Hilda - Cats

by Paul Kater

  William shivered. Had Baba Yaga just called Esmee 'her little protegé'?

  "So Esmee went down to the man and stared at him. That's basically all," the old witch shrugged.

  "Yeah, that and the fact that Esmee plopped a spell on him that changed his ears into bat wings," Hilda added the details that Babs had left out.

  "Esmee did that?" William suddenly felt the need to worry. "Any chance we can undo what we did to her?"

  "Now why would you want to do that, Willy?" Babs wanted to know. "It's about time that she gets some pepper up her behind. Now let's get some sleep. We'll meet again in the evening. Or afternoon." She walked to the entrance of the large stone building, then turned. "And if you two feel the need to share the bath again, be a bit quieter about it."

  Hilda looked at William as he looked at her. "Whoops..."

  19. Under attack

  Daytime came to the land of King Louie. It had also come to the lands that were not King Louie's, as that was the way daytime did its business. It poked around in every corner of the kingdom, looking for witches and a wizard. Daytime really did its best, it spent all day looking, but in the end it packed its bags and left, probably disappointed.

  Two black shapes ran from the castle dining hall. They were followed by four black shapes. The former were of course Onyx Grimalkin and Obsidian Shadow. When their humans finally arrived with the brooms, they were already pacing around, tails twitching.

  "Your pooches are impatient," Baba Yaga stated, pointing at the two black cats.

  "Dogs are pooches, Babs, these are cats," Hilda said.

  "Your pooches are impatient," Baba Yaga stated once more. "We'd better go. Same routine as last night, as we agreed."

  "Yes, as you decreed," William said as he hopped onto his broom.

  "Looks as if your pooches are staying in again tonight," Baba Yaga said.

  "Looks like it, indeed," Hilda had to agree, as the two cats walked off. "They came to see us off, of course."

  Babs refrained from comment, and then four brooms took off. William left the formation and swung away towards the village. The witches would take care of the castle grounds again, and also survey part of the forest around them.

  "I am curious what we'll find this time," William said to himself. "Maybe there actually is something this time."

  Esmee asked Hilda if the tattoo she had put on her face was really overdone. "You commented on that all evening!"

  "Yes. The one William did on you yesterday looked nice, in a way. You've gone a few bits too wild, Esmee. I'll tell William to give you some lessons. I don't know where he picked up that tattoo business, but I have to say he has a feel for it."

  As the tattoo conversation was taking the witches further and further from the castle, at that very castle a dark shape was moving closer. On soft, padded paws it stole along the thick walls where the flickering lights of candles cast dancing shadows on many of the windows. The large main entrance was unguarded, as usual. The creature stopped short of the entrance, twitching its ears to catch any sound. It sniffed the air for smells that should not be there. And it stared at the opening.

  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.

  20. Boots

  "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."

  The brothers in arms were of one mind and returned to the safety of the castle where there were no ghosts.

  -=-=-

  "No, honourable witches and wizard, we didn't see anything," the leader of the soldiers said. "Well, of course we saw a lot, but not the cat-woman the prince told us to find because you told him to tell us."

  "We didn't really see a lot either, as it was so dark," one of the soldiers pitched in.