Hilda and Zelda (18 page)

Hilda grabbed him by the arm, pulled him
inside and closed the door. "We're a witch and a wizard. And who
are you?"

The involuntary guest failed to respond. His
eyes jumped from witch to wizard and then back. "They told me this
place was deserted," he finally managed to put out.

"They? And who are you? What do you want
here?" William asked as he got up. His dark blue wizard outfit made
the boy stagger backwards until the door ended his
amazement-induced retreat.

"You shouldn't be here," the boy uttered,
still not making much sense.

Hilda and William seriously doubted the
reasons for the boy to be here.

"Listen, either you tell us who you are, or
we'll help you a bit," William said. He was tall enough to do some
looming over the boy, and magic as well as his attire did the
rest.

"Theo," the boy said, trying to avert his
eyes from those of William.

"Good boy, Theo," the wizard said.

"Why are you dressed so strangely?" Theo
asked.

"This is not strange, boy," Hilda pitched in.
"And we ask the questions here. So far one of three has been
answered. Why are you here and who are the 'they' you
mentioned?"

Theo's hand clutched at his jacket; he
appeared confused. "I had to leave something here."

"And 'they' told you to do that, right?"
William asked.

Theo nodded violently.

"Calm down, Theo, keep your head on. Come,
sit down." William took the boy by the shoulder and steered him to
a chair.

Theo remembered how to sit down without being
urged to. Hilda sat down on the other chair, and William sat down
on the chair he magicked up, scaring Theo so much that the boy
almost looked alive.

"So, Theo. You were going to leave something
here. For them." William was treated to a set of dumbfounded nods.
"Good. I am glad we have communication established."

Theo looked at Hilda. "Are you really a
witch?"

"Are you really stupid?" the witch asked in
return. "Of course I am."

"Of course I am," Theo repeated, nodding.

Hilda looked at William. "He's weird." She
popped up her wand.

Theo jolted, almost falling from his chair.
"Wha's that? How did you do that?"

"It's a wand, Theo. Witches and wands come in
pairs. Don't you know that?"

"Just in stories," Theo declared, reaching
for the wand and getting a slap with it for the attempt.
"Ouch."

"Never mess with a witch's wand, young man,"
the witch warned him. She quickly poked the wand at Theo's cheek
and drew it back before the boy realised that he wanted to hit it
away.

"Suck an elf, William, there's something
wrong with him." Hilda waved her wand. "Very wrong."

William wondered what she had noticed. Hilda
knew tricks that he didn't.

"It is as if he is drunk. But then without
alcohol," Hilda elaborated.

William began to understand. "You mean he's
drugged?"

"Nothing heavy, people. Just a bit of a
soother," Theo was helpful.

"He's drugged. We're found out by a drug
addict," William sighed. "That's great. Theo, you were going to
hide some drugs here, weren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you," Theo
said with a surprising bolt of confidence. "I am on a mission here,
and they trust me."

"Of course, Theo," William said as Hilda sat
back, amazed at the strange exchange. "We can't have them being
angry with you, of course." Calmly he slipped a spell towards Theo,
creating an atmosphere of confidentiality, of conspiring friendship
around them.

Theo, susceptible to the spell as the drugs
were messing with his awareness, nodded as he patted on his jacket.
"Right. They're coming for this tonight, so it has to be here."

"Tell you what, Theo," William said. "We'll
go away and you can put your package here. Then you have done what
you came for."

Theo studied the wizardly face. This sounded
so good that the little bit of nagging that was somewhere in the
back of his mind was easily overruled. "Yeah, that's a plan."

Hilda shook her head. She did not follow what
was going on. William was talking gibberish the way he was able to
so well and Theo ate it all up as if it was the best thing since
brooms.

William got to his feet. "Hilda, come. We
have to leave Theo to his business."

She gave him a funny look but got up and
followed William as he walked to the door.

"Theo," said William, his wand working,
"we're gone now."

