"Not exactly playing, no."

"What's wrong with you? Why aren't you healing?"

"Long story," I said with a groan, trying to get up but discovering every muscle in my body hated me for what I'd just put it through and was taking a siesta. "A lot happened while we were apart."

"He saved my life," Stacey said.

"What? You'd better tell me what's going on," Elyssa said, steel in her voice. I forced a smile. "I will. Promise."

"What happened?" Smith said as he knelt next to Felicia.

"Is she okay?" I asked, forcing each word out like a lead weight. I was so tired. I just wanted sleep.

"Let's get them inside," Shelton said. "We should be safe for now."

"What about her?" Elyssa asked, the steel in her voice razor sharp.

I tried to look around to see who she was talking about, but I was fading fast and could hardly turn my neck.

"She might as well come too," Shelton said. "It's best we sort this friggin' mess before figuring out what to do next."

"And you're qualified to make this decision because?"

"Because it's my damned hideout and I want to know what in blazes is going on here."

"I'm kind of curious too, TP," Smith said. "This is quite the crew you have here."

"It ain't my crew, Geronimo. It's his."

"Justin's?"

"You think I'd piece together a group of misfits like this?"

"Just get us inside, Shelton," Elyssa said in an exasperated voice. "He needs attention."

"Maybe I should get Meghan," Ryland said.

"Who?" Shelton said.

"Meghan Andretti?" I heard Dad ask.

Ryland replied. "You know her?"

"I know of her. Alice mentioned her before. Said she's a very gifted healer."

"She is."

"Then get her, please!" Elyssa said. "Just do it now!"

"I will," Ryland said.

Someone picked me up. I smelled Elyssa all around me and knew she was cradling me in her arms like a baby. I felt really embarrassed but used the opportunity to press against her soft curves anyway.

She laughed softly. "We never finished where we left off."

"I know," I said, dredging a little extra strength from somewhere. "Darned hellhounds and assassins don't want us to deflower each other." A warm tear splashed on my arm. "Don't cry, babe, it'll be okay." I took a deep breath. "Who's the blonde woman?"

"Someone who cares about your future, Justin," said a strangely accented female voice from nearby.

Elyssa's body tensed. "Will you just leave him alone?"

"He'll be fine. He is Daemos."

Whatever that meant. "Just when I think I have answers, it gets more mysterious," I said, and then I must have passed out.

Darkness gripped my ankles and pulled me from my bed. I clawed at the floor, my fingernails breaking against the polyurethane coating on the hardwoods, leaving a streak of crimson blood. I turned on my back to see the shadow hands gripping and pulling me. Dragging me toward the light.

Wrong way, Justin! A voice echoed in my head or from somewhere around me. I couldn't tell.

"They're dragging me!" I grappled for the doorframe, getting both hands on it as my feet went around the corner of my bedroom doorway, my stomach still resting on the jamb. It took every ounce of strength just to hold on. And then the shadows wrenched my body out the door. Still, I hung on. I looked toward my feet, toward the blinding light at the end of the corridor. A dark shadow stood there, cane in one hand, a tall top hat filling in the space above his head and below the entryway.

I looked in the opposite direction and saw absolute pitch black. In the black stood a white feminine outline.

I am your light in the dark, said a voice from my memory, your dark light. Or had that been a dream too? Wasn't this a dream? It felt terrifyingly real.

After doing some quick calculations in my head, I decided the light in the dark seemed a little better than the dark in the light even if neither made sense to me. I strained with all my might, pulling away from the light and straining for the dark. The shadowy hands slipped from my ankles little by little and suddenly I was free. I catapulted toward the light, my body floating free, weightless as if in space.

And then the hallway burst apart around me, splintering into shards, and I was on my knees in front of Meghan's mother. Life had left her eyes but a groaning whisper emerged. I held my ear to her mouth. Listened hard. But her dying words made no sense.

Images flashed in my mind and I saw the bloody scrap of paper. A number on it. An angel with Elyssa's face whispering a number in my ear. Meghan's mother saying the number with her last breath. That number, what did it mean? Why was it so important? I had to find out what it was.

Someone had to know what forty-three eleven meant.

