Hilda and Zelda (21 page)

Their host had gotten over the shock of the
flying trays rather quickly. "I had not expected you back so
soon."

William told her about the misfortune they
had encountered with the places they intended to stay. This did not
fill Vivian with a very comfortable feeling about her own
residence.

Andy just stared as he tried to scrape the
bottom out of his teacup.

"Andy is one of the witches that offered to
help us with the witches meet this evening," Vivian said, shaking
off the nasty feelings that suddenly tried to invade her mind.

"Ah, good," Hilda said. "Not often you meet a
male witch. Zelda will like that."

This shook Andy into gear. "Uhm? Zelda? Viv,
you mentioned that name too. I thought it was a joke." He surpassed
himself in paleness.

Vivian stared at the man, tapping the side of
one of the trays. "You saw what she did, right? This is real. They
are real."

Andy's face wanted to droop from his skull.
"Real, as in... real." He stated it out loud, for himself, to
measure his reaction to it. It scared him.

It took them a while to get Andy relaxed
enough to hear what the plan was for the rest of the day. Hilda and
William would fly around and try to locate Zelda. Any attempt to
nab her was worth it. If they had no luck, then the witches meet
was on. Vivian was already calling her friends to remind them about
the evening event, but none of them had forgotten it.

"Some are pretty nervous about it," she told
Hilda and William after the calls.

"It is not every day they go against a
witch," Hilda understood, "so they should be nervous. But we'll be
around. And we won't hesitate to break up the party when Zelda gets
ideas."

"That's good," said Andy. "Very good."

With all things covered that were worth
covering, Hilda and William started their flying around, in their
continued search for Zelda. The downside of it was that they did
not get beyond the searching. The finding proved to be
impossible.

-=-=-

The day went through its afternoon and
eventually the evening started spreading its dark cloak. In a part
of a forest, just outside the town, torches used flames to bring a
shivery light to the environment. Figures moved, in silence as much
as possible. A few tables were placed just outside the area where
the magical circle would be. Stones marked the places of the four
directions. A man in a white robe fumbled with a compass he could
hardly read because of the lack of light.

"Still not sure that North is exactly in the
North," Andy muttered as he put away the compass. "If we do this,
we should do it right."

"Calm down, Andy," said Tory as she walked
past him. "It'll all be well. We have the two magical people on our
side."

Andy mumbled something nobody understood and
paced off, almost setting his robe on fire as he moved too close to
a torch.

Vivian and Cornelia, who were to lead the
meeting, shook their heads in unison. Perhaps inviting Andy had not
been such a good idea after all. He looked like he was becoming a
strategic point of failure.

Jennifer was looking around, wondering if she
could detect a trace of Hilda and William, but there was only
darkness among the trees, a darkness that stayed just beyond the
reach of the light that the flames cast. She shivered.

"You okay, Jenn?" Vivian asked, who noticed
the woman staring into the black.

Jennifer was startled by that simple
question; her thoughts had been drifting far away. "What? Oh. Yes.
I'm fine." The fact that she rubbed her arms showed that she was
not exactly fine, the fact that she again glanced over her shoulder
made that even clearer.

"We're a bit thin for a coven," Andy
muttered.

"Andy. Not again. We don't have more members,
and we've done fine with all other rituals, so stop your yapping or
we'll throw you out here and now."

Andy kept his mouth shut. He knew she would
do that without a further thought, and he did not like the idea of
being thrown out of the group. First off, he liked being in the
coven. And second, something he'd never admit to, he was scared
shitless by the thought of having to go home alone in the dark with
a crazy witch on the loose.

Vivian reached into her pocket and felt the
magically charged pebble. With that there, Hilda was only a rub
away, she told herself. "Right. Shall we begin..."

The people of the small coven took their
places. Vivian started to chant and walked around the circle, to
charge it and create the sacred space.

