Summon Lyght(94)

She suddenly stopped crying and jerked her head to the right. "Tyler," she cried.

She vanished before his eyes and Lyght flew off the bed, his clothes intact again, thankfully. "Sam! We need to get back to the compound, I think Kassie is headed there!"

****

The blue angel swept his arm toward the wall and a huge monitor materialized on the slick black surface. "Time to assess."

Tyler fought not to fidget in his seat while sitting at the giant table in the compound's conference room. The place could easily hold ten times as many people as were there at the moment, which was every member of the operation, eighteen, not counting himself. But why count himself when he didn't really fit into the action? He should fit though, he had assets they needed. Knowledge of the world for one. His grandfather had taught him a lot about survival of all kinds. Just in case, because you never knew what tomorrow held. His grandmother said he was paranoid, but none of it bothered Tyler, he was too excited learning new things with his Gramps. But if they wouldn't let him do anything, why had they brought him to this meeting?

With only his peripheral vision, Tyler looked at the doc sitting on his immediate right. The man was responsible for helping to change his game and he was grateful. Course he didn't know he'd helped, but Tyler planned to do exactly as he'd suggested in his note taking. Perfect his gift.

He still couldn't believe he actually had a gift like that. How rare was it, exactly? He needed to find that out. Tyler wasn't sure exactly how, but he was definitely sure he'd learn to use the gift to be more useful in this operation.

"We're moving out teams." Mr. Dorn moved to the far end of the map. "There's no reason we need to wait around here twiddling thumbs while we figure out Lyght's situation." The angel pointed at one, two, three red sections on the map, his moves snapping. "These areas of evil grow in intensity every day at an alarming rate." He turned to face the group, his dark brows drawn hard and his brilliant blue eyes nearly glowing.

"Despite our abilities, our few numbers mean we need to be extraordinarily creative with our time. Since there are so few of us, we'll focus predominantly on North America for the next few days until we gain reinforcements." He turned to Mr. Kassern. "You will take your team to the southeast United States. The reconnaissance we've obtained for the region shows heavy prostitution and sex trafficking, among other things. Your team possesses the knowledge and experience to deal shrewdly with this." He turned to Mr. Toren. "I know you—"

"Give the orders." Cold impatience encased Mr. Toren's words. A shiver of awe passed through Tyler. That angel was a total bad ass warrior. Boy, would he love to see him in action.

Mr. Dorn nodded once, not seeming bothered. "I'm sending you and your team to dismantle that little operation where the boy was found. I want it obliterated, nothing to be pieced back together. We want a clean demise, no evidence for the local news, apart from meteorological or geological manifestations. Natural disasters are our friend. Do not engage the enemy at all if possible. Stay off the spiritual map. Use what's there, move what exists."

"If I might add?" The doc raised a hand and waited for Mr. Dorn's nod before continuing. "Your humans are spiritual filters or deflectors on the supernatural radar. Spiritual energy passes through them and dissipates, or bounces off entirely. A few can be used as magnifiers, batteries, or focal points, as well. I've already assessed most of your teams' abilities and will give you the full reports. You want to use your humans when possible to channel power. Even the powers they've inherited do not show up like raw angelic movement."

"We've downgraded?" Mr. Kassern exchanged looks of concern with the other angels.

The doc turned to him. "Yes, in a sense. And one would expect the same type of deflection to occur, but the opposite is true. The inheritance of humanity seems to have created…a sort of new blip on the radar, making you extremely easy to spot."

Mr. Toren gave a dry chuckle. "Of course."

"Why aren't the demons as incandescent?" Mr. Dorn paced before the table.

The doc aimed his gaze at him. "They are. But they practically cover the entire radar, making it difficult to see the trees for the forest."

A brief silence followed, then the guy with the tattoo on his neck…Lucius maybe, spoke up. "So it's like they're just one festering color."

The preacher—Troy?—nodded. "And hard to discern."

Mr. Dorn's wife huffed and shook her head. "So our angels stand out like beacons. That's not fair."

A light snort came from the preacher's wife. Tyler guessed she wasn't partial to the girl's dramatics. Maybe wasn't partial to the girl's anything.