"The days of agencies being able to do as they please are over. There are too many cameras out there and the information too prevalent for us to get away with anything." - Deputy director of FBI

Kurt was sitting in the remodeled basement of the second unit, amazed at how quickly it had been finished. He had only gotten the keys on Monday and three days later, it was a brand-new building on the inside.

"So, what did you think?" Kurt asked Hannah. "Do you think you would have any problems with the work or the team?"

"N-no." She said after a moment. "Sorry, that was my first-time meeting someone who was so obviously paranormal."

"Is that a problem?" Kurt had been surprised when the manger of the business had been a goblin but also figured, if he was the manager, it was for good reason. It was also fortunate that he was very mild mannered for one of his species but that led to some quirks.

Hannah shook her head. "I don't think so, Feraz seems nice enough. Also, I was expecting more of an interview than a negotiation. It seemed that he was offering me the job regardless of how it went."

"That's because he is offering you the job. Expect an email or phone call at some point today." Kurt laughed a little. "Yeah, you probably could have gotten a lot more out of him to be honest. But you did hit several key points with schedule, work from home and pay."

"The insurance is amazing too." She said. "Also, I don't want to oversell myself and cause issues if they aren't getting enough business."

"Yeah, I don't think that will be a problem." Val said when she walked up and interrupted them. "Ready to go Kurt? you need to get on with your other projects."

They said goodbye and that they would check in with Hannah in the next few weeks. Val was right, he needed to finish some of his other projects with his enchanting that he had been working on. Namely he was eager to get back to laying out the enhancements to his test barrel to see what would happen when they were activated. Unfortunately, he wouldn't make it far on his way back to the house before he was impeded by an entity most foul.

"Mister Rosk?" Asked a man just after they stepped outside the front door of the security company.

Kurt just kept on walking, ignoring the man and his partner while making his way to the car. Val gave him an odd look but followed his lead and ignored them.

"Mister Kurtis Rosk!" The man shouted as he began speed walking to catch up.

Once more, Kurt and Val ignored him and they opened the doors to the car and climbed in. Well, Val did, Kurt stopped when a hand landed on his door. He eyed the man with a blank look and cocked an eyebrow.

"Mister Rosk, you need to come with us." The man stated while his partner tried to look intimidating behind him.

"No, I don't. I am terribly sorry. Actually, no I'm not." Kurt said.

"You are not Kurtis Rosk?" The man asked.

"Not that." He said with a sigh. "I'm not sorry, is what I meant." Kurt said still being cagey about the encounter.

"Jacobs…" The second man said. "This is the guy."

The agent looked at Kurt before making a motion to his breast pocket and pulling out a badge. "Mister Rosk, I am special agent Jacobs with the FBI. You are going to come with us and answer some questions."

"What don't you chuckle-fucks understand?" Kurt said. "I don't need to come with you and there is not much you can do about it. Now, I suggest you move your hand, this door closes in three seconds."

The agent was looking at him with a dumbfounded expression. That expression changed as Kurt climbed into his seat and pulled the door closed. There was a brief, almost struggle as the agent tried to hold it open until Kurt pulled it closed, narrowly avoiding his fingers being crushed.

They backed out with the two agents looking absolutely amazed at the audacity of Kurt as he just ignored them. That amazement faded as their car pulled up, driven by a third agent and they scrambled to climb inside and follow after their person of interest.

*****

Kristi wasn't sure if she was very lucky or extremely unfortunate, it would depend on how this situation played out. "I told you that I don't know where he is or when he will be back."

She had elected to stay behind since Kurt and Val were just going to check in on the new business and get Hannah through an interview. They had promised it would be a quick trip and she was really hoping that statement would hold true since she didn't want to get in a gunfight alone.

"And I told you that we will wait until he arrives." Said the man standing in the driveway with two other people. "If you wouldn't mind pointing that gun somewhere else?" he gestured to her machinegun that was currently rested on the railing of Kurt's porch.

"If you don't want it pointed at you, then you can leave." Kristi replied with a shrug, fully prepared to either continue the standoff or end it with violence. Continuing her fortunes of unknown favor, she heard a car pull in the driveway. Everyone turned to look at the noise except for one person who kept an eye on Kristi.

