It was still early morning, when she shut Mensan’s front door and started to walk back. She picked up a newspaper that someone had tossed and skimmed it out of curiosity if anyone else knew about those who had been following them. The article that caught her eye was simple. It spoke of three strange deaths that the police discovered the previous evening. They were strange, because there was no damage to the bodies. The doctors concluded that some chemical imbalance had stopped all nerve connections suddenly, but no traces of it could be found. Danyana understood this. Their brains had been switched off. Their life had been sucked out.
The first was a woman in her twenties, the second an old lady who must have been at least ninety. The third was a man. An old man with blue-gray eyes and wispy white hair. The newspaper asked for identification and asked that the readers call the police if they knew anything. That was the last thing Danyana meant to do, even though it was clear to her who the man was. It all fit now. There had been more men that night. It would have been a clean job, but for the ticking of the alarm clock. She would have liked to see them as ruthless, yet they had not killed her friends or herself. She did not yet understand why.
If the newspaper had stopped there, it would have been bad enough, but it continued. It spoke of suspects, namely a rogue band of three teenagers. She knew she had to hide. They were being hunted like witches, and if they were caught – well, she did not want to think about that. It seemed that those men had someone inside the police force, and so hundreds of officers at their command. This was worse than she had expected.
She left the paper behind and started walking toward the school, though she knew there was no purpose to going there anymore. They may even be expecting her to make that mistake, and she could not walk into another one of their traps again. She could feel the cold air sting her bare hands and face even in the bright sun, which glared from the sky as well as from the white sidewalk and the walls of the shabby buildings around her. They were short and must have been abandoned for a while, for the wooden steps leading up to the doors looked to be on the verge of collapse. In fact, the buildings were not in better condition themselves.
Yet there could be hundreds of secret societies hiding in shanties such as these. She could not blend in with the crowd well, but she could become such an outsider as to gain a respectful distance. She was being ruled by fear, but she could use fear to her advantage. It is the strongest force there is, except perhaps love, but she did not know this. She just knew that she could play into the role the newspaper had made up for her, and win herself some time.
She was being followed by tall dark people. She would have to become tall and dark. She would find something to wear that would help her. She would hide her hair. They had dark sunken eyes. She had gained rings under hers from the past few nights. They spoke little. She would not speak at all. Most importantly, she would forget how to smile. As she watched the chain-link fence sway back and forth, she vowed not to smile until she had found Aerek and Iasmin and they found the secret of the Window together.
~.~.~.~.~
She left the white shanties behind her and got near to the square. No one lingered there anymore. All that was left were pieces of trash blowing on the ground and broken down souvenir stands. From these she took some clothing, and when she saw her reflection in a storefront, it was not Danyana anymore.
The image in the window would have made a beautiful illustration to a horror novel. She was wearing tall boots, which would make her kicks deadly. Silver-black pants wrapped around her legs. She kept the Venus shirt, but exchanged her hoodie for a black jacket with a tall collar and narrow sleeves. She wrapped her hair into a knot high on her head, without a strand let loose. She resembled a vampire more than anything, and the look on her face fit that of a lifesucker. It would have been a perfect image, had it not been for another such figure standing on the opposite side of the square behind her.