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.
7. Goo
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.
"They don't need us," William decided. "I suggest we go back to the room that Bert allowed us, and rest up a bit. And we should see about some food also."
Food was no problem, of course, their magic was more than capable of producing some.
"I miss the crazy kitchen," William said as they lay on the bed, staring into the darkness.
"It's not crazy, sweet man. It just has an attitude. Like a witch does. It's this world that's crazy." Hilda snuggled up to her wizard. "And there's something else I have to tell you."
"Which would be?"
"I love you." She pressed her lips against his cheek.
-=-=-
The next morning came with a loud noise. The couple flew from the bed and looked out of the window. An army tank moved through the street. The machine had problems conquering the debris that was in front of it, but it made progress. Unfortunately, it was going the wrong way, as O'Malley's was down the other side of the street.
"Crappedy crap," Hilda muttered, "that's no way to wake up a witch." She was tempted to use her wand on the noise-maker.
"Let's wait until they're gone before we go out," William suggested.
"No. We have to move now. It must have woken up Zelda too. Provided she was asleep at all." Hilda had a point, so they opened the window and flew