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The first fat raindrops were pelting us when Mizuki laid off the throttle and turned towards the left bank, where a bay had been cut into the banks of the river, some fifty meters deep and thirty-five wide. It abutted against a manmade ridgeline, a flood control dike, into which a slope of concrete had been set, the dark maw of a sluice-controlled water discharge pipe sitting at its base. Kenta and I shucked our jackets, and I pulled a grenidier’s belt from my pack with a short one-handed 40mm launcher holstered on one side; cinching it loose ‘round me like a gunslinger’s belt with a big iron.

The kappa hadn’t seen the beast himself, but the presence of the alligator god was tangible for kilometers, especially through the water; the Tone’s flow carrying the spiritual “scent” death and carnage well ahead of its arrival. Like the kappa that’d watched me from the Kamihoshi as I strode the bank last night, every youkai and spirit had gone to ground in terror – but the whispers had carried from mouth to mouth upstream.

Mizuki ran the boat up onto the ground between the concrete-lined outflow channel and the river proper, killing the outboard and tilting it up away from the ground even as the boat skidded up and over the mud; getting us almost to the concrete. We had only a few short steps of churning, sucking mud to fight before we were on solid footing.

Kenta and I both pulled out our phones. I activated the NAIC commo system and set the phone to push-to-talk. Anything I said would be transmitted straight to both NAIC headquarters and the watch floor in St. Louis.

“Eddie, local agent reports spookies hoppin at grid Five-foh-war-Sierra, Utah-Echo, Eight-seven-one-niner-tree, niner-niner-fife-two-zero. On site, commencing infil from south.” The full sixteen digit grid probably wasn’t needed, but I wasn’t exactly in Kansas anymore either, so screw it. Kenta had pocketed his own phone and Mizuki had set a paper shikigami loose on the wind.

If anything went wrong now, at least help would know where to find us – for whatever that was worth. We crept upslope towards the ridgeline, Kenta and I fanning out to either side of Mizuki by unspoken instinct.

The rain began in earnest; frogs raising their voices to add a tenor line to the steady base patter. We crested the ridge and scanned.

Thirty meters downslope to the dike’s base; fifty to the two-story pumphouse that drained the long, narrow retention pond behind it into the pipe running beneath us to the Tone. To the left a warehouse, the right a squat concrete tower; an air shaft for the discharge pipe.

Mizuki pointed – past the pumphouse some fifty meters; the indentations of where something massive had slithered into the pond. I looked at the wind-whipped, rain-churned water and thought briefly of posting up, calling Dan, seeing if he or Kenta’s people couldn’t get a Blackhawk with Hellfires overhead before we grabbed the gator by the tail – but Mizuki marched downslope without hesitation, katana out and glowing with power. I followed, rifle at low ready–

–from the pumphouse’s roof the glint of sun off glass–

–rifle snapping up as my eye found the reticule; reflexive motion trained into muscle memory by countless drills; figure rising above the roof’s parapet large as life in 3X mag as the trigger broke crisp–

–thump heavy against my shoulder; sear reset tapping my finger and thump again as the first round landed in a blast of concrete and dust and his rifle’s up, coal-dark in the sullen overcast as the muzzle flashed–

–zinghiss! past my ear as the second round landed true in a burst of bluewhite light and–

–WHAM as something bowled me over from the right and my earplugs deafened me; booming echo reverberating in my breastbone. Mizuki was atop me, jumping up with a grip on my bicep and trying to drag me only to lose traction in wet grass. More zinghiss zinghiss as bullets creased the air; bursts of wasplike snapapapapapapaps from the right as Kenta returned fire.

Mizuki crouched and leaned forward, poised like a runner at base – and then she was gone in a streaking blur; air magic buffeting my face and churning the fog in her wake. I sprinted diagonal downslope, displacing left as the wind carried away the fog. From the warehouse in front of me a bright bead of light arced out from an upper window; lofting lazily through the air like the tracer from an SMAW’s spotting rifle. It landed in the middle of the dissipating fogbank and I heard the base bwhoomph! of napalm igniting, radiant heat washing over me. Snatching the short 40mm from its holster I laid the red dot on the window and fired, the big window vanishing in a cloud of shards and dust.

Holstering and moving; off the mid-slope road and skidding down the last steep embankment as someone peeked from ‘round the warehouse corner left. I let my feet slip in the slick grass and fell flat on my back as a round hissed over my head and exploded behind me; turf pelting my boonie as the SBR clack clack clacked at the figure jerking back behind the corner. I shift right and give him the remaining half of the mag; cinderblocks exploding and crumbling as 600 grain rounds land like bowling balls; a limp figure toppling out of the concrete dust after.