She recognized Kurt's car and saw the look on his face after seeing the strange standoff in his driveway before pulling off to the side. Both he and Val got out with guns in hand with barrels pointed downward as they approached.

She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to make the decision on this one. Things were always complicated when competing businesses got involved.

*****

"The fuck is goin on here?" Kurt asked.

One of the men stepped out of the group. "Mister Rosk?" he asked.

"Question of the god damn day I seems." Kurt said under his breath, noting the confusion on the man's face. He and Val had positioned themselves at one side of the driveway, so they had clear room to maneuver if things got stupid. The position had also allowed them to get a good scent of the group and it seemed that they were not at all human. "What do you want?"

"We would like to talk with you about an offer of employment." Said the man that was acting as spokes person of the group of three.

"I already got a job going on and I don't need to moonlight for another one." Kurt said with a wave of his free hand. "You can leave."

"I think there might be a miss understanding." Said the spokesman. "My name is Senal'Ra and I am here on behalf of the Terminus Agency."

"That's another group like the order." Val whispered at him.

"Don't care. Get lost." Kurt said, answering the stranger.

One of the men backing Senal'Ra snorted. "You act like you have a choice in talking to us. We can do this the hard way if you want."

"The hard way?" Kurt was curious and then disappointed.

The man called Senal'Ra shifted, growing into a rather large, If normal, werewolf and taking a step forward. The ones behind him dropped their glamor and revealed themselves to be two orcs, their clothes shredding as they changed and grew.

Kurt smirked and handed Val his gun before going through his own shift. He didn't know that a werewolf face could show surprise, but it was comical to see the snarling muzzle go slack. He took a step forward and banished his clothing into his ring then another step carried him even closer. The third step had him now towering over the smaller wolf and orcs.

"Sit, pup." Kurt snarled and Senal'Ra flopped down on his haunches like his skeletons had run off without him. Kurt walked forward and grabbed Senal'Ra by his fur and lifted him off the ground to be at eye level. "I said leave my property. Do you want to leave this life as well? No? Then shift back and get the fuck out of here."

Kurt's voice was still its hoarse whisper that reverberated with an undercurrent of a howling tone. Dropping the smaller wolf, Kurt gestured to the car. "Go." He began shifting back and resummoning his clothes.

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All three of them scrambled to collect their torn articles of clothing and scrambled for the sensibly sized Honda SUV. They barely controlled the speed enough to keep from spraying gravel as they made for the end of the drive.

Unfortunately, they had to pile on the brakes as another, not so sensibly sized, SUV attempted to come up the drive. After a little jockeying around, they managed to squeeze past each other, and Kurt's Earlier problems began making their way up his drive.

He had just stowed his pistol when the government marked Suburban crested the slight rise in the driveway. He and Val decided to continue their earlier shtick and ignore the agents that climbed out and the second suburban that rolled up with even more. They walked up to the porch and greeted a very confused and anxious Kristi.

"Mister Rosk!" Called the agent before, Jacobs if Kurt heard correctly. "If you do not cooperate, I will be forced to place you under arrest." He was marching his way forward holding his badge high like some sort of talisman.

"Go away!" Kurt called back, not even looking over his shoulder. He knew Kristi would have his back.

Kristi hadn't needed to do much to swivel the barrel of her machinegun to point at the man who stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes bugged out. He froze, not moving a muscle until his six partners joined him and he regained some semblance of a spine.

"Do you have a license for that?" He said in a slightly high voice.

"Are you wearing level four plates?" Kurt quipped back, using the first thing that popped into his head.

"Did you just threaten a federal agent?" Chimed another one form the back.

"Is this the 'ask stupid questions' day?" Kurt said in a mocking voice. "What the fuck do you assholes want? You are already trespassing, so my patience is thin."

The first agent seemed to have gained a little misplaced confidence as he now had backup. "As stated before, you are to come with us and answer our questions."

Kurt huffed and a predatory grin spread over his face. "As stated before, you are trespassing. Ask your question and leave." He didn't know it, but his features had taken on a distinctly lupine edge while somehow remaining human.

"I can make you a promise." Val said, piping up from her spot just over Kurt's right shoulder. "If you just ask your questions, you can get on with your day. But, if you attempt anything else, none of you leave here alive."