"Right," said Theo. He looked over his
shoulder, but thanks to the spell by William he could not see
anyone. The drugged boy got up, took a small package from an inside
pocket and put it on the table. Again the boy looked around, seeing
nobody. He then nodded to himself. "I'm going now, guys," he said
in a hushed voice. "They're coming later. When it's dark."

As if he was moving through a snake pit, Theo
carefully walked to the door and left the shed.

"Now what was all that about?" Hilda asked
after making sure Theo was out of earshot.

William explained to her about drugs,
drugdealers and their runners.

"So Theo put a package with that stuff here
on the table?" Hilda's eyes were large. "We have to destroy it,
William. It is not good." She already had her wand in her hand, as
William gently pushed her arm down.

"Wait, hot-head. We should keep it here until
the people who are responsible for that material come to collect
it. We can take care of them at the same moment."

"But we can do that without that abusive
stuff, William!"

"We can, yes, but I have an idea for that."
William told her of what he had been thinking of, and Hilda smiled
as she understood what William was aiming at.

Hilda watched as William opened the package
that Theo had left on the table, well hidden in plain sight. Inside
it were a few small glass containers with liquids that looked like
water but definitely weren't. There also was a box with yellow
pills.

"I don't think they are lemon flavoured just
because they're yellow, right?" the witch asked.

"You're right. I don't know my way around
this stuff but it's not something you would use for its taste."
William wrapped the package up again. On his request, Hilda made an
exact copy of it. The copy however contained vials with real water,
and the pills did taste like lemon.

The couple then simply waited for evening to
come, as the people who would collect the package would arrive then
also. They were not disappointed.

Hilda had changed the shed back a little to
its messy appearance. Their things were now behind a fake wall, and
they themselves hovered over the roof on their brooms. An hour
after darkness had fallen, two people, dressed in black, made their
way to the shed. It was clear from their behaviour that they were
not eager to be noticed: they moved from shadow to shadow.

Hilda and William calmly watched how the two
slowly made their way to the narrow alley that led to the shed.
Whispers rose up to them as the two came closer to the door. As the
collectors of the package had entered, the magical couple silently
descended into the alley as well and simply waited for the two
'guests' to reappear in the open. William already had a small stick
in his hand that he could ignite at will, making light to blind the
drugs-people.

Inside the house a flashlight moved around.
It clearly was very difficult for the intruders to find their
precious loot. Some muffled cursing went on after that, which was
obviously the result of someone running into something. Hilda
grinned.

The door opened again, the two people stepped
outside. "Stuff it away, idiot," one of them whispered to the
other. "We don't want to get caught with that shit in plain
sight."

William ignited the stick. The effect, next
to light that was spreading, was highly entertaining. One of the
visitors screamed and just dropped to the ground, his hands over
his head. The other one staggered back towards the shed, missing
the door as the light was working more than miracles. The man
clawed along the short wall and then yelled: "I don't know who you
are, but I have a gun."

Not in the least impressed, Hilda said: "I
have a wand." She popped it into existence, just to be convincing.
It missed its effect as the man against the wall was still not
seeing much.

As he was huddled into a corner, the man's
eyes started making sense of the surroundings. He grabbed into the
pocket of his coat and drew a gun from it, waving it around in a
rather uncontrolled fashion.

"These things are dangerous, aren't they?"
Hilda wanted to make sure, so she asked William.

"They are."

"Right." She flicked her wand at the man with
the gun. "Taken care of that."

The man in the corner, who had taken the time
to look at his partner in crime who was still whimpering as he lay
on the floor, looked at the two strange people. "Taken care of
what?" he asked.

Hilda just smiled and waited for the metal of
the gun to become hot enough for the man to notice that as well. He
cursed as he shook the burning gun from his fingers, staring at the
blisters that were forming on them.

"I think they've had enough now, Hilda,"
William said.

"I guess," said the witch. "So, boys. How
about we go inside and you can explain what you are doing
here?"

The 'boy' who had thrown away his gun was not
the kind who would jump to the request of a witch. Instead, he made
a big leap, in an attempt to throw the two strange people off
balance. They would not expect him to try that.