Twisting my legs ‘round under me I got to one knee without hands so I could reload, scanning for enemies and options. Stout concrete blocks to the left guarding the chain-link fence’s open gateway and an empty shipping container lying longwise just a road’s width from the building. I heard the snapapapap of Kenta’s MP-7 from the right again and bolted left; trusting him with the flank.

I took my first breath in what felt like hours and scanned left-to-right. Dilapidated steel shed to left, (danger,) warehouse to front; lots of windows but just one man-door to cover, to right – I saw Kenta leaving the cover of the concrete tower and rushing downslope towards the pumphouse, wherein the thunderous sounds of real spellcasting was emenating. He skidded to his knees behind a steel dumpster and looked down thirty meters of fenceline at me.

He pointed at his eye with two fingers, then the warehouse’s corner by me then shrugged – enemies on your side?

I glanced left again at the long, dilapidated barn and steel storage sheds huddled against it, and gave a vigorous thumbs-down, fingerpoint to eyes and shrug – negative but I can’t see shit!

Another boom rattled from within the pumphouse, and Kenta pointed his finger upwards and drew quick circles. Rally!

He didn’t have to ask twice. I bolted down the fenceline, sphincter wound tight for the few long strides it took crossing open ground before the warehouse windows to reach the concealment of the shipping container – but heartbeats later I was behind the dumpster with Kenta.

“Should’ve set up comms,” I gasped.

“Yeah!” He shouldered his MP-7. “Frying pan or fire?”

I looked past him down the road at even more buildings along the road; the innumerable angles where shooters or spellslingers could lurk and said “GO!”

The pumphouse’s south-side had only huge pipes that dog-legged into the discharge tunnel below so we made for the right corner. Kenta hustled ‘round it without breaking stride and I heard the staccato thunder of unsuppressed full-auto echoing from ahead – but he simply blurred; seeming to fade into the gray haze of rain – and he was there again, distinct and returning fire. Following his muzzle I found the tango just sticking his head up from behind a concrete pipe section dumped at the edge of the lot and sent a double-tap on the run; catching an impression of concrete spall spraying off the pipe’s top amidst a burst of magical light. Then I was hustling after Kenta through the open high-bay door on the pumphouse’s side.

It was a cavernous space housing two huge pumps in a row to our left; and against one of them slumped Mizuki, katana dangling from one hand. Her entire front was covered in a film of blood, but she gave us a shaky thumbs-up to indicate it wasn’t hers.

“Kuria!?” Kenta said.

“I think,” she said, looking around. “They’re using magical guns!”

A single shot from the parking lot; zinging diagonally through the garage door into the casing of the far pump and exploding; Mizuki ducking as a few fragments whinged off her magic shield in blue sparks as me and Kenta winced.

“Y’don’t say,” I said.

“Nanko?” Kenta asked.

“I got two on the catwalk back there; the third got out the side door. Mage, fire user.” Mizuki’s eyes were unfocused and she was breathing too fast. “Probably in that warehouse now.”

Kenta sidled up to the garage door and chopped his hand at the man-door a few steps away. Pressing myself against the wall aside it I turned the knob and swung it open; a few rounds snapping through it immediately to ricochet off pipes and pumps. Kenta blurred again; his head seeming to be in two places at once – and then he was back behind the wall as tardy fire came nipping after. “Two, maybe three now. There’s a little cemetery right behind them, though.” A breath. “TAKAMODO! Bochi!”

“What– Yes!” She ran towards me to access the widest strip of floor not occupied by pumps or exposed through the door and produced her small bag of mage tools. Kenta found the door’s switch and it started descending loudly; it’d block vision but not bullets.

The door finally thudded closed and for a few seconds there was only the steady suffusive thunder of rain on the high roof, rumbling through the cavernous space.

“Kenta,” I panted, “whomst the fuck?”

“Fuck if I know, but there’s an awful lot of ‘em!”

Without we heard burst fire cracking above the rain’s drumming – but no impacts on concrete or glass.

Then, cyclic; men hammering their magazines empty in one go; echoing from both sides. Through the tall windows on the pumphouse’s north side overlooking the reservoir something big and sinuous wove its way skyward, bullets mundane and magical sparking off its glistening green scales.

“Takamodo!?” I said.

“Spirit of the divine equations, beseech the ancestors! Call forth the honored dead of Kobe village!” She tossed her shikigami airborne and it zipped out the ajar man-door.

“TAKAMODO!”

Twirling towards me she snarled “WHAT IS IT YOU IDIOT JA- HOLYSHIT!”

Tilting a great fanged maw downwards, we found ourselves staring into aquamarine eyes with blood-red pupils as the water dragon looked right at us – and roared.