Hilda and Zelda (25 page)

"Can you tell us why she did that? I did
nothing." Hilda raised her hands in innocence.

Buster looked at the still floating ladle.
"Uhuh."

Olga came to again and grabbed Buster's arm.
"She's a fucking witch," she whispered. "A real one!"

"Yeah. Stephen said, right?"

Hilda grinned at the compliments.

"But I thought he meant one of them!" Olga
stabbed a finger at the members of the coven. "The innocent
ones."

Gladys and Jennifer heard that and glared
over at the woman who was still sitting on the ground. After a word
from Vivian they returned to what it was they were supposed to
do.

"Don't call them innocent until you've seen
what they can do," said William.

Buster helped Olga to her feet, while William
explained a bit about what had happened a few days ago, in the
forest. As he talked, the woman's eyes were drawn to some movement:
the ladle moved to the side and then fell on the ground.

"Hey, why did you do that?" Olga sounded
angry as she bent and picked up the spoon.

"Did what?" Hilda turned back to the
cauldron. "I thought you had taken it again."

There was a moment of silence among the
people around the tomato soup. Before they could follow up on
something, though, Stephen and Vivian called out for attention.

William reached out and took the fallen ladle
from Olga, trying to feel something about it. "Did you sense
anything Zelda?" he whispered. The witch shook her head.

"Hello everyone, we are ready, so let's
begin. Let's work our magic!!" She shouted it out, and that was
picked up by everyone in the metal cathedral, until the walls
almost reverberated with it.

Stephen and his band started doing what they
usually did in their sacred metal dome. Vivian and her group
started doing what they usually did, in their own sacred space
inside the metal dome. Hilda and William stood to the side and
watched the goings on for a while, not certain what they would be
able to do except for Hilda keeping watch, for when Zelda was
approaching.

The shouting started, startling Vivian's
group as well as the two magical people. It took them a few moments
to discover that the noise came from Stephen's gang. William saw a
movement in a corner.

"What?" asked Hilda who had sensed his little
jolt through their bond.

"I thought I saw two cats..."

"Cats," Hilda snorted. "Pets don't belong
here." She shook her head. "Crappedy crap." Quickly she grabbed
William's collar and dragged him to the ground as a heavy brass
candleholder, including black burning candle flew over their heads.
It only missed them because of Hilda's action.

"Zelda?" William asked as they got up
again.

"No," was the disconcerting answer from the
witch, "and I have no idea who did that. There's only one witch
around."

They both looked at the group of white
witches in their circle and then at the gathering of devil
worshippers. "One of them?"

As they saw the group of Stephen's people
perform some dance that did not seem to be disturbed by any
choreography, suddenly a small white device fell from someone's
pocket. Although... it did not actually fall. It dropped a few
inches, then seemed to levitate upwards, as if it had a mind of its
own. There was a string attached to it.

"What's that?" Hilda asked.

"Looks like an iPod," said William. "A music
device."

"Dwarf's bullocks," the witch muttered, "too
small for that."

"Guys?" Hilda said as she walked over to the
group, pointing at the white thing on a string. "Does that happen
often here?"

The owner of the iPod stared upwards and
searched his pockets. "Fuck. That's mine."

The iPod had risen up too high to reach it
with ordinary means. As if it was mocking the group, the earbuds
raised up as if they were plugged into someone's ears, and then
music filled the enormous space.

All ritual actions promptly came to a
standstill. "Martin, you have Thriller on that thing?" someone
asked in disbelief.

Then the door of the container-cathedral
opened and a wave of magic washed through the confines of the
place. It knocked over some candles and some people. Hilda and
William had their wands in hand and braced themselves.

Zelda had arrived.

"Party without me?" the evil witch asked.
"That's not nice." She stood in the doorway, taking in the scene.
She seemed very relaxed, her hand with the wand loose down her
side. "And that in an ambiance that I can appreciate..."

Slowly she walked in. Everyone but the two
other magical people seemed glued to the floor as Zelda moved
forward.

"So you found a way to crash our party,"
Hilda remarked, stepping in Zelda's way.

"Of course. I am good with things like that,
little witch," Zelda grinned. The two witches were almost nose to
nose, and none of them had the intention of yielding. "Now step
aside before I make you."

"'Cause this is thriller, thriller night, and
no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike," the iPod
announced.

Zelda grinned. "Did you hear that? It knows
me." She calmly raised her hand, the wand pulsating with power.
There was a grin on her face. Until something swept her away, hard
and sideways.

After a moment or two, a timid cheer rose up
from the witches' coven. They thought Hilda had done that.

Hilda however was as flabbergasted about the
sudden change in Zelda's situation as everyone else was."Suck an
elf," she said.

Zelda got to her feet. "You wench," she
fumed, "you are going to regret this in a way that you never
regretted something!" Then she stopped and stared at something.

"'Cause this is thriller, thriller night,
there ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes,
girl," the iPod announced.

William yelled something. The witches
screamed. The devil worshippers performed various things, from
yelling and screaming to diving under tables and fainting.

Hilda turned around just in time to see a
scary creature step out of one of the black mirrors. It was not
your ordinary scary creature. It was huge and dark grey with black
spots that seemed to travel over an awkward body. It had eight
arms. And forty eyes. It also was severely unaffected by magic.
Hilda's attempt to do something to the creature ended when it had a
slight swing at her, making her fly several dozen feet before she
landed on the ground.

"Oh, I like that!" Zelda cried out. "Do that
again, big boy!"

The big boy did it again.

Zelda screamed, waving her wand, as she also
took to flight without a broom.

"They're out to get you, there's demons
closing in on every side. They will possess you unless you change
that number on your dial," the floating iPod shared its wisdom as
it started swinging to the music.

