' eyes, the hostess suddenly appeared in the kitchen, nearly causing Iris a heart attack.

Iris backed a bit unsteadily towards the guest restroom nearby and quickly excused herself.

"No worries, I will be outside waiting for you, dear, if you need anything! When you're done, I have something to discuss with you!" The hostess with her high-pitched voice lingered outside Iris' hastily closed door. 

"Great, I won't be long." Iris replied half-hearted.  

~~~

When she emerged and felt much more collected, the hostess took her aside from the chatting guests and said to her in a whisper: "I have a proposition for you. If you stay here and work for me, then I can guarantee you wealth beyond your wildest imagination and bestow upon you the secret to the elixir of life itself, or perpetual youth."

Here her lips smiled ever so widely, "as you've seen, the chamber hall is the atrium to this mansion, and I am pleased no one but you seemed to be aware of its existence. This just shows you're one of those selected daughters of Lilith constrained in the human shells. Why not default back to who you really are?"

Iris stared at the woman. Is she mad?! "What do you mean?" But she knew it to be real. Whatever has clouded her mind and perhaps kept all of the guests under guise and illusion was suddenly dispelled.

"Come now, you know it long ago. Why hide it and deny yourself? You're not one of them. You have always been able to sense the spirits." The matriarch left it at that.

This mansion should have never existed on the hilltop. This woman who looked to be in her 40s was a sorceress, a defector to the satanic ways. Why she picked a devout Christian's daughter to make a deal so readily and bluntly was unfathomable, but Iris knew she's in deep trouble.

The house had the guests and saints under spell and cage. No one seemed aware of the different time-flows outside the windows, held up by the optical illusions of the afternoon sun and trees, and her parents and  little brother were blissful captives unbeknown to their wills.

The woman's hands held onto her arms ever more tightly, the polished nails digging into Iris' flesh. "I'll have to think about it." And with a yank, she dashed away from the woman straight into the now glowing chamber hall.

"Yes, you do that," chuckled the woman, "meanwhile, remember that the saints are all imprisoned here because of you. The longer it takes to make up your mind, " the matriarch paused for emphasis, "the quicker their unprotected, blessed souls will be sucked dry of life, dear, and join the throngs of woeful ghosts this house possesses!"

The beating of her heart grew louder by the minute and with a concentrated will power she's never allowed herself before, Iris broke through the maze of enchantments and made for the arched gate leading outside.

When she tumbled out into the open, she signed a relief so loud she surprised herself. She went around the externally normal, quiet villa and was shocked to see all the windows devoid of life. All the opulence was still in place, but no living creatures was seen and she did not catch a single human silhouette or hear a sound from the lavishly furnished rooms exposed through the clear windows.

"God, I need to get away from this place." Thinking out loud, Iris made for the drive way and fumbled for her car key.

"Wait for me, I will be back." With a vehement vow, she drove down the hill.

She knew the matriarch would be expecting her return. Time itself was frozen on the hilltop.

~~~

To be Continued...

Mansion on the Hilltop - Prt. I