Hilda - Cats (15 page)

As if urged on from an unseen place, the
shape went inside the castle. The hall it entered was empty. There
were faint sounds of people talking and laughing. From somewhere
there came a wailing sound of a child that did not want to go to
sleep. The creature slipped behind one of the large draperies that
hung against a wall, and hidden behind that it moved towards the
grand staircase that was on the far end of the wall.

The creature emerged from behind the
draperies after waiting for a few minutes. Nothing in the hall
stirred, no people were about. The creature dashed towards the
staircase and ran up, to the next floor, where it hid in a dark
niche it found mere steps from the staircase. Again it sniffed the
air. No people in the corridor, nose and ears conveyed. The
creature tore itself from its hiding place and ran through the
corridor without making a sound. It turned around a corner and
dashed through the next corridor, coming to a stop in front of a
door.

As the creature struggled to open the door,
it growled. Its thick paws were not made for this. In the end the
door gave in and swung open. The creature went into the room,
turned and pushed against the door, which closed with a louder
noise than was necessary. Then the creature turned to the bed. It
leapt through the room and landed on the soft blanket, tearing at
it with sharp claws and ripping at it with its strong teeth. Soon
the room was covered with feathers from the pillow and shreds of
what had been very nice bed linen.

The creature growled again. The bed had been
empty and that was not a part of the plan.

In the shed, Magda sat in her chair, eyes
closed, strain showing on her face. Lindolf and Simi were with her,
both holding a hand of the woman.

"Things going well?" Lindolf asked, his voice
no more than a hush.

"How would I know," Simi hissed, as pearls of
perspiration rolled down her cheeks. Magda was draining her energy
like crazy, this had to be a good thing. Normally with Santera on
the prowl there was hardly any pressure.

The creature jumped from the bed. It slowly
looked around in the room. When it saw a mirror, it froze.

The reflecting glass showed a bizarre hybrid
of a young woman and a large cat. There was cat hair on her entire
body. The beginnings of a tail hung down behind her. The cat-woman
moved closer to the mirror, reached out to touch the cold glass.
She stared at her image, stared at her paws. Then, with a frenzy,
she attacked the rest of the things in the room. Vases smashed on
the floor, flowers flew everywhere, dresses were torn up and a
chair got smashed. And still there was no sound from anywhere.

Simi got scared. This had been the second
surge of energy Magda had drawn from her. "Not going well, we have
to snap her out of this," she said.

"We can't," said Lindolf. "Santera's still
there. We have to get her back."

"She's killing me," Simi whimpered as another
drain of energy happened.

"Let go of Magda and I'll kill you," Lindolf
coldly informed her. "Your choice."

The cat-woman, Santera, bolted towards the
door, managed to open it and almost fell into the corridor. Magda
fought to keep control of the woman.

The cat-woman staggered through the corridors
and stumbled down the stairs, not caring about staying out of
sight. The heavy sound of a man laughing attracted her attention;
she ran to the door from behind where the sound had come and banged
into it with all her weight. The door cracked and she crashed into
the room.

King Louie, who was in his council chamber
with one of his advisors, jumped to his feet as he saw the door
collapse. "What-" was all he could say before a furry large
creature attacked him. He fell backwards, as the weight on top of
him squashed all air from his lungs.

The advisor had fallen from his chair and
screamed for help. The man was good at advising, not at physical
combat, so he left the king to his own devices with respect to the
hairy assailant.

Santera clawed at the king's face and chest,
hissing and growling, until suddenly she was knocked over by a
swift punch that hit her in the head. As she was rolling to the
side, another punch surprised her. She smelled cats. Two of them.
She jumped to her feet and turned to where she expected the two,
but Obsi and Grim had moved already. Obsi jumped up from Santera's
left, clawing at her ear, while Grim pounced on Santera's back,
digging her claws deep into the fur.

