Dark Silence

24 days (2)

“If looking at the situation in the kitchen from the point of view of moulds and other basic forms of life, there is the apocalypse in there,” Darnell grinned looking at Madeleine. She was smiling, staring at the monitor of the computer. “Was it her who gave Agnes an idea to do the cleaning?” he asked Cole.

“Yeah, after Agnes was torturing her with questions about you for too long, and Madeleine got fu… I mean, got tired to write the answers on the tablet.”

“Why, is she working on Sundays?” asked Darnell remembering his night conversation with Cole.

“No, she said she needed to work out the absence when she was sitting here with that odious laughing demon for the first time.”

“Dammit, the absence at work,” Darnell slammed his forehead when he understood that he didn’t explain to his boss why he never showed up at work on Friday. “What should I do with it now…”

While thinking, Darnell closed his eyes. In the room, only the quiet tapping of Madeleine on the keyboard could be heard. And Cole was rustling inside his dome. Soft slumber was calling Darnell inside its warm hugs with tender waves. The first dialogues of the dream started to form inside his head as well as the images of people who would participate in it. Looked like Ewing was going to say something about Darnell’s absence. What was he grumbling about?

A loud signal of the incoming message snatched Darnell for the dream dispersing its mist. The man shuddered and shook his head, coming to his senses. 

“What’s going on in here,” he grumbled and grabbed the phone. To his surprise, there was a message from Madeleine. He read: “I want to go for a walk, let’s go somewhere.” Darnell snorted. “And I want to go to the bar, now what?” he threw the phone back and stared at the ceiling. But the phone rang again, and Darnell had to take it back, feeling irritated. “Let’s go to a bar.” Darnell laughed aloud. “Repeat this offer in ten years. We won’t go anywhere, I have lots of stuff to do,” he sighed and made himself sit on the sofa. He stood up and went to Madeleine who was pretending that she was contemplating something on the monitor. “Come on, shoo-shoo,” he waved at her, making stand up, and Madeleine turned to him with a wry face. “What? I need to write a letter to Ewing. Anyway, this is my computer, and I haven’t used it for the whole week because of you!”

The girl cast a discontented glance at him, but still stood up very slowly to show her disagreement and sat on the sofa. She took her tablet and started playing on it. Darnell took his place near the computer, minimized a window with some cartoon, and opened his e-mail. He typed Ewing’s address and took thought.

“So, I need to invent why I was absent at work, because “overslept” plus “zoned out” in a library doesn’t sound like a too weighty argument.” Darnell tipped back in the chair not hurrying to type anything.

“Write your standard truth: I’ve got a hole in my head from which all responsibilities fly away, don’t fire me, I beg you with all my heart,” commented Cole from behind his back.

“Very funny,” answered Darnell, swinging on his chair. “Oh, sure, I’ll write that I was ill!” He moved closer to the table and started typing. “Got intoxicated - a wonderful choice…”

“With alcohol,” Cole played up to him.

“Shut up,” snapped Darnell, “or I’ll place you into the wardrobe. So, I was ill on Friday, and I’m going to keep on being ill tomorrow too. And I will also add a short description of how I visited that damned Portal and didn’t find anything out in there.” The man sighed while typing the text. “The main thing in the work is to successfully create its visibility. And a letter with a partial report will make Ewing think that I’m a very responsible employee who fulfilled his task even despite the illness. And even reported on this on his weekend. That’s it.”

Darnell reread the letter once again and remained satisfied with the result. Only after this, he sent his letter to the boss. Maybe this will really help him avoid the righteous anger of Ewing on Tuesday. On the other hand, the absence of any information on Madeleine’s case dispirited him. Darnell looked at the folder with it lying on his table. He turned a few pages mindlessly. They still didn’t give him any smallest clue on where he needed to start. He put hands behind his head and started into the window. It was dark outside, and nothing to look at actually except for his own blurry reflection. In the room, two loud claps sounded. Darnell threw his head back and looked at Madeleine.

