Oscar Stones

The Scroll of Reanimation

Written by Kris Daberkoe

Doctor Oscar Stones doubled down on danger. He stepped out of the tree line with his hands up.
“Over here! Come get me!” he shouts.
Ahead and looming gigantically, cut atop a jagged finger of a mountain, was the storied monastery of Santa Mureta (1019 A.D. to 1489). Records told of a Brotherhood so possessed with evil that the day their skill in sorcery was said to surpass that of the Devil, God the Father smote them with fire.Destroyed 1489. But then that doesn’t appear to be the case, thought Dr. Oscar Stones. He would be stroking the stubble grown on his shelve-like jaw if his hands hadn’t been up. How could this structure still stand? How could the series of events, the cryptic messages, the secret rendezvous, the suspenseful stake outs, the on-foot pursuits and the careening car chases; how could it have taken place?

Dr. Stones had given ear to a lot of superstitious mumbo-jumbo since beginning his career. All manner of it. He wanted no business with it. Fate - it seemed - kept throwing it at ‘im. Kept throwing it at ‘im. Dr. Stones was actually there to rescue kidnapped scientists. Fellows at the University he taught at and wrote papers for. And if there was a fell plot —well—he'd take it in stride. See it di’int get done.A delegation of monks with cudgels was trodding down the long sloping grass lawn beneath the granite face of the mountain finger. They were dressed in black classic monk garb. It seemed to Dr. Stones, something off about them. They were awkward. Skittish even.He's not long in observing this ponderous behavior. Doubt flashes. Is this it? Are these the people who've been fighting with me, shooting at me, laying in wait for me to sleep that they could come up and strangle me. They would've succeeded if –No—no use in that line of thought. The girl is back in the tent I left her in. I'll have come back with the scientists by when she'd woke up. For the best.Something the Romani told her got her worked up about some Scroll of Reanimation. Gypsy Princes’gone polluted the aspirin’ talent. Bit of a bimbo to start. She'll make a fine erotic danc–

“Hey!”
“Hey back!”The monks are stopped in their tracks. Dr. Stones' could see the monks were apprehensive to start. The way their lips move and one of them shakes his head and another keeps looking back where they came. It was as if, somehow, running away might stop the clubbing he had for ‘em.
Dr. Stones is shaped like a balista. That is if giant crossbows had legs the width of Corinthian columns. A man his size would seem constrained by anything more than a loin cloth and club. Now a woman had appeared. And she was shouting with the brute in the brown leather fedora and wool-collared jacket. The leader of the group was about to give the archers on the walls the signal to fire when the monk styling himself to be next in succession, a portly youth with glasses, interrupted. The leader there groaned because, groundless, this guy always did this on anything they did.Meanwhile.“What are you doing here!” Dr. Stones hollered.“I came to earn a buck off that Scroll of Reanimation I've been hearing about,” Brittany Collins matter-of-factly.

“There's no such thing,” Dr. Stones became red.“There is too. And I gots me a buyer willing to fetch me a pretty penny back in yonder gypsy camp.”“It's too dangerous.”She placed her hands on her hips, sensing an opening “Not to dangerous for you!”“How'd you make it out of the tent? You were out exhausted.”“Listen carefully Hun,” Brittany could see his knees wantin’ to buckle, goes in for the kill by stepping up to look up that stubble jaw of his, stepping where she could feel his breath over the top of her breasts.

“It was a mighty, mighty fine effort you put into tiring me out last night. Slipping that herb in my tea, and all. But something you have to reckon with is that if you're going to have a chance of making it out of this thing alive – I'm goin' to have to go with you.”There had been some close calls. Brushes with Death. True enough Brittany Collins had saved his life in one or two instances. Then again. He’d done the same for her.“Like it or not sweetheart: I'm going with you.” She put her hand out to shake on it, beaming up at him, batting long eye lashes.“Partners?”

Brittany missed that part of history class which taught about the Brothers of Santa Muerta. They seemed like some tweakers on retreat. Then again this is my first time in Europe. Maybe this is normal across the pond. There was those Amish on the train she’d seen once. Maybe it’s like that but traditional here.
Her revererie must have slowed her. One of the monks, a rod-shaped one with bad acne and sunken eyes looped a rope around her neck to use as a tether.
Every time Brittany slowed to daydream or gawk at the view, this junkie-looking monk would yank on the rope.The monks shuttle them back across the lawn to the place they came out of. An opening is revealed when they get close enough. The opening is the mouth for a torch lit passage. Dr. Stones feels confirmed that surrendering was the right move. Some trick of the eye made it so there could be no way for outsiders to have found it. Something about the torches merits a closer look too. They don’t oxidize at the same rate normal fire does. There’s more pinks and purples and blues, where regular fire has whites and golds and reds.