Footsteps sounded, coming from every side.
The humans in the container-room huddled together, hoping for cover
from each other and trying to stay out of reach of the large
strange creature that now stood still where it had lashed out at
Zelda.

Hilda was on her feet again. Through the bond
with William she yelled out at him to follow her, and together they
ran off into a dark corner of the hall.

Vivian yelled after them: "Hilda! Don't leave
us here!" Some of her witches started to develop the beginnings of
a panic. Buster and some of his group tried to calm the women down,
until Zelda appeared again. The evil witch cast spells around, to
the group and to the still unimpressed creature.

Then thuds and muffled sounds came from the
dark, followed by two figures shooting up into the air. William and
Hilda had stored their brooms inside, for emergencies. This
situation qualified as one.

The footsteps, meanwhile, were drawing closer
and closer, as the iPod informed the people that the foulest stench
was in the air, the funk of forty thousand years, and grizzly
ghouls from every tomb were closing in to seal their doom...

Several voices rang out over the sound that
the tiny music-player made: "Damn you, Stephen, we told you not to
build this place on an ancient burial ground! You and your
ideas!"

It was as if the video clip of Thriller
unfolded: monstrous creatures and half-decayed bodies were slowly
moving in. It was impossible to see where they were coming from,
but the supply of them was staggering.

Stephen uttered what supposedly was a
battle-cry. He charged forward and started hitting at the ghouls
and ghosts. Most of them fell apart on first contact. That was
something that made most others take heart and they also attacked
the morbid invaders.

Zelda had magicked up her broom and was
flying near the ceiling of the makeshift cathedral, engaged in a
battle with Hilda and William. The three also were doing all they
could to avoid the lashings out of the forty-eyed creature, who
could just reach up to where they were flying around.

William had already been knocked off course
and into a wall a few times. Magical protection had saved him from
breaking just about every bone in his body. "Hilda! Dive!" he
screamed as he was approaching the creature again.

Hilda did not ask or look; she dove down in a
near death-defying slalom to avoid the grabbing hands of the grey
monster.

Where she had just been, two shapes appeared.
They had leapt up from the ground, paws and claws stretch out and
ready to strike. They were on a collision course with Zelda, who
had enough problems of her own already with one of the hands of the
monster yanking at her legs. As the evil witch fired off a
lightning bolt at the arm that held her down, the two cats were
about to seal her fate.

On the floor, there was a fierce battle going
on as well. A few tables and chairs had been hastily smashed up to
supply the people with weaponry against the spooky army that kept
coming. The coven-members were using legs of tables to defend
themselves, while the devil worshippers were making efforts to
reduce the numbers of the oncoming masses. Buster was having a ball
with that, until a few skeletons were all over him, poking boney
fingers in his ears, nose and mouth, making him stumble.

Moving around became harder and harder, as
there were bits and pieces of bodies scattered on the floor, and
the layers of those were increasing.

"Night creatures calling, the dead start to
walk in their masquerade; there's no escaping the jaws of the alien
this time," the iPod encouraged the fighting people, blurting out
seemingly random bits of the song.

The two cats reached their target. One hit
Zelda square in the round chest, the other one clawed at the broom
and wrenched it from under the witch who fell down, into two of the
hands of the grey creature. It was as if it had been waiting for
her.

The witch hung upside down, held up by the
creature. One of its arms hung down uselessly, the arm that Zelda
had fired at. "Let go of me!" she screamed. She swung her arms
round, trying to get a clear aim at the creature with her wand. The
creature swung out with one of its arms.

Hilda and William looked at what was
happening all around them for a few seconds. The two cats had
disappeared from view, back into the darkness from where they had
come.

"I'll try to help Zelda," Hilda said. "You
try and weed out these dead folks down there."

William nodded and dove down, spraying waves
of pressurised air through the ranks of dead people that were
pressing closer to the humans. He did a great job. For a few
seconds. Then a large hand, attached to a long arm, slammed him
into a wall again. He crashed into it and fell down. He managed to
protect himself for the impact with the ground as the broken broom
fell from under him. "Holy Bejee-oompf."

Hilda shot fire and lightning at the arms and
chest of the creature. "Damned dragon balls," she cursed, "what are
you made of!" All her spells bounced off, creating impressive but
also dangerous fireworks in the confines of the container dome.

"Do something, stupid witch!" Zelda screamed
at Hilda. "It's going to tear me apart!" It was as if she had given
the creature an idea. One of its hands reached out and closed
around the hand she held her wand in. The wand snapped.

The iPod hovered near her, mockingly. "So let
me hold you tight and share a killer thriller!"

On the ground, a very strange thing was
taking place. The skeletons, ghouls and all other scary creatures
were forming an impenetrable ring around the big creature. All the
humans were pushed outward, their backs against the metal walls.
All the candles that had been lit were hovering overhead, held up
by some mysterious unseen force.

William, also pressed against a wall, tried
to take aim with his wand, but there simply was no room to move and
do something worthwhile. Everytime he had crushed a few dozen
invading spooks, the open space was filled up in a matter of
seconds. He knew it was a lost battle but kept fighting.

Hilda was not facing better options:
everything she tried was in vain. The creature managed to keep its
back towards her more and more as the legion of dead people at its
feet grew thicker.

"And though you fight to stay alive... Your
body starts to shiver..."

The grey creature started walking, holding
Zelda almost carefully in its big hands. The witch was screaming
her lungs out, casting spells as fast as she could, threatening
doom and destruction onto everyone. Hilda and William fought off
the spells that bounced off the creature, catching and neutralising
them before they would hurt any of the humans that had unwantingly
become part of this extreme and unfair battle.

The creature crushed bodies beneath its feet
as it moved forward. It was only ten feet away from the black
mirror it had come from when it looked back for a moment. Its eyes
caught Hilda, who was still on broomstick.