Dark Silence

28 days (3)

Madeleine looked around and grabbed a pencil and a coloring page for children from the nearest table. She scribbled a text on it and shoved the paper to Darnell. 

“Why did you call me your sister?” he read aloud. “Well, because I’m obviously not your father, but if I told the truth that I’m just some random guy escorting a little girl around the city, that would evoke a ton of suspicions and questions. I don’t need that now, I don’t have the energy for such useless s**t,” he took a sip of water and sighed. “Why do you care how I call you in front of strangers anyway…”

Madeleine grabbed the paper and wrote another message.

“Why didn’t I order food? Because I don’t eat when I’m having a hangover, kid. And I’m not eating much in general… By the way, what did you order? I missed this moment, what are you supposed to eat? Don’t want you to get into a hospital with some disorder.” 

As if the waiter heard him, he brought the girl’s order and placed it in front of her. Darnell saw two hamburgers and quite a big serve of french fries. Darnell pursed up his mouth while paying the bill and leaving some tips for the waiter, thinking that he should have controlled what she was ordering. As soon as he left, Darnell asked the girl: “How are you supposed to eat all this? Your eyes are surely bigger than your stomach,” he chuckled looking at Madeleine frowning. She snorted at him and fell on the food. “Whatever, kid, enjoy your unhealthy meal,” he giggled. “Something tells me that food in the orphanage is still as awful as it used to be? I remember that weird soup that reminded me more of warm water with a few pieces of vegetables.” Madeleine nodded abruptly pointing at Darnell as if agreeing to his words. “Gosh, they still have it,” he dropped a bitter sigh. “Well, imagine this as your break from that plain cuisine, just order something you are sure about. I rely on you.” 

Madeleine finished one of her hamburgers and less than half of fries, and then exhaled with satisfaction and slightly pushed her plates away.

“What do you mean you don’t want it?” snarled Darnell. “It was you who ordered all this!” Madeleine poked her finger at him and shook her head disapprovingly. “I don’t get you! I don’t understand what you mean by waving your hands and head!” answered Darnell. The girl lost her temper and angrily scribbled something on the paper. “You must eat too,” read Darnell. “Who do you think you are to decide for me when I need to eat?!” Madeleine crossly added a few more lines. “You haven't eaten since yesterday. If you don’t eat, I won’t eat either!” The man growled at her. “I will take this paper with me to prove Ewing that you are blackmailing me!” He although grabbed the hamburger and started to chew on it trying to make up his mind with the fact that he had to give in to some little girl. She smiled victoriously at him and continued to eat some fries. Darnell ran an eye over the unnoticeable interior of the small cafe and noticed one couple a few tables away from them. His inner demon who was recently rudely woken up by Cyril suddenly noted that the male sitting next to a lady was a demon under human disguise. Darnell touched Madeleine’s hand and pointed at the direction of that couple. “Look, the guy over there is a demon, I can sense it from here. Pretends to be a human, just like Cyril did today. But he’s not even eating anything. Such a pathetic attempt to blend in.” The girl sniffed and pointed at the line where she wrote that Darnell refused to eat. “This is not the same, I do need food, I just don’t want it,” the man snorted. “Don’t compare me to demons, I don’t like it.” He forced himself to poke the last piece of the hamburger into the mouth and shook his hands off. “Come on, grab your leftovers, and let’s head to the office. It is late now, but it doesn’t mean that we should never get there.”

           ***

Darnell left Madeleine under the watchful eyes of his co-workers. They were in complete delight because of her since the first day of her coming to the Agency, and they were glad to drop all their work to entertain the girl. Darnell needed to get several allowances from Ewing if he wanted to really protect Madeleine and cope with his task. He had been standing in front of the boss’s door for several minutes already, hesitating to come in. The clock was showing the beginning of 3 PM, and that meant that before he starts the conversation, he’ll have to listen to a long outburst. He sighed and, finally gathering his wits, pushed the door.

“Mister Ewing, good…”

“Afternoon!” he shouted from his office chair. “O’Dell, again! How long will this last, I’m running out of patience!”

“I’m sorry, that is an accident, I’m really sorry,” answered Darnell apologetically, sitting in front of his boss on a chair.

“Accident?” Ewing got angry. “Do you know how an accident that repeats every day during the year is called?!”

“Mister Ewing, I need some help in Madeleine’s case,” said Darnell, ignoring the boss’s question.

“Help?” he stopped speaking because of the abrupt change of the topic and frowned. “Did something happen?”

“No,” answered Darnell confidently. “But to begin with, I need some stuff from the Agency’s storage. Can you give me the allowance to go there?”

“What exactly do you need?” inquired Ewing, pulling a form from his table.

“I’d prefer the open form,” answered Darnell cagily.

“Why is that?” Ewing looked at him from under the eyebrows, holding the pen above the empty piece of paper.

“You know, I need to consult on this, to think over, to see what they’ve got, to choose thoroughly. What if I forget about something important, and it is inconvenient to come to you a dozen times a day,” Darnell lied carelessly.