The passage opens out to a rough, hewn upward, ledge along the mountain. This path is narrow such that monks and adventurers can only walk two abreast.A plan to throw the monks off the mountain forms in Dr. Stones’ head. Nah - but who's to say there ain't booby traps or other such security measures he’d need them for. The one immediately behind Stones: Stones really wanted to see fly. The monk was getting bored and he'd prod him in the back with his cudgel every time. Testing me for fun. But we’ll see who’s having fun when you are thrown over the edge and about to hit the ground doing a hundred-eighty miles an hour.
Stones feels confirmed in not hauling up the obese monk by his scruff to hurl him out into space. The path along the mountain face cuts inward suddenly. The passage is lit again by the same strange torches. Then further on the passage seems to open to a vast cavern space.The passage terminates here into the opening onto a great divide, which seemed to wing out and up in a darkness without ending. The light from below was more of the torch fire. Alot more. An inferno like a river of flame. Dr. Stones suspects the kidnapped scientists have something to do with it.Stones could hear Brittany marvel at it, “Undead fire.”The monk holding her tethers chuckles, points, and explains as if addressing a child,“ Vitervum Ignivox.”
“Undead fire? Smokeless. No reflection”
“Va," nodding his head on its spindle neck. “Morthalav.”
“There's no reanimated fire. It's a parlor trick. Because there's no Scroll of Reanimation.”
“There is to, and it's going to make me very rich."
“No-”
“Tacichet!” The monk prods Stones with his cudgel, who then turns his head enough to memorize the monks face for later.
A rock-platform is at the other side of the great divide. A solitary monk pulls on a lever, which lowers a draw bridge. They cross it's span to the other side where there's a passage going sharply upward. When they come out onto another ledge they are much higher and it's later in the morning then when they first set off.
Brittany could swear, she sees the smoke rising through the trees from the gypsy camp, but doesn't have time to confirm anything before she's yanked by the tether. The ascent tapers off into the the twilight-gloom of a cave mouth like a palatial antechamber.
The day is late. The days had been ticking away, getting longer and longer on the approach to the solstice. Stones’ life was saved was, knowing where the Sun would be in the Sky. The Sun was used in setting all manner of ancient dungeon traps.

The sweat off their bodies cools them within the shelter of the cave, which ends in a massive double door, like those of a cathedral entrance.
There's no time for them to marvel at the craftsmanship here. It's unlike any cathedral entrance Stones or Brittany has ever seen. Imps gnash fangful grins down at them from the archivolts. Scenes of sinning, violence, sex, and torture play out in the tympanum.The jamb figures are arch-demon crossovers with various animals: man with crocodile head, man with donkey head (hee-haw), and woman with fish(Grouper) head . The Devil stood presiding from the trumeau; recognizable as he was the only angelic figure there, though he was warped by the clawed sinew-wings, spread out from his back. The carvings were unlike anything either of them had seen.

Stones would've liked to get a couple of pictures. His phone, revolver, and gadgets were all back at the tent. The floor over the threshold changes from ground granite sand to polished, checker-patterned marble. There are ornate ivy-wrought candle holders and pictographic tapestries.The monks unbound them. They then disappear through a heavy door they use a key to unlock.“What happens now?”
“We're not at the servant's entrance,” Stones said, examining the near-pornographic pictograms on a strip of tapestry. “We wait for whoever's in charge.”“I know this ain't the best time but I really have to pee.”There was a boom and the sound of footsteps coming down the hall.“I guess that's them.”Brittany might've been annoyed about Stones being clearly right about something—anything. But right then she was looking genuinely concerned about messing herself right there in a church (something she hadn't done since she was three).She keeps her hand at her crotch and sways around. The other monks all looked like methadone addicts as well. The monk in the center does not. He actually looks like Dr. Stones. She knew what it was. Both men had a doctorly air to them. They were both used to people hanging on their words. When he reaches them, he doesn't speak the same way as the monks. Plain regular English. The other folk seemed to be speaking Latin. Stones should know Latin, but by the way he was squinting, trying to comprehend. He didn't speak this Monk Latin.

