couch they had never seen before. They were Rodney, Stephen and Buster. Buster looked as if his physique had obeyed his name: he was huge enough to bust most things in the house. Things, and people. Perhaps even the house itself.
"They are here with a proposal," Vivian explained as Gladys went round with tea and coffee. "They have seen Zelda fly around and they want to help us catch her." Her expression did not reveal if she had much confidence in the proposition the three men had already laid out to her.
As all were seated, Stephen took his coffee, sipped it loudly and earned a disapproving look from the witch. "Looking for trouble?" he asked her.
"No. I don't start trouble," Hilda said. "I finish it."
The man frowned and wisely decided to let it pass. "Okay. We got the same problem you do," he said. "That bloody witch. She's messing up our place and pisses us off in a fucking major way."
"You do not have the same problem we have," Hilda charged against Stephen, "you are in your own world, we're not!"
Stephen prodded Buster who got up and started to approach Hilda.
"You'd better not, son," said William. "Zelda is a witch, so is Hilda." He held up his hand and flipped up his wand. "And I am not too bad myself, if I may say so."
Buster frowned at William, stared at Hilda for a moment and then questioned Stephen in silence.
"Damn you," the latter said, without specifying whom this was meant for. Buster took this as a signal to sit down unharmed. "We want our place back," Stephen continued. "And we wanna call in the forces that we deal with for that. But we thought that asking you folks would be a good idea also. You seem to know the bitch witch."
Hilda frowned for a moment but let the remark pass. "We know her. Quite well. She's made our being here rather tedious. I want to bust her bones."
Buster smiled appreciatively. "Yeah."
"So, you say she is messing up your place. Where is your place?" Hilda asked.
"Somewhere outa town," Stephen carefully avoided details.
"What is your place?"
"Large."
"If we are to help you, man, we need some more information. And go there, to see it." Hilda tried to remain calm with the man. Apparently there was something about him that could be beneficial.
"You wanna see our place?" Stephen watched her.
"Yes. Once we finished our coffee."
"Coffee," Buster agreed.
Hilda smiled. She liked the big bloke. "So. You mention that you want to call in your powers. The forces that you deal with, was it?"
"Yeah. We're good with them. And them's with us."
"And what or who are those forces?"
Stephen got up. "You ask so much, witch. Come on. We'll take you. The bikes are down the street where we can still ride'em."
"Bikes." A memory flashed before Hilda's eyes, of a motorcycle gang, halfway stuck in the concrete of a freeway. She grinned.
"Gotta problem with bikes?" Stephen asked.
"No," the witch smiled. "Bikes usually have problems with me. And if you don't mind, we'll take our brooms instead of joining you on your machines. Maybe the ladies want to join, though."
Vivian stared at Hilda, shocked by the suggestion. "Are you serious?"
Gladys grinned and elbowed Tory, who looked as if she was game.
Rodney, silent until now, said: "Brooms. That's wild."
-=-=-
Hilda and William flew low. They followed the three motorcycles. The witches were riding along on the noisy machines, holding on to the riders for dear life.
"I am curious where we are going," the witch said to her wizard, who nodded.
Soon after that, the bikes turned off the main road and onto a dirt road, the passengers shrieking as the wheels danced beneath them.
"I am still curious where we are going," the witch said to her wizard, who this time shrugged.
"I don't have a real clue where we are anymore." William looked around, flew up so he was over the trees that were lining the dirt road left and right and came back down to Hilda. "Not a clue. Never been here before."
They flew on until the bikes slowed down. At the end of the road loomed a large collection of old and badly maintained containers, the kind that are used on seaships. The bikers mumbled something as they waited for their passangers to unmount the machines, then led the way into one of the containers.
"It stinks really badly here, Stephen," Hilda helpfully pointed out.
The man ignored her as he switched on some lights, powered by some unknown source. The inside of the space they were in was amazing. All the interiors of the containers had been taken out, so the inside of the stack of metal seemed like a steel cathedral.
The three woman stayed close to each other and the open door. Hilda and William walked on into the place, following Stephen and his buddies. There were low benches. There were black mirrors. And there were black candles. Hundreds of them.
