When he threw open the door to the apartment, Andrew stumbled and fell. What was normally a serene look of composure was upset by a sheen of sweat, disheveled hair, and a bruising wrist that the young man clutched tenderly to his chest. On his journey to the floor, he grabbed the side table where he’d normally throw his keys and took it down with him. A pot shattered and dirt went everywhere, throwing the orchids that his fiancé loved across the kitchen tile.

He tried to kick the door shut, but Andrew was in such a frenzy that it didn’t register when he didn’t hear a click. Instead he dragged himself off of the floor and rushed so quickly to his bedroom that if he hadn’t been in motion, he’d have had another run in with the floor. Down on his knees, Andrew pulled book after book from the shelves along the wall. Some tomes he threw behind him in haste, others were so heavy that he merely set them aside, but it wasn’t until his fingers were curling around the spine of a thick, worn journal that he stopped searching. Inside, were pages full of detailed notes and charts, a collection of spare pages and copies was carefully stuffed between the sheets. He searched through it now, looking for a particular diagram, a supply list, a set of instructions. Without a moment’s hesitation Andrew ripped out a section of the journal and stood on shaky legs. Behind him the journal scattered its pages on the floor.

Despite his flurry of activity, the young man’s mind wasn’t racing. Instead, it focused on a few choice thoughts, driving the goal further into his mind and simply reminding him of the pressing situation that forced the need. And while he pilfered through his fiance’s studio, stealing her supplies, he felt no qualms or regret. Yeah, he’d gotten in over his head but things would work out, they had to. The alternative endings to the long life he wanted to spend with his best friend were simply too graphic and violent for him to think about. So he found the stone mortar and pestle he’d been planning to give Sadah for her birthday, grabbed her ink and quill, tore a strip of her homemade paper and finally rested in the living room.

Putting the materials aside, Andrew shoved the couch out of the way, grunting in pain as he struck his bruised wrist. He kicked away the coffee table and pulled away the area rug, stepping back and ceasing motion only because he had to consult his list again.

Earth from a grave…

Here he did stop. For the briefest moment, Andrew considered not going through with it. But no, he couldn’t. Because they wouldn’t just go after him, he was sure. She’d get pulled into it somehow as well, and Sadah’s death on his hands was more urgent than the memory of the dearly departed. She could only forgive him if she was alive to do it.

With resolve harder than flint, Andrew walked back into the bedroom and grabbed a box from the dresser. His hands barely lingered on the soft cedar when he set it with the other supplies. He had the red and white candles, but dark green was pretty much black anyway. A ceremonial dagger? Well, his switchblade was just going to have to do.

Though his fatigue was quickly catching up with him, Andrew refused to let his eyes droop and he very deliberately wiped the sweat from his face. After reading the instructions one last time, he grabbed several pieces of Sadah’s chalk and began.

He walked the circle then started drawing. A string of symbols crumbled onto the floor, and Andrew flinched when he realized that he had no compass and therefore no way of knowing if his circles were positioned right or not. But he had green candles instead of black, a switchblade instead of a dagger, and he doubted that one more mistake would really make that much of a difference.

When the preparations were complete and he bled from his arm, Andrew burnt the parchment and steeled his resolve.

“Thanatos,” he declared, “I call you!”

Then he watched as the paper burned and mixed with his blood and the ashes of Sadah’s father.

“I call you!”

Scholars have spent centuries in argument on the few surviving texts to summon the gods. Many of the rites to call Tympan and Dionis have been lost or forgotten, and those for Amor have been rewritten and contested as Western focus shifted from fertility to sexuality. Apoth's are perhaps best known, having been most faithfully recorded and passed on, and Lynx's, being most recent, are least trusted.

Azrael, of any of the gods, being perhaps the oldest and holding the most facets, has inspired the largest body of work surrounding his calling. Man has always wanted to leash dream and death, despite the danger, and those rituals to summon him are more explicit about the dangers than even Sanguis's.

The Baskhenet Rite warns of grievous consequences if performed incorrectly.

It isn't wrong.

The candles flare, abrupt and crackling, at the moment Andrew finishes speaking. Their light is pulled in toward the circle, throwing up impossible shadows and flickering in the sudden rush of stagnant, chill air which pushes grit from the chalk lines and wraps itself around and into the open cut on Andrew's arm before dissipating.

