Council

While the others smirked, Aurelia couldn't take pleasure in the banter. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, a memory made its way into her consciousness. Although she struggled to concentrate, she couldn't prevent the first of a series of images from quietly creeping into her mind's eyes. Just one of the many gruesome scenes her job brought with it.

She screwed up her ice-blue eyes to push away the feeling of oppression, but quickly opened them again. Pareios was fixing her with his gaze. His face took on a concerned look, then he skillfully changed the subject. He, of all people, interrupted the fateful course of the conversation. The two of them were a team on a professional level, but didn't know each other very well privately, as Aurelia was not personally close to anyone, except maybe Viktor. Pareios, on the other hand, had many ... contacts.

“Can you finally tell us why you dragged us out of bed in the middle of the night and dragged us into this shitty storm? What kind of things are they? ”He asked, pointing to Viktor and pointing to the silver box that was still in his hands.

There had been no time for questions on the way to their assignment, as they had only had half an hour to discuss their course of action and explore the terrain.

Viktor looked at the box and shrugged apologetically. “To be honest, I don't know much more than you do. At eleven, Markus suddenly stood in front of my door and pushed an envelope into my hand. He just said it had to be tonight, preferably right away. Apart from the most necessary key data, there was nothing else in the thing. "

Although the group had often been woken up in the middle of the night, it was all the more unusual not to receive any further information. Ordinarily, everyone was given the right to decide whether or not to risk their life on a mission, based on all the information available.

Aiden seemed to have the same thought and said: "Maybe you didn't know exactly yourself ..."

The others looked at him doubtfully. It seldom happened that Markus and the other 14 members of the council decided something rashly and gave no explanation.

Aurelia remembered only once. The contents of the memory sent a shiver down her spine.

At that time Viktor, herself and a huntress named Solina were supposed to free a man, to get him out of a stinky but well-guarded shelter in the ass of the world. They had just been on their way back from another assignment when they got the new one on the plane. Thanks to Aurelia's intuition, they had managed to find the guy and they had almost been outside when it happened. Aurelia had seen it coming too late. She had just knocked Viktor to the ground to protect him from the auto parts that had been flying around. The mentally unstable man, who had incredibly strong telekinetic powers, went nuts and blew himself up with Solina and the car. His powers had been so great that the ally standing next to him had been pulverized.

Aurelia shuddered and tried to focus on the conversation again, but she couldn't get rid of the slight discomfort. Apparently she was the only one who got this incident through her head. She looked at both operations, compared them, looked for parallels.

Meanwhile, Row kept puzzling. "Or they are extremely valuable."

That too seemed unlikely to Aurelia. None of them had the slightest interest in money. In fact, it was the poison that the hegeduns instilled in the ignorant population. They sold it as a gift and a means to freedom, although it was only the fetter that held people in their iron grip. It corrupted all human interaction, destroyed trust, and fueled hatred, envy and resentment.

The other members of her team weren't convinced by Row's words either.

Aurelia had an unpleasant premonition. "Maybe these things are dangerous ... and maybe they didn't tell you because otherwise you wouldn't have done it."

Viktor looked at the box again, but didn't turn it back and forth so easily. But then he shook his head. "Hm, I can hardly imagine that that of all things should be the reason. I mean, it's always somehow dangerous, isn't it? "

“I don't mean such a danger. Maybe these things are so powerful that they are dangerous in no matter whose hands. "

A few wrinkles formed on Viktor's forehead as he struggled to understand the meaning of her words, and the others were starting to really pay attention too. “What do you mean by that, Aurelia? Now don't be so damn cryptic! "

“Think about it. If you knew that there is an uncontrollable power hidden behind these stones, then you would be the last one who would steal them at great expense. You would destroy them so they could never fall into the wrong hands. Think of Solina. "

At that name, Viktor's eyes widened and the steel gray seemed to liquefy. His pupils became large and you could see thoughts forming in his head.

“Markus knows you. He doesn't trust anyone else like you. That's why he just gave your team the job. ”Aurelia concluded.

Pareios nodded with conviction. "And he knew that you trusted him and in an emergency, when things had to be done quickly, you wouldn't ask any questions."

Everyone stared thoughtfully at the box and Viktor finally placed it on the floor in front of him. Nobody wanted to touch it anymore.

The rest of the flight was again wordless. They could not give a definitive answer to the deliberations and it was pointless to speculate further. But Aurelia's idea had left a bad taste in all of them. Especially because the discussion raised another, even more worrying, question: If those little black stones were so powerful and so difficult to control, what did the Council want?