Dark Silence

24 days (3)

Madeleine cast a look around the room in the total mess that Darnell made. She shook her head disapprovingly and sat on the floor near the circle and stared blankly in front of herself. Darnell sighed with relief and sat near her crossing his feet. He took his book again and moved beyond several pages.

“So, the most important part for you is not to shove your hands behind this line,” Darnell showed at the edge of the pentagram while looking for the line he needed. “Okay, I did this and this, that is no longer working, and there’s no way I can get a goat now. Well, everything is ready.” Darnell looked attentively at the pentagram once again and moved the nearest candle. He exhaled trying to gather his wits and read the words of the summoning the minion. “I, Darnell O’Dell, summon you, the minion of the Gusion, the great demon. Come to my call, don’t harm me and anyone by my side, and don’t give me lies. Give me clear answers and leave this world returning back to yours.”

Madeleine was staring into the empty circle with all her eyes, but nothing happened. She waited for a few minutes and lifted her eyes at Darnell in a silent question.

“Wait, coming right up,” he calmed the girl.

It seemed that his phrase was suddenly heard. The candles near the circle lit up with black flame consuming electricity and plunging the room into the darkness. Inside the pentagram, a sulphuric-yellow smoke started to curl. The room filled with a heavy stench and Madeleine wrinkled her little nose. Darnell watched how a figure started to form out of the smoke. A few moments later, a naked man with a head of a dog, covered with short chestnut hair, and pointed ears stood in front of him in half a turn. He was looking at the plastic tablet with enthusiasm and was turning some pages over in it. When Darnell saw the demon, he grabbed Madeleine and closed her eyes, what made her quite disappointed.

“Hey, minion, cover yourself,” he said angrily to the creature.

The demon raised his eyes from the tablet unwillingly. He stared in front of him, moving his lips silently as if convincing himself of something. Then he turned his gaze to the one who had summoned him. He slowly studied Darnell. Recognition flashed in his eyes. He looked at the weapon arranged at Darnell’s feet within his reach, and his already pointed face became even longer. The demon lowered the tablet and, bulging black eyes, began to slowly back away until he rested his back on an invisible barrier. Still trying to move further from Darnell, he babbled:

“What did I do to you? I have just returned, have just recovered. Why me again of all minions and demons?”

Darnell examined the minion thoughtfully. He couldn’t distinguish their faces well and they all seemed the same to him, but his behavior gave the man an idea.

“Wasn’t it you whom I stroke dead a few weeks ago?” he asked the demon.

“Please, leave me be, I have already recognized my mistake!” shrieked the servant, crouching in fright and covering his head with the tablet, and pressing his ears to his head.

Darnell sighed and caught Madeleine, who was tossing and turning in his arms, more comfortably.

“You’d better cover not your head with that folder. I summoned you not to kill,  but to ask a question.”

“Really?” The minion looked from under the tablet and smelled the air with a black nose as if he could smell Darnell’s intentions.

“Really,” Darnell assured him. “If you do not dare to repeat your foolery, I will let you go, I give you my word.”

“A word of a demon or a word of a human?” asked the demon. He stood up and covered himself with the tablet.

“My word,” Darnell replied evasively. “I'm interested in what demon attacked this girl 3 years ago,” he let scraggly Madeleine go, and she stared at the minion with distrust.

“I can't give an answer to this question,” the demon gave out without hesitation, without even giving Madeleine a glance.

“What? How?” Darnell got taken aback. “It’s the first time I encounter the Gusion’s minion refusing to answer the question.”

“Ask another one,” the demon replied, wrinkling his long nose.

“Well, okay,” Darnell ran his palm through his hair that was still wet, in confusion, and brushed it back with his fingers. “If so, tell me, who came to the orphanage to get her?”

“I can't give an answer to this question,” the minion said again. Darnel sighed and put his hands on his knees.

“So you don’t want to go the nice way? Look there,” the man pointed to Cole's shelf, “there, under the dome, a fire spirit lives. I can keep you in my apartment until you answer my questions as well. I have enough free time. You’ll serve as a watchdog. Can you bark?” Darnell laughed. “I can teach you, just so you know.”

The minion snorted in response.

“You can’t keep me here when the candles go out. I know perfectly well the procedure and rules of summoning.”

“Well, in this case, I have a more persistent option,” Darnell reached out to the gun lying at his feet.

“Easy, easy, wait,” the demon stopped his gesture.

He glanced back cautiously and moved his ears warily, listening to something. When he made sure that apart of two people in front of him and a spirit on the shelf there was no one present, he came closer and bent over. Madeleine suddenly wrenched herself free from the man's arms and crawled on all fours away from his face in fright. Darnell didn’t move even slightly looking at the minion in return. The kitchen door slammed behind him: Madeleine decided to retreat after all.

The minion whispered:

“I’m not allowed to answer these questions, I just can’t. It was said that I and others like me will be destroyed for this.”

“How curious.” Darnell tilted his head to the side, looking at the demon who was in sincere fear. “And who promised that?”

“I can't give an answer…”

“Okay, I get that,” Darnell cut him off in mid-sentence. He rested his chin on his palm thoughtfully and stared in front of him. “Is it really so serious that I won’t manage to get anything out of you or any other demon concerning this…”

“Try to rephrase your question,” the demon suggested timidly.

“And how do I rephrase it if I don’t even know where to start!” Darnell replied in the heat of the moment.

“Well...” the minion made an encouraging gesture with his hand, inviting his interlocutor to develop the flickered thought. Darnell looked at him in surprise.

“Where do I start?” he asked.

“Visit an old friend,” the demon replied and bared its teeth. Darnell sneered.

“I don’t have friends, whom am I going to visit?”

The minion lifted his face to the ceiling and exhaled noisily, tapping his fingers on the tablet, which he still held at his hips.

“Go visit,” the following words he pronounced with pauses and emphasizing each syllable, “an old lady-friend.”

“O-o-oh,” Darnell drawled sagely, “that's a great answer, how did it happen that I didn’t come to this idea myself!”