Stone Cold Revenge, Hugs.And.Kisses [bill gates books recommendations TXT] 📗

Chapter 7 Let's go to Prison

It was a long walk to the prison. What made it harder was the fact that Medusa walked really fast. The boys almost had to jog to keep up with her. When Medusa finally stopped it was in front of a jagged cliff face. Movement came from boulders that dotted the bluffs. In fact it was the boulders themselves that where moving. One came loose and flew down, threatening to squash the party below. As the boulder got closer the boys realized it wasn't a boulder at all. It was a stone gargoyle. The gargoyle crashed down in front of them and roared fiercely. It looked a lot like a mutated deamon; almost human shaped but with large horns and hawk beak. Klondike barked at it frantically.

Before the boys could do anything Medusa walked closer and patted the monstrous creature on the beak, "It's ok Granite. I've invited them here. Now be a dear and open the door for me."

Granite growled at the boys but obeyed. He flew over to a large slab of stone and placed his claw on it. The slab spontaneously started moving out of the way. A tunnel mouth was revealed. Medusa was on the move again so the guys had no choice but to follow her. Torches lit their way as they traveled into the winding catacombs that inhabited the cliff. They occasionally came across whole groups of gargoyles patrolling the tunnels. From off in the distance roaring and cries could be heard. Klondike gave a soft wine. Noticing the guy's discomfort Medusa started explaining were they where.

"This is the Land of the Dead prison. It houses more of the unruly citizens of this realm. When my long life came to an end, you could say that my grim reaper had more than a few bones to pick with me. I had left all my stone victims in the mortal world. He told me they where my responsibility and my only chance of not being dammed to Hades. So throughout the next years of my afterlife I tracked down, collected, and reversed all of my former victims. But that wasn't enough. It got me out of Hades but it didn't grant me one step in Heaven. This place was founded for one purpose, my redemption.

"It isn't an easy job to round up the dead's toughest criminals. What makes it harder are immortals. A Grim Reaper is accountable for all immortals in his or her jurisdiction, leaving him the job of capturing the immortal and bringing them to the Land of the Dead. Most cases of immortality are caused by magic and in that way, reversible. They are brought here, reversed, and then either is sentenced to time here or is sent on their way. But there are a few that gained their immortality by science. They're annoyingly hard to fix them that way. We spend forever trying to find a 'cure' for it but it only works sometimes. Currently there is only one immortal here that hasn't been reversed. I doubt if he ever could."

"Who is it?" Lock asked.

"His name is Chadwick Moore, former resident of the 28th dimension."

"The what?" Kevin asked.

"The 28th dimension. What, did you think this was the one and only dimension? Next I supposed you think there's only one grim reaper;" when she was met with silence she groaned, "Ok let me explain. There are infinite dimensions and multiple reapers for each. The reapers are allowed to pass through the dimensions except for a few. Sometimes when a threat becomes too much to handle in one dimension they transport it to another dimension where it can't do any damage. When word got out among the reapers about my prison here I started getting immortals left and right.

"Chadwick came from the 28th dimension, a dimension showing one of earth's possible futures. A bleak and depressing one. His mother was a scientist, a brilliant one at that. She began working on a vaccine formula, what it was originally meant to do I'm not sure. In the end it turned out to grant immortality to the test subject. The subject would remain exactly the way it was no matter how you try to kill it. Of course Chadwick was very interested in the research and asked his mother to show him the lab one night. The lab was empty and after explaining exactly what it did, his mother told him that the formula was ready for human use. That was all Chadwick needed. He pushed his mother out the lab window and quickly injected the vaccine into himself before he too jumped. When the police found them Chadwick's mother was long dead and Chadwick claimed amnesia of the event.

"If you hadn't guessed, Chadwick didn't have the best intentions for his newfound immortality. Murdering his mother had left him riches beyond compare, riches he had great and terrible plans for. The grim reaper that had Chadwick under his jurisdiction knew that he couldn't let him live one full day as an immortal. When Chadwick visited a construction site of one of his inherited company's new buildings, he happened to fall into a pool of wet cement. He stayed there for one hundred years before a redeveloping plan threatened his exposure. I'm not sure how the reaper got him out of the concrete but he eventually made his way here."