“Well, fine,” said Ewing unwillingly, passing several lines on the paper, “but Cynthia must bring it to me later.”

He signed in a sweeping manner at the end of the page and slammed it loudly with a stamp. Darnell accepted the form with relief: he’ll surely manage to persuade Cynthia to write there down only what he needs.

“Anything else?” asked Ewing.

“Yes,” Darnell nodded. “I need a pass through the Portal’s checkpoint."

Ewing snorted in response.

“Since when did you start asking me for permission to go through the Portal? Aren’t you hanging around there whenever you want?”

“It just turned out that way,” Darnell made a helpless gesture. “So, will you give me access?”

Ewing took a minute to think, looking into his interlocutor’s eyes. Probably, he managed to read something in them and shook his head.

“What do you need to get into the Portal for?”

“I want to get some information from another side. To pull old strings, so to say,” confessed Darnell.

“Yes, to cut some of them, like you did the last Friday,” added Ewing.

“I will honestly do everything possible to not let this happen,” answered his subordinate in a serious manner.

“So that’s what you need the pass for,” Ewing sat back, holding his eyes on Darnell. “You’re going to get into some shitty trouble, and want to get a safety net in the form of the recording of the time of entering the Portal on the checkpoint?”

Darnell swore silently. It was impossible to trick Ewing, he almost always saw his subordinates like they were made of glass, even if he never spoke about this aloud.

“I simply decided to stick to at least some rules of the Agency,” he hardly smiled, hoping that Ewing will not continue to keep on questioning him. He sighed and took another piece of paper from the drawer.

 “On which day and time do you need the pass?” he asked.

“And what is the weekday today?” Darnell made a counter-question unthinkingly. Ewing raised his eyes at him and became red in the face of rage. “Oh, I mean, for Saturday," the man corrected himself brokenly. “4 hours will be enough for me.”

“I see,” answered the boss, looking at the calendar, standing on the table. “Where will Madeleine be at this time?”

“I’ll ask my neighbor to stay with her. It is safe at my home,” he reassured the boss. Ewing nodded to Darnell, listening to him partially and writing the paper till the end. He placed not one but three stamps on it and unwillingly gave the pass to Darnell.

“Watch out,” he warned, “if you screw up on that side, I’m no longer going to cover you up.”

“I understand,” Darnell nodded, taking the paper and standing up. “Thank you. I’ll be going then.”

“Yes, go and work!” Ewing told into his back.

Leaving the boss’s room, Darnell exhaled with relief. The conversation turned to go much smoother than he expected. He looked around the open space, noticing at the distant corner near the cooler a group of laughing girls. Madeleine was among them. While she was looked after, he could calmly go visit the storage.

Darnell went down to the basement of the building. He was going down the scantily lighted hallway deep in his thoughts. The cold air was slightly smelling with dampness. Darnell turned around the next corner and bumped into the broad chest of a very tall man.

“I haven’t seen Cyril today,” he said in a deep low voice at the edge of the hearing.

“Hello, Hector,” answered Darnell, raising the eyes. He absolutely didn’t want to communicate now with the second demon, working at the Agency. If Cyril was here on his own will and, probably, from sheer boredom, Hector was directed here by force for some big wrongdoings in his world. Besides, he was strictly forbidden to show his belonging to the dark race in any way, that’s why he was always in the human shape. Even Darnell didn’t know how he initially looked like. 

“Where’s Cyril?” the big man repeated his question, blocking the way to Darnell.

‘I don’t know,” he sighed, “call him, did you forget, how to use the cell phone?”

“He’s not answering,” hummed Hector. As he was forbidden to return to his world through the Portal, he chose Cyril as his only friend, and tried to stick to him, even those Cyril wasn’t happy with this at all.

“What do you want from me?” Darnell got angry. “I’m not his personal assistant, ya know, I don’t have his schedule!”

Hector slowly leaned to his interlocutor and said, looking into his eyes:

“You’ve been spending too much time with him lately, bastard. I’m not Ewing, if you do something to him, I’m going to get very tough on you.”

The demon straightened and pushed Darnell at the wall to continue his way. The man looked at his back indifferently and kept walking. Hector had never been friendly to anyone, but with Darnell, he was openly aggressive. However, the question of where Cyril had gone was curious. Darnell thought that the demon went to the office after being knocked out of his flat. The man only hoped that he didn’t stick anywhere with Agnes. Cyril was seducing women with huge passion, and Darnell thought that he had already managed to spend time with pleasure with all the female part of the staff members, who were attracted to the demon as if with the magnet. The man snorted to his thoughts: Cyril never charmed girls, in principle, but they were not confused with his scary appearance at all. Darnell was sure that this would not work on Agnes. He suddenly remembered how Cyril said that the girl came to see him the next day. He was even flattered that she wasn’t afraid to break into his home to find out if he was okay so devotedly. So, probably, the demon found some more important issues than vegetable life in the Agency and consulting its staff.