The Darque Side

Chapter Three

John Darque, known as Chadeaux by his few remaining friends, was the director of a clandestine organization inside the US that had the charter of maintaining the balance of power in the world by whatever means he deemed necessary to accomplish that mission.

When not actively working on an existing or developing problem requiring his group’s attention, he spent the majority of his time in a secluded cabin in the woods near Fontana Lake in North Carolina.

The cabin itself was situated above a massive basement that contained a supply depot of weapons, ammunition, food and other equipment that could be used by US forces in case of an unlikely civil war or attack by a foreign power.

Unlikely, but not impossible, and the cache was just one of many located throughout the US.

Darque shared the cabin with a woman named Penny Miller who was not only one of the team leaders in his organization, but also his companion, confidant and lover.

She was an extraordinary woman who was quite adept in a variety of martial art disciplines, spoke several languages, could read lips, and added much to the cohesion and capabilities of the group.

John and Penny shared the cabin, and their lives, with a large German shepherd Darque named Count Gӧtz von Berlichingen, the man who coined what became the defiant phrase ‘kiss my ass’ around the year1560, but the animal seemed to prefer the name Bill, so Bill it was.

The dog had once been a police K-9 that was about to be euthanized for ripping the throat out of a felon who kicked him, but Darque intervened and assumed responsibility for the dog – he liked its attitude and sense of justice.

All three looked forward to the time they were able to spend in their little hide-away, but when Penny awoke early one morning, she was disturbed to find herself in bed alone.

It wasn’t like Darque to be up so early while they were supposed to be relaxing at the cabin, and the change in behavior concerned her.

She glanced at the clock on the headboard and became a little more uneasy when she read 3:27 A.M. on the face of the instrument.

Reaching for her robe on the foot of the bed, she noticed that Bill was missing from the spot where he normally slept blocking the entrance into the bedroom.

He occasionally awakened during the hours of darkness to patrol the inside of the structure for any sign of an attempted intrusion, but when not making his rounds, he was in the doorway guarding the two people inside.

Bill had assumed responsibility for protecting the two and he took his job very seriously, and even though he barely tolerated most people, there were a few exceptions within Darque’s organization he liked, but no stranger ever got near Darque without Bill’s approval or receiving Darque’s signal that the individual was OK.

When that happened, Bill watched every move the person made, ready to pounce on the interloper if he felt the situation called for it.

As was the case on the rare occasions when Penny awakened to find Darque missing, she went to the living room and found him sitting on the couch staring at the flames dancing across a log in the fireplace.

Bill was sitting on the floor next to Darque, but had his head resting on the man’s knee while being rubbed behind the ears by his companion.

“Is everything OK?” Penny asked.

Darque turned to face her and smiled like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I’m all right,” he said unconvincingly.

“Really?” she reproved as she closely watched his face in the firelight.

“No,” he said as he patted the cushion beside him. “You and Bill are the only two creatures I know who can see through my moods and do exactly the right thing to ease my concerns.”

Penny had undergone some rough experiences in her life, but over time, Darque had become not only her friend in need, but also her reason for living.

She had been in a bad marriage during which she was r***d on several occasions by both her husband and a few of his friends, and the tribulation only ended when her husband almost killed her and then went into hiding.

After recovering, she took up martial arts as a healing activity, but eventually turned her learned skills into an act of revenge when she finally located and killed her husband with a kick to his throat.

It took a bit longer for her to find the other individuals who had defiled her, but when she did, she killed them too.

As a final payment for the degradation caused by all of them, she cut off their s****l organs and kept them in an alcohol-filled mason jar as a reminder of their deeds, and to steel herself to the idea that no man would ever touch her again against her will without suffering the same fate.

She kept the jar in a cupboard in her house, which was located near Staunton, Virginia, and Darque had come across it on a couple of occasions, but he never asked her about it, and she never offered anything but a cursory explanation.

With a look of defiance, and possibly as a warning, her advice to him was simple and short: you don’t want to go there.

He took her advice to heart, and honored her wishes.

It took time, but he turned out to be the only man she ever allowed to touch her after her marriage, and it had a lot to do with mutual trust, respect, patience, caring and understanding.

Even so, whenever the two were separated by distance, she kept a straight razor under her pillow, which she was quite capable of using as evidenced by the contents in the jar.

Whenever Darque entered her house unannounced, he made enough noise to gently awaken her, but never approached her until she acknowledged his presence, at which time the razor magically disappeared.

Their nuptials consisted of exchanging house keys, and the demonstration of an inseparable bond.

Both of them had secrets and demons, but whatever the problem might be that surfaced, they worked it out together, and any elicitation of a cause for concern usually started out with the words: do you want to talk about it?

“Do you want to talk about it?” Penny asked.

“I was thinking about the report of the gruesome attack on the Border Guard I received a few days ago, and was wondering why we haven’t heard more about it,” he said.

Penny had been watching every move he made, and he never once turned to face her.

“Now that you have that off your chest, do you want to tell me what’s really bothering you?”

This time he turned to her with a sheepish grin on his face.

“I can’t get anything past you, can I?” he asked, as he took her hand in his.

“Not much,” she said. “John, we’ve been together quite a while now and we know each other pretty well. When you hurt, I hurt. I don’t need to know why you’re hurting unless there’s something I can do to help ease the pain. Actually, it’s the same way you feel about me, but you wouldn’t admit it … it’s not the manly thing to do.”

Darque didn’t say anything, but he handed her the calendar he had resting in his lap and she saw an X written on the date three days hence.

It told her everything she needed to know.

“I forgot,” she said apologetically.

“It’s not something you need to remember,” Darque said. “I do enough remembering for both of us.”

The date marked on the calendar was the anniversary of Casper’s death.

Darque’s friend had been orphaned as a baby, and never knew his parents or if he had any other relatives, so he had arbitrarily chosen his name from a phonebook.

Since Darque was Casper’s only family, the two had discussed how they wanted their headstones to be marked if they didn’t make it through the after-conflict-cleanup they were in, and, unfortunately, Casper got his wish.

The team was broken up during a close engagement when mortar rounds impacted their location, and Casper disintegrated when he took a direct hit, but bits and pieces of him were imbedded in Darque where they still remained.

They had truly become a part of each other.

Darque never talked much about the incident, but Penny knew there was more involved than what he had told her, because he had awakened her on several occasions screaming for Casper to run.

He often cried after those episodes, but would then take on a look of hatred that scared her.

She never questioned what was behind the look, but she knew it was not wise to interfere with someone else’s demons, even if the ‘someone’ was the person she loved.

Keeping her distance when the demons were present did not deter her from offering unequivocal support when they receded behind the curtain of his mind, beyond which he did not allow others to venture.

“Bill and I will be heading out tomorrow for a couple of days, but we’ll be back as soon as I bring Casper up to date on what has taken place since our last visit,” Darque said while making a feeble attempt to smile.

“Be careful while you’re away,” she said. “You know somebody’s looking for you, and that can’t be a good thing.”

“I have a disguise in mind that should keep me from being identified, and I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind trying to bring me into the open. As soon as I can confirm it, I’ll take care of the problem when the opportunity presents itself.”