“What’s up?”

The girl waved hands at him, the way he did this before addressing her, and emitted a scarcely audible snortle, trying to make him understand that his time near the computer is over for today.

“Why do you want to be near it all day long,” grumbled Darnell. “Let me better teach you how to whistle. I’m sick and tired of these claps as if I’m some animal in a circus, there are only no demands for doing tricks. Would you like to learn this?”

Madeleine protruded her lips and whistled quietly. She stared at Darnell with a victorious look as if saying that she already knew how to do this. He only snorted, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled deafeningly. Madeleine covered her ears, and Cole started to lash around his dome in anxiety.

“What the hell are you doing!” the spirit shrieked.

Darnell shrugged his shoulders. Madeleine put her hands down and pointed at him nodding her head quickly.

“So what, wanna learn?” he smiled and sat near the girl on the sofa. She was all ears and looked at him all eyes with excitement. Sure, if she learned such a funny skill, she could astonish other pupils in the orphanage. “Look, fold two fingers into a circle, purse the lower lip, put the fingers inside your mouth, and press the tongue. Press your lips - and you can whistle.” Darnell repeated the described procedure and whistled again.

Madeleine nodded showing that she understood everything and tried to repeat after him. But her attempts resulted only in a drooled palm. The girl wiped in with her coat in disgust and tried again, but nothing but a silent hiss came out. Darnell laughed merrily looking at her vain attempts.

“Yeah, you’ll have to practice for a while before you manage to call for some fast dog. A dog…” Darnel went deep into his thoughts. “By the way, I have a genius idea whom else we can torture with questions!”

Darnell stood up from the sofa and went to the bookshelf hanging on the wall near Cole. He had a few books no one should know he owned. He started looking through them until he found a thin one in a dark-brown cover. He grabbed a water-soluble marking pen from the drawer of his table and returned to the sofa. Reading the book, he waved at Madeleine.

“Stand up, I need to move this.”

“Darn, are you serious?” Cole asked nervously, flying in his dome.

“What’s the big deal?” the man shrugged his shoulders and put the book on the sofa with its pages facing down. “I’ve done this a hundred times, the hundred first one will also work.”

Madeleine went away from the sofa timidly, watching Darnell, and not understanding what he was up to. The man grabbed the edge of the sofa and hardly lifted it, placing away from its usual place. He repeated the same procedure from another side. Darnell exhaled heavily and rubbed his back. He removed a grey round carpet that was lying under the sofa. Under it, a round half-empty pentagram for summoning was drawn not bigger than a meter in diameter.

“We just need to summon some minor servant of Gusion, and they will tell me where I should start from,” Darnell commented on his actions with excitement. He grabbed the pen and the book from the sofa. Looking at the image in it, he filled the pentagram with missing elements and the name of the demon right on the floor.

“Or everything will turn out like it was that time,” Cole growled out. “I don’t even want to see this!” He made a slow circle around his dome and stopped at its furthest wall to make it visually clear that he turned away.

“Whatever. It’s not like I need you,” answered Darnell. He finished drawing the symbols.

He went to his room for his Colt and the knife received at the Agency. Apart from them, Darnell found five thick black candles hidden in the wardrobe. His clothes fell on the floor again during his search, but Darnell pushed them away edgily. For now, he was excited about his new idea. He returned to the living room armed to the teeth and with candled shoved into all pockets, but suddenly met the glance of Madeleine. It was filled with bitterness and barefaced fear.

“Oh, I forgot…” said Darnell moodily. He hunkered down and started to arrange the candles around the pentagram. “Well, listen, it is better for Ewing not to know about this, okay? I can’t do this myself without official permission, I don’t have the rights. He will tear me apart with his bare hands for this. Will you wait in the kitchen till I’m done here? It won’t take long,” he put his weapon near him and stared at the girl. He was constantly forgetting that he was not alone at home, especially when she was not noisy at all.