Chapter 20

A beautiful woman with silky blonde hair gazed down at me. I wanted to touch it, feel it between my fingers. "Are you the angel?" I asked weakly.

"What the hell are you doing near him?" Elyssa shouted.

The woman moved from view and glass shattered.

"That was an antique lamp, dammit!" Shelton shouted.

"Are you okay, Justin?" Meghan's face appeared above me.

"What are you doing here?"

"Ryland brought me back. You strained yourself. Almost killed your fool self trying to help that…that vampire girl."

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine. A little sunburned, but her bone breaks and bruises are healing quickly now that she has blood."

"Blood? Whose blood?"

Meghan smiled. "Elyssa gave her a blood pack."

"You're friendlier now than you were before." I tried to sit up, but my abs felt like they were on fire.

"I'm coming to grips with you," she said. She looked at something across the room and her face hardened. "But not with her."

I turned my head to look, but the pillow blocked my view. "Who?"

"Your aunt."

"My aunt? Who? How?"

"Maybe your father should explain. In any case, I gave you more painkiller brew. Your blood count is rising, though more slowly than it would if you'd get some sleep."

"But I just woke up."

"Whatever state you were in just now, it wasn't sleeping."

Fragments of the dream flickered through my mind. The numbers. I had to find out what they were. "Can you prop me up?" I asked.

"Not a good idea."

"Please. I need to speak to everyone."

She sighed. Reached for me and hesitated a moment before visibly steeling herself. Then she pulled me upright and adjusted the cot I was on so it locked into place. Shelton's hideout was a madhouse and he looked like a patient. His hair was frazzled and his eyes were wide and frenzied. Elyssa glared at the blonde woman from across the room where Ryland and Stacey held my girlfriend in place. A smashed lamp lay in the middle of the floor. Smith sat on a couch, his sister Felicia leaning against his shoulder, her face weary and pale, but not as bruised as I remembered it.

Another man lay on the ground, a pillow under his head, and I couldn't tell if he was alive or dead.

The blonde woman looked at me, her hazel eyes full of urgency. I looked past everyone and saw Dad back inside the metallic circle in the other room. He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at me. I smiled back.

"You know how to throw a party," I said to Shelton.

He gave me an incredulous look, eyes full of panic. He probably didn't know what to do with this crowd any more than I did.

"Justin!" Elyssa said, struggling against Stacey and Ryland's grips. They looked at each other and nodded, letting her go. She rushed to my side, knelt, and peppered my face with kisses. "You were shouting and trying to move after you passed out. Were you having nightmares?"

I shook my head and was gratified I could actually shake it, even if my neck muscles felt like I'd borrowed them from a two-day-old corpse. "I need everyone's attention," I said. Since everyone was already looking at me—well aside from Shelton who was staring at his beloved antique lamp—it wasn't hard to gain the undivided gaze of everyone in the room.

With all the attention focused on me, I felt nervous. The dreams I'd had were crazy. Surely they were bits and pieces of memories my mom had hidden from me, and my mind was just replaying them in bizarre fashion while I slept. Maybe I wasn't going crazy, though it sure felt like it. For all I knew, my brain couldn't handle the overload of blurred memories and was compensating for them by giving me insane dreams. On the other hand, even if I was going crazy, these people might be able to help me. Or at least make sure I found proper care.

So, I went for broke. "I've been having these insane dreams. Dreams about being little and seeing strange stuff, but more importantly, I keep seeing these numbers in my mind. The numbers forty-three—"

Elyssa's eyes widened. "And eleven?"

My mouth hung open for a moment before I found the presence of mind to nod. "You were in my dream."

"I am your dark light? Or something like that?"

"What? How—how did you know?"

Elyssa's eyes went wider. A lock of black hair fell across her face and I wanted so badly to touch it, tuck it behind one ear. But I didn't have the strength to do it. She looked around the room at the others. "It was a dream! Just a dream."

Although I was surprised, I wasn't shocked or anything. Having led a normal life up until a month or so ago only to endure an odyssey of epic proportions and discover all the weirdness existing right under my nose, dream sharing seemed kind of minor. Judging from Elyssa's reaction, it wasn't so minor after all.

"So the fact we experienced a similar dream is not a normal occurrence, I take it?"