Hilda and Zelda (23 page)

"Is she fine or isn't she?" William asked the
good doctor.

"Oh, she is, yes, she is. Healthy as a fish,"
he admitted.

William smiled.

Not much later, four people left the
hospital. Hilda expanded the brooms again, and they carried the two
women to Vivian's house.

For Tory it was the first conscious broomride
in her life. She enjoyed it tremendously. So much even that Hilda
had to caution her a few times, as she was turning so frantically
that the witch had problems keeping Tory on board.

Gladys, on Williams, broom, was less
enthusiastic but she was a bit more at peace with the whole strange
mode of travelling by now.

They landed in the garden again, without
being harrassed by Zelda. There was no trace of the witch.

"You think she left for home?" William asked
Hilda as they trailed behind the two women who quickly went
inside.

"I dare not even hope it," she replied. "She
was scared, but I don't believe she will leave from here because of
that. She's brooding on something evil, mark my words. But we did
get her to back off for a while, which is a golden egg in our
basket." Hilda beamed.

"Golden egg..." William frowned. "Oh.
Right."

As they entered into the kitchen, Hilda held
the wizard back. "Strange people," she whispered.

William heard the voices. "Not surprising.
You hardly know anyone here."

"Ssshhhhh..." She gestured that he should
keep his voice down. "Not that kind of strange. Strange kind of
strange."

The fact that his witch called something
strange started to make William worry. "In what respect?" He
lowered his voice some more.

"A spooky respect," Hilda said, not making
things much clearer for the man with her.

"Oh."

"Hilda? William? Are you there?" Vivian's
voice clearly rang out, and in the undertones it was unmistakable
that she hoped they would show themselves very quickly.

"That's our cue," William sighed. They went
inside.

In the livingroom was rather a large assembly
present. William and Hilda now both felt the strangeness almost
solidly in the room.

Vivian, relieved, jumped up and went through
introductions. There were three people on the couch they had never
seen before. They were Rodney, Stephen and Buster. Buster looked as
if his physique had obeyed his name: he was huge enough to bust
most things in the house. Things, and people. Perhaps even the
house itself.

"They are here with a proposal," Vivian
explained as Gladys went round with tea and coffee. "They have seen
Zelda fly around and they want to help us catch her." Her
expression did not reveal if she had much confidence in the
proposition the three men had already laid out to her.

As all were seated, Stephen took his coffee,
sipped it loudly and earned a disapproving look from the witch.
"Looking for trouble?" he asked her.

"No. I don't start trouble," Hilda said. "I
finish it."

The man frowned and wisely decided to let it
pass. "Okay. We got the same problem you do," he said. "That bloody
witch. She's messing up our place and pisses us off in a fucking
major way."

"You do not have the same problem we have,"
Hilda charged against Stephen, "you are in your own world, we're
not!"

Stephen prodded Buster who got up and started
to approach Hilda.

"You'd better not, son," said William. "Zelda
is a witch, so is Hilda." He held up his hand and flipped up his
wand. "And I am not too bad myself, if I may say so."

Buster frowned at William, stared at Hilda
for a moment and then questioned Stephen in silence.

"Damn you," the latter said, without
specifying whom this was meant for. Buster took this as a signal to
sit down unharmed. "We want our place back," Stephen continued.
"And we wanna call in the forces that we deal with for that. But we
thought that asking you folks would be a good idea also. You seem
to know the bitch witch."

Hilda frowned for a moment but let the remark
pass. "We know her. Quite well. She's made our being here rather
tedious. I want to bust her bones."

Buster smiled appreciatively. "Yeah."

"So, you say she is messing up your place.
Where is your place?" Hilda asked.

"Somewhere outa town," Stephen carefully
avoided details.

"What is your place?"

"Large."

"If we are to help you, man, we need some
more information. And go there, to see it." Hilda tried to remain
calm with the man. Apparently there was something about him that
could be beneficial.