There seemed to be a shuffle that ran through the agents until one seemed to have more brains than the rest and stepped forward. "Mister Rosk, the purpose of our visit is to ask questions regarding your current employer. The reason is because we believe that you may be a threat to national security if your allegiances have shifted."

"I am as firmly patriotic as ever over the past several years." Kurt stated, still looming over the men. "My allegiance isn't in any more jeopardy than any politician or anyone that invests in foreign companies."

"As much as I want to take you at your word, we are going to need to search the premises." Said the same agent.

"Warrant?"

"Under the Paranormal Identification Act, we don't require a warrant to search the premises." The agent said with a little quirk of his lip, having caught Kurt in that bit of legislation.

"Yes, you do." Kurt enjoyed seeing the smirk turn to a frown on his face as he continued. "You only have the right to search a premises to establish the identity of an unidentified paranormal individual. Under the later Societal Integration Amendment to that bill, I and my associates are reaffirmed as full citizens with constitutional protection. You already know my identity so I will ask again. Warrant?"

"Well, we can get one." The agent said.

"Well, fuck face, until you have one, you are trespassing." Kurt growled and the agents flinched, some reaching for their guns but not drawing as their eyes flicked to Kristi and her machinegun. "Leave before I eat you."

That seemed to light a fire under them as they began backing away rapidly. They never took their eyes off the three standing on the porch as both teams piled into their cars and quickly backed out of the drive. Kurt remained on the steps leading to his house and stared them down until they had made it to the road.

Once the cars had driven away, Kurt slumped and sat heavily on the porch. His hands shook with the stress of the back-to-back instances of someone invading his property. He then remembered something as he sat with his head in his hands.

"The ward." Kurt said to himself.

Kristi had flopped down on his left. "What's that?" She leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I was told the ward would keep anyone away that I hadn't given permission to be here." Kurt said and looked up to Val who stood in front of him. "How were not only fed's able to get here or find me but also another order."

Val was already dialing her phone and a few moments later she was talking into it. "We have a problem." She paused. "The ward on Kurt's property was dropped. Yes, I'm sure because we just had FBI here and a visit from 'The Agency'. Ok, ok. Bye."

"Sooo…?" Kurt asked. He rolled his hand in the universal gesture to proceed.

"Penny is getting Jay." Val said. "We should probably give him permission to use the portal into our hub, so he doesn't have to take the long way all the time."

Kurt sighed heavily and they walked to the hub to enter Penny's office. He waited for Jay and they performed the necessary update to the hub. The update gave the demon permission to use the portal, which was a gesture that he seemed to be rather appreciative of.

Jay then went around to the altar and lifted one of the stone panels to reveal the interior. Thankfully he was explaining what he was doing as he went. "So, this is the business end of the altar which contains several magic arrays and circles that control its functions. Naturally it has the ones to deal with rifts, but the secondary ones are for the other functions."

"What other functions?" Kurt asked while watching from a respectful distance.

"Well, there is the ones that establish a portal to the Order, the ones that allow you to generally control access through that portal and the ones for general obscuration." Jay said while listing them off. "Here, come look."

Kurt came up and leaned over the opening in the altar. He could see the primary array for the anchor function but around the walls of the rectangular hole he saw some others. They all looked to be pretty typical rune circles, and he even managed to interpret some, despite the odd-looking symbols.

"They all look to be intact." Kurt said but a thought occurred to him after he ran through his mental trouble shoot list. "Where do they get power from?"

"From us, via the portal to the Order." Jay said as he completed his inspection. "And I think we might have another issue if that is the source of the problem. How do you feel about engraving and empowering a ritual of your own?"

"Umm…" Kurt looked to the girls and got a smile from Val and a shrug from Kristi. "Sure, do you know the runic engraving that we need?"

"Kurt, I helped make these." Jay answered as he sealed the lid back in place. "Not all of them but they did contract with me to do some and that means I had to know about the others to prevent interference."

"I should never have doubted you." He said with an eye roll. "Fine, lets do it. What do we need?"

"Got anywhere I can access your basement or foundation?" Jay said.

Kurt led him down to the basement and to the unused and unfinished room next to his workshop. "This going to work?"

