It was Tuesday night when Daniel started his patrol. The red bandana, hoodie, and mask. His hands slipped into his pockets as he moved through the dark of the city. Streetlights flickered on and off. Extra pairs of eyes watched from every corner.

  Sometimes, it was a man. Other times it was a woman. Jianghu. The signs were everywhere once you learned to read them. And they gave him wide berth, stepping aside as he passed, as if his attire already announced who he was.

  A television flickered in a shop window. The glass was dirty, smeared with handprints and old tape from advertisements long since torn down. But the picture was clear enough. Amy Chen, the independent reporter, had finally made anchor on local channel 5. Her smile was bright as she rattled off the daily segment.

  "And sparking debate among the residents of the city, the downtick of crime among the local residents, is HiddenDragon keeping us all safe? Or are there other heroes among the dark that we aren't aware of? Tonight at eleven, we investigate the phenomenon sweeping San Francisco."

  Daniel kept walking. She was right about the crime dropping, but it wasn't because of him. He hadn't been active since Li Mei had beaten him the first time.

  This was something else. He couldn't explain it any other way. The homeless who were always near the freeway underpass had vanished. The woman who sold roses from a shopping cart, gone. The guy who played saxophone outside the BART station, absent.

  The belly of the city had emptied out, and nobody else seemed to notice. People walked past like nothing had changed, like the missing were invisible to everyone except him.

  This was like birds fleeing before an earthquake.

  The sharks were out tonight.

  Did this mean there were several organizations throughout the city? Or one big one keeping everything under control? Impossible to say. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn't know enough. Didn't know enough to even see the shape of what was coming.

  Just that it was trouble.

  He caught trouble near a bus stop on Market Street. Nothing special. Just two teenage kids looking for a quick score, cornering some guy in a suit against the plexiglass shelter.

  The suit had his hands up, wallet already out.

  The kids had baggy jeans, oversized jackets, the uniform of a generation. One had a knife. The other kept his hands in his pockets, holding something maybe a hammer.

  Daniel moved in. The kid with the knife saw him first and just swung at him wild as if spooked by a ghost.

  A month ago Daniel might have flinched. Now he just saw the opening. Daniel stepped aside, let the blade pass, and caught the kid's wrist on the follow-through.

  A quick rotation, pressure on the joint, and the knife clattered to the concrete. The sweep came next, his leg hooking behind the kid's ankle, and down he went.

  The second kid charged. Daniel met him with a palm to the chest, just hard enough to stop his momentum cold. The kid's lungs emptied with a wheeze and he fell, more from surprise than force. Stayed down. Hardly broke a sweat. Didn't even get to use his qi techniques.

  Damn, he's gotten pretty good at this.

  The suit thanked him briefly and left. His footsteps echoed down until they faded onto the next block.

  Daniel flexed his fingers and thought about pressure points. He'd tried it during the scuffle, a quick jab as he redirected the first kid's knife hand. But he'd hit the general area not the exact point. It didn't exactly paralyze him, as it did slap his arm around in a fancier way.

  Li Mei had made it look effortless. Reality was messier. Bodies moved. Angles shifted. The perfect strike existed only in stillness, and fights were never still. He needed more practice.

  The Wudang manual from the Asian Art Museum swirled in his head, assembling and disassembling like puzzle pieces that didn't quite fit. Out of the 108 points on the body, you could probably reduce them to nine vital points.

  Most sat along the main yang meridians, but some, like the yin points, required strikes closer to the heart. The Heart. Maybe all lethal techniques traced back to the heart eventually. Maybe that was what made them lethal.

  He made his rounds through the lower avenues, moving toward Oakland, then doubling back when the neighborhood started feeling unfamiliar. The city changed block by block here. One street would be lit up with restaurants; the next dark and empty, windows boarded.

  He passed a church with a soup kitchen line stretching around the corner. A laundromat with steamed-up windows and the regular thump of dryers. A pawn shop with guitars and televisions and a handwritten sign that said WE BUY GOLD.

  That was when he saw him.

  Barefoot, stumbling, running down the middle of the street. People scattered out of his way, annoyed, confused. A taxi honked. Someone shouted something in Spanish. Nobody stopped to help.

  The man's shirt was untucked, his pants stained at the knees. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. His eyes were wild, scanning the street, the buildings, the shadows between them. Looking for something. Or running from it.

  Daniel almost didn't recognize someone was chasing him until the man had stopped running. Then he saw it too. An unnatural movement in the crowd, like a tide swelling in that you could only see from afar. There were people after him, several of them, blending in with the regulars walking around. He was in trouble.

