Hilda and Zelda (8 page)

"Not really hig quality wood, but handfuls
better than the iron," Hilda commented as she floated around on the
broom. "It's in the bristles, always."

They left the apartment through the bedroom
window and flew to the outskirts of the town where Zelda's disaster
had not struck very much. To their good fortune, they found a
restaurant that was still open, thanks to the daredevil attitude of
the proprietor and some of his more adventurous staff.

In a quiet sidestreet, the magical couple
magicked their clothes into something more this-world looking,
Hilda shrunk the brooms that ended up in William's pocket, and
William used his wand to generate some money. Prepared like that,
they entered the restaurant where they devoured an amount of food
that made the waiter frown.

William tried to strike up a conversation
with the waiter, about the things that were happening in the town,
but for some reason the man was set on keeping his mouth shut
regarding the subject, so filled up nicely and knowing nothing more
than when they arrived, the couple left the food-place again.

After changing back into being witch and
wizard again, they flew high into the air, surveying the city and
hoping for possible clues on where Zelda was hiding. Or busy.

"William," Hilda asked suddenly, "where does
the king of this place live?"

"The king?" William was quite flabbergasted.
"There's no king here, remember? There's a president."

"Oh. Right. With the amount of people around
him that prevent the word of the ordinaries to get to him. I
remember that. But isn't there someone who is in charge here?"

"That would be the mayor, I guess."

"And where does that person live?"

"In normal conditions, that would be town
hall. Although these are not norma-"

"Take us to the town hall then. Zelda is here
to wield power, and there is no better place for that than from the
seat of power that is here." Hilda looked very smug, after her
deduction.

As it was at good a guess as any, William
took the lead and they flew over the city towards town hall. Under
them, a regiment of soldiers was working hard to remove the debris
that once had been the streets. The magical couple also kept an eye
out for helicopters and other flying objects that were more of a
hassle for them than something else.

They were in luck: no one from the ground or
in the air was watching them, so they had clear sailing until they
reached town hall.

-=-=-

Usually there was a lot of business going on
around and inside town hall. People with papers, requests and
complaints would be going in and out, pestering the civil servants
who were present to take the flack from the citizens. How different
an image it was when the magical couple arrived.

The street was empty, if one ignored the
overturned cars. No people were anywhere in sight. The flag that
normally would be out was missing. As was the cheerful red colour
of the building. It was all black now.

"Looks like you were right, Hilda," said
William. "Things are not the way they ought to be."

"Never doubt the resident witch," she
informed him, looking over the area from the roof where they had
landed.

"You're not the resident witch and you don't
want to be," William remarked. It earnt him a snort.

"There's magic inside the building. There's a
Zelda. Can't be otherwise." Hilda whipped up her wand. "Now, how
are we going to approach her?"

"Why are you looking at me?", William
asked.

"Hey, this was your world. You should know
better than I do."

"When it was my world, I did not have to
approach witches."

"Oh yes, you did. I was here, remember?"

"You were not taking over the town,
Hilda."

"Minor details, William, all minor details.
You know the ingredients, so you whip up a recipe for this."

William glared at the witch. She was
incorrigable. "Right. I'll just walk up to the place then-"

"Are you insane? She'll see you." Hilda
stared at her wizard who had made such a dumb remark.

"I am not insane. Just checking if you were
paying attention." William looked at the building that was town
hall. The front door was closed, as were all the windows. There
still was snow here and there, and many puddles of water lay
everywhere.

"And what do you mean by -I- walk up there?
You can't take her on alone, William."

"That is right. But she can sense you come
in. She can't sense me."

"Hmmf." He had a point there. One she did not
like. "But you are not walking up there."

"Of course not. I'm planning to fly up and go
to the roof. There are probably openings or such to get into the
building. And then I can first have a look what the situation in
there is."

"Right. And if she catches you?" Hilda did
not like the plan.

"You'll know. But I'll be careful. I have the
advantage of being formerly local and magical."

"I still don't like it, William, but I don't
have a better idea. Please be careful, sweet wizard of mine." She
hugged him. "You know you need me."

William was taken aback by her choice of
words for a moment, then grinned. "I'll be careful. Promise."

He got on his broom, flew down the side of
the building and worked his way around town hall through streets
and alleyways he remembered. Then he reached his target and flew up
along the blind sidewall. Once upon the roof, he put his broom down
and walked around, looking for an opening. Fortune was with him as
he located a hatch, probably for maintenance. It willingly opened
for his wand. Quickly he went inside, after looking for Hilda who
was almost falling off the other building, so far did she lean
forward to see what he was doing.

Inside the building hung a rather unpleasant
smell. William did not recognise it. He used some magic to make his
nose less sensitive to it, because otherwise he would have started
to vomit, he was sure of that. The attic of the building was
deserted. That was to be expected, so he located the stairwell of
the building and carefully went down one flight of stairs.

William had never been inside the town hall
before, so he had to take gambles and guesses as he opened the door
to the corridor that led to the offices. He did peek through the
window and saw nobody. In this case it meant little to nothing. As
he opened the door, the obnoxious smell became more prominent. He
also saw strange pink blotches on the floor. His wand told him that
these things were not made to be stepped upon. Even without the
reason behind that, he trusted his wand. He went back to the roof
to collect his broom.

Hilda was surprised to see her wizard come
back up and pick up the broom. She sensed all kinds of things
through the bond, but he was too focused to inform her, and she did
not want to break his concentration. There was too much at stake in
that building, so she had to wait. It was hard on her.

