by Paul Kater
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."
11. The Winklers
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