'[i]Joy to the World, the Lord is Come. Let Earth, Recieve, Hi-[/i]'

"Hello?"

There was no response from the basic nokia track phone. Not at first, anyway. Then, a string of numbers sounded from the phone, followed by another long pause, then four more numbers. Fairly standard procedure for a job offer, though one of the more annoying methods. The first string of numbers was a one use call-in voice mail, while the second was the password needed to receive the message inside. Of course, the numbers would only play once, and if there was no pen or paper handy, he would just have to remember them. If he hadn't been an accountant, he probably would have just refused any job offered to him that way. They generally ended up being the most risky, but his internal number-cruncher told him they also yielded the highest rate of return for time invested.

Dialing the number and entering the password took no time at all. The message, delivered from what sounded like a voice-simulator, was short and to the point. 'Meet in central park, at nine tonight, come alone.' That they knew he was in New York was less than surprising. His general location when he wasn't on a job was a well known among his clientele, as he made no effort to hide that he lived in the Big Apple. What was surprising was that they knew he wasn't on a job, as he'd only recently gotten back, literally three hours prior, and that without giving him other information on when and where to meet, if he was not able to make it there would be no other way for him to take the job.

But, even that wasn't really surprising. Having dealt with mages for nearly a decade, he'd gotten used to people knowing more about him than they should. It came with the territory. If nothing else, he'd managed to find ways to keep what he didn't want known private, so no major concerns when someone tried to impress him with a divination spell.

Finishing his beer, he stood and made for the door, leaving a twenty on the bar. The trip to his place took roughly thirty minutes, and the ride to his warehouse from there took only about fifteen. He had a few hours yet, but there were some things that he needed to check.

Walking into the large complex, he looked around, waiting. When a huge shimmer began coming towards him, he spoke a few words in Latin, then kept walking. Moving forward, he takes a deep breath, before stepping into a circle drawn on the floor. The thing had cost most of his second take, but it was worth it. The warehouse was empty, save for the guardian and the circle. Anyone who found it would either die in the attempt to get to the circle, or be very disappointed when they made it through.

He was suddenly floating in a very narrow, but very deep, pool of luke-warm water. Knowing better than to go up, he instead swims down, heading for the secret compartment that opens the drain. After all the water drains out of the small tank, he is free to open the second compartment, which the water pressure had kept sealed before then. Stepping out into the large, underground bunker, he looks around, then walks towards the glowing sphere in the middle. Once there, he pulls out his phone, nodding at what he expected to find. The phone shimmered in the light of the orb, letting him know that it had been touched by magic. When he was in the bar, no one but him had seemed to respond to the phone ringing, which had made him suspicious. Whoever had contacted him had used a spell do to it, but disguised it to seem like a more mundane approach. That alone filled in a number of gaps in the question at large.

Going over to a storage locker, Smith retrieved a number of items, his sword among them. Other than the standard weaponry, ranging from a number of small explosives to a few small but powerful handguns, he also collected a number of small trinkets whose purpose he alone would know on site. Seven in total, two of them were protection against magic in general, with another that prevented people from accessing his thoughts specifically, while the others were more offensive in nature.

Finally certain he was ready, he turns and walks back to the door, exiting through the teleportation circle just as he came in, the tank filling with water again once he leaves. After getting back, he speaks the Latin phrase again, heading for the car outside. He had just enough time to make it to central park, even accounting for New York traffic. Though, as per the usual, when he arrived, he was the first. Taking a seat on a park bench near by, he pulls out a newspaper, content in the knowledge that one of his baubles would keep the various magical auras he had hidden on his person from being detected via magic, while his own human nature would only reveal itself to be the completely magicless entity that he was. To anyone who didn't know better, he would just be a man sitting in the park, reading the New-Yorker.