William had returned to the door behind which
lay the pink-blotched corridor. He lifted off and floated through
the corridor, keeping all his senses tuned to anything that might
be out of the ordinary. He now also relayed as much as he could to
Hilda, as she might be able to pick something up that he
missed.

William found two offices with people lying
over their desks. They had been throwing up. He did not feel up to
check if they were sleeping or otherwise immobile. He just
registered them there and went on. There were only two offices with
five people in total. As there was nothing to do here, he headed
back to the stairs and went down a floor. There his wand did its
interpretation of lights flashing and all alarms going off.
Obviously there was something on this floor that needed special
attention, he was certain of that before he reached the door with
the window.

As he looked through said window, he knew he
had struck gold. Black gold in this case... the entire corridor was
black. There were fire-pits in the carpet; several people lay in
the corridor. They did not move, and William feared the worst.
Slowly he opened the door.

There was silence. Not even an echo of
anything.

Hilda, on the roof of the other building,
froze. "She's there, William. She's there. Whatever you do, be
careful and ready to run. She's there, William."

William caught what Hilda was saying and
feeling. He would be careful. Despite the strange situation, a
thought came up to him. How would Harry Potter handle this? There
was no invisibility cloak around, so that idea was out the window.
William needed to see what was going on without being seen. Then a
wicked smile formed on his face. Of course. That was the perfect
idea.

Hilda, on the roof, sensed what was going on
inside William. His idea took shape. "Oh, no. You're not going to-
Suck an elf, he's going to!" She stared at the building opposite
the road. "I'm rubbing off on him." She did not sound as if that
were a good thing.

William had his wand in hand. "Right. Let's
see if we can do a Very Headless Nick..."

Slowly a ghostly figure took shape in front
of him. It carried its head under an arm. It wasn't much of a ghost
as William was not trained in them, but he managed to see through
the eyes in the head. It did make him dizzy, until he noticed that
closing his own eyes helped.

From behind the closed door, William floated
his ghost into the hall. It went sideways, so he had a good view of
the rooms that had once been offices.

Hilda was not sure what William was doing or
seeing, he was too focused on his actions. It unnerved her, and
more than a dozen times she was ready to jump on her broom and head
over to see what the hell was going on. But that would put William
in jeopardy.

In the corridor, most offices were empty. The
one that was occupied had been three rooms. It was a large space
now, with the wall to the corridor removed. In the middle was a
large black throne adorned with silver symbols. There were four of
the large menacing plants next to it, two on each side. Zelda sat
on the throne. She was reading a book and seemed entirely absorbed
by it. He noticed she was wearing some kind of silver headband. It
was an eerie sight for William, to see their enemy feeling so at
home in there. She had made things comfortable for herself,
obviously.

Zelda did not even seem to notice the ghost
that floated through the corridor. William dared to make his Very
Headless Nick go slower, so he could see as much as he could. It
did not tell him a lot more, though, so when Nick showed another
empty office, he dissolved the ghost.

William felt feeble in his legs, and noticed
his hands were shaking. The trick with Nick had taken quite some
energy out of him. That made him decide he had seen enough for this
time and quietly headed up the stairs, to the roof, and from there
he made his detouring way back to Hilda.

After telling her what he had done and seen,
she stared at him in disbelief. "You did what? You conjured a ghost
and spied on her?"

William nodded as he sat down. "It's hard
work, you know."

"And she didn't even look at it?"

"No. She just kept reading that book she had.
Sorry I could not see what it was about."

"Don't worry about that, William," said Hilda
as she kneeled down with him. "You are scary, my wizard. Not many
magicals can conjure up ghosts like that." She stroked his
cheek.

William looked at her and shrugged. "Perhaps.
I don't know. But we do know now where she's put up camp."

Hilda and William had retreated to their
apartment. On the way they had visited a supermarket where they had
done some proletarian shopping, lacking people to accept their
money.

The fire floated in the air, two tins with
food hovering over the flames. William kept an eye on them as Hilda
examined the plates, forks and knives they had 'found'
somewhere.

"Do you think Zelda will have wards up at
night, when she's asleep?", William asked as he poked the tin cans
with his wand.

"I guess," said Hilda. "She does have these
weird plants too, so it would not surprise me."

"Yeah. These plants. They worry me. I've
never seen them before. They seem to be smart too."

Hilda laughed. "They're not smart. They just
react to people. The one that's Zelda, and others, probably. All
basic stuff that you never learnt. No, you just go about floating
ghosts, not knowing what you're doing."

William glanced at his witch. She did not
seem to mean it in a bad way, the link did not convey any hostile
feelings about his Headless Nick trick, but he had learnt that that
was not always conclusive with Hilda.

The wicked witch looked at the wizard, walked
over and sat next to him. "No hard feelings, William, really, okay?
You know I love you. You do. I do. But it is still so unnerving for
me to hear what you do just like that, while you can blunder along
with the simple things, and you are so ignorant about so many more
things too. It sometimes is difficult for me."

William put away his wand and took Hilda's
hands. "I am sure that I can make you feel insecure. And I am sorry
about that. We both know that things just happened."

Hilda nodded. "They did. And bottom line is
that I am happy they did." She smiled at him. "So how's our food
coming along? I still think that we should have magicked it done,
not go the cumbersome way you seem to like so much."

William grinned, popped up his wand again and
tapped the cans. "It should be done now."

Quickly the contents of the cans were
deposited onto the plates and the floating fire was removed.

"And this is food?" Hilda poked at it with a
fork.

"It is sold as such anyway." William had been
gone from his old world for a while and also eyed the matter on the
plate with trepidation. "Maybe this was a mistake."