Sitting comfortably in her limo, Matsumura watched the man in the business suit and trench coat make his way toward her through the fierce rain. Neither the passing headlights nor the eternal wall of light which is downtown Tokyo illuminated his face, hunched over as he was in the darkness, covered by a sturdy umbrella. The rain was so intense that small rivers ran down each side of the avenue, and the man deftly jumped back from the curb just in time to avoid being doused by a speeding car throwing a wall of water at him.

He reached her limo and climbed into the back, sitting on the rear seat facing forward, smoothly closing his umbrella. He was handsome, almost six feet, in his late 20s. Dripping, he looked inquisitively at Matsumura, across from him. She was about the same age, five feet and change, pretty, with long dark hair. Dressed in a business skirt, she sat calmly, legs crossed, holding a martini with two fingers.

The interior lights were dimmed a little. The rain drizzled the lights of Tokyo through the windows, shading the interior with dozens of soft, shifting colors. The driver partition was up, and they were alone. Thunder cracked.

Eyeing the martini, the man asked, "You have a drink for me?"

"No time." She tossed him a large envelope with his name on it. Yamada, Toshiaki – Eyes Only. The flap bore a Top Secret seal.

Yamada tsked. "This could have been an email. Yet here I am, risking life and limb so you can hand me paper, in person." He broke the seal and pulled out the contents.

"A little water is not life and limb."

"Did you see the traffic I had to dodge?"

"And no electronics means no interception."

"I hate to break it to you, Atsuko, but there are other ways to eavesdrop." He began reading.

Matsumura ignored the use of her given name. If Yamada liked to think they were more intimate than they really were, that was fine by her. She waited patiently. Lazy thunder rolled in the distance.

Half a minute later he looked up. "Is this a joke?"

"No."

"Magic? What is this bullshit?"

"Call it magic if you want. That's basically what it is, until physicists give it a name. It's the same magic which enables six-inch-tall pixie twins to exist. The same magic which makes Mothra vaguely telepathic. The same magic which allows an impossible 150,000-ton creature with a nuclear reactor in his stomach to walk the Earth."

"Not quite the same. This describes an actual spell, an incantation. Those other things might be explicable, but now we're talking about using mere spoken word to dictate reality. That's not part of any physical universe."

"Not my problem. I only care if it works."

"It won't, because it's a fairy tale. You've officially gone off the deep end."

"Over the decades, kaiju have killed 100,000 people and caused over a trillion yen of damage, and we are still powerless to stop them. I'll chase any fairy tale if it holds even the slightest chance of success."

Yamada sighed in resignation. "What do you want from me?"

"Go to the shrine. Alone. Follow the instructions. Get the spell. Bring it to me at Junto. No electronic transmission."

"I suppose you already know when the next full moon is?"

"Peak is three nights from now, at 10:56 PM. Skies should be clear."

Having memorized what he needed, Yamada stuffed the contents back into the envelope and handed it to her. "Then I'll see you in five days."

 

Yamada would have liked to explore the shrine more thoroughly, but it took the entire three days just to get inside. A full day for the plane, train, and taxi; a full day hiking into the mountains to reach a long-abandoned shrine hardly anyone knew existed; and a full day clearing the jungle vegetation which had grown over the entrance.

It was a Buddhist shrine, probably built around 1250, nestled snugly under a tall overhang of rock at the bottom of a huge cliff. It overlooked a ravine which no doubt flooded quickly in a storm. The ledge between the cliff and the ravine was narrow, though Yamada thought it must have been wider centuries ago. It was clear no one ever came to this place. Yamada didn't expect to see anyone the entire time he was there, nor did he.

The land wasn't nearly so high across the ravine, which allowed for a larger view of the sky, which in turn allowed the light of the full moon to fall on the shrine at 10:56 PM.

The shrine's third floor was much larger than one would expect. It was open to the elements, but on the side facing the ravine it was screened by an intricate metal sculpture, a twisting maze of strands, like a briar patch. No strand or branch was more than a centimeter thick, yet it had been extremely well made of solid cast iron. Its creator had obviously intended it to last millennia. It stretched all along the front edge, from floor to ceiling and from corner to corner, and was about three feet deep.

The sculpture's moon shadow looked like someone had thrown a thousand dark, ghostly cigars on the floor. But as the full moon neared its peak, that labyrinth of shadows slowly coalesced into words.

Oh great spirit of the Earth, the shadows read. We call on your transformative powers...

Yamada didn't bother reading the entire spell. He could do that later. He filmed it quickly and carefully.

Minutes later, the words were merely shadow jumbles once more.