Dark Silence

26 days (1)

Darnell wasted half of the morning rummaging around his flat. However, no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t find his library pass of the Agency’s employee. He could hardly locate his card and hoped that this would be enough. He was more worried that he had to take Madeleine with him. Even if he would be let in, there might be troubles because of her.

“Just in case, if something goes wrong, make those big sad eyes of yours,” referred Darnell to the girl who was absorbedly digging something in her bag. She interrupted her occupation and looked at him without understanding in her eyes. “Well, you know, do what you usually do to make the girls in open space go crazy over you,” explained Darnell, twisting his lips ironically at his old photo in his ID. “We’ll try to whittle down the librarians’ defenses. Usually, there are old ladies working there.” Madeleine frowned when she heard this. “Oh, come on,” laughed Darnell, “you think I don’t see how you manipulate others with your angelic appearance?” In return, Madeleine folded her hands on her knees and blinked at him devotedly with her huge eyes framed with fluffy golden eyelashes. “Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” the man winked and hid his ID into the pocket. “But this doesn’t work at me, keep this in mind,” he wagged his finger jokingly at her.

“That’s not true,” murmured Cole from his shelf, “you’re under her thumb so often and don’t even notice this.”

Madeleine stuck out her tongue at the spirit. She finally got a pink jacket and blue jeans from her bag. Darnell noticed scruffy ends of the jeans legs and thought that the girl didn’t have a very wide variety of clothes. He remembered his own childhood. He had to wear only the orphanage’s uniform. When he got his first salary, he bought a heap of absolutely awful and tasteless clothes which he even didn’t ever put on, but the fact that he had it warmed his heart.  

“Dress up,” he said to Madeleine grabbing his coat, “we’ll go to win over the residence of information.”

***

 A three-story building stretched through half the block of the street. It greeted its visitors welcomingly with widely opened doors. Madeleine was contemplating openmouthed the high columns decorating the front of the building and fancy bas-reliefs enframing the upper windows.

“Haven’t been here before?” Darnell asked the girl walking up the stairs. She shook her head enthusiastically. The man continued. “This is a really old library. It is over a hundred years old. Approximately 10 years ago someone broke into the Demonology section where we need to get into now. There was so much damage conducted…” Darnell shook his head sadly and opened the second door of the library letting the girl go inside. “Since then all such literature was hidden in a separate room and locked down. And the reconstruction of the library lasted for two years.”

Darnell waved his hand on the big wide hall filled with tables for readers made of dark wood. High shelves were spreading into two ways filled with an enormous amount of books to the limit. Near the tables, chairs covered with green velvet were standing waiting for the visitors to sit on them and become smarter due to all that wonderful and mysterious information hidden behind the covers on the shelves. Tables were illuminated with the lamps of the color matching the chairs. Air was filled with the habitual library smell of old paper, wood, polish, dust, and God knows what else.

Darnell had to put his arm on Madeleine’s shoulder to slow her down. He held the girl leading her down the worn-out dark-red rug to the counter. He saw that the girl was trembling from excitement and delight, and she could any moment rush away and disappear among the high shelves exploring the new territory.

Darnell came up to the counter of librarians watching with the corner of his eye after Madeleine who was turning her head enthusiastically. It looked like she really loved being in that library. The man lifted his eyes and saw a red pile of hair that was hiding the face of its owner. The girl was typing something absorbedly of her old scratched phone. Darnell coughed politely trying to attract her attention. He waited for a couple of moments but didn’t see any reaction on him, so coughed again louder. Madeleine put her hands on the counter looking with interest for the cause of the delay in their mission. Darnell got angry at the absence of reaction and snapped:

“Ma’am!”

 She squealed and waved her hands, dropping her phone into Darnell's side. He hardly managed to grab it in time, not letting it break on the floor. He gave her device back.

“Thank you. Such old phones don’t fall,” the girl giggled, accepting her device.

“Yeah, they ascend to their creator,” muttered the man.

The girl lifted her eyes at him and adjusted her round glasses.

“Darnell?” blood drained from her face and she started to fidget her hair.

“Hi, Agnes,” he barely brought words out of his mouth. “I didn’t know that you are a librarian.”

When the girl heard this, she blushed so much as if Darnell said something really indecent. She started to mumble something incomprehensible with her face turning even redder, and the man felt worried for her.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“Oh, I- yes, of course.” Agnes grabbed her glasses, wiped them, and put back nervously on her nose. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Yes, there is,” Darnell leaned frivolously on the desk and put his hand on his waist. Agnes was the one whom he perfectly needed to pass by all procedures and get to the closed department of the library without his pass. 

“So, what are you interested in?” she pressed her hands twitchy and tried to avoid looking directly at Darnell.

He cast a glance at the girl. It looked like she was made to wear modest clothing because she was dressed in a classic white blouse with wide sleeves.

“White color suits you,” he tried to test the waters. Flattery always worked on the ladies he used to know.

“Thank you,” said Agnes stuttered, staring at her fingers.

“I’d like to get to the Demonology section,” he immediately switched the topic of conversation before the girl could gather her wits. 

“Yes, sure, please, give me your library pass,” she reached her trembling hand with a neat french manicure. Darnell looked at it and gave out a sigh.

“There’s a slight problem in this. I guess I’ve lost it. But I really need to get in there.” He leaned to Agnes and lowered his voice to make her come closer to him.  The girl did exactly what he expected from her. He noticed how her eyelashes were trembling in thrill and excitement, and that they were of the same flame-red color as her hair. Darnell continued speaking in a trusting whisper. “I’ll also need to take Madeleine with me. There’s no way I can leave her alone for long. Especially in the library full of strangers.”

“Yes, of course,” Agness mumbled as if she was under some spell. “I will take you both there, it’s fine, I won’t let anyone know about this.”

Agnes took something from under the counter and went out of it. She went to one of the halls on awkwardly stiff legs and tangling in her long brown skirt. Darnell nodded Madeleine and they both followed her. The man caught up with Agnes who seemed to march like a soldier on an important mission. Darnell didn’t like the fact that he had to use her attitude towards him, but he didn’t want to give her false hope.

“How’s it going between you and Cyril?” she suddenly snapped out. “It seemed to me that you got mad at him?”

“But why should I be mad at him?” Darnell winded her up. Agness blushed again. Her face color almost blended with her hair. The man smirked. “I haven't been at the Agency and haven’t seen this demon yet,” he lied.

“The demon?” Agnes squealed and suddenly stopped in the middle of the dark library hall.

“Well, to be precise, he’s not a demon but a minion.”

“So you say he’s serving someone?” Agness suddenly got pale and turned to Darnell as if looking for support from him. He was almost going to burst in laughter. It turned out that Cyril didn’t show her his true form remaining in a human disguise. 

“Nah, he doesn’t literally serve anyone. It’s more like belonging to a particular class, something like a race.”

“A minion. A demon,” repeated Agnes in a flat voice looking through Darnell.