Summon Lyght(44)

"Sure!" Tyler tried hard not to act too excited. "I mean, yeah. Whenever."

"Hold on to my arm." Francis held out his sunburned looking forearm.

Tyler hesitated, not sure what to expect. Surely Francis wouldn't do whatever Lyght had done to bring them there? Where would they go?

Francis grinned a little. "It's cool, trust me."

Tyler had a feeling he'd better hold tight, even if the idea seemed silly.

Francis put a casual arm around his shoulder and the world blurred.

"Sorry." Francis dropped onto a red leather chair next to a black desk. "My room is a hundred miles from where we were. It'd have taken us days to get here."

"Whoa." Tyler couldn't hide his awe. "This place must be huge!"

Francis gave him a confused and maybe guilty look. "I was…exaggerating?"

Tyler's cheeks heated with shame and he covered it quickly. "I figured that. So what you wanna show me?"

Francis turned to the laptop and typed, his fingers moving faster than Tyler could follow. Wow. Did he actually just make friends with the son of an Archangel? Talk about a step up from his old social status. Which was level zero before those guys kidnapped him. Making friends and staying cool weren't exactly simple when you didn't ever see any other kids. Maybe once he got to know Francis, he could confide in him.

"See them?" Francis pointed to a group on the screen after zeroing in. "You ever heard of MS13?"

"I think they're like this super-bad Mexican gang, right? My Gramps said they were in control of a big part of the drug smuggling and dealing and they crush the competition." Tyler couldn't contain his shudder when he thought too hard about the kinds of things the gang was known for. "I heard they cover their bullets in human crap, so if the bullet doesn't kill, the infection will."

Francis nodded and went on. "That's all true. Now, these guys are known as the Kings of the Bottoms. They control all the drugs, prostitutes, and other crimes in most of Columbus. They're also affiliated with MS13, meaning they can use MS13 soldiers whenever another gang or the law interferes with them. Their youngest members are seven and eight years old with the oldest in their fifties. They're all male, but there's a female gang associated with them, and just as brutal. They mainly recruit kids about nine to thirteen, and they force them in with threats and violence." Francis pointed to one very young teen on the screen. "That one right there is the next one they want to bring fully into the gang, but I'm going to get him first."

"What you mean, you'll get him?" The only thing Tyler really knew about gangs was that they were seriously bad news. And he had no desire to learn more. He'd seen a few things during his grandfather's street life lessons, enough for him to be absolutely certain he wanted nothing to do with gangs.

He looked up at Tyler. "For our mission." Francis leaned back in his chair and tossed his head, moving the red bangs away from his right eye. "I've been thinking. My dad and Dorn and Toren plan to do exactly as the enemy is doing, only for good, but they haven't really figured out how to do it effectively with gangs and the kids susceptible to them. I have. The demons take young kids and use them for their perversions. We're going to take them and use them for good." Francis pointed at the screen. "And this one is not only ripe for picking, but he's going to help me get valuable information we need."

"How you figure?"

"That one's secretly under the protection of the leader of the female gang. That's the kind of leverage we can use, maybe even get his protector on our side. She's rough but she's individualistic." He sat back with his hands clasped behind his head, staring at the screen. "I've been following their activity for a few weeks and have some pretty solid links into major demonic activity. If we hit their gang, we handicap a demonic cell. It may not be much, but it buys us time until all the Brotherhood of War come to put a final end to their scheme."

This was all news to Tyler and he didn't know which question to get out first. "Brotherhood of War?"

Francis turned his chair to face Tyler completely, his eyes lit with reverent excitement. "Those are the twelve Archangel Warriors in the Brotherhood of War. And trust me when I say they put the bad in badass. They are entering Earth one at a time and forming special warriors that can legally fight the demon hierarchy without causing more of a mess. But they can't engage in actual war against them until all twelve warriors are formed and united as one. Meanwhile," Francis gestured with a thumb to the screen, "we disrupt their disruptions."

Tyler shook his head in sheer awe. "And your dad is one of these dudes?"