The door

What's the mystery behind the door? What secrets are awaiting her? A closed door is an enigma and it's only natural that we may want solve it, but we can't possibly know until it's too late if we are about to open a can of worm or even worse, a Pandora's box. We can only follow ours guts and face the consequences. Treasures, unspeakable horrors or even nothing can be inside. Let's hope for the best while preparing for the worst.

Smoke and mirrors Part V

Sarah Devlin felt as a character from the movies she worked in as she entered in the Hotel with the detective Faraday. At first she didn't understand what she had to do, she looked as herself but she had to talk and behave as someone very different. The book was practically a guide, a how to. It was a gamble, a risky one, but it was also the best way to save her sister. Guests and workers were doing the usual stuff in the hallway. The manager smiled and greeted everyone, including them. They knew it was a trap and they were ready. While he made symbols with his hands, she said the Old Words. The Agent fell upon them and took everyone somewhere... inside the mirrors.

The smoke filled the place. They hardly could see each other. They could hear the other scream. One voice sounded more angry than afraid. The manager asked the agent to return him to the safety of his hotel. The agent ignored him and faced the detective and the actress. It moved the swords and spoke in the same old and powerful language. The Order wanted both of them. The agent was about to attack them when a bullet hit its head. A clear and precise shot. When Walter and Sarah looked back, they saw Barbara standing under a white light with a modified gun. The manager freaked out and ran away. He couldn't understand how she had managed to escape. However, her sister and the detective could. A thriller writer could figure out how to outsmart a criminal like that creepy man. They were glad to see her and wanted to hug her but they had to deal with the agent first.

As they had planned and with the unexpected help from the no longer missing writer, they joined their minds and fought the creature at several levels simultaneously. The guests and workers followed the manager in his crazy and directionless attempt to get as far away as possible. It was hard and painful but as soon as the agent realised that the cost of victory was too high and it may damage the connection with the Hyperion Hotel and even the building itself, gave up and vanished. Once they made sure it was safe, they could make their way back, bringing with them those who hadn't gotten themselves lost in the weird dimension. Barbara couldn't stop talking about how this adventure would shape her new book while her sister and Faraday had other kind of thoughts in mind, there was chemistry between them and they wanted to see where it could lead them. With a smile and the satisfaction of a work well done, they left the hotel without looking back.

The End?

Smoke and mirrors Part IV

The room was red and dark, only some candles provided enough clarity to see the people gathered. The manager of the Hyperion Hotel felt very proud of himself. As he had predicted, the actress had come looking for her missing sister. When he laid eyes upon her, he knew his plan was right, she was the perfect image for the doppelganger. As beautiful and classy as only a Hollywood star could be, although he thought her talent was wasted in stupid B or Z movies. He only had to guide her to a room and prepare the invocation ritual. And it had worked...until that man got away with her. And for that reason he had been summoned. He had dealt with the writer and others before her. He felt pretty confident. His partners, however, didn't share his optimism. With their faces partially hidden under red and golden hoods, asked for explanations and told him that an agent would take care of her. He could keep the writer as his pet, but the actress was theirs. He was not in position to discuss, so he accepted. They left with the doppelganger, who started to get used to our dimension.

Sarah Devlin was more nervous than when she had found her sister was missing, her experience at the Hotel had pushed her to the limits. What was that thing? It didn't that the detective had been busy since they arrived at his apartment reading old books and checking a complex machine made of metal and stone, which purpose eluded her. Had her sister been attacked by a similar creature? Were they supplanting real people with those things? As he closed a thick book with bronze covers, he said. "The Order of Zadhon, we have faced them before." "We?" She replied. "I am not the lonely detective of a pulp novel, I have allies and friends. This Order has deals with creatures from other dimensions. Sometimes they give them sacrifices, not necessarily human or bring them here with invocation rituals as the one you witnessed. Them they set them free to enjoy our world. We must go back and stop them." "How are we supposed to that? I for one feel completely out of my field" "You underestimate yourself, I have weapons here but they are not enough, to break their magic, their game of smoke and mirrors, I need you. You know how to play a different person, and that's exactly what you are gonna do." As he finished, he handed her a surprisingly light book about a kind of alien goddess. It felt soft and cold. Weird, like not made on Earth. "It's not in English but you will understand it anyway, think of it as a universal language."

It looked like a new statue but the manager and the employees knew better. It was not the first time it was there, when things got risky for their business, the Order sent it and got things straight. It was very big, had four arms and horse-like legs. Its face was covered under a helmet and in every hand there was a sword. The skin looked and felt like stone but looking with enough attention, you could tell it was alive. It was at a strategic place, waiting for the enemies of the Order. They had got away but it was sure they would come back. Their kind always did it, expecting to defeat its masters, failing and dying at its hands. Mirrors were placed too, the manager knew his job, after all he had been using those mirrors for a long time and had mastered them. They were real magic, as its preys were going to find soon.

To be continued in...Part V

Smoke and mirrors Part III

The noise was not human and sounded like something from the movies she starred in. She picked her gun, a small and reliable weapon she always carried with her. As she entered the bathroom, she saw the origin of the noise, it was a being made of liquid, shining and twisting inside the bath. She had no idea of what to do. As she kept pointing her gun at the creature, it started to change its shape and texture very fast. No more than a minute later, Sarah Devlin was looking at a exact replica of herself. She was totally freaked out. Deciding that shooting that thing or questioning it would be pointless, she ran away but she couldn't get very far as the door of her room was blocked. She screamed as she could hear her copy approaching. A voice from outside told her to step aside. She did and next thing the door was down and a the detective was inside her room.

