The phone was ringing.

It wouldn't stop.

Tone after tone after tone, it kept on.

Again.

Again.

AGAIN.

Incessant.

In a stupor, irritable, tired, cranky, half-baked and half-awake; he reached out a hand and plucked the receiver from the cradle. There was a pause, pregnant with expectation and the officiality of those who want an answer, and finally, he spoke.

"What," he growled, "do you fuckin' want?"

"Mr Crawley." The voice on the other end was bureaucratic in all the ways he hated, yet still obligingly secretive and ineffable. What a word. Ineffable. How stupid was that concept? So holy that it could not be expressed.

Nothing was that ridiculous.

"Congratula- ... uh, congratulayshins," he slurred, "y'know m'name. Now, I hav' a thing for ya. Fuck off."

"Mr Crawley," the voice repeated itself, "the country needs you. The world needs you, truth be told."

"The world?" He chuckled, the receiver stuck to his ear, a grim semi-smile across his maw. "What world? Hells no. Got no time for nothin' like that."

"You will have the time, I guarantee it. Wake up, Mr Crawley."

"What a fuckin' ass." Crawley sat up, the couch as much of a mess as the clothes he was in, stained and creased. He reached for a jacket pocket, his throat dry and his head throbbing. A cylinder came out and he lit it, still inside, still not caring. The paper was blue and it was fragrant and exotic, yet even so, a roadblock to his enjoyment was ensuing in the form of the current phone call. "Not m' business. Done tryin'. Done thinkin'. Done carin'. Don' want your offer so 'm gonna say it again. Piss off."

"Your desire has nothing to do with it, Mr Crawley." The voice cared even less for his opinion than any rationale did. "This is not a request, it is a summons."

"A summons?" He inhaled deeply, blowing out a cloud of smoke, the cigarette waggling between his index and middle fingers. Crawley lifted the four-fifths empty bottle next to the couch, flicked off the loose cap with his thumbnail and took a swig. "Pfeh. Old days're gone. No more summons. Not doin' that gig 'ny more."

"Mr Crawley." A tiny hint of impatience appeared in the tone, but no more than that. "You have a job to attend. An agent of the Conclave has stolen the incantation."

Through all the vehement denial and layers of alcohol-saturated verbal obfuscation, there were few phrases that could strike cleanly to the core and garner his jaded notice as if he were sober.

This was one of them.

The incantation.

He stopped dead.

"What?"

"The Order requires additional help. The Fear is not yet recovered, but there is nothing else remaining, except for the question of the avatar." If anything, the speaker's urgency was stronger, a remarkable thing for his employer. "So, wake up, Mr Crawley. Wake up and smell the roses," he was informed, "or sleep and then find the ashes."

Click.