"It was seriously uncanny to see the building that the rift was based on. Sure, things were different, but the general layout was so similar that it was hard not to make connections." – Val talking to Sif after the raid.

Val, Piper and Kristi were on their way back to the central area of the manor after making a quick circuit around to look for any stragglers. Other than a few of the support staff, they hadn't missed anyone.

"It's literally the same place." Val mused while looking at the planters and benches that lined the corridors of the manor. "Well, not exactly but the similarity is disturbing."

"But does that mean we will find the same things?" Kristi wondered aloud while walking past the row of prisoners. They had all been zip cuffed and sat side-by-side in the main hall after they had black bags put over their heads.

Piper was walking with them. "What do you mean? Have you seen a building like this?" They were all walking back to where the rest of the agents were congregating with the support team leaders. "Does this coven like have a bunch of these places?"

Val shook her head. "No, it was a rift we cleared. It's almost identical but some of the rooms are a bit different." They hadn't found the ballroom that the first vampire had been in, instead that hall had offices and work rooms.

Similar was the other small rooms off either of the building's wings. The rift didn't have those rooms, instead being long galleries with blank walls or windows to the void. But then again, the rift didn't have much of the furniture that was in the manor. She wondered where it all balanced out or how those designs were influenced.

They then rounded the corner of the central stairs, having to step around a few piles of things that had been taken from the rooms above. It was mostly magical items that the Order would sort through in good time but there was also a pile of small arms. Kristi had been surprised at how many blades there were piled in with the pistols.

Most of them had been revolvers or old steel frame semi auto's but there were a couple glocks and other modern designs. The blades were a strange assortment with everything from small daggers up to short rapiers and court swords. There was a third pile with magic weapons, but it looked mostly like a pile of sticks because of all the wands.

When they entered the space at the northern side of the house, they found it to be laid out like a conference hall with rows of tables and chairs. Kurt was holding court with the rest of the agents and even Jay had even made an appearance to chat with them.

"I think we have it mostly wrapped up here." Kurt said to their demonic manager.

Jay nodded in agreement. "This is similar to a rift you cleared a while back, right?"

"Yeah, the undead one with vampires. It's similar but not a one for one copy." He then glanced at the large canvas painting that hung on the wall showing a landscape of the countryside. "I do wonder though…"

Kurt then went to the painting and pressed on its frame a few times, getting a strange bounce out of it. All eyes were on him while he went and poked around. A few of them hummed in speculation as he began casting a spell. Kristi could have just told him the answer he was looking for but decided to let it play out.

Once more, calling mana to his fingertips, Kurt began making a circle that he quickly expanded out and drew a pair of symbols in. The first was a magnifying glass with the all-seeing eye in the lens. The second was what looked like a wall with lines radiating out of it. Once he was satisfied, he shrunk the spell and shivered slightly as he slapped the spell construct to his palm.

He then once more walked over to the wall and ran his hand over the center of the painting. With his palm flat against it, he walked from side to side and at a few different heights. "Yeah, there is something back here. Jay, does this painting do anything for you?"

"Not in the slightest." The demon answered, still looking very interested in what his agent was up to.

Kurt then grabbed the frame of the painting and pulled, getting a splintering popping noise as the wood tore from whatever attached it to the wall. Everyone was suitably disappointed when all that was behind the painting was a slightly discolored section of wall.

Jay stepped forward. "Here, let me try." And with that, he extended his index finger as the whole thing turned a black so dark that light didn't even reflect off it. He then pushed his finger through the wall and began tracing a door outline in the area Kurt had indicated.

After coming around the top side, the section fell slightly and Kurt stepped forward to wrestle it out of the way, revealing a staircase descending into darkness. He stepped inside a moment later and fumbled around for a moment before finding a light switch and flicking it on.

A line of fluorescent lighting showed the short set of stairs leading downward and without any hesitation, Kurt pulled up his rifle, advancing down them as the rest of the agents scrambled to follow after him. They did make way for Kristi and Val to take their places on his flanks.

They reached the bottom of the stairs completely uncontested, which wasn't a surprise since they had initiated the raid in the middle of the night. They were slightly surprised at what they found in the basement, however.

There was a smaller chamber that seemed to only be a sort of lobby area to separate the three other parts that went in matching directions to the mansion above. Each of those sections was closed off by a wall and a double door except for the one in the center which had a sort of vault door.

"Well, this is different." Kurt muttered as he took in the scene.

Kristi went to the left most door. "No kidding, last time it was stuffed with that ugly off…damnit." She cut off mid-sentence as she opened the door and the motion activated light showed the rows of cubicles and desks within.

"Does every coven keep their offices underground?" Kurt wondered aloud as Rupert and Tig moved in to do a quick sweep.

