“Save us! Save us! It’s the evil frog-features! Ahhhh!”
“Don’t even try it,” Gretel said, glaring at Rocky and Trinity. “I’m here on business.”
“Yeah?” asked Zac. “What business is that? IVF?”
“I’m offering a truce.”
Silence.
“Why?” asked Taylor cautiously.
“I’ve been approached by your brother, Isaac.”
No one told her they already knew.
“Why tell us?” Zac asked.
“I don’t know what’s happened to that boy,” Gretel said. “But it’s obvious something happened. Quite frankly, I don’t care what, as long as you find a way to fix it. That boy is positively evil. I have never witnessed such ruthless, callous, downright malicious behaviour in all my life, and I thought I’d seen the worst of them! What’s more, he’s encroaching on my territory, stealing away my best people and demanding I start working for him! Bah!”
Her yellow eyes flickered dangerously across the group.
“I will not stand for this. I will not see everything I have worked for lost to this… this upstart pup! I will arrange a meeting. I will not be there, but you will be,” and she pointed at them all, “and you will take care of this little problem that you people no doubt created. I will let you know as soon as the time and place are selected.”
And on that, she teleported out again.
Everyone stared at each other.
“Well!” said Zac. “I certainly didn’t expect that!”
“What did you two read?” Trinity asked Taylor and Jessica.
“She was genuine,” Taylor said. “She was full of righteous anger about it all. There could have been an ulterior motive -”
“A safe assumption, considering the source,” Rocky nodded.
“But if there was, she meant every word she said about Ike, and us taking care of them. It could be as simple as wanting us to do her dirty work for her.”
“Well, it’s not really her dirty work,” Zac said mildly. “I mean, even if it was an accident, it was my fault.”
“Zac, none of us are interested in assigning blame to an accident. You were sick. You sneezed. You zapped. No one’s blaming you,” Jessica said softly.
“Except me.”