Dr. Oscar Stones, doctor of Archaeology, recognizes the person at the head of the wedge of monks immediately. He recognized him and he did his best to hide it. It didn't surprise him that Dr. Oliver Stephens didn't recognize him.Dr. Oliver Stephens was in charge of the University’s Compact Hadron Particle Collider program. Think compact C.E.R.N. in France-Switzerland, but better. Pragmatic. American. The story goes that Stephens got greedy and was canned for embezzling funds. Off-record: Stephens pushed that machine to hard and opened up a wormhole. In there, he saw things human minds don't process well. He lost his shit. Demanded the resources to repeat his experiment. Became pushy. Got fired.Whatever he saw in there wasn’t nothing. Dr. Stones was counting whatever was giving him all this future tech – mind control, cold fusion fire – to have also scrambled whatever memory he might keep of their meeting at a Fellows Dinner.Dr. Stones was getting closer to confirming his “fell plot” theory. The kidnapped scientists, and now here’s Oliver Stephens. Another piece to the puzzle. Because any real 14th-century monastery abbot would have no clue about how to put up the fight they had to go through to get there.

Earlier:
“Ah! They can shoot—” Blam-Blam-Blam BlamBlamBlam—“Who are these guys!” A round ricocheted off the low cemetery wall he took cover behind in the grounds of a medieval church some clues were in. A round knocks off his fedora.Earlier than their being at the monastery, later than their being at the church:“Shoot and drive. These monks can shoot and drive,” Stones eyeing the headlights in his rearview.”
“Does talking make you drive faster?” Brittany turned backwards in the passenger seat of their fast car. "They're gaining on us!”The streets get bumpy.Presently:The ex-academia prima donna posing as a holy man says, "Dr. Stones. I'm Abbot Ein Vorfeld, head of this charitable establishment. Your reputation for evasion precedes you. If you'd kindly follow me, we'll have you both comfortably situated in our Chamber of Sacrifice, please.”“I'll be comfortable after a bathroom break,” Brittany whined.“Why certainly. You will find a ladies room toilet down the hall, to the left, right beneath a Babylonian Whore figure. Thank you.”Brittany found the ladies room in the Monastery of the Order of Santa Muerta to be immaculate. Cleaner than a first-class lounge in a major city airport.The discomfort wasn't a lie. The trials of this adventure had reduced her outfit to tatters. Her artisan denim jeans were now torn Daisy Dukes. All the missing buttons on her Egyptian linen shirt had her boobs showing out like a Hooters model. The Steve Madden cowhide boots have done the best.She's hid a flip phone there. She got it from the Gypsy Prince, her buyer for the scroll. It works as a remote for the micro-plastics explosives she's hidden down her bust.
“Bomb Baby.”

“This is the Brothers of Santa Muerta?”“Yeehsss,” said Vorfeld.“It's just all this beautiful iconography and not a single reference to the actual Saint herself,” Stones extrapolates, pacing a small circle, stroking his stubble jaw.Brittany Collins returned, drying her hands.“Has a man thinking all of this is a facade.”“Yes Dr. Stones - well done,” beams Vorfeld. “All of this is for show. The real Brothers of Santa Muerta were wiped out by the Inquisition in 1489. What you are seeing is work done most recently by a company specializing in historical reenactments. You deserve a great deal of credit for having made it this far. And I'd like to share with you my vision for the future as a reward. Now please right this way.”“...to the Chamber of Sacrifice.”“Tooo the Chamber of Sacrifice. Yes - the name is a misnomer. Done for the benefit of these lackeys here. More of a Cathedral of Contemplation –
“Uh-huh.”
“Please it's a bit of a way for these tired feet, but there is much for me to tell you, if I'm to relate to you my vision we should start now."And so the Abbot launched into a lengthy diatribe about society and religion and the government and the University, as he led them from the reception hall, through the cathedral nave, interspersing personal tidbits about his work-life imbalance, about how everyone has been getting it wrong all along. How he'd been able to transcribe on parchment the glyphs shown to him through the wormhole he opened up, which had actually been a portal to Hell.Brittany Collins had tried to follow along with the Abbot's story, but she was soon lost, as she searched for a place to plant her explosives.The Monks, predictable junkie behavior, got distracted as well. They were taking up the rear, staring up and out at the ribbed vaulting.Brittany ducked around a column. She reappeared behind the monks, soliciting their annoyance.“The tether. You need a tether?”She didn't answer, just hurried forward, looking back to see if anyone noticed, to walk into the 6'5" wall of muscle that was Oscar Stones' back.Brittany bounces, lands on her seat. He turned around slowly, still listening to the Abbot, eyes the monks menacingly, and takes her by the waist with his big hands. He picks her up as if she weighs nothing, then sets her down on her feet, wags his finger at her. The way Brittany’s mouth dropped, the way she stared ahead frozen had Stones concerned for a moment. Then he saw.