  Daniel broke into a sprint.

  The barefoot man turned into an alley, probably thinking he could lose them in the maze of fire escapes and dumpsters. Bad choice. Alleys had dead ends.

  Daniel followed, his footsteps echoing off brick, and heard Cantonese in the shadows.

  "Charles, go back. You can't be out here."

  "You can't take me! I don't know anything more. I just found it interesting. Please, I don't know anything about a sword."

  "That's not for you to say. You should give it up before you get hurt. Besides this is for your own protection. You aren't the only one looking for the Seven Swords of Wudang."

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Wudang. One of the great martial sects of legend.

  "Hey, leave him alone."

  The eyes of the men surrounding Charles turned to look at the new guest, and Daniel recognized the biggest one. It was one of Li Mei's men.

  "Hidden Dragon?" The big man looked confused. "You shouldn't be here. Get out of the way. We need to bring this man back."

  "I can't do that."

  "This guy." The big man cracked his knuckles. His companions shifted, forming a wider arc.

  Then the air changed. Daniel felt her before he saw her. The sound of feet hitting the fire escape rungs, descending fast. Then a soft impact, like a cat landing on carpet. Li Mei stepped out of the shadows. She wore a different fox mask. Dark clothes, hair pulled back.

  Daniel shifted his weight. Found his stance without thinking about it. Hands came up.

  She didn't move. Ten feet apart.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Oh, uh," Daniel made a cupped fist and did his best impression of the Baoquan. "Good to see you. I'm here to stop a crime."

  It was awkward, but he held it anyway.

  Li Mei stopped. More men were getting closer, their footsteps echoing off brick.

  "Leave."

  "I can't," said Daniel, "You know I don't."

  "I'm not talking to you. John. Leave."

  "Miss, but you can't. Charles is..."

  Li Mei turned her head to face the big man. "I said leave."

  "Very well." John hesitated, and then moved away. The rest of them dispersed slowly. Charles was already backing toward the street.

  "I don't know who you are but thank you." Then he was gone.

  Li Mei turned sharply, questioningly, as he disappeared down the street.

  "Stop doing this."

  "Doing what? Helping people?"

  She didn't answer.

  "What's the Seven Swords of Wudang?" Daniel asked. "And what were they going to do to him?"

  "You shouldn't be asking me this."

  "Why not? You're involved. You knew who was chasing him," said Daniel. "And that guy was scared. He was running through the streets, attracting attention. Even if you didn't mean it, wouldn't the cops get involved eventually?"

  Li Mei turned away. She walked to the fire escape, placed one hand on the rusted ladder, and began to climb, each rung taken without wasting a step. Halfway up, she paused.

  "Stop interfering. If you keep doing this, I have to fight you again. You don't get it. The only reason you are still standing here, running around, is because my father isn't taking you seriously."

  "Then tell me what's going on. You told me about Jianghu. Now, you're just going to keep all this other stuff a secret? I'm a vigilante remember? One way or another I'm going to get involved."

  "I don't..."

  "Don't have time?" The words came out sharper than he intended.

  Li Mei stopped. Something flickered across her face. Then she pointed up to the rooftop.

  "Fine. Let's talk."

  The rooftop was flat, covered in gravel and old tar paper that crunched under Daniel's feet. San Francisco spread out below them, a canvas of lights and fog. The bay was a dark absence from afar, marked only by the slow crawl of ships. Li Mei stood near the edge, looking out. She'd taken off the fox mask. Daniel couldn't see her face clearly in the dark, just the shape of it, hidden in the background.

  "You wanted to talk," she said. "So, talk."

  "I asked you first. What's going on? Who was that man? Who are you guys anyway and what are the Seven Swords of Wudang?"

  "We're called the Black Tiger Society," said Li Mei. She drew a sword, swung it lightly making a form. She always seemed to carry it just beneath her cloak. "My group is looking for old weapons and scriptures. Things that were lost a long time ago. These swords are part of that."

  "And that man knew where one was?"

  "He knew the location of at least one, yes." Li Mei stopped the form. "And you just let him walk away."

  "I didn't know that. I saw a guy getting chased barefoot through the street and did what I do."

  "That's the problem. You keep doing what you do without knowing what you're stepping into."

  "Then help me understand. Why do these swords matter so much?"

  Li Mei sighed.

  "These swords belonged to the Wudang Sect through the golden age of Taoism in the Tang Dynasty. Held by kings and princes. Devils and Gods. Blessed by immortals and carried by saints."

  She sat on the edge.