Jay looked at the concrete slab from a few angles and eventually settled on a spot near the utilities. "It's not as good as bedrock but nobody really does that for residential buildings." He said with a sigh.

"Would using a transition metal as an inlay help?" Kurt asked. "Not sure about ritual circles but they aren't too dissimilar to enchanting."

Scratching his chin for a moment, Jay mulled over the question. "In theory, yes. But do you have a few ounces of a soft or meltable metal that you can spare?"

"I have aluminum, copper and gold but I prefer not to use the gold." Kurt said. "Silver might be too hard to inlay without chipping the concrete."

Jay eventually decided to use the copper since that would more than make up the difference in power for not being on uniform bedrock. He said that the metal would really only amplify the area of the ritual, rather than the effect, so it would provide a better buffer zone.

Thankfully, he also had his own set of tools to chisel into the concrete so Kurt wouldn't have to sacrifice any more of his own on the surprisingly abrasive material. After using a pencil on caliper to mark the boundary, Jay began to scribe the lines for the ritual circle.

"How is it that enchanters are so dicked up when an enchantment is not that far off a ritual circle?" Kurt wondered. "I mean, other than power and upkeep, they are practically the same thing. I haven't heard of ritualists having limits or extorting crazy prices from people."

"It is something I have long wondered about." Jay said after brushing out the lines on his carving and getting back to work. "That was part of what clued me in to the problem with the guild. Well, that and the fact that non-guild enchanters, despite being exceptionally rare, don't seem to have the same restrictions."

"More divine interference?" Kristi asked from where she watched atop her stool. "That seems to be a trend."

Jay shook his head. "No, I think it's just common greed, but it's hard to say." He stood up and walked around his carving, inspecting the deep etching. "I am beginning to question a lot about the status quo across the realms and worlds. There seems to be a lot of things that just don't add up."

Kurt was impressed with the speed that Jay had made the circle. He had barely done any marking or layout except for establishing the outer ring with a giant set of calipers. "What things don't add up?"

"Common myths about us, how magic is bound and how mana seems to be both external and internal. That whole either-or thing seems designed." Jay produced a can of compressed air and blew out all the powder and dust from the carving. He then smiled at the little can of air. "Man, I love technology. But I digress, we know about some of their workings, and it makes me wonder if they were helping us or helping themselves."

"Those in power want to stay in power." Kurt said as he began laying out his thick, solid copper wire over the carved channels. He planned to heat it to make it more malleable but still wanted to make sure he had enough.

"Too true."

They worked as a team to finish inlaying the ritual, easily working the heated copper into the carved groove and making sure it was level. After they had finished leveling everything out, it was time to activate the ritual.

"If you use your blood, then it will run off your intent and be constantly evolving based on your wishes." Jay began. "It's a bit archaic but it still checks out. We could just empower the spell without it but then it's going to just be a blanket sort of spell that is based on the property."

"Blood is fine." Kurt said and held out his hand so Jay could run a knife over his finger. He flicked the ruby liquid off the edge to land on the center of the circle.

The blood was instantly absorbed and pulled into the ritual circle, causing all the metallic components to light up briefly. The flare of light was an amber gold that steadily rose in intensity before dying off to nothing a few seconds later. The light seemed to interest Jay and he turned a speculative look on Kurt.

"Some time in the near future we should have a chat and perhaps a little more in-depth examination of your nascent divinity." He turned back to the circle. "It looks like it's all working now and will pull its energy from the ambient sources. I have learned a thing or two that let me make this pretty much run on waste energy like shed electricity, ambient mana and radiation sources."

"Radiation?" Kristi sounded startled at the revelation.

"Yup, world is full of it." Jay turned on her with a little mirth in his eyes. "Microwaves, radio waves, and even natural kinds like radon."

"Guess I don't need to have a mitigation system installed for that anymore." Kurt said with a laugh as they made their way out of the smaller room.

Jay shook his head. "Not anymore, I think this one is going to run just fine for a long time."

They parted ways shortly after. Kurt and the girls went about their business while Penny returned to the Order with Jay. After they parted, Jay went on a little fact-finding mission of his own, one that would likely end in bloodshed, if he was lucky.

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