sounded after them. The flashlight bearer tried to make his screaming sound official and failed totally, while his colleague started hauling Ted into the police station.
"Forget it," Hilda muttered, then added something in Latin.
"Ouch!" the policeman reacted, as he dropped his suddenly red-hot gun.
"I hate Latin, but it does work immediately," the witch shared with her wizard.
"Oh shit," William said.
"What?" Hilda wondered what she had done to earn that comment. Then she saw what William had spotted.
There was a fire in the distance. The distance was the former military camp. And the place burning looked like what used to be their shed.
"Crappedy crap..."
William grumbled under his voice. "Zelda?"
"Definitely. I should have thought of that," Hilda said. Her voice portrayed exactly how she felt: not good. "She was too close. After the talk-off she must have done some rotten trick to follow us. I should suck an elf for that, William."
"I'd hold back on that, Hilda," William said. He had no idea what an elf looked like. "Let's first get that fire out and see what's left."
They had exactly three minutes to find that everything had burnt, before the siren of a fire truck made it clear that it was time to leave. Wondering where that truck had come from, they lifted off and disappeared into the darkness of the night, while William pained his head about where they could spend the night.
26. Meeting Rick
"Lie still, William," the witch mumbled. "I can't sleep."
"Then don't lie on top of me, dumb witch," the wizard retorted.
"But it's nice and warm here," Hilda muttered, while she tried to push William into shape like she would do with a pillow.
"Hey, don't," was her thanks for that attempt.
"I do. I'm the resident witch, remember that," Hilda yawned as she was ready to slip back into dreamland. A smile was on her face when William wrapped his arms around her. "Hmmmm..." she commented, and that was the last sound to be heard for a while. That was good, as there was no one around to hear nothing anyway.
-=-=-
"Hilda?"
"I'm sleeping. I don't hear you."
"And I am to believe that?"
"Yes," muttered the witch
"I fail to do that."
"Oh. Then shut up, please. You are my pillow, and pillows don't talk in my sleep."
This caused William to laugh, and that again earnt him a few half-serious slaps on the arm.
"Hey, come on, I'm bouncing off you with you shaking like that!" The witch held on to the wizard, but couldn't help laughing too, and decided to roll off him and call the night a day. "You make breakfast. I am sure you can find a decent thing for us," she stated.
"Oh, without a doubt," William agreed. He made his wand pop up and made the little tent they were in vanish. They had spent the night in the place they had prepared for the witches meet, as that was a good distance from the town. The grass around them was wet; it had rained that night. The cold of the night that had lingered outside the tent now rushed up to meet them.
"Crappedy crap. This is hardly funny," Hilda said as she sat up and wrapped her cloak around herself more tightly. "Never been a fan of all that outside camping stuff."
William got up and looked out over the field. They were alone, as he had expected and hoped. Using some magic, he whipped up a warm breakfast with copious amounts of coffee, to revive the spirits of life thoroughly. As the spirits were doing their best to become presentable, the couple tried to come up with a plan for the day. It did not go well; all their attempts never made it beyond trying.
"So where can we find a decent place to sleep now?" Hilda said as she held up her cup for more coffee.
"That's the fourth one," William said as he filled it again.
"So? And that is not what I asked, anyway," she said.
William shook his head. Sometimes... "Maybe we can sleep in Bert's place again," he then thought out loud. "The room over the bookstore, remember?"
Hilda nodded. "I do. Not the greatest option, but anything's better than this here. We should go to Vivian again though. It's about time that we get our witches meet in place. And just cross our toes that Zelda will fall for that."
"Cross our toes?" William was amazed.
"Yes? What's wrong with that?" Hilda looked back at him.
William shook his head. Again. "Let's go see Vivian." He knew that a discussion about sayings and expressions would lead him into quicksand. Hilda always won those, for some reason.
The sway of a wand later, things were all cleaned up and out of the way. They mounted their brooms and then went to find Vivian's house.
They landed in the garden, using the cover of many trees in the area to stay out of view as well as they could. The house was silent. Anyone inside it was too. The backdoor was locked, but that did not take more than a "Hmm" and a bit of magic, applied with care.
