A telephone rang in a very comfortable room. It did not give out an undignified chirping, or a salsa tune, or even a fragment of Beethoven, as modern cell phones do. Instead, it purred with a simple old-fashioned sound, the way telephones are supposed to ring.

And this conservative sound went well with the room, which was elegant in a very reassuring way. It contained a leather couch and two matching chairs, all worn just enough to give the feeling of a favorite pair of shoes. The telephone sat on a dark mahogany end table on the far side of the room, next to a bar made of matching wood.

Altogether the room had the relaxed and timeless feel of a very old and well-established gentlemen's club, except for one detail: the wall space between the bar and the couch was taken up by a large wooden case with a glass front, looking something like a cross between a trophy case and a shelf for rare books. But instead of flat shelves, the case was fitted with hundreds of felt-lined niches. Just over half of them cradled a skull-sized ceramic of a bull's head.

An old man entered the room, without haste, but also without the careful hesitance of frail old age. There was a confidence in his walk that is usually found only in much younger men. His hair was white and full and his face was smooth, as if it had been polished by the desert wind. He walked to the telephone like he was quite sure that whoever was calling would not hang up until he answered, and apparently he was right, since it was still ringing when he lifted the receiver.

"Yes," he said, and his voice, too, was much younger and stronger than it should have been. As he listened he picked up a knife that lay on the table beside the telephone. It was of ancient bronze. The pommel was curved into a bull's head, the eyes set with two large rubies, and the blade was traced with gold letters that looked very much like MLK. Like the old man, the knife was much older than it looked, and far stronger. He idly ran a thumb along the blade as he listened, and a line of blood rose up on his thumb. It didn't seem to affect him. He put the knife down.

"Good," he said. "Bring them here." He listened again for a moment, idly licking the blood from his thumb. "No," he said, running his tongue along his lower lip. "The others are already gathering. The storm won't affect Moloch, or his people. In three thousand years, we've seen far worse, and we're still here."