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get no arguments from me,” Kellan replied, casting his own gaze out over the crowd of people filling the sidewalks. “You know, if one of them is onto us so quickly, it could be Gregory.”
    Riley nodded, the panic in his gut turning to dread at the mention of the Casus who had seemed to make it his personal mission to go after Buchanan blood. The first Casus to return to this world had been Gregory’sbrother, Malcolm. Ian had killed Malcolm with a Dark Marker, and upon his own return, Gregory had gone after Saige for revenge. Though they hadn’t heard anything from him since the day they’d all rescued Saige from Westmore’s clutches, they knew he was still out there, no doubt waiting for an opportunity to strike. Because of that, Saige was all but under lockdown back at Ravenswing, her soon-to-be husband, a Watchman named Michael Quinn, unwilling to take any chances with her safety. Riley had expected his footloose sister to have been champing at the bit, but he’d been wrong. Instead, she practically glowed, her blue eyes shining with happiness…with a peace that he’d never expected to see in her. And it was the same with Ian, who was set to marry his own fiancée in just two weeks’ time back at the compound.
    “So if we can’t talk about the woman, how about the other?” Kellan asked, pulling Riley from his internal thoughts as the first drops of rain finally began to fall.
    “Other?”
    “What you did,” Kellan said, lowering his voice, “stopping that last pie in midair. Don’t think I didn’t notice it. We’ve been wondering at Ravenswing what your weird little Buchanan gift would be. Looks like we found it.”
    Riley knew exactly what Kellan was referring to. His brother and sister each had special… talents, though Ian was still trying to come to grips with his unusual dreams and instances of precognition. But unlike Saige, who had discovered that she could communicate with physicalobjects when she was still in her teens, it seemed that his and Ian’s “gifts” had been brought on by their awakenings. Or simply unlocked, as Saige had explained it, believing the unusual powers had always been there, lying dormant because of his and Ian’s unwillingness to accept that they were anything more than human.
    “I’m guessing some sort of telekinesis,” Kellan added.
    “I have no idea what it is,” Riley muttered. “And I sure as hell don’t feel like talking about it. I just need some peace and quiet right now. I need to be able to think.”
    “Think all you like. But it isn’t going to change anything.”
    “What are you talking about?” he demanded in a gritty rasp, just as the Watchman’s cell phone began to ring.
    Instead of explaining, Kellan just smiled and answered the call.

CHAPTER THREE
    An hour later…
    G REGORY D E K REZNICK SAT at the bar of a crowded local hangout in Wellsford, Washington, just up the coast from the quaint, cliff-side town of Purity. Despite the verdant feeding ground provided by a local college, his mood was sour. He missed Brazil, where he’d spent the first weeks of his freedom stalking little Saige Buchanan. Missed the hot, searing burn of the South American sunshine. Missed his brother, Malcolm, whose life had been taken by that son-of-a-bitch Ian Buchanan.
    What he didn’t miss was Meridian, the stinking hell-pit where the Casus had been imprisoned for centuries, cursed to a fate worse than death. Where he’d slowly rotted away, year after year, until Anthony Calder had finally sent him through the gate and back to this world. The first Casus to successfully organize their race into a cohesive force, bringing rule to the anarchy, Calder was the one who’d finally offered the Casus hope, as well as the chance of freedom. But it didn’t come without a price.
    Calder wanted the liberated Casus to avoid human kills. To feed only from the Merrick, so that they might bring more of their kind across the divide. To find the Dark Markers, though he