Excerpt: INCLEMENT GODS by Gabriele Russo
Enjoy reading an excerpt from INCLEMENT GODS (book 2 in the GODS INC. series) by Gabriele Russo.
INCLEMENT GODS
by Gabriele Russo
AWKWARD PARTNERS
“Where are we going?” asked Mimir as Lara pressed a button in the elevator.
“Two floors up. It’s an abandoned tunnel used for ventilation. We think that’s how they got out; all the cameras in it and in the stairs leading to it were disabled.”
“On which level was Goblin imprisoned?”
“The one right underneath.”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” said Mimir as the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened.
Lara was already halfway out. “What? Why?”
“I want to see where he was kept.”
“There’s nothing there. I checked.”
“Look Dumpling, it helps my cognitive abilities to follow an enigma from its inceptive point. To put it in a way your pretty little head would understand: start at the beginning.”
Lara growled and, stomping back in the elevator, hit another button. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to smooth her grimace. She hated teamwork. After three long breaths, with no noticeable effect on her mood, the doors reopened.
“We call this the Evil Bastards Basement, or EBB for short,” she felt bound to explain as they walked down the long, well-lit corridor. “The prisoners here are usually power-hungry madmen or Ponzi schemers. It’s very high security; each cell is actually an extremely deep pit and there are cameras strewn all over.”
“And no one noticed that some had been disabled?”
“They are watched in a loop on five screens, and someo… Jules programmed them out of the sequence.”
She opened the door to the cell and went to stand on the Parochial Pit’s ledge.
She took Mimir’s head out of the bag and held him over it. “See, nothing there.”
“Nothing except a drop of blood.”
She looked down, screwing her eyes. “No way, where?”
“Right under us, on the floor.”
With considerable restraint, Lara deposited the head on the ground, got the ladder and descended into the pit.
“It’s just a drop. I bleed more than that when I’m the victim of a paper cut.”
“I know. But if it’s Goblin’s blood, it could mean he wasn’t expecting the rescue. Maybe he even resisted. Unless the priest was attacked by one of his own pamphlets…”
Lara started back up the ladder. “He didn’t suck his fingers once, so probably not.”
“And I bet you didn’t let Goblin have anything he might hurt himself with?”
“I don’t remember forbidding vicious literature, but you’re right.”
“And did anyone enter the pit since?”
“Just me, and I know I didn’t bleed.”
“Which brings the probability of Goblin being hurt during his escape to ninety eight percent. My guess is they didn’t want to waste time explaining, so they knocked him out instead.”
Lara picked him up. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, yet.”
“Still, I better give the information to the Nest.” She tucked him under her arm to reach her earpiece. “Hi, John? It’s Lara.”
“Lara, already?”
“Yeah, I just wanted to tell you that there’s good chance Goblin wasn’t expecting his rescue.”
“Really? Interesting… I’ll pass it on. Are you still in the castle?”
“Yes, but we are leaving now. You will need to test the drop of blood on the pit’s floor to confirm. Over and out.”
“So that’s what that blue thing in your ear is for,” said Mimir. “I thought it was a newfangled sort of earring.”
“The Blueberry? It’s one H’s inventions, it serves both as a direct link to the nest and as a localization device.”
“Is it called that because it’s blue or the other way around?”
“Don’t ask me, it’s H’s color fetish.”
She stuffed the head back in the bag.
“Would you mind not doing that?” said Mimir in a muffled voice.
She opened the bag. “I can’t hold you all the time, I might need to use my hands.”
“The bag is made to hold my head in a certain way, so that if you strap me to your chest, you just lift the flap there and I can see out.”
“Oh, okay.”
She shifted the bag to her front.
“Mmmm, comfy,” said the head.
“What! Why you perverted…”
“I was kidding. I have absolutely no sexual urges whatsoever, I don’t have the equipment for it.”
So how come she felt there was a leer on that wrinkled old face?
She squeezed her cheeks and exhaled. “Gods, I wish Jules could talk.”
“Sorry, I don’t grant wishes. That’s another head.”
BOOK INFO
Inclement Gods by Gabriele Russo
Book 2: Gods Inc. Series
Fantasy
Fiery Seas Publishing
July 4, 2017
When you live in a world pullulating with gods, can you truly be an atheist? Well, yes…if you know a way to get rid of them. Mysantheos, a fanatic atheist at the head of a powerful lobby/terrorist organization, has created a weapon able to kill gods and his kamikaze army is ready to attack. As the divine bodies pile up, resentment builds at Gods Incorporated and violent factions start pushing for the extermination of the human race, and the CEO/Queen Louhi is running out of ideas to calm them down. Hopefully, her black ops teams are doing better. But will the Nerds and Richard (a down-on-his-luck private eye), saddled as they are with a group of angry gods, manage to find Mysantheos before all hell breaks loose?
AMAZON ~~ BARNES & NOBLE ~~ KOBO ~~ iBOOKS
Gabriele Russo, AKA Lucie-Gabrielle Jolicoeur-Rousseau, was born in Quebec City amidst a family of book lovers – her father had dreamed of being a writer and both of her brothers are published authors.
Since she earned her Bachelor’s in History, it was no surprise (except to her) that she ended up working in restaurants, eventually owning two, which almost drove her mad. She sold them and was nursed back to pseudo-sanity by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
That’s when she answered the family calling and decided to write. Armed with her ideas for the Gods Inc. series she went back to the University and got her Master’s in Creative Writing.
She now lives with her husband in Culpeper, Virginia, where she divides her time between painting, ripping apart and reconstructing her recently bought historical home, playing tennis and, of course, writing more books.
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