"You wanna see our place?" Stephen watched
her.

"Yes. Once we finished our coffee."

"Coffee," Buster agreed.

Hilda smiled. She liked the big bloke. "So.
You mention that you want to call in your powers. The forces that
you deal with, was it?"

"Yeah. We're good with them. And them's with
us."

"And what or who are those forces?"

Stephen got up. "You ask so much, witch. Come
on. We'll take you. The bikes are down the street where we can
still ride'em."

"Bikes." A memory flashed before Hilda's
eyes, of a motorcycle gang, halfway stuck in the concrete of a
freeway. She grinned.

"Gotta problem with bikes?" Stephen
asked.

"No," the witch smiled. "Bikes usually have
problems with me. And if you don't mind, we'll take our brooms
instead of joining you on your machines. Maybe the ladies want to
join, though."

Vivian stared at Hilda, shocked by the
suggestion. "Are you serious?"

Gladys grinned and elbowed Tory, who looked
as if she was game.

Rodney, silent until now, said: "Brooms.
That's wild."

-=-=-

Hilda and William flew low. They followed the
three motorcycles. The witches were riding along on the noisy
machines, holding on to the riders for dear life.

"I am curious where we are going," the witch
said to her wizard, who nodded.

Soon after that, the bikes turned off the
main road and onto a dirt road, the passengers shrieking as the
wheels danced beneath them.

"I am still curious where we are going," the
witch said to her wizard, who this time shrugged.

"I don't have a real clue where we are
anymore." William looked around, flew up so he was over the trees
that were lining the dirt road left and right and came back down to
Hilda. "Not a clue. Never been here before."

They flew on until the bikes slowed down. At
the end of the road loomed a large collection of old and badly
maintained containers, the kind that are used on seaships. The
bikers mumbled something as they waited for their passangers to
unmount the machines, then led the way into one of the
containers.

"It stinks really badly here, Stephen," Hilda
helpfully pointed out.

The man ignored her as he switched on some
lights, powered by some unknown source. The inside of the space
they were in was amazing. All the interiors of the containers had
been taken out, so the inside of the stack of metal seemed like a
steel cathedral.

The three woman stayed close to each other
and the open door. Hilda and William walked on into the place,
following Stephen and his buddies. There were low benches. There
were black mirrors. And there were black candles. Hundreds of
them.

"Stephen," William asked, "what exactly is it
you are doing here?" He had this funny feeling that he knew the
answer.

"Devil worship."

"Right..."

"And what's that?" Hilda asked as she used
her wand to light all the candles in one strike.

"Crap, I need a trick like that," Rodney
informed the people around. "Can you blow 'm out like that
too?"

"Sure. That's simple."

"Cool. I'm keeping you."

Hilda turned around quickly. William did that
too. Both stared at a certain part of the metal dome where there
was nothing but darkness.

"Getting nervous?" Stephen grinned.

"What was that?" William asked.

"I don't know," the witch replied.

Wands drawn and ignoring Stephen, they walked
to the spot that had attracted their attention. They found nothing.
Feeling ill at ease, they came back to where all the others
were.

The three ladies had dared to come in by that
time and were carefully examining some of the black mirrors. They
knew better than to touch anything here. Carefully whispering, they
discussed the place they had gotten into. Gladys was not too sure
if this was something they should continue doing, but Tory and
Vivian pointed out that these were strange circumsances, and so
strange measures had to be taken. Even if wiccan witches had to
work together with real witches like Hilda. And devil
worshippers.

"Okay Stephen, nice place you have here,"
Hilda said. "I do wonder how Zelda messed this place up, but I will
take your word for it. What is your plan?"

Stephen frowned and rolled his impressive
shoulder muscles. "Yeah, I guess you ain't in touch with the place.
What we wanna do is call up the powers. That seems to attract the
bitch witch. Then you come in and slam her down."

"Ah. Right. That is the... uhm... plan."

