[Jake's POV]
The sudden plunge into total darkness stripped the attacking triad soldiers of their only advantage: numbers.
The lights didn't flicker. They didn't dim. They died.
One second the broken neon from across the street was leaking red and blue through the cracks in the steel shutters. The next, it was gone. Absolute black. The kind of black that presses on your eyes.
Through the green phosphor glow of my night vision goggles, the ground floor of the Golden Koi looked like a chaotic, frozen tableau.
The Iron Fists and Jade Tigers who had been preparing to rush the shattered front doors were suddenly blind. I watched them through the NVGs as they stumbled over the debris of the barricades. A boot caught on a sandbag. A shoulder slammed into a mahogany table. They shouted confused orders in Cantonese, voices sharp and high with adrenaline, bouncing off the walls and making it impossible to tell where anyone was.