Inside the circle there's a suggestion of aborted movement, a gathering energy that pulls the shadows in on themselves before twisting and halting and starting again. The air roils, becoming almost the shape of an arm, a thigh, a sunken ribcage before being swallowed again by the broken light.

For a single, long moment there is the presence of something unfathomably old, unreachably alien, and very, very annoyed. Then the lingering dust from the chalk lines blows outward, the circle breaks, and each flame extinguishes as the last edges of the figure vanish.

In the following silence Andrew's breath must seem horribly loud.

The doorbell ringing is even louder.

Andrew’s research had always been done in the spirit of, “It can’t be that bad,” and sometimes he was right. But the young man had never dealt with gods before, hadn’t so much as tried to summon a demon. He had grown cocky in his power and made the mistake of throwing it around. His confidence wasn’t unjustified, he was strong, but some of the shadows that ran, stalked, and crawled in the far corners of illegality didn’t appreciate him rubbing it in their faces. They promised to come in force, and Andrew knew the gods were his only option.

He just hadn’t expected it to go so wrong.

He could hardly even groan at the pain, he was so mesmerized by the sight of light in supernatural motion. Adrenaline hammered through Andrew’s body in one last surge. He could see limbs taking shape, this is it, he knew it.

His eyes became confused by the rapid play of shadow and candle light, but it was like his body had a primal reaction to the figure inside the circle. A flicker of fear twitched in his stomach, and the knowledge of this being’s power rode on his spine like a shockwave. He was just about to speak when the wind reversed and the darkness came.

There was a number of things he could do. He could start to scream. He could cry. He could become angry and do the rite all over again in a dangerous game of defiance. He might even, if the numbing despair even had time to filter in, have put his switchblade to more sinister uses. But he didn’t. At that point there was only one repeating thought in Andrew’s mind, dancing like an echo in the corners of a great canyon.

This can’t be happening…

He didn’t move. The man just sat there, hoping with each second that the god would come back and he’d have all his answers. He leaned forward on his knees, unconsciously reaching for the space where his god should have been.

Suddenly, the doorbell was ringing and Andrew could feel his body flinch down to his bones.

He stared at the front door like the plague. To the core of him, Andrew didn’t want to answer. But sitting in the middle of his living room with a bleeding arm wasn’t going to solve anything, he knew that. And yet…

If it was a neighbor, they’d go away soon enough. If it was his landlord, Andrew would probably have some door-talk to look forward to. If it was a powerful creature bent on the boy’s torture and eventual death, the small matter of an unanswered door wouldn’t stop him.

So Andrew seized neutrality and did nothing but hope.

There's a faint shuffling noise, the sound of clothing and boots rearranging as a body waits on the other side of the threshold. Through the crack left open between the door and door frame there's the impression of movement, of someone blocking the light from the street and then shifting away again.

Whoever it is, they seem willing to wait but not indefinitely. After a long half-minute stretches out and the the ambient warmth in Andrew's apartment begins to return, they press the doorbell again. Twice, so that the sound catches and echoes against itself.

"Hello?"

A male voice, either Canadian or American, and young. Pitched to carry inside, but more inquisitive than angry. A worried neighbor?

Another few long seconds, and the man knocks at the door. There's a hint of a pattern to it, like the beginning of Shave and a Haircut cut off too soon.

"You should probably let me in."

It's a suggestion, not an order, but something in the tone suggests that's only out of politeness.

Just now he noticed the light that was coming through the slightly open door. Combine that with the unwelcome voice…either way he was already interrupted.

He didn’t notice the warmth any more than he noticed the chill that echoed in his arm. The floor was a bit slick as Andrew stood. In his haste, he’d forgotten to be careful with exactly where his switchblade hit. He’d have to pitch the jeans. He didn’t know how to get bloodstains out.

“Just…just a second!” He needed something to wrap up that arm… One of Sadah’s sweatshirts was tossed over the back of the couch so he shrugged it on quick, hoping he’d be able to get rid of this person before he bled through. With the lack of light, whoever it was wasn’t likely to see the discoloration in his jeans.

A knock this time, Jesus this person was impatient.

And then the suggestion.

Which suggested that maybe more than So-And-So Next Door was outside.

Damn it.

He came to the door and swung it enough for his body to block the way.

“Can I help you?”

Andrew prayed to whatever gods he was in favor with that the answer was “no.”