The Gus Ascendancy by Jack Ravenhill

The Gus Ascendancy by Jack Ravenhill

Author:Jack Ravenhill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone


Chapter Nine

Sam and Gus crouched at the window of Gus’s upstairs bedroom in the parsonage. The lady-minion crouched awkwardly beside Gus. Her flowery perfume swamped the room. The leafy branches outside the window partly blocked their view, and the three of them shifted in a constant slow dance, subconsciously vying for the best positions.

“Where’s the third one?” Sam asked, peering at the pair of titans.

“Obviously. It’s—” Gus cut off, looking momentarily troubled.

“What?”

“Look, who cares where it is? Three’s a crowd, right? Less for us to deal with.”

Sam eyed him warily. He was deflecting, and something didn’t add up.

“Maybe he went over to Blackwood to get reinforcements,” suggested the minion.

“Quiet, Mama Bear,” Gus countered, peering hard out the window. “Nobody asked you to make up answers.”

“My name is Rosemary.”

Gus turned with a frown.

“None of your back-sass. Who’s the minion here, anyway?”

She returned his frown and went back to peering out the window. After a moment, she said, “Is that Lottie?”

A little old woman was making her way across the grass toward the two titans, who stood side by side, still and silent. She walked swiftly, her chin set with determination, nothing like the vague meanderings of the cultists. It looked like she was charging across the lawn to give them a good talking-to.

“Who’s Lottie?” asked Gus.

Rosemary pointed to the lady. “Lottie MacNair. She’s in my knitting circle. If they got on her bad side, they’re in trouble, titans or no.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “She’s Scottish, don’tcha know.”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Sam supplied automatically, some quote burned deep into Ronan’s neural pathways. He leaned left, trying to get a view out onto the lake to see if he could spot the reptar. No luck. The window only showed a narrow patch of water, and it was mostly blocked by branches.

The missing titan nagged at him like a word at the tip of his tongue. It didn’t fit, and all of Ronan’s tactical instincts screamed at him that a missing piece that big had to be important.

“Where’s the third one?” he asked again.

Gus flared up. “Look, I already told you. It doesn’t matter. Just leave it alone, okay?”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“So what if I didn’t? And I’m not saying I don’t. But nobody ever said it was my job to keep track of all the titans around here. I’m not running a freaking rescue mission, okay? Maybe he just … you know, he just … ” Again, that troubled expression settled over his plump features.

“If we don’t know, we’ll have to assume the worst. That probably means prepping for Astral reinforcements. Or some big game-changing play. Anybody’s guess what they’ve got up their sleeve.” He fixed Gus with a sharp look. “You really don’t know where it went?”

Gus’s eyes darted evasively. He began edging away from Sam. “Look, I told you. None of that matters. We can just—”

Sam grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. “It does matter! Tell me.”

But he whined and wriggled like a child trying to escape his parent’s grip.



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