"Probably not everyone but I have a feeling that this is more for record keeping than anything." Jay answered him. "As files have moved from paper to digital, they just update the means of storage rather than change where they are."

That made sense to Kurt in a strange way. He also knew a lot of the older councils and covens were loath to actually change their habits, even if they were forced to keep up with technology.

"What the fuck is this?" Piper's voice sounded from the other side of the room as her team entered the room across from the office.

"It's a ritual circle, dumbass." Sam asked. "I literally have one in the office back home."

Piper's face flushed red and Kurt moved in to see what they had found. It was indeed a ritual circle that had been recently expanded to nineteen places. He guessed that the previous circle had eleven places judging by the size of the freshly poured concrete in the center.

Further into the room was a set of two smaller circles, with five places in each. Along the walls were a few shelves containing ritual components and reagents. Jay mentioned that he would have one of the cleanup teams catalogue everything and give that over to the intel folks to figure out. There wasn't much else in the room other than some wooden benches between the shelves, so they all turned their attention to the last door in the basement.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Ahh, the proverbial 'door number three'. I wonder what they wanted to keep locked up?" Jay walked over to the vault door and peered at it.

The demon at least did the smart thing and tried to just turn the latch in case it wasn't locked but had no success. It seemed that either the door locked automatically, or they locked it up out of habit like any sane people. He squinted at it in annoyance before doing the same trick with his finger and cut a hole in the front of the door.

With the mechanism exposed, Jay poked around a little, still using his strange black covered finger. Kurt could hear the rattle and clatter as little bits were falling to the inside of the door panel as he poked around. After a moment he seemed to be satisfied with this rather destructive brand of lockpicking and turned the handle once more.

Kurt saw the mechanism work on the inside of the door and then heard the clunk as the bars retracted. Immediately there were eight guns trained on the door as Jay pushed it open and stepped back. Kurt couldn't see anything inside with his thermal overlay so he clicked on his white light.

Inside the vault were rows of shelves and what looked like a table or desk just inside the door from what he could see. Carefully, Kurt pied the right side of the door while Val did the other.

"Clear." They both said and entered the vault, giving it a once over before finding the lights.

Val found the switch next to the desk and flicked it on, filling the room with the buzz of florescent lights. While they had a good idea of what was inside from past experience of the rift and from the narrow beams of their weapon lights, the overhead illumination certainly helped do the room justice.

This vault was far larger than the one Kurt's team had discovered in the rift. It was nearly thirty feet across and fifty deep. Each of the shelves ran for nearly thirty feet of that length and they were all filled with various items, all neatly stacked and labeled.

The teams spread out in the vault, each of them going to a shelf and looking at its contents. There were wood and metal boxes on some, making Kurt think of the last vault and the gold. Then there were a few with stacks of tubes on them. Near those were some boxes that looked suspiciously like document boxes used to store files.

Sif picked up a cardboard shipping tube and turned it to read the label before popping it open and sliding out the wand and note inside. "You gotta hand it to them, these are very nicely organized." She commented before closing the tube up and putting it back on stack of identical packages labeled "Wand, Offensive, Lightning Bolt."

"Yes, yes, all very nice and tidy." Jay snarked. "But the question we all have is what to do with this." He smacked the over built metal shelf the stood in the middle. "This is a lot of gold, silver and gems. How do you want to split it?"

All eyes turned to Kurt. He had no idea why they did and really wished he wasn't the center of attention at that exact moment. He knew what they were thinking and while he was flattered, he didn't want to make any assumptions.

Thankfully, Kurt didn't have to say anything as Rupert spoke up. "Look, as neat as all this precious metal is, none of us are really strapped for cash. I say we let Kurt take everything he can use."

"That's being very generous." Piper said dryly. "What can we do to at least make it somewhat even?"

"Oh, shut it." Sam groaned, surprising everyone with her attitude. "Look, Kurt takes the metals for his enchanting and we take the gems for my alchemy. I expect we will see some no cost rewards out of that deal since I know I will be sharing my alchemical products with everyone. Rupert, Tig, want the wands? You can use them for your rift delves to even the odds since there are only two of you."

Rupert looked shocked at the suggestion. He frantically looked around the gathered agents, gauging their reactions. He even looked to Jay who was being obviously stubborn and remaining silent on the matter. "Uh, yeah? I guess that works for us."

Kurt stepped forward. "One little caveat." He stated then pointed to one shelf in particular. "The cash on that shelf in the corner gets divided between the support teams. We don't need it, and they deserve a bonus for their cooperation and continued support."

That seemed to put things into perspective and the argument of who got what suddenly became a lot less heated as they decided on what was fair for everyone. They did a quick count of the physical cash on hand and came out to several hundred thousand dollars. It was more than enough for a nice bonus to the support teams.