The Abbot had gone on ahead a little to an altar with a pedestal. Atop had been a glass jar, like a case, with a silken shroud. When the shroud came off a sickly illumination, blue and pink, irradiated over light of the room. Abbott lifted the glass jar to the floor, and there became a vibration on the air. A sub-sound frequency on the low scale.“I give you the Scroll of Reanimation. Our salvation from the redundancy inherent in the forces of good. Within it was the secret to build a weapon capable of harnessing Hell's energies, of holding the world hostage.” Not without hysteria in his voice.“Where are the scientists you kidnapped?”“Those deep fake, flat land toadies? Dead. Their bodies consumed in the hell fire I will soon bid to leap out and destroy a major city. A demonstration and proclamation of the Brother’s rise to power!”“So let me get this correct. That great river of fire we crossed over earlier wasn't some part of a jerry-built Hadron collider, but fits closer to the description of a giant weapon.”“That's correct.”“Annnd, I take it, that control panel built into that wall over there, that’s the sole means anyone alive knows of to control it.”“Again that is correct.”“Then what's there stopping me from doing this!” By this time Oscar Stones has picked up a nearby iron-wrought candle holder, and has arrived in front of the control panel.He speared it through the interface, causing wires to spark and the buttons to cease glowing.“What are you doing!” shrieks Abbot Vorfeld, starting to tear at his robe. “Get him!Monks storm in through doors from all directions, wielding short cudgels. Stones wields the candle holder expertly as a baton twirler might, battering through the fray. What the monks lack in hand-to-hand competence they make up in numerical advantage. Stones, with a side-swing, sends a foe hurtling. He follows through that same energy when he plants his weapon on its feet, to swing around it, swinging out a kick to the face of the monk with glasses.Stones regained his footing, and lifted the holder up.He crashes it down on a monk, the bored obese one, he noticed creeping up behind him. They are learning, he thought; Stones' position was exposed and the monks were trading cudgels for staff and short bows now.“If there's something you wanted to add, to get us out of this, now would be the time to do it!”
“Get that door out,” she commands. Brittany hurries to the pedestal and grabs the Scroll of Reanimation. The satchel she's fashioned by tying up a torn piece of tapestry dampens the low vibrations it's generating.“Hurry!”
Monks were streaming into the cathedral from further down the aisle. Dr. Stones uses the long, iron-wrought candle holder to pry off its hinges and a heavy door. He climbs to the pedestal.
Vorfeld chides, “It’s all for nothing. Your hopes for escape. My followers will all have been alerted by now. Your actions will prove a minor inconvenience. More scientists will be killed, but our plans move forward!”
Brittany takes the cell phone remote out. Stones return carrying the door.“Use it to shield us!” The monks have begun crowding forward again.
“Against what!? Them. There’s so many.”
“This!” She presses send.
Boom! The explosion incinerates a few monks. Percussion knocks away others and sends some flying into the walls into the tapestries and altars. More are thrown away onto their backs.Oscar Stones and Brittany Collins are the only ones still standing, having used the heavy door to brace against the blast. Vorfeld is left whimpering in a corner when they start to run. A huge crack fissures in the stone. A chain reaction begins. A heavy brick falls out of the vaulted ceiling, then another one. “It's coming down! Let’s go.”Stones takes as if to toss the door aside. “Bring it we need it!” The adventurers have a head start on the monks, whose daze from the explosion quickly wains into panic as rubble from the ruined ceiling begins to rain down. Rock, varying in size, cascaded down, some to lethal effect among the Brothers.
By this time the heavy door shelters the two in their escape. A high buttress leans, then collapses onto the floor in front of them, kicking up a cloud of dust. All around them monks take to their feet to run.Stones sets down the door and picks Brittany Collins up to place atop the buttress, now an obstacle fallen in their path. Then he gets his first glimpse of the Scroll in her makeshift satchel.
“Brittany! Leave it!”
“You said I can take it!”
“It's dangerous!” Stones notices a shadowy figure through the dust grayout watching them, partly concealed by a stanchion. He hauls up the heavy door again, into the path of an arrow.Not all the monks have forgotten them to save themselves. The shaking of the structure has grown worse under their feet. Stones hurls the door at the archer monk before another shot could be got off. He then pulls himself onto the barrier Brittany is already on the other side of.They watch for, leaping occasionally out of the way of, rocks landing hard all around them. They're able to retrace the journey to the reception hall leading to the big doors out. The quaking stays bad all the way out under the ornate entryway, along the side of the mountain, to the crossing over the river of fire.
“How do we cross?”
“Search for the lever,” Stones’ searching scans of the rock platform come up empty.“Someone followed us. Hide.” There's no where to hide. So they just press themselves against the wall out of view. Out of the rough-hewn passage they came from hurries none other than the soon-to-be-late Abbot Dr. Oliver Stephens. He overlooks the adventurers watching him in the rush to find the lever. Lucky for them. Only those who already knew where it was could’ve found it.Stones stalks forward. The Abbot stands back up. “Unhand me. Where are you taking me? Let me down! No!” He shrieks, bringing feeble blows down on the mass of shoulder hoisting him up. He gets carried to the edge, where he is then thrown. A plume of pink blue flame billows upward; the last of the evil Abbot.
Dr. Stones, his stubble jaw, his features remained impassive as he turns away from the edge, saying, “You comin’.”
Brittany's mouth clamps to a frown and her brow sinks into a scornful furrow. The side glance she gives him is the reproachful kind, despite feeling small with her hand clutched lightly by his fingers, for he’s leading her now, across the draw bridge.
“That was a murder Mr.”
“Murder what? Who got murdered? Show me who got murdered.”
“You need to be stopped Oscar Stones,” they were over the river of fire on the middle part of the bridge.
“You about to be a wealthy woman Ms. Collins.” Brittany turns her sharp nose up.
“That's right. We’re selling the Scroll.”
They exit from the passage hidden in the mountain. A crescent shaped moon reflects it's silver glare on the lawn of dew-wetted grasses. Ahead: the looming pines of the tree line. Behind: the crumbled monastery’s smoldering remains.