Unfortunately he had not expected the
power-wall that William and Hilda had in place between them and the
two visitors. The man slammed into the invisible wall and with a
more than ordinary expression of surprise on his face he fell down,
over his scared companion.

"They don't know a thing here," Hilda sighed.
She removed the safety-wall, they picked up the face-down visitors
and took them inside.

-=-=-

Zed woke up with a thunder of a headache. He
was uncomfortably sitting on a wooden chair, his hands tied behind
his back. His head hung down so all he saw were his knees and a
floor that looked as if it was made of concrete. Zed slowly raised
his head. The throbbing that went on inside there made him careful,
something he usually was not.

'What the fuck happened,' he thought to
himself, as he saw Ted tied up on another chair

'I am dreaming,' Zed then thought. 'That, or
someone fixed me up with a shot of real bad.' He looked at Hilda
and William, who were calmly sitting at the table, eating
something. The smell of food and coffee were very helpful to Zed in
regaining some more consciousness. "Hrrbf", he stated, to his
surprise.

Hilda looked at the source of the sound. "Oh.
William, it's awake."

"Brrm?" Zed wanted to know. Hilda's spell had
glued his lips together. He didn't know that. Actually, there was a
lot he did not know yet, but he was about to be enlightened. Hilda
style.

William looked over his shoulder. "Oh. Good.
We can talk to him later."

"Hvhvm!" Zed showed his displeasure with that
comment. He tried to kick Ted, but found out his feet would not
move away from the legs of the chair. Another surprise, spelled by
Hilda.

Ted looked at his frantically moving friend
and shook his head. He had been awake during most of the time and
had seen the actions of the strange, grey-haired woman and her
silly stick. Oh, wrong. It was hardly a silly stick, considering
what it had achieved. "Hggm," Ted told Zed, and sat back, as that
was the least uncomfortable way to be.

"Hvvvrrrr!" Zed was not giving up just like
that.

William turned around. "Would you mind
shutting up for a while? We're having a late night snack, and it
tastes better when you stop making these obnoxious sounds."

Hilda waved her wand. "You stop yourself, or
we stop you." She hoped the muttering man would not stop, but that
hope was destroyed as Zed slumped back into the chair and kept
quiet. It had already dawned on him that he could not win this
one.

Only a few minutes later, the magical couple
turned their full attention to the two people they had caught.
Hilda leisurely snipped her fingers, releasing the lips of their
involuntary guests.

Zed noticed the tightness around his lips
leave. "Who the fuck are you peop-"

Snip.

"vvm."

"That's better." Hilda turned to Ted. "Are
you going to do the same thing?" She held her hand up, ready to
snip her fingers.

"No, no, no!" Ted shook his head. "No, ma'am,
I'm not gonna scream."

"Bmm vvmvm grmvm!" Zed shared his feelings
about Ted. He was ignored, though.

The magical couple pulled up their chairs and
sat down near Ted. "Right then," Hilda started. "Your friend Theo
left a package for you two characters. He was glad we were helpful
in storing the package for you, so next time you run into him, you
should be grateful."

"Who is Theo?" Ted asked. His surprise was
evident.

"Hilda, usually these types do not know each
other. That is safer for them as they are dealing with illegal
business," William explained. "They don't know each other, so they
can never say who did something bad."

The witch rubbed her nose. "There's this
remark I'd like to make about this world, William. You know what I
mean."

"I do, sweet witch."

"Good. First off, boy, tell us your
names."

Ted managed to tell the two strange people
his name, and that of his partner in crime.

"Ted and Zed. Sounds like a comedy couple,"
William snickered.

"William, please pay attention. These two
were trying to murder us. That is not a laughing matter," Hilda
said, missing the joke. She turned to Ted again. "You may have
understood that we are a witch and a wizard. The real deal." She
showed her wand. "This is not a stick, this is a magical wand. And
I know how to use it. So no tricks. Do we have an
understanding?"