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.