He rubbed his hand over his mouth as if trying to wipe away his grin. His eyes danced.

“Remember that night on the building?” he said. “You understood that. What I was saying. About the Cabals. That’s what I’m talking about. What all this is about.”

“It wasn’t Guy selling you on his theories, was it? You weren’t listening to him; he was listening to you.”

“Sure, but I let him pretend it was his idea.” He flashed me a grin. “That’s the key to working with people like Guy. The seed’s already there. You just need to water it, nurture it, let them think it’s all about them, their ideas and then—” He shook his head. “We can talk about that another time. We’ll talk about a lot. But right now, I need a favor.”

“Favor?”

“Something I promised Sonny I’d talk you into doing. A show of your loyalty.” He lifted his hands before I could speak. “I know, I know, I haven’t won you over. Far from it. But Sonny needs this reassurance now. And you’ll see this is the best way to do it anyway. The least…” A wrinkle of his nose. “Messy. We’ve had too much of that shit now, and Sonny would rather do it this way. So would I and, I’m sure, so would you.”

“What is it?”

“We need you to call Paige Cort—Shit. Winterbourne.” He rocked back with an exaggerated wince. “I gotta remember that. Anyway, your werewolf friend will know you’re with us, so now you’re going to call Paige and tell her you’ve made a big mistake. You’ll say you came along with me willingly, but you didn’t realize what you were getting into, yadda, yadda. Now you want out, but you’re scared of Lucas and the Cabal, so you want your council boss Paige to mediate, ’cause everyone knows she’s good at stuff like that. You tell her you want to talk to her. You’ll set up a meeting for tonight.”

My mouth hardened. “So you can kill her? I will not—”

“No, no, see, that’s what I mean about messy. All we want to do is kidnap her. The idea with Carlos only took us halfway, and now he’s a write-off, so we need to move to plan B.”

“Which is…?”

“Lucas, of course.”

LUCAS: 20

ARMEN HAIG. The human chameleon. That’s what Elena said they’d called him in the compound. He could alter his facial features, not much, just enough to be unrecognizable. The parapsychologist at the compound had postulated—accurately, it would seem—that Haig was a forerunner of a new supernatural race. He’d also hypothesized that in a few generations, Haig’s descendants might not only be able to change their features enough to escape a police officer, but to kill that officer, become him and walk away undetected.

Elena had recalled that statement with a rueful laugh, because she could imagine few people less likely to need to evade the police than Armen Haig. A quiet and thoughtful psychiatrist, he’d been biding his time, planning his escape and trying to decide whether he could trust Elena enough to accept her help. Then the man financing the operation, Tyrone Winsloe, played one of his sadistic games—the sort that made Carlos look like an amateur.

He’d told Elena that Armen had escaped and tried to force her to hunt him. When she’d discovered it was a setup, he’d given her an ultimatum—hunt and kill Haig or be killed. Haig had saved her from making the choice by killing himself. The ultimate act of selflessness, committed for a stranger.

Apparently genetics was the only thing that ran in the family.

There was little doubt Jaz and Sonny had killed my brothers and exterminated their own gang to cover their tracks, just as there was little doubt they’d fulfilled that parapsychologist’s prophecy. They could become someone else.

There was no mention of the Haigs in the corporate files, but the Cabal had access to public, and private, records in the human world, with a search system that impressed even Paige. We found Armen Haig easily. He’d disappeared in the summer of 2000. Missing. Presumed dead.

We also found Jasper and Jason Haig. Born 1980 and 1981 respectively. Mother: Crystal Haig, niece of Armen. The boys shared a father, identity unknown, but from the DNA profiles, the lab suspected he’d been Crystal’s close relative. The third generation of a supernatural mutation, with both parents in the same bloodline, further accelerating development.

When the boys were preschoolers, their mother had started traveling and hadn’t stopped until her death, after a stint in a mental institution. Her records showed a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. She’d had one overwhelming delusion—that her sons, who she claimed had “superpowers,” were continually threatened by shadowy organizations known as “cabals,” which wanted to kidnap and experiment on them, like they had her uncle.

There was no indication the Cabals knew anything about Crystal or her sons. But if they had, her fears would have been well grounded. The Cabals fought bitterly for custody of rare supernaturals. For a new mutation like this? They’d have destroyed everything—and everyone—in their path to get these boys. The fact that they hadn’t only proved they’d known nothing about them.

What stories had Crystal told her boys? What hatred of the Cabals had she instilled in them? It didn’t matter. Whatever environmental factors had gone into creating Jasper and Jason Haig, they weren’t children anymore. They were brilliant and ruthless killers, able to take on the form of anyone. A threat unlike any we’d ever seen.

I was working through the implications with Paige when a commotion sounded in the hall. I opened the door to see Karl striding down the corridor, smacking an open palm into the chest of a guard who stepped into his path. Griffin tried to elbow past, but I blocked him.

“Why the hell aren’t you answering your cell phone?” Karl snarled, advancing on me.

“My cell—?” I pulled it out and saw the ringer was still turned off from earlier.

“Where’s Hope?” Paige asked.

“That’s what I was calling about.” He planted himself in front of me, lips parted, teeth showing. “They took her.”

JASPER AND JASON had kidnapped Hope. It was easier to think of them that way, to divorce them from the image I’d already formed of “Jaz and Sonny”—harmless young men who’d been unwitting pawns in a battle between the gang and the Cabal.