Summon Lyght(35)

Sallie paused to meet each pair of eyes for a second, then continued. "Adultery and prostitution, again, something we know is on the rise, but where and how are the demons playing it? Child abuse. Preventable disease. We need to look at statistics and crime rates related to those things and find a pattern. If demons are involved more heavily than normal, we target them." She paused to look around the silent room, gauging reactions. "Of course if you guys don't think—"

"That's brilliant." Dorn exchanged glances with the other archangels as though his prized pupil had made him damn proud. Lyght shared his pride, as did their other Brothers with eager nods. "That's a simple plan," Dorn said. "So simple, and so brazen, Socerith and the other demons would think we might not see the patterns and figure out what they're doing before the enemy is so far entrenched in human hearts and souls that we'd have no hope of turning it around."

Lyght nodded. "And that's exactly the kind of plan Socerith would use. He likes to win before his opponent even knows there's a war. So what's the best way to go about examining these leads? Surely we can send our informants--"

"No," Toren said. "The fewer that know what we do, the better. It means less chance we can be traced and lets us freely move without being followed. There are far too many demons with the power to derive knowledge from lesser angels for us to risk it. Unless it's absolutely necessary, all work is performed by us in our new forms, and our Quads. And the less angelic powers we use, the better. We need to exploit our weaker natures for now. They won't expect that from the Brotherhood."

Troy, the human preacher, raised his hand. "We can do a lot." He gestured to Lucian, Dorn's male human. "He and I are good with computers." He nodded again at Toren's male human. "With Ezekiel's help, he could lean on his old contacts and we should have some information pretty quickly."

Kassern nodded, as if deep in thought while he trailed an absent finger up and down his wife's forearm. "That takes care of some longer range things." He sat silent for a moment, then continued. "We can start at deciding what to do about the human animals who were holding Kassie and Tyler. Lyght, can you give us details?"

Bloody hell. Those blighters were his to exact justice on. Maybe he still could if he played his cards right. "The place is a sort of warehouse. They have crates, filled with electronics and such, stored on the first level, and there were a couple of those big shipping containers too."

Ezekiel raised a hand. "Did you see where the containers were from, or anything on the goods coming out of the truck?"

Lyght paused to be sure before answering. "I'm not entirely certain. I sort of neglected my study of human written communication—I know, Uriel will kick my ass—but it seemed more important to be perfectly fluent in the language and culture I would be using as a cover. Anyway, there were labels and printed information on the sides of the crates and containers, but none of them were in the Western alphabet. If I saw them again, I could identify the characters, or perhaps even copy them from memory, if that helps." Shit, he hated to admit he'd not studied everything he was supposed to. Especially in front of Dorn. Even now, Lyght could feel the hairsplitter's eyes on him, no doubt biting his tongue on a lecture about the meaning of the ARCH part of his angelic title.

Lyght met his Brother's gaze, ready to be done with at least the silent part of the accusation. The blue warrior merely nodded. "Without question reproduce the letters. I'm sure I'll be able to identify the language of origin at a minimum, or perhaps even translate."

Dorn's generous offer shocked Lyght, and the lack of the usual acidic reprimand left him puzzled. He noted Dorn's wife's smile and couldn't suppress his own. The almighty aquamarine warrior was on a little sugar leash.

Lyght remembered the task at hand and glanced around. "There were seventeen men on the ground level, all armed. According to the little sign inside the door, the workers are armed to protect the freight from theft and vandalism. There's a second level, with twelve females, all in different areas, and nearly that many males. Might be an office area or something."

"Or something?" Devyn's words bit. "They're running a whorehouse, I'd say. The men you saw on the ground level, were they white, black, Asian? What?"

Lyght had to think on that for a moment. He wasn't accustomed to such superficial categorizations. "The two in charge were white, but weren't speaking English. The rest were Asian."

Devyn scribbled notes on a pad she'd pulled from somewhere.

Expectant eyes all trained on him, indicating he should continue. "The access to the basement stairs was hidden behind a big metal cabinet in an office." He paused for a glance at Kassie. This was going to get uncomfortably graphic with details and he didn't want to trigger some fear reaction or bad memories for her.