“Honey, I’m home.” About an hour after Marcus departed from the precinct, Captain Ko also returned home, with two paper bags in his hands. One was brown, and the other was bright red and was made of better packaging paper. He threw the keys into the bowl on the top of the shoe shelf to the side of the door, then asked into the empty feeling house: “Honey, I brought some food back.”

No one in the house responded to him at all.

Captain Ko sighed, then walked over to the master bedroom, the one with the redwood door that had a beautiful carving on it and a frame that was covered with red patterns of similar style. He knocked on the door three times and said: “Alright, I’ll leave the food at the door, if you feel like you can just get it there. I’ll be in my study.”

The study was just on the side of the living room on the ground floor, by the end of a hallway leading to the kitchen, the stairs to the upper floor and the guest room. Captain Ko sat down on a wooden chair with a soft cushion with the brown paper bag in hand. The cushion had a red thread-woven exterior and was filled with some kind of hay instead of regular stuffings like cotton. And the chair was made from three separate pieces of wood that were red in color but also had a certain light fragrance to it.

There was one thick brick of a book on his table. One that also had a thick cover made of old wood wrapped in leather. The leather had a certain texture and touch to it, and it glowed under the desk light. A grimoire from a yet unknown underground group. And one that not many even knew existed. He flipped to the page where he left a bookmark, a page that showed the drawing of a blood red circle on it.

“Clunk” Something knocked on his window. Captain Ko immediately stood up, with a hand on his gun holster.

The perimeter alarms around his house were not triggered at all. But there were two sets of light footsteps in the house, one from the second floor, and one near the staircase to the second floor, right around the hallway. Both were very light.

Captain Ko brought out his gun, checked its barrel and slowly cocked it, then took a small snowglobe placed on the bookshelf. He then lowered his body, and carefully listened to the footsteps as they headed his way.

They seemed to know he was in the study, which meant that they were listening while he came in. Captain Ko thought for a short moment, then activated his Qi in silence. If they dared come into his house, with enough patience to wait for him to come back, and were actually cautious enough to not trigger the in-house alarms or monitors, it stood to reason that they would do the basic research to know that he was a registered Mystic Martial Arts practitioner and his style. So he needed to strike with surprise.

When one of the footsteps came close, he rolled out of the study and threw the snow globe at the general location of the closest footstep. A shadow at the end of the hall cursed in a low voice and hopped to the side, into a guest bedroom. Captain Ko immediately opened fire in the direction to which it jumped.

Bullets pierced through the wooden walls, and a few pained grunts came out from behind. But just while Captain Ko was about to put in another magazine, a shadow lunged right at him from his back. This was not the other set of footsteps. There was someone he did not know was here.

Captain Ko tried to turn around and moved to the side, and he managed to evade a dagger to his back. His Qi formed a barrier around him, and without a direct angle, the dagger slid to the side and only left a small cut on his shirt and a shallow cut on his waist.

With a forceful roar, Captain Ko swung his left fist at the shadow’s head. His Qi left a light blue trail in the air, powering up his fist strike slamming towards the shadow’s face. The shadow responded by raising his palm at the captain’s fist. Their hands collided. The layer of Qi on the shadow’s palm burst and deflated. The shock and impact from Captain Ko’s fist was mostly absorbed, like a ball thrown at a mattress. The shadow rode the force and glided back towards the empty living room behind.

Captain Ko tried to reload his gun again, but this moment, the footsteps coming down from the floor above came at him. This was also someone wielding a dagger. This shadow was not as good as concealing their movement, but their attack was much more swift and powerful. Captain Ko tried to dodge at the last second, yet the edge of the dagger still dug into the muscles on his back.

“Die!” The cold sensation from the blade and the grueling pain brought out the fury and rage within the captain. One quick step forward to prevent the blade from sinking any deeper. Next, he turned back with his right hand in a cleaver-like form and his Qi concentrated on the edge of his palm.

The cloaked shadow behind him was still trying to push the dagger in. Against the palm chop attack from the captain, he was not prepared. The edge of the palm struck the shadow right on his left shoulder.

Light blue Qi exploded and crashed against the shadow’s clothes, skin, tendons, muscles and bones like a tsunami. The shadow flew to the side following two loud cracks and a grunt in pain. His shoulder was dislocated, and a part of his left upper arm was crushed like a flattened noodle.

Using the residual momentum of this spinning attack, Captain Ko jumped towards his study and pulled the sliding door shut.

The shadow with the inaudible footstep lunged at the study with his dagger lit up in a light green glow. The dagger thrusted forward, and crescent-shaped blades of Qi shot right at the door of the study.

The wood and glass door was instantly sliced into many pieces. A chair tossed at the door from the inside suffered the same fate, broken and torn up hay from a red cushion exploded and filled the air.

“Bang bang!” Two loud gunshots occured behind the nonexistent door and the floating hay. The shadow outside was not expecting this and was shot in the chest and stomach.

Captain Ko lunged out from the study with his right palm pushing forward. A glowing shape of a palm made of pure Qi landed at the shadow’s chest. Blood jetted out like water from a hose from the exit wound, and their chest was caved in.

The daggers were laced with poison, and Captain Ko fell onto the ground the moment he saw the shadow splatter over the living room floor. The two barrel single shot handgun he kept in a hidden compartment under his desk dropped and bounced on the ground.

“Honey, it’s fine! Don’t come out!” Captain Ko crawled towards the master bedroom, hissing and trying to tap his own meridian points to stop himself from bleeding out. But before he could make it to the door of the master bedroom, the front door was forcefully unlocked from the outside.

“Too bad you made us do this, Captain Ko. Before now we just wanted to ask you for a quick favor.” Two shadowy figures came in, each with a handgun pointing at him.

“Huh, I guess the assholes DO have guns.” Captain Ko ticked his tongue and scoffed: “Why didn’t you just say so and make an appointment with me? Everyone knows I am very welcoming of any questions.”

“Cut the shit.” The figure on the right cocked his gun: “Last chance, come with us and we can pretend this never happened.”

Captain Ko shook his head with a wry and somewhat sarcastic smile: “I really can’t, my wife will kill me.”

Cold metal muzzles poked Captain Ko on his forehead and his cheek: “I will not repeat myself.”

An eardrum piercing scream exploded from the master bedroom. The lights in the house flickered and dimmed. The two figures immediately turned their heads at the door. A pale face went through the door. It was a woman, with dried blood and tear marks below her eyes, and a wooden nail right on top of her head. The door was not damaged in any way, yet the face just went through it, completely unhindered.

“Shit!” The two figures activated their Qi and tried to escape. Two pale cold hands appeared on their chests out of thin air before they could turn. Fingers sunken into their flesh and bones. The two figures’ bodies twiched and shook, choking and gurgling as they were lifted in the air. The next moment, both of them were pulled into the master bedroom through the door and wall, without damaging any part of them.

Captain Ko took out a small vial from his pocket, poured the few droplets inside into his mouth and started meditating on the ground. Shortly, dark and pungent blood seeped out from his wounds and steam arose from his skin. His bleeding continued, and he had to stop himself from bleeding again. This time he did not have as much Qi in his body to help, so he crawled to the guest bathroom as fast as he could to find his first aid kit.

The other three figures were also gone, leaving their blood, their rags and weapons behind.