The cloaked figures which suddenly appear, encircling them, pointing daggers, they light torches of normal(to Dr. Stones great relief) gold-red fire. A lead figure casts off his cloak revealing himself to be the Gypsy Prince Juan Mustachio. Dr. Stones is not elated. Brittany is.
“Wow - excellent timing. We were just coming to exchange the Scroll.”
“And we - the band and I - are equally pleased to find you here, though I must relate, regardless of the displeasure it may bring you, news that the conditions of our agreement have changed.”
“What?”
“Your getting gypped.” Stones not breaking the stare-down he’s having with the bulkiest of the monks, who was sporting bruises from their last confrontation.
Smooth as hell, Mustachio explained, "Those micro plastic explosives given to you were actually one-of-a-kind and experimental. Priceless. We are willing to settle the balance in exchange for the prized Scroll of Reanimation you possess. Abdul. Aziz,"

Abdul and Aziz are the two gypsy goons who retrieve the Scroll by assisting the satchel Brittany Collins carries from around her shoulders. Stones moves like to stop them but is pulled up short, for the bulky gypsy with history brandishes closer with a dagger.
“As a token of appreciation for services rendered and to mend any misgivings this turn of circumstances might impart, we've arranged for you lodgings at a plush hotel. An itinerary of first class flights back to your institutions of higher learning Stateside." Abdul and Aziz return to hand them brochures.
Their travels home are unremarkable. Brittany distances herself from him by focusing on the inflight movie or by pretending to be asleep. Once or twice he would catch her staring out, muttering about how close she had come to getting rich. At which point Stones would rest his head into the plush seating of the Gulfstream private jet they flew on.
“Whatcha goin' do with the Scroll?”
“The Scroll as well as the monastery – probably, more than likely – will take a turn through the local lore we feed to the tourists who come through here. Until – that is – the scroll lands in the same trash heap as the Spear of Destiny, the philosophers stone. There it will disappear from memory into legend.” The Gypsy Prince shrugged his shoulders and sauntered away. “We’ll meet again I imagine.”
Dr. Stones forces thoughts of the Scroll away, glances at Brittany once more, then turns his thoughts to what he's going to tell the university president.
A lot of lying was ahead of him. He'd have to make up an entire testimony around what happened to the murdered scientists. Then he'd have to furnish evidence for it. Pay off actors to lie. A whole facade he’d put up.
The university would be in mourning for a time. But eventually things would brighten up. The families could have closure in what he told them. So what would it have been? Terrorist cell? Drug cartel? Crime family? Whatever to dilute the fact he foiled a fell plot and saved the world.