"Suck an elf..." Hilda frowned as she saw the
women and the man perform the start of the ritual. "What are they
doing, William? Is that normal for here?"

They were hovering several hunderd feet over
the forest, at a distance that Hilda reckoned was safe.

William had never before witnessed a Wiccan
ritual before and shrugged. "Perhaps. I don't know. They are not my
kind of people in that respect."

Hilda grinned. "I know. I am your kind of
people."

"Do you sense Zelda around?"

The witch shook her head. "I hope she shows.
Would be a shame if this all was for empty dragon eggs."

William pondered that reference, when Hilda
sat up on her broom and seemed to listen carefully. "Magic," she
then hissed. At that word, as they had agreed, they yanked their
brooms up high, so Zelda could not detect Hilda's magical
presence.

On the ground, in the circle, the six people
were drawing down the power of the moon, building their magical
circle.

High up in the sky, Hilda stared at the small
lighted spot in the forest, her face showing confusion. "How can
that be?", she muttered. As William asked what, she said: "I
thought that Zelda was near when I sensed the magic. But from here
I still feel it, and it is not the magic of a normal witch. Not
even of a crazy normal witch like Zelda."

"You think that these witches down there are
bringing up that magic then?" William asked.

"Well, it certainly isn't me. And if there's
nothing else down there that can do it..."

On the ground, the group was moving forward
in the ritual. Their work was feeling so good and powerful that
they seemed to forget why they were there. For that reason they did
not see the pale woman standing among the trees. Her clothes and
hair were black as the feather of ravens.

Zelda had heard of the witches meeting.
Vivian and her friends had done a great job on spreading the rumour
through town. And now she was looking at the six people, amazed by
the strange power they were bringing about. Her eyes, they flashed
in the flickering light of the flames, were fixed on the small
dagger that one of the women held. These witches worked in a
strange way, she thought, but it was fascinating.

The witch stepped from under the trees into
the light and crossed the magical boundary, coming into the circle.
Only then the group of six noticed her.

Vivian's hand made the athame shake for a
moment as she understood who their visitor was.

The evil witch remained uncommonly silent.
She held out her hand and made her wand appear. Then, in her other
hand, a copy of Vivian's dagger appeared. "Oh," Zelda whispered, "I
like this." She raised the knife in the same way Vivian did.

Vivian swallowed hard and did her best to
continue with the ritual, as she had agreed with the others. The
presence of this strange woman in black however, with her strange
and aggressive power blasting from her, made that agreement hard to
keep. Her lines started to come out wrong and in a stutter. No one
in the coven could blame Vivian for that; Andy was surprised that
she actually managed to keep something going.

At a certain point Vivian could not keep the
ritual up anymore. Trusting that Hilda and William were around, she
started to improvise while she hoped that the two would show up
somewhere around a few seconds ago. She held her athame with the
point down and turned to the visitor in black. "You are Griselda,"
Vivian stated, her voice strong and her eyes fixed on the
witch.

"How do you know that?" Zelda's voice was
also strong, and cold as ice at the same time. It was a way of
speaking she used when she was shocked. It made people uncertain.
And she was shocked, as this witch woman was apparently able to
pick a name from someone without introduction.

Everyone in the circle had the feeling as if
the skin on their arms wanted to hide somewhere out of view.

"I am a witch," Vivian said, "and these
people are witches too. We are a coven and we join power." And
Hilda where the hell are you.

"You join power?" Zelda frowned. Out of
curiosity, slightly out of uncertainty as to how powerful this
group was and also out of a form of courtesy, she also pointed her
knife down.

"Yes. You never do that?"

Zelda hesitated for a moment. She did not
want to tell this strange witch too much about herself, the more as
she could not sense any magic coming from the woman opposite her.
But then, she recalled, she could not sense magic from the blasted
wizard that Grimhilda had with her, and he certainly had quite
some. Caution was called for.

"I work alone," the evil witch therefore
said, avoiding a straight answer.

