Hilda and Zelda (5 page)

"Let's go to O'Malley's pub," the wizard
suggested. "Our scared friend mentioned that."

Hilda nodded. "I remember that place, I
think. That's where the men on the two-wheeled machines were.
Pathetic bunch."

William frowned for a moment, then they
dropped to street level and found their way to the bar.

The street where O'Malley's pub was situated
was not in too bad a shape. Only one side of the road had been
damaged, but that was damaged severely. A small gorge lay in the
middle of the street. A car would not be able to pass through it. A
motorcycle or a bicycle would work. And a broom, of course.

The outside of the bar had changed somewhat,
since William's last visit. Nothing dramatic, and certainly nothing
that indicated the presence of a witch like Zelda. There was no
sound either. Not inside the bar, not in the street.

Hilda's wand went round, and she shook her
head. "No witch around at the moment. We'd better check inside
then."

They dismounted from their brooms. William
pushed against the door, which calmly opened. A strange smell came
from the inside, making Hilda wiggle her nose. "Witch," she simply
said and went inside, her broom in hand.

The pub was not a pub anymore. Everything was
black. All the regular tables and chairs had been turned into
massive black benches with black candles on them. The bar itself
was now a large shrine with all kinds of artifacts in it. Some
looked so bizarre that William was glad he did not know what they
were. The mirror behind what had been the bar was now a grotesque
image of witches and wizards doing all kinds of unmentionable
things.

"Zelda's been here alright," Hilda nodded,
disrupting the deadly silence that hung in the pub. "This is very
much her style."

"I would never have guessed," said William,
"as her house looked so normal."

"There are more sides to a witch than how her
house looks, William." Hilda looked round, her wand in hand. "We
might upset her a bit by rearranging her set-up here."

"Do you think that is a good thing?", William
asked. "It will tell her we are here. At this moment we have the
advantage of knowing she is here and she's oblivious to our
whereabouts."

"I knew I kept you around for something,
William." Hilda smiled at him. "Let's keep an eye on this place and
look around at what she's been doing so far."

William nodded. He was more than willing to
get out of the depressing place that had been O'Malley's. And he
wondered what had become of Patrick O'Malley himself.

They left the pub, mounted their brooms and
flew off.

William led them to the bookstore of his old
friend, Bert Bantrey. The bookstore itself was still a bookstore.
Some of the windows had been smashed and boarded up, but the door
was still where it was supposed to be. He knocked on the door and
stepped into the store, from where the familiar scent of books and
ink welcomed him home.

"Hold it right there." The voice was
determined and full of anger. The metallic click that had to be
from a gun underlined how serious the owner of the voice was about
his statement.

William stood still and held Hilda back also.
"Bert? It's me. William Connoley."

"Sure. William Connoley does not walk 'round
in a blue dress."

William changed his clothes into what Bert
had been used to. "Better this way?"

"Holy shit. William. Is that you? What'd you
do?" Bert still did not show himself, but William had by now
determined where his friend of old was hiding.

"Yes Bert, it's me. And this is my... wife.
Hilda."

"I'm not your wife, William, I'm your witch.
That's better," Hilda commented.

Bert got to his feet, a large gun still
pointing at the two people. "I know that voice," he said. "She's
the woman who was here so many years ago. You knocked me out with a
book. That was you." The barrel of the gun shook precariously.

"Yes. I'm glad you remember me," Hilda
said.

The owner of the bookstore tightened his grip
on his weapon. "If she is a real witch, then you can be anyone. How
do I know you are William Connoley?"

William slowly and calmly told a few things
that only he and Bert would know. About hunts for books they had
done together. About a night in O'Malley's. And about the last
telephone conversation they'd had before William had so
mysteriously disappeared.

Bert lowered the gun. "You must be William
then. But still I don't understand. What did you do, just now, when
you were in that blue dress?"

"William is a wizard now," Hilda said before
William had found a proper way to explain it. "He came to my world
and somehow he changed into a magical person. And wizards wear the
blue robes." She prodded him.

"It's true, Bert. I am a wizard." William
held up the broom. "This is my transport."

"Get out of here, William Connoley. You do
not fly on a broom. That is the stuff for fairy-tales." Bert put
the gun on the counter and stepped closer, to shake the hand of his
friend. And the woman who claimed to be a witch. It was remarkable,
Bert noticed, how his friend put the broom down, but did not put
away the little stick in his hand. William just took it in his left
hand as long as it took to shake Bert's hand.

Bert then invited the two to the back of the
store. "I'll make tea," he said. "And then I have to tell you what
happened here." He checked outside the door, put up the "Closed"
sign and locked up.

After he had made tea and they were sitting,
Bert told them the fairy-tale the cops had already tried to sell
them. That there was a terrorist attack on the town, and the
strange things that seemed to happen were because of a gas.

"Bert. There is no gas. There is a witch on
the loose here. And we are here to try and capture her before she
damages too much."

Bert looked at William and shook his head.
"Sorry William, you were not here when it all happened. I have seen
it. The vision of a woman in black on a broom, and how she tore up
the street. That's impossible."

Hilda coughed a few times and put her hand on
William's arm, while through the bond she signalled him to drop the
subject.

"Listen, William, I don't have much space,
but I can offer you a place to sleep if you want," Bert offered. "I
don't know where you've been, but I am mighty glad to see you again
and maybe we can all go out for dinner once these terrorists have
been caught."

The prospect of having a haven near the place
where Zelda had made her camp was magnificent, so William and Hilda
accepted Bert's offer gladly.

"I am not sure if I can provide food for
you," he said as he showed them up the stairs and into the room
they could use.

"Don't worry, Bert, we'll manage." William
winked at Hilda who grinned back at him.