  "Right now, Jianghu is a martial underworld, yes. But nobody listens to anyone. It's chaos. Everyone for themselves, fighting over everything we've got. If we had these swords, people would take us seriously again. We wouldn't be some random group of criminals, but a legitimate heir to one of the greatest schools of the past. Having all seven gives you the authority of legend."

  "And you have to have all of them?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm sorry," said Daniel, sitting down a few feet away from her, giving her some space. "I didn't know it was that important."

  "Well now you know," said Li Mei, turning her head. "Now, stop getting involved. There are people looking for you. From the mainland. You keep showing up and eventually you'll run into someone who won't bother talking first."

  "I guess I've been pretty lucky I haven't fought any of them yet," said Daniel. Actually, if any of them were as good as Li Mei, he'd have been in big trouble.

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "Well, if you don't mind," Daniel said slowly. "I know a place where I usually train. A small Traditional Chinese Medicine shop off Jackson in Chinatown. If you're ever bored, you could stop by."

  Li Mei looked at him like he'd spoken in a foreign language. "Why would I want to go there?"

  "I don't know. It feels strange to only see you when we're fighting. I figured maybe we could just have a place to talk."

  Li Mei didn't respond. For a moment, something shifted in her expression. Not softening exactly. More like a crack in her cold persona, there and gone before you could be sure you'd seen it. Then the walls came back up.

  "I don't need friends," she said. "And you don't need to pretend we're something we're not."

  "That's...."

  "You are pretending." She stood, brushing gravel from her clothes. "You think that because I explained some things, that makes us close. It doesn't. I told you what I told you, so you'd stop getting in our way. That's all."

  Daniel didn't argue. He'd heard that tone before.

  She stepped off the edge and dropped into the darkness below. No sound of impact. Just gone.

  Daniel sat alone on the rooftop for a while, then climbed back down.

  Li Mei stood before her father's desk, hands clasped behind her back. The lamp on his desk cast sharp shadows, dividing the room into territories of light and dark.

  Li Wentao didn't look up from the report. His fingers moved across the pages, merely touching them lightly before moving on to the next page.

  "He escaped," Li Wentao said.

  "Yes."

  "And you were there."

  "Yes."

  Her father set down the report. His fingers found his teacup, lifted it, set it down again without drinking. The ceramic made a small sound against the desk.

  "You had an opportunity. You didn't take it. Why?"

  Li Wentao's eyes found hers and held them.

  "You said that if Hidden Dragon didn't pose a threat..."

  "That you could remove him lightly. Not ignore him."

  Outside, the city hummed. Traffic and voices and the wail of a siren.

  "I've been patient with this boy."

  Li Wentao stood. Walked to the window. His reflection ghosted across the glass, superimposed on the lights of Chinatown below.

  "He was a curiosity. A natural talent without allegiance. Potentially useful."

  He turned.

  "But he's becoming a problem."

  Li Mei's hands tightened behind her back. Her nails bit into her palms. She hated to admit it, but despite him being an idiot, she didn't think it was serious enough to just get rid of him.

  "He doesn't know what he's doing. He's stumbling around, interfering with operations he doesn't understand. I already spoke to him."

  Li Wentao's eyes focused even more. "So, you spoke to him."

  A mistake. Li Mei went quiet.

  "What did you tell him?"

  "Enough to make him stop."

  "Clearly not."

  Li Wentao picked up the report again.

  "You told him about the swords."

  It wasn't a question.

  "I have men watching the docks for the Macau shipment. Two more tracking the man you let slip away tonight. Dong Chi-wai's people have been seen in the Richmond District twice this week."

  He folded his hands.

  "And now I have to worry about an unknown variable who knows what we're looking for."

  He returned to his desk and sat down. His hands found their familiar position, fingers steepled, elbows on the armrests.

  "Whatever this is, it ends now. We no longer have any more time left. You know this. 'They' will act soon. We need the sword and we need to leave immediately."

  Li Mei lowered her head.

  "If you insist on keeping him alive then get a leash on him now. I'll send you the mission tonight."

  "Yes, sir."

  Li Mei opened the door and walked out. Her footsteps echoed in the hallway.

  Li Wentao sat alone and reached for his teacup. The tea had gone cold. He drank it anyway, the bitterness spreading across his tongue. He reached for the phone. The plastic was cool against his palm.

  "The vigilante," he said. "Hidden Dragon. I want to know everywhere he goes. Everyone he talks to. Every shop, every restaurant, every corner he frequents."

  He paused.

  "And the people at those places. Find out who matters to him. And take care of them."