"Are you okay?" He asked. She pointed at the incoming inhuman copy and answered with another question, "what the hell is that thing?" He only had to take a brief look at Sarah and the creature to figure out it was serious business. "Problems, big problems. We must get out, now". Without looking back, they ran away. They didn't notice the manager as they got to the hotel's hall, but he did and smiled. As they got to the street, he gave orders to give proper attention to the new guest. His employees knew exactly what that meant. One of them went to the kitchen and picked red meat, while the other prepared a combination of fruit juice and whisky. The welcoming ritual had to be performed so the creature could establish itself as a viable living being.

When Sarah and the detective, whose name she ignored, stopped running, she noticed they were holding hands. It was a bit weird for her to trust a complete stranger, and the she realised she had seen his face before. It took her a while to figure out where. They were sitting in a bar and he was asking for some coffee, when she said: "You are that western writer, Walter Faraday, my sister introduced us at a party". He smiled. "I am a detective too and I think we are working in the same case." "What is going on in that hotel?" "Your sister is not the first person to go missing after renting a room there, but the first to be notices. They are usually people without family or friends in the area who come looking for an opportunity in Hollywood. Your sister suspected the Hotel was linked to a cult and wanted to write a book to expose the Truth. I tried to convince her to let me handle the investigation but you know her. And now she is missing." That information was more than what she had got from either the press or the manager. "Now we know for a fact that something is wrong there, the question is... what shall we do?" Faraday smiled. "Now we go to my apartment and prepare our return. I have a couple of ideas about the being from your room and what its purpose may be."

To be continued in...Part IV

Smoke and mirrors Part II

As Sarah Devlin entered the Hyperion Hotel she felt the weight or her mission fall suddenly upon her shoulders. The hall was full of reproductions of the Greek Mythology and mirrors. She could see herself anywhere she looked at, surrounded by gods and titans. It was a strange and almost otherworldly sensation. Trying her best to stays focused, she approached the receptionist, a tall man with dark skin and bright blue eyes. He wore an impeccable white suit and gave short instructions to his co-workers to carry the luggage of the clients. When she asked for her key, he gave it but asked her to wait, as the manager wanted to talk with her. The theme of the conversation was obvious.

The manager looked like a magician in a business suit. Big beard, pointy hair and deep green eyes. He ordered to get her room ready and taker her suitcases, and led her to the restaurant to have a "friendly chat". She wanted to start her investigation and she was hungry, so she accepted. As the manager showed her to a table, she noticed a blonde man was looking at them while he apparently read a local newspaper. In her table there were only a coffee and an empty dish. His clothes blended with the other clients but didn't look expensive. A detective, she thought. The voice of the manager got her attention as he pronounced in a very weird way the name of her missing sister. He had no idea of what had happened. According to him, she left the Hotel after having lunch and didn't come back. When she asked him about her book, he said that she carried it everywhere with her. She was very secretive about it. He was used to deal with people like her, his Hotel respected their need for privacy and even offered them safe boxes. Did you open hers? Asked Sarah with a glint of hope. I was waiting for you, was his frankly unexpected answer. Maybe it will help you to find your sister.

The blonde man was much more than a simple detective, he had strange abilities he had mastered over the years with help from a mysterious red haired woman. he could feel the manager was lying and knew for a fact that Barbara Devlin hadn't left the Hotel, not by the main door. After a couple of minutes, he followed them. He was worried about Sarah. It was his third day there and there was something wrong there, very wrong.

The safe box was empty. For some reason, her sister hadn't used it. Back in her room, after thanking the manager for his help, she wondered about her next step but a strange noise coming from her bath got her attention.

To be continued in...Part III

Smoke and mirrors Part I

Credits: Photograpy by John Tsilidis, Model Windy Dim.

The shooting of the movie had been as crazy as one could expect from something titled "Baratu: The crippling menace from the outer realms" It was not the type of films Sarah Devlin planned to do when she moved to Hollywood with her sister, but at first they were her only real opportunities to be an actress and after a while she realised she enjoyed working on them. It helped also the constant support from her sister, a writer of thrillers, who told her again and again that she should be proud of her work. It had been a week since they had last talked as her intrepid sister had started working on a new novel. To get in the mood, she had moved to a expensive hotel that she could afford now thanks to the strong sales of her last two books. She was ready to call a taxi, when the writer, a rather enigmatic man from Romania, approached her agitated with a newspaper. "Your sister is missing!" He said loudly while pointing at her picture in the front page.

She felt like falling from a mountain, breathless. While news about her sister, the famous thriller author Barbara Devlin, spread all over the place, she read the article several times. There was not much info. Her sister was writing her new book there, she showed interest in the building's story and one day she was gone. Not a trace of her, all her things left behind, except the pages she had written. Ironically, that was precisely the kind of stories she liked to write. Sarah had read enough of Barbara's work to know that she loved mysteries and that couldn't avoid looking into them, so the most sensible hypothesis was that she found something in the hotel and that someone made her disappear. She had to go there in person and figure out if her sister was alive. Not because she didn't trust the police but because she needed to do it, she just couldn't keep her usual life ignoring if Barbara was alive.

So she went to the hotel, after booking a room with her real name, what made a great shock in the manager. It was just the beginning of would be the Story of the Year in Hollywood. A place full of traps and lies awaited for her, luckily she would not be alone, as a detective with singular capacities was working in the same case.

To be continued in...Part II