Stephen nodded. "Works for me." Buster nodded
along with his leader. It all seemed to work for him.

"And have you any idea when you want this
plan to happen? Are there things that need to be organised?"
William asked.

Stephen shook his head. "Not really. We can
round up our people quickly. Do you need stuff then?"

William looked at Vivian who came closer.

"We want to come with a few more people,
provided we can get them here," Vivian said. "Not sure about the
rest."

"Hilda and I can provide some
transportation," William offered.

"We should get this show on the road as
quickly as possible," Hilda threw in. "Zelda's out there and we
need to nab her. Fast. I don't want to know what crappedy crap
she's doing at the moment."

"I am not sure if I want to know," Vivian
remarked. At first this whole witching business, catching the bad
one, had seemed like a fine thing to do, but now, with devil
worshippers and all that, the situation was taking yet another turn
for the worse.

Then the ground shook.

"Suck an elf."

Everybody ran outside, to try and locate the
source of the ground-shaking events. Alas, the location of the
metal cathedral was very good for people who did not want to be
bothered, but lousy for staying up to date on local affairs.

Hilda and William grabbed their brooms and
raced off, leaving the six others behind.

"That's not friendly," Buster commented.

"We have to hurry in getting Zelda," Hilda
yelled at William. Their speed was insane, wind yanked at them and
took their breath away.

"Cool plan," the wizard yelled back as they
gained altitude.

As they were higher up, they saw something
unnerving in the skyline of the city. One of the highest buildings
had gone. There was no smoke, no dust, no debris anywhere. Just a
hole in the view.

"Holy Bejeebus," William said, "look at that.
Where's the Denton Building gone?"

"Ask Zelda," Hilda muttered.

Soon they reached the gaping opening in the
ground where the building had been. Gas-pipes, water-pipes and
electricity cables had been torn off. Enormous bits of concrete
were scattered around where once the solid foundation of the
building had been. Not a soul was in the street, for some
reason.

Hilda looked round. "She's not near here. I
wonder how she managed to pull this off. A shed is one thing, but
this was one big building."

"And I want to know where she is. And where
the building went," William added to the wonder.

"Only one thing we can do, William. Go up and
circle. If the thing is still around we have to be able to find
it."

Hilda was right, he knew. They pulled up
their brooms and started circling. At the second round Hilda
pointed. "Got it."

William looked. Behind the bulk that was the
ice cream factory was another bulk. The Denton Building. It was
just not as high as it used to be. It was lying sideways. "That is
scary..."

The witch and the wizard did not race towards
the building.

"I wonder why it's there," Hilda said. "And
like that."

William nodded. "It's strange. Now, Zelda is
strange also, but that doesn't explain it all."

"Maybe..." Hilda said, looking at her wizard.
They both thought the same thing and looked up. It was just in time
to see a large object coming down, towards them. The object had
once been a few floors of the Denton Building and now was
reassigned to crush-duty.

"Crappedy crap!" They moved to the side, out
of the block's trajectory, but that was not enough: the block
altered its course and kept coming. The couple made a few fast
zig-zag moves, but the block was determined to join them.

"Split up," Hilda ordered, and they did.
Hilda dropped away to the left, William to the right. Half the
block followed Hilda, the other half went after the wizard, so that
was not a proper solution either. At least it was obvious now why
Zelda had ripped the building out of the ground.

At top speed the two magical people were able
to stay out of reach of their concrete followers, but they knew
they could not keep that speed up for too long. Magic did drain
their energy.

William made a sharp turn and then steeply
climbed up. The block that was after him shot away for quite a
stretch as its mass did not allow it to manoeuver as fast as the
man on the broom, but it did not give up. "Holy Bejeebus," the
wizard cursed, "that witch is insane and scary."

"William!" Hilda shouted at him, also through
their bond. "Come over to me!"

He knew she had an intention with that, so he
set course for the witch and reached her in less than two minutes.
"Quick. There is a lot concrete coming up to squash us."