Hilda and Wiliam left their brooms standing against the outside wall and quietly went inside, where a salutary warmth welcomed them.
"So where's Vivian the local witch?" Hilda asked quietly.
"Asleep I guess." William looked at the clock and at that moment realised he had not seen one of them for a long time. They did not exist in Hilda's world. "Yes. Six in the morning is still a time to be asleep. We'll give her some time to sleep and wait for her here," he suggested.
They sat down on the couch and waited...
"And who the hell may you be?" a harsh voice dragged the two out of their slumbers. It was not Vivian. "How did you get in here, and now get the hell out of the house before I call the police!"
They looked at a big man sporting black pants, a grey t-shirt and bare feet. He had remarkably big hands.
"We're here for Vivian. Do you know where she is?" Hilda asked, without hesitation.
"Vivian is asleep, upstairs," the man said, bluffed by the amazing response. "Now who are you two nutters?"
Hilda got up. "Grimhilda. Witch. That's William. A wizard. And we're here to talk about the bad witch that is tearing up the town." She stuck out her chin, showing that she meant business.
The man stared at her for a few moments. Then, with three fast steps, he was almost standing against her and grabbed her cloak. "Come on. Out." Next thing he knew was that there was a powerful jolt running through his arm, strong enough to throw him halfway through the room.
"Do NOT touch the witch," said Hilda, her eyes close to shooting fire. "We are here for serious things, not for ignorants."
The man picked himself up from the floor, rubbing his sore shoulder. "You, serious? Get away before I call the police, you Halloween creature."
"What's the noise- Oh, hello Hilda, William," Vivian said as she came into the room. "I am so sorry. This is Rick, my husband. He did not know about you. Yet."
"You know these folks?" Rick asked her with mounting surprise.
"Yes. I should have told you about them. They are really a witch and a wizard," Vivian nodded as she tried to make Rick sit down and failed.
"If I may-" William tried, but Rick glared at him.
"You may shut up. I'm talking to my wife. And you, woman, should stop with all that mumbo-jumbo about witches. You and your friends are all going soft in the head," he explained his feelings.
"Want me to turn him into a frog for a while?" Hilda offered, her wand ready.
"No, not yet. Let's see if we can get some sense into him without such a drastic thing," William replied.
"Drastic. Pshaw," Hilda spat. "Frogs are not drastic. For that you'd do-"
"Hey, quiet!" Rick barked.
"Rick, please, they-" Vivian tried.
"No, I will-" and then the big man was quiet. He stood petrified, his skin greyish, one arm extended towards the magical couple and one around his wife.
"What did you do?!" Vivian exclaimed as she tried to get out of the stone arm of her husband.
 
; "I just turned him into a statue for a while," Hilda commented. "He was interfering. And don't worry, he hears and sees everything we say and do. So, we are here to talk to you about the witches meeting. How quickly can you bring your friends together, and get the word out on the street in a way that Zelda hears about it?"
"Uhm?" Vivian, even while already awake, was taken by surprise.
Hilda calmly repeated her question, sitting down at the table and courteously offering a seat to Vivian and William. Doing that for Rick was rather pointless.
"Oh. Right," Vivian said. "I'm certainly able to contact all of them today, if the phone lines hold. With that crazy witch out there, you never know."
"Good. Tomorrow evening, when darkness falls, we'll be at the spot and have some fires burning," Hilda said. "William will be around closeby, as she can't sense him. I may have to hide a bit further away, but I can be there quickly, if something goes wrong."
"And what could go wrong?" Vivian asked, not sure if she really wanted to know all possible answers to that one.
"Oh, nothing really special," Hilda said, quite leisurely. "Just the odd bit of magic or so. Some special effects." With that, the witch got to her feet again. William got up too, as Hilda undid the petrification of Rick. "Right, we're off then. May drop in later today or tomorrow, but we'll meet up tomorrow evening for sure."
Rick stared at the strange little woman with the grey hair, too baffled to say a word. He slowly rubbed the arm that had been extended for a while, and which had gone numb.
"Take a hot bath when it starts itching," Hilda said to the big man, without twitching a muscle.
"That's okay, Hilda. We'll all be there." Vivian got up and hugged the petite