When the attentions of the agents shifted to Jay, he politely refused anything. "I don't really need any more currency at this point. But I will take those." He pointed to a shelf that was filled with books. "I want the information more than anything else."

With the loot split up, the teams packed everything away into their storage rings while leaving the more mundane records and documents alone. Jay had said the cleanup team that was coming would sort and organize everything useful.

Mages were put down, loot was picked up and everything was neatly in order. With nothing else to do, the agents and support teams all filed out to the front where their buses had pulled up to retrieve them. They were headed home to rest and recover after the admittedly easy victory. Only thing they stopped to do was a quick handoff to the clean up teams that would go over the mansion with a fine-toothed comb after teleporting the captured mages to secure order holding cells.

Kurt learned on the way back to the Order facility that the support team with Rupert had taken some injuries from before the stand down order went out to the mercenary group. Thankfully nobody was killed outright but it had been bad luck that their ramp over the wall had dropped them right in front of a foot patrol.

The mercenary group hadn't been so lucky in that exchange. The four-man patrol had two members killed outright, one severely wounded, and the last one had only minor injuries. Jay had said that they would be brought back to the Order for some questioning before they decided what to do with them. Apparently, the odds were good that they would be cut loose since they were only the hired help and Jay wasn't trying to keep things too secret.

Speaking of hired help, the rest of the serving staff had been rounded up after the outer cordon pulled in and stumbled on the servant quarters. They had all been captured without a fight with the exception of a butler in the mansion named Charles who had put up a token resistance.

When they questioned him, they had discovered that he was under the influence of a magical contract. The exact terms weren't known just yet, but it looked like it compelled him to do certain things. Thankfully he never got the chance to do those things as he was one of the first to get taken down by Piper's team.

*****

Unbeknownst to Kurt, the other bus had all six of the other werewolves in it. They had done a little horse trading to make it happen, but they managed and had even gotten seats all right near each other at the back of the bus.

The other Order members had got the hint and decided to give them some extra space. It wasn't exactly a secret that they had all shifted and run off in the middle of the job. That little fact was something they were still going to have to address with their bosses in the future.

"But what is he?" Asked Sierra, one of the werewolves from Rupert's team. This question was one that had floated around the group several times now. It remained unanswered but that didn't stop the speculation.

Jade sighed and lifted her face from her hands for a moment. "I don't know, and I am not sure I want to." She had a manic edge to her voice that made her sound like she was on the verge of either crying or screaming, nobody was quite sure which.

Gus was next to speak after an awkward silence where Jade buried her face back in her hands. "I don't really care what he is. I just know what I felt when we joined him." He said in his thick European accent. "I felt more… power than I have ever felt, and I know for a fact it came from him."

Sierra was once again butting in, her personality seeming to not let her be silent. "But you also felt compelled right? Like you weren't in the driver's seat and were just going for a ride with your instincts behind the wheel."

"Yes, that too." Gus admitted. "The part afterword, when we all gathered and knelt, felt a little… weird." He was taking his time to pick the right words, speaking abnormally slowly.

"It felt right though." Connor butted in, cutting off Sierra who looked put out before nodding in agreement. "I have met a lot of powerful beings in my life, fey lords, dragons and spirits chief among them. Not a single one held the same presence as he did at that moment."

The other werewolves were silent for several minutes while they considered that. They all knew exactly what Connor meant when he talked about the presence, they just didn't know what it actually was.

"I can't believe he forced us to shift." Jade said after finally getting over her borderline manic state. "How did he force us to shift?"

Gus once more weighed in with the obvious. "I don't know, Jade. None of us know."

"Well, where can we find out?" Sierra pondered aloud.

"I know exactly one person that knows for sure." Gus said then paused, a speculative look crossing his face. "Make that two people that might know."

"Where are they and who are they?"

Gus barked a laugh. "They are right here. We can ask Kurt since he did it or we can ask Jay since he has a way of knowing things that others don't." After seeing the unamused faces of his companions, he decided to amend his statement. "Ahem, ah. Or we could ask Kristi and Val?"

"Kurt!" Jade blurted out. "I would rather ask Kurt directly and be smote on the spot than ask either of his girls and give the impression that I am skulking around for answers."

That got a round of nods from the group. Nobody wanted to tangle with either of those two after seeing what they were capable of in the raid. "One would trap you in an illusion and drive you insane before killing you while the other would either cut you to ribbons or fill you full of lead." Connor muttered with a barely suppressed shiver.

"Well, then that leaves only one more question." Jade said. When all eyes turned to her, she finished her thought by holding out her fist and shaking it up and down. "How do we do the rock-paper-scissors to find out who has to ask?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.