"Stephen," William asked, "what exactly is it you are doing here?" He had this funny feeling that he knew the answer.
"Devil worship."
"Right..."
"And what's that?" Hilda asked as she used her wand to light all the candles in one strike.
"Crap, I need a trick like that," Rodney informed the people around. "Can you blow 'm out like that too?"
"Sure. That's simple."
"Cool. I'm keeping you."
Hilda turned around quickly. William did that too. Both stared at a certain part of the metal dome where there was nothing but darkness.
"Getting nervous?" Stephen grinned.
"What was that?" William asked.
"I don't know," the witch replied.
Wands drawn and ignoring Stephen, they walked to the spot that had attracted their attention. They found nothing. Feeling ill at ease, they came back to where all the others were.
The three ladies had dared to come in by that time and were carefully examining some of the black mirrors. They knew better than to touch anything here. Carefully whispering, they discussed the place they had gotten into. Gladys was not too sure if this was something they should continue doing, but Tory and Vivian pointed out that these were strange circumsances, and so strange measures had to be taken. Even if wiccan witches had to work together with real witches like Hilda. And devil worshippers.
"Okay Stephen, nice place you have here," Hilda said. "I do wonder how Zelda messed this place up, but I will take your word for it. What is your plan?"
Stephen frowned and rolled his impressive shoulder muscles. "Yeah, I guess you ain't in touch with the place. What we wanna do is call up the powers. That seems to attract the bitch witch. Then you come in and slam her down."
"Ah. Right. That is the... uhm... plan."
Stephen nodded. "Works for me." Buster nodded along with his leader. It all seemed to work for him.
"And have you any idea when you want this plan to happen? Are there things that need to be organised?" William asked.
Stephen shook his head. "Not really. We can round up our people quickly. Do you need stuff then?"
William looked at Vivian who came closer.
"We want to come with a few more people, provided we can get them here," Vivian said. "Not sure about the rest."
"Hilda and I can provide some transportation," William offered.
"We should get this show on the road as quickly as possible," Hilda threw in. "Zelda's out there and we need to nab her. Fast. I don't want to know what crappedy crap she's doing at the moment."
"I am not sure if I want to know," Vivian remarked. At first this whole witching business, catching the bad one, had seemed like a fine thing to do, but now, with devil worshippers and all that, the situation was taking yet another turn for the worse.
Then the ground shook.
"Suck an elf."
32. Here comes trouble
Everybody ran outside, to try and locate the source of the ground-shaking events. Alas, the location of the m
etal cathedral was very good for people who did not want to be bothered, but lousy for staying up to date on local affairs.
Hilda and William grabbed their brooms and raced off, leaving the six others behind.
"That's not friendly," Buster commented.
"We have to hurry in getting Zelda," Hilda yelled at William. Their speed was insane, wind yanked at them and took their breath away.
"Cool plan," the wizard yelled back as they gained altitude.
As they were higher up, they saw something unnerving in the skyline of the city. One of the highest buildings had gone. There was no smoke, no dust, no debris anywhere. Just a hole in the view.
"Holy Bejeebus," William said, "look at that. Where's the Denton Building gone?"
"Ask Zelda," Hilda muttered.
Soon they reached the gaping opening in the ground where the building had been. Gas-pipes, water-pipes and electricity cables had been torn off. Enormous bits of concrete were scattered around where once the solid foundation of the building had been. Not a soul was in the street, for some reason.
Hilda looked round. "She's not near here. I wonder how she managed to pull this off. A shed is one thing, but this was one big building."
"And I want to know where she is. And where the building went," William added to the wonder.
"Only one thing we can do, William. Go up and circle. If the thing is still around we have to be able to find it."
Hilda was right, he knew. They pulled up their brooms and started circling. At the second round Hilda pointed. "Got it."
William looked. Behind the bulk that was the ice cream factory was another bulk. The Denton Building. It was just not as high as it used to be. It was lying sideways. "That is scary..."
The witch and the wizard did not race towards the building.