The cat-woman howled an eerie scream and
bashed around herself to beat off the two cats. After succeeding in
that, she hurtled out of the room and down the hall, to disappear
into the night. Grim and Obsi ran after her for a while, but
somehow Santera had managed to go so fast that she was nowhere to
be seen any more.

"Crappedy crap," Hilda yelled, "we have to go
back, now!" Without a word she yanked her broom around and sped
back to the castle.

"What the grey elves is wrong with her," Baba
Yaga muttered as she brought her broom to a halt. Esmee turned her
broom also. "Let's go after her," Babs said.

William had also sensed the upheaval and
raced back towards the castle. When he got there, Hilda had already
arrived. It worried him to see that her broom was lying on the
floor. This told a tale of something bad.

Babs and Esmee also arrived and the three ran
into the castle, to find King Louie being taken care of by his
physician, as his wife, Queen Daphne, was making a general nuisance
of herself as she tried to arrange things she didn't know anything
about. The four learnt what had happened.

"Good grief," William said.

"Suck an elf," Hilda added.

"Interesting," Babs agreed.

"I wonder why nobody saw anything," Esmee
thought out loud.

"Looks like security here is an issue," Hilda
agreed. She eyed the two cats that had come to King Louie's rescue.
"Luckily our familiars were here. So what's the matter with you
guys?" she asked the two. As soon as they had Hilda's attention,
they made for the staircase and looked at the witch.

"I think we should go with them, William,"
Hilda said as she walked to where the cats were waiting. William
followed, as did the other two witches. They followed the cats up
the stairs and down the corridors. As they reached Esmee's room,
they were all stunned.

"Crappedy crap."

Back in the shed, Simi had fainted. Too much
of her had been used this time. Magda had slumped back into her
chair, her eyes staring into a void.

Lindolf was cursing as he had no idea what
had happened, and both women were unresponsive to his questions,
shouting and prodding. "Damn, damn, damn, why did I get involved
with amateurs," he ranted. "These two are down, I have no idea
where the cat is and in what state, and I should get the hell out
of here." Still there was a sense of responsibility in the man that
kept him where he was.

Deep in the forest, somewhere between the
castle and the shed, a young naked woman lay shivering on the
ground, sobbing and hurting. Blood trickled from wounds on her back
and head.

"Either you have friends who threw one hell
of a party in your room, or the cat-creature that was here tried
something," Hilda said as they had looked around the room.
"Anything here that's not broken or ripped to shreds?"

Esmee's face was ashen as she took in the
remains of her belongings. "Who did this? And why would they do
that?" she asked.

Baba Yaga put a hand on the shoulder of the
despairing witch. "We don't know, kiddo, but we're going to find
out."

As Babs magicked up a glass of potent spiced
wine for Esmee, William examined the scratches on the door and the
table. Obsi was on the table and allowed his claws to be compared
to the marks in the wood. "Cat alright," the wizard decided. "The
marks match, they're just oversized. I am sure that cat-woman was
in here. And I hate how it feels like someone is playing a game
with us. As if they knew we were out."

Prince Jordan and two guards entered the
room. "What happened here?" the prince asked. Hilda told him what
they suspected and had discovered. "That's not good," Prince Jordan
underestimated the situation. "I will send out men to search the
grounds for the cat."

"Have them look in the forest also," Baba
Yaga advised him. "It would surprise me if they found her around
the castle. Nobody would be so stupid to stay near here when
they've created such a mess."

"Unless this is an inside job," William
thought out loud. "Never rule out the impossible."

"That's not impossible, wizard, that's just
plain crazy," Baba Yaga said.

"So is that," William pointed at the ravaged
bed. "I am just staying with that line of thought."

Babs made an undefinable sound and took Esmee
out of the room. "Come on, Esmee, we'll find you a place to
sleep."

Prince Jordan took the men out of the room
while ordering them to follow the orders that the witches and
wizard had given.

Snow White came running down the corridor as
the guards were on their way. "Jordan, what happened?!" He told her
what little he had picked up and then she rushed into the room of
the castle witch. "Oh no!"