After walking deeper into the caverns of the prison they finally came to a large steel door with no handle on it. Medusa mumbled a spell and the door groaned open. Inside there was a well lit laboratory with glowing with strange test tubes and even some old computers. In the center of the room was an examination table with a twisted statue on it.

"Vincent," Medusa called as she walked into the lab, "Vincent! *sigh* Where could he be now?"

"Who's Vincent?" Barrel asked.

"He's my apprentice. I'm teaching him all that I know about potions so he can help me with Chadwick's cure. It's not everyday when someone dies with the secret ambition of being a mad scientist. His only downfall is being a bit scatterbrained. Working on one thing one minute then on another the next. Sometimes he just gets up and leaves doing who knows what around town. I'd get rid of him, but he's a genius. We are more close to a cure than I've ever been alone. I guess I'll have to find the test potions without him."

She started to go to the door across the room from the examination table. When they passed it the boys got a good look at the one immortal who stumped the great Medusa. Chadwick's face was frozen in a frightening way, they way a person's face would look if they knew they were getting something worse than death. That the only one they could blame was them self. Other than that he didn't look like a murderous criminal. He was barely older than they were. Then again most people their age haven't gone on trial, been sentenced to banishment, kidnapped Santa Clause, and brought the Boogie Man back from the dead seven or eight times.

"Question," Kevin said to Medusa, "Why leave him in the concrete? Can't you just get him out then try and find the cure?"

Medusa turned and gave a malicious smile, giving her an eerie resemblance of Shock. With lighting speed Medusa produced a large sledge hammer from thin air and gave a loud hiss. She jumped high and brought down the hammer on Chadwick's hand. The concrete broke away into gravel and freed his hand. The hand didn't move; it looked perfectly healthy, like the potion meant to do. Suddenly the hand snapped to life, blindly feeling around. As the boys stared at the hand it started to change color, going from tan to gray almost instantly. The skin started to bubble and it got lumpy. The hand started panicking, scratching at the table and clawing at the open air as it continued to change. Almost half a minute after being released, the hand was encased in stone again.

"That's why," Medusa said nonchalantly, "In that hundred years he was sitting under a building, the stone chemically bonded with his DNA. Long lecture short, Chadwick here grows stone like we grow scabs."

"Oh," Kevin said timidly. You don't argue with a dangerous woman with a sledge hammer still in her hands.

Medusa hung up the hammer on the wall and pulled out a key (don't ask me from where) and unlocked the back door. It opened up to a warehouse full of potions and viles. From floor to ceiling there where different colored tonics and remedies. Some glowed by themselves while others where so dark you'd think you were looking at a shadow in a jar. There where also jars and pots filled with herbs and strange things they've never seen before. Kevin looked at the shelves oddly, they some how looked familiar. Medusa told them that the potion they where looking for where in the back. As they went deeper Kevin started to feel something weird, like the air had become thicker. The others didn't seem to notice so he walked on. But that feeling persisted until he realized it was exactly what he felt before Barrel had that incident with the wall.

Kevin grabbed Lock and Barrels shoulders and stopped them, "Guys, I'm getting that bad feeling again. Like before."

Before Lock or Barrel could say anything Medusa screamed, "NOOOOOOOOOO!" The boys caught up to her to see a completely empty shelf. "The potions! All of them, gone!"

"How could someone get in here?" Lock asked, "This place has more guards than Alcatraz."

"What if they didn't break in, maybe they broke out," Barrel said, looking around nervously.

"Impossible," Medusa said, her snake hair snapping angrily, "That door won't open for anything but the key… keys." Medusa eyes widened with realization, and then closed with anger, "That ungrateful little wretch! I'll have his head for this!"

Klondike gave a loud wine. Making all of them jump. He was looking down the way they had came. His ears were up like he was hearing something only he could hear. After a tense moment the wolf dog broke off into a run, howling madly.

"It's the same as before, first the bad feeling, then Klondike," Kevin said, as everyone ran after the dog.

"Klondike saved me then," Barrel said as they ran, "There's only one of us he could be running off to save now."

"We have to get to Shock!" Lock yelled, his voice echoing into the dark caverns.