The room was reasonable. There was a bed, bed
linen in ample supply and, very important, a large window. William
had carried the two brooms with him in a cloaking spell. He put
them against the side of the large closet in the room and stood
before them so Bert would not notice them.

"Bert, this would be wonderful. Thank you so
much."

Bert nodded. "You're welcome to stay as long
as you want. Just remember the curfew. No one out after six in the
evening. Not that anyone wants to go out these days. But I have to
go home now, and see some people, so I'll be gone in a few minutes.
Don't unlock the door, I beg you. I'll be back in the morning
somewhere."

"Bert, don't worry about us. We'll be fine,"
said Hilda, patting the man on the shoulder. "William and I will be
careful."

Bert nodded. "Do you want me to leave the gun
here? I have another one at home."

"No, take it with you, my friend," said
William, "we can handle ourselves. As Hilda said, don't worry about
us."

"Good, good." The bookstore owner waved
goodbye to them and went down the stairs. Not much later they heard
the door being locked.

"Terrorists and gas. Curfew." William sat
down on the bed and sighed. "What a story. And people eat it
up!"

Hilda patted him on the shoulder. "See. I
told you this world is insane. Once we have Zelda, we're going back
to where things are in order, sweet man."

The wizard snickered for a moment. "Yeah. I'm
actually beginning to believe you." He got to his feet again.
"Let's forget about the curfew." The brooms jumped into their
hands, the witch opened the window and away they went.

The couple moved to the row of houses and
buildings on the other side of the street and then, as low as they
could, flew to the place where Zelda had modified O'Malley's to her
own liking.

"She's not here," Hilda said. "Not a trace of
her."

From where they were, they had a good view
over the town. There was only one pillar of smoke, the other fires
had either died out or were put out by people. They flew over to
the last fire, which they located in the garden of a school. All
the books that originally belonged inside the building were now
scattered about on the lawn. A fire that billowed up the greasy
smoke originated in a pile of burning books. Every so often, a few
of the books that were laying around would jump into the fire,
keeping it burning.

"Pah," spat Hilda, and slammed the fire out.
"That's sick, burning books." Together with William she put the
books back into the school building and sealed it magically so
Zelda would have quite a hard time getting them out again.

"That will show her that there are other
magicals around," William noted.

"So what. She'll find out anyway, and she
doesn't know who we are," Hilda muttered as she removed the embers
and ashes that were still on the lawn. "So we still have the
advantage."

At that moment a shot was fired. William
caught the bullet. Hilda quickly looked around and saw the man with
the rifle. The rifle gave in to her magical demand and liquified,
dripping from the man's hands. In a flash they were on their brooms
and on top of the shooting person.

"What was this for?", William asked the man
as he held up the bullet. "That's not the way to greet people. I
doubt you have many friends."

The man, his face pale and the crotch of his
pants dark, stammered a few syllables.

"Pull yourself together, man," said Hilda.
"Why were you attacking us? You don't even know us!"

The unfortunate sniper regained control of
his vocal chords. "You are like that other woman! You do things
that aren't possible, and my orders are to shoot anyone who does
things like that. We don't want folks like you around."

"And that's where you are wrong," Hilda said.
"Without us you'll never get rid of the witch. You people have been
trying for days already, and all you have is a curfew, roads torn
up and people scared."

William put the bullet in the man's hand.
"This is for you. Show that to your superiors, son, and tell them
that a bullet does not affect a witch very much. Nor a wizard. And
ask them not to bother us while we try to stop the witch that got
here."

"Who are you people?", the gunman asked.

"We're the ones who will save your sorry
asses," William elaborated. "Now get away and let us do what we
came here for."

The sniper got to his feet and ran off as
fast as he could. And that was faster than he had imagined.

The magical couple, now free of shooting
artists, got on their brooms and took to the sky again, where a
surprise was waiting for them.

William heard it first as he had heard the
sound before. "Holy Bejeebus."

"What's the matter?", Hilda asked, looking
where he was looking. "Suck an elf! What's that?"

A helicopter was coming towards them, big
search lights shining down on the desecrated streets.

"That, Hilda, is one of the ways people in
this world fly. And they are coming too close for my taste, so
let's go down-" that was the moment the search light hit them.
"Crap. Too late."

Despite that, they dropped downwards again,
the light following them until they were among the buildings.
William, still knowing where they were, led Hilda through some of
the more narrow streets until the helicopter's search light had
certainly lost them.

"That thing is called a helicopter. And I
hope it was not the helicopter of a news station." William did not
like that idea one bit.

"We can make it go away, though," said
Hilda.

"We can. But we won't. We are going to stay
away from that thing. If they have cameras on board, they'll film
us and then we're screwed. In a major bad way."

The helicopter flew over without seeing
them.

"Damn. This makes the search for Zelda much
more difficult," William muttered.

Hilda frowned. "But if we just-"

A loud shrieking laugh came from somewhere.
The two looked at each other and knew who did that. Then there were
some raw screeching sounds, where metal was obviously torn from
metal and an engine was forced to do things an engine was not
supposed to do. Several loud crash-sounds and a heavy thud later,
the laugh sounded again.

"I think someone just did. But not the nice
way," Hilda finished. "She's near. Come." Hilda sped away on her
broom, William only inches behind her as they darted through the
streets. The people from the town would look after the ones in the
helicopter. If there was anything of them left to look after.

A few minutes after they had started their
chase of Zelda, Hilda stopped the rapid flight. They hovered in
front of a large, high building. "I've lost her. Too many big
buildings here, I think. At home it's easier. Mad world."

Disappointed, they backtracked to where they
had seen the helicopter come down. From a safe distance they looked
at the group of people who were ignoring the curfew and trying to
get the passengers of the machine to freedom.