There was nothing the assembled witchforce
could do about the room, so they went back down to talk to the king
and his advisor once more, but that too did not bring much more to
light. They only got a very clear view of the king's scratches.

"Nobody managed to grab that cat-woman. And
nobody knows where she came from, how long she was here and where
she went to," Hilda sighed as they all had retreated to the room
she and William used. "That gives us so little to go on. We're
probably lucky that the cats were here to do something. The
cat-woman might have taken the king apart."

-=-=-

In the shed, the situation had improved only
marginally. Lindolf was quite worked up. Magda had snapped out of
her lethargy and tried to wake up Simi.

"Stop your panic attack, Lindolf," Magda
said, "it is not helping. Again, I tell you, go out and find
Santera. We don't know where she is."

"But she could still be in the castle,"
Lindolf ranted, "do you want me to walk in there and ask them if
they accidentally saw a cat-woman that slashed up the king? That
would go down well. My head in particular!"

"She is not in the castle anymore. I took her
to quite far into the forest. Go. Do something. You want this, you
do something for it. Discussion closed."

Lindolf grabbed his dark cloak from the chest
in the corner and left the shed. Muttering, he put the cloak around
his shoulders. He started walking towards the castle, certain he
was not going to enjoy this.

The man marched through the forest. His cloak
got caught in thorny bushes as he stepped into puddles that were
hiding beneath the undergrowth. Evil branches and their offspring,
stingy nasty leaves, tapped him on the head and scratched his
cheeks and neck. He was surprised how much truth there was in his
original feeling about this walk. He did not enjoy it, and the
darkness did not improve his mood. He persisted though, enduring
the relentless attacks of the forest. Magda was tired now, but he
knew she was not someone to cross. She'd remember.

A few times he stopped walking and listened
carefully. Once he was certain he had heard the clatter of swords
and shield, half expecting that a host of soldiers from the castle
was going to fall on top of him from the trees that were still
taxing him. "Bollocks," he then cursed himself. Soldiers did not
fall from trees. He proved beyond a doubt that men could walk into
trees a few times, though.

His face hurt as he had another such
encounter. He stopped to wipe the blood from his brow when he
caught a sound that was not normal here. It sounded like...
sobbing. "Santera!" he whispered as loudly as he dared. "Santera,
where are you?"

"Lindolf. Here." It was clearly Santera's
voice. It sounded weak and in pain.

"Where is here?" Lindolf asked as he did his
best to see something. Once again, the darkness did not help to
make him feel better.

"Here," was the obvious and useless
answer.

Then he saw a faint pale movement. "I think I
see you," Lindolf whispered. He dashed forward and ran into another
tree before he reached the naked young woman. After another round
of muttering he kneeled down with her. "Are you okay?" The question
was totally unnecessary. Lindolf took off his cloak and wrapped
Santera in it. He picked her up and prayed that he would be able to
return to the shed without running into anything.

As he walked off with the still sobbing
woman, he heard a strange thudding sound. He ignored it and just
did what he could to get away from there.

The soldier who had fallen from the tree
scrambled to his feet. "I thought I saw something," he said as his
fellow guards laughed. "But it was gone suddenly. And no laughing!"
The man had climbed on a branch to see further, and fallen from it
as he had craned his neck and then too much of the rest of him to
see more.

"You have seen too much of the castle's ale,
my friend," another soldier grinned as he clapped the man on the
shoulder. "But don't worry, your secret is safe with us. We'll
drown it in some ale when we get back."

"I'm telling you, I saw something. It was
white. Well, pale. And then it was gone. As if it was something a
witch did. Or a ghost that vanished."

The laughter of the soldiers froze in their
throats. Witches was one thing, they'd seen plenty of those. But
ghosts... that was not in their job description. "Maybe we should
go back and see about that ale," one of them suggested. "We haven't
found anything, that's clear."

"Yeah," a third agreed, "and if that pale
thing was a real something, it's gone now anyway. Nothing we can do
about that now."