Aurelia:The Huntress

It was a dark night. Not a single star could be seen. 

Recurring, cutting gusts raged over them, heralding the storm they were waiting for.

It couldn't be long before it happened.

Aurelia pressed closer to the steel pipe of the ventilation system to avoid the whistling wind that penetrated the roof of the 40-story skyscraper to the bone.

With a quick glance, Aurelia checked the time - 2:33 a.m. For nearly two hours they had been huddled behind this pipe, waiting for their action. The damned cold was now in her limbs and she spread her stiff fingers a few times to free them from the cramp around the gun and knife. The machine gun pinched her back uncomfortably and her legs slowly went numb. In centuries of practice, she shifted her weight slightly to one side, thus relieving the other without changing her posture. Absolute stillness could save your life in some cases.

Suddenly torrential rain set in, which accompanied the rush of the storm. Within seconds, despite her eyes used to hunting at night, you could hardly see anything in the dark. Optimal conditions for your operation.

The reflection of a lightning bolt was reflected in the pitch-black glass facade of the opposite skyscraper, over which they had reached their present position. When the first thunder rang out shortly afterwards, it was clear that the thunderstorm would soon be directly overhead.

A feverish expectation gripped her. The flood of emotions that settled over her just before a fight rolled in and she received them. The muscles tensed, ready to go. She had long since got used to this ancient preparation ritual of her body. She's been in business for a long time.

The roar got louder. She was already soaked to the skin, despite the refined black leather uniform. Fortunately, one of them wasn't prone to illnesses like colds. She suppressed a shiver.

Then another lightning and thunder followed, which were hardly offset in time. The rumble was deafening and shook the building, the huge black animal below them, slightly. All senses were sharpened now and she felt it, knew it.

It was so far.

She turned her head to the left and looked into steel gray eyes. It had to be Viktor crouching next to her in the black and gray of that rainy night. Since they had hunted in a team for over two centuries, they recognized each other without further ado under the disguise. The eyes looked questioningly out of the slits of the black balaclava.

Aurelia nodded.

That was enough for Viktor to pull a tiny cell phone out of his pocket, press a short key combination, and instantly make it disappear again. As if on command, they all rose. Words were a luxury on the hunt that could not be afforded. They betrayed their own position, took the element of surprise and sometimes, like today, you couldn't understand each other anyway thanks to the storm.

They darted quickly like black shadows to the other side of the huge pipe and swung silently into the opening higher up. The group slid along the horizontal course for a few meters until they reached a steel grille behind which the huge fan of the ventilation system rotated. Both spanned the pipe with a diameter of around two meters and sealed the ventilation system against dirt that was sucked in. Beyond the propeller there was a small ledge, then it went straight down.

The hum of the rotation echoed in the shaft and was interrupted by the sound of their quick steps.

Viktor staggered to a halt in front of the obstacle, reached into the inside pocket of his black uniform jacket and clapped a pigeon-egg-sized capsule with the sticky side on the iron struts. They quickly retreated a few meters and flung themselves flat on the bottom of the pipe, waiting for another thunder directly above them. Finally he came and Viktor pressed the button on his remote control at the same time.

The detonation was drowned in the rumble and tremors of the natural spectacle, just as planned.

A second later the five jumped up again and ran back through the dust clouds that had formed, where only a few sharp metal pins were left of the grille on the anchors at the edge. The huge, massive propeller only hung on one of its iron mountings and protruded motionless into the space of the pipe.

Pareios shot a barb into the ceiling of the ninety-degree turn with his crossbow and jumped out of the barrel into the black hole of the ventilation shaft. The plastic rope attached to the barb unrolled reliably and let it float down silently. The others jumped one after the other and slid after about 25 stories down.  

The rope slipped through Aurelia's leather gloves with a faint hiss, and the cool air that cut through her irritated her eyes. She was right behind Pareios when he threw himself into a large side duct of the ventilation system. With a gentle click, he released the gun as it landed right next to him. Together they waited until the other three had followed suit.

They quickly formed a circle. Viktor arranged the formation in which they would advance with a few hand signals and then turned to Aurelia. This time he nodded to her.

She took a deep breath and then turned on her music player. Drum'n'Bass thundered in their ears. The loud, fast-paced music helped them focus on their gift so they couldn't distract noises or shouts. Her other senses were too deceptive to rely on, too easily deceived and outwitted. She electrified her body, let the power flow.

From here on, Aurelia took the lead. Sequences of images and other sensory impressions began to form in her head in no time at all. They raced through their brains, leaving an intuitive glimpse into the imminent future.

When the troop came to a fork in the road, Aurelia figured out the various choices of going one way or the other in her head. The future possibilities that arose from these decisions unfolded in her mind like an airbag and were filled with certain emotions, so that they seemed attractive or daunting to her. Never in the 312 years of her existence had she been wrong and had not achieved the desired goal with her path. In addition, this sixth sense was a reliable lifesaver in combat, hunted down almost every enemy immediately and made Aurelia one of the most accomplished hunters.

So she followed her intuition and quickly led the team through the shaft system. Only minutes later they reached the place they were looking for and crept on tiptoe to the 40 by 40 centimeter grate. A look through it confirmed it.