by without a dozen attempts to fire, all ending in nothing except curses and arms thrown to the ground.
"Good boys," Hilda said, clapping in her hands. "Now all just line up, so we can tie you together and make it all painless for you."
The good boys however had a slightly different idea about this part of the plan. As if they had practised this, they started climbing the trucks in couples, so they could charge towards the two strange people from four sides.
William shook his head. "Too bad, we offered a painless option." Then he and Hilda drew wands again and made ropes appear from them, ropes that rapidly snaked themselves around the legs and arms of the art thieves. The couples of thieves became tied to each other faster than they could see it happen, and fell where they were standing. The sound of the men falling onto the metal roof of the trailers was accompanied by ouches and oompfs.
"Painful," Hilda commented as she made her broom float up. She and William flew upwards and into the garage, where the three men, still knocked out, were lying. They too were tied up and put in front of the building along with their partners in crime.
William searched Marco's pockets, found the phone and called the police. He told them about the collection of criminals they had gathered and tied up, including what they had heard of the swap of museum artefacts and then hung up, After switching it off, he put the phone in his pocket. Then they lifted off again and flew to the entrance of their home and went to sleep. The police would take care of the rest, as soon as they had found a way to get to the former military camp.
18. Witch meet
The night had passed calmly. There had been some noise when the police had finally arrived to collect the villains, but a simple noise-repelling spell had taken care of that. When the witch and the wizard awoke, the day had already decided to begin. It was a grey and dull beginning, though.
"Blagh," Hilda commented. "Not my kind of weather. Makes me think of Zelda."
William grinned as he finished breakfast and conjured another couple of cups of coffee. "Here, something to take your mind off her for a while."
"You are so good, my sweet wizard," she said as she attacked the coffee. "You know what a witch needs."
A bit later they snuck out of their shed-house and lifted off on brooms in a renewed attempt to locate and apprehend Griselda.
-=-=-
They flew to the area where Hilda had sensed Zelda the day before.
"Suck an elf. She's gone, but was here for a long time." Hilda and William hovered in front of the floor of the building from which Zelda had watched them. It was utterly destroyed, the final touch being delivered by a blazing fire that had rendered most of the building uninhabitable.
"We have to think of a nifty trick, Hilda. Something that will lure her to us, instead of us running around to the places where she isn't anymore."
"Yes. Good thinking, and glad you reached that decision also," Hilda nodded. "We just have to find out what it is that she wants. Control. Power. Slaves?"
"Followers?", William added.
Hilda raised her eyebrows. "Perhaps a combination of the lot. Maybe we are on the right track here."
A gunshot cracked, a bullet flew far too close to Hilda to be comfortable. "Crappedy crap, why are they always chasing the wrong ones?" She flung a spell down, disabling all guns in one go. Then they lowered their brooms to see who was shooting at them this time.
The group of twelve soldiers who were out on patrol were battling their refusing guns. "There they are!", one of them shouted to his comrades. All eyes lifted up as one.
"Hey, you. Stop shooting the wrong people," Hilda said. "Are all you ordinaries in this world so dense that we have to tell every single one of you that we're the good guys?"
"You are under arrest," one of the dense ordinaries informed the two people on broomsticks.
"They are so dense," Hilda said to William. "Come, let's go somewhere so we can think of a plan in peace. And you guys, your noise-sticks will work in a few minutes again." Hilda waved her wand, and then the magical couple flew up and out of view, disappearing between the buildings.
On top of a shopping mall they touched down and started to think of what they could do for real to tease Zelda and bring her out in the open.
"Would she be tempted by the presence of witches?", William suddenly had an idea.
"Of course. But there aren't any witches here, you told me so."
"Yes. I told you. But I wonder if anyone has taken the time to tell her..."
Hilda grinned. "I knew there was a reason I keep you around, William. Sometimes you have ideas that are worth exploring."
They talked about the idea. Options, possibilities, prerequisites, everything came around once or more, and after almost an hour they had the feeling that their plan was viable. It had lots of open ends, but this would also give them room to move. And that was important, as there was no telling what Zelda's deranged mind would come up with.
The magical couple swooped up into the sky quickly and then William took the lead, venturing out towards a side of the town where lots of trees and free space could be found. It would be the perfect surrounding for setting up the trap to catch Zelda.
Hilda approved of the place after they had made the rounds there. She put up a protective magical field around a spot they had appointed their playground, and then they went about preparing the place. Bushes and small trees were magically charged and would appear as witches and ghost-like figures on a command by either one of the couple. They created a firepit, a stack of wood ready to be burnt on it, Hilda even made a large cauldron appear to give the place some extra credibility.
After all their preparations, they flew back and went inside their homely shed, to eat and think of the best way to promote the meeting of their witches. It had to be done in a very subtle way, otherwise loads of ordinaries would probably show up at their magical place as well, and that would be bad for the execution of the plan. That was already cracking at enough seams, adding some more to that would be tempting the fates.
The next part of the plan had to be staged though. They changed their outfits into something that William proposed to be the stereotype of a witch in this world. They also modified their appearance as much as possible, and then they left their home again and flew out to the city.
Hilda shrunk the brooms, William slipped them in his pocket and then they started pacing through the streets in the cultural area of the town. William had decided on that part, as there were the most places for a witch to hide without attracting too much attention.
As they walked along, they sent out a simple message in a voice that only magical beings would hear and understand. "Witches meet at night, in the field to the East. Witches meet at night, in the field to the East."
William and Hilda kept repeating that time and again, until they became sick of the repetitive sentence and decided to head back to their shed and wait until dusk arrived.
As the sun was on its way out, the magicals got on their brooms again and flew out to the field they had prepared. They could sense and see it from miles away already, the magic that they had spread was glowing like a searchlight. Before they landed, Hilda first made a run around the place to verify that they were there first. No trace of Zelda was around, so they touched down and hid their brooms between the hedges at the side of their magical circle. Then, as darkness had spread around, William lit the fire, Hilda hovered the cauldron over it, and together they made their wooden witches and fake ghosts dance around the beacon that should attract their prey.
Several times Hilda jerked her head, as she thought she heard something, but each time that turned out to be a false alarm. As time had gone by, and it was past one o'clock in the night, she decided that this was not going to bring satisfaction. "We'd better pack it up and get some sleep, William. Not even an insane witch will go to a meeting at this time, when the hour of power has passed."
With the fire extinguished and their army of witches rooted
again, they flew back. They were disappointed.
-=-=-
"Do you think we should try it again tonight?", asked William the next morning.
"No. Never happens twice in a row, meetings like the one we staged. We must wait at least until tomorrow evening. Day after that would be even better." Hilda sighed as she put down the coffee cup. "We'll go around patrolling again today and see if we can find her. Never put all your silver on one card, William. The plan is one, scouting is another."
So they went about the town again, searching for the witch that caused them so many problems, and at the end of the day they both felt very disgruntled about not finding anything. Granted, this day they had not been shot at or threatened in any other way, but all it ended up with was a grumpy magical couple.
-=-=-
The next morning both Hilda and William were hardly motivated to get up.
"She's like sand running through our fingers," Hilda muttered. "I wish she'd never found your truck, and she'd never found the way through to this world. That would have saved us a wagon load of problems."
"I know," William sighed. "Too bad your wishing doesn't help much. I am already paining my brain where she could be, and also what she'd want here. Still I think our best bet is the circle of witches that we made here. Too bad we can't use that yet."
Hilda nodded, pushing her tea cup over the table, staring at where she'd usually see her two