"Not sure what's going on down there,
William, but the energy that comes from there has changed. Perhaps
you should go and have a look. I'll know when I have to come down,"
Hilda said to her wizard. "And remember-"

"I know. No taking her on alone," William
nodded. Then he dropped down to the trees and the lights. When he
moved through the forest and reached the lights, he only needed
seconds to take in the scene. Through the link they shared he
called for Hilda.

In the circle, from where most magic had gone
now (except that of Zelda), something was going very wrong.

Zelda had a spell on Andy. And not one from
the song by Creedence Clearwater Revivial, but a very real one. He
stood next to her, half a step behind her like a good and obedient
servant would do.

"So you say you are a real witch," the evil
witch sneered, "but you don't practice magic like this? What kind
of witchcraft is it then that you do?" Some pebbles floated in
front of her.

"We serve the Mother Goddess," Vivian snapped
at the woman in black. "And you will release Andy from whatever it
is you did to him. Right. Now."

Hilda was close enough to hear Zelda's
laughter about that request. Zelda did not notice the other real
witch coming closer, as she was so occupied and amused by Vivian
and her friends.

"Andy, step away from that woman!", Gladys
said, her voice as strong as she could make it.

Andy simply looked at her and smiled, not
making any attempt to step away from Zelda.

Zelda looked at Gladys. "Pathetic little
witch..." She pointed her wand- and was knocked over.

The women of the coven, and also Andy,
tumbled to the ground as well, as that started shaking as if an
earthquake suddenly happened. Before anyone could get up or react
to the situation, a giant female form appeared and walked into the
circle. She stood as tall as the highest tree in the forest. She
wore a black leather dress adorned with large brass buttons and
carried a sword in her hand.

One of the women on the ground quietly
muttered something, staring at the apparition in disbelief.

The tall woman pointed her sword at Zelda,
the tip only inches from the witch's chest. "You will not call one
of my ladies pathetic, you puny little creature," the enormous
shape said. "You may think a lot of yourself, but your magic is
worthless in this circle."

Zelda opened her mouth to say something, but
the large blade slapped her cheek. It was a loud slap, Zelda's head
jerked, and the metal left a clearly visible mark on the pale
cheek.

"No talking until the Mother allows that!"
the giant woman said. "You will pack up your miserable self,
release all magic that you brought here, and go back to the land
you came from!"

Zelda stared up at the enormous woman,
keeping an eye also on the whereabouts of the giant sword. Her
cheek still burnt from the slap, and one was very certainly enough.
As the tip of the large thing came towards her face, and the
monstrosity said "Well?", she snipped her fingers to release
Andy.

The man noticed where he was and scrambled to
his feet to get away from the evil woman. In his hurry to get away,
he did not pay attention to the enormous female warrior that loomed
over them all.

"And now you go," the apparition calmly said,
the tip of the sword slowly swaying in front of Zelda's face.

The evil witch, totally flabbergasted by
this, got to her feet and slowly walked backwards, away from her
oversized adversary. The giant remained in place. Zelda looked back
and found she was close to the trees where she had left her broom.
In a last attempt to wield her attitude she flung a bolt of magic
towards the large woman and then disappeared between the trees,
into the darkness.

The giant shape caught the magical bolt on
her sword and it jumped off it. In a trajectory that would be the
envy of any professional baseball player, the magical ball swirled
to the side and hit Tory in the stomach. The woman who had just
gotten to her feet doubled up and collapsed.

"Crappedy crap!"

The giant woman disappeared as Hilda and
William released their combined magic and came running into the
circle. They reached Tory first. Hilda quickly pulled her wand over
the woman and mumbled a stream of Latin. William did what he could
to keep the other women away, so Hilda could do what she did
best.

Vivian tried to get close to Tory, but
William held her back. "Don't try it, Vivian, or I will use magic
to keep you away. Hilda needs space and peace for this." That made
her back off just enough.