I'd let Leona get back to her meal after I'd finished reading the article. Supposedly, that police captain, named Justin apparently, had been kidnapping children from the street to feed his paedophilic tendencies, killing them and disposing of the corpses in a furnace hot enough to turn the bone to ash. I was a confirmed victim, as were Alicia and Samantha, and dozens of others. After he was caught, he'd bombed the abandoned warehouse he was using as a hideout, killing himself and thirty police officers.

It was an utterly horrific story. It was also blatantly false. Apparently this was the cover-up they'd chosen, after realising that 'number twenty-three' had not, in fact, killed everyone. Or maybe they'd have gone with the same cover-up regardless. They sullied the good name of the police officer who was there to rescue us, and this newspaper was running it as fact. Well, of course; this newspaper was controlled by the very same corrupt officials who had apparently been involved in the organisation to start with. They were saving their own hides. All media was like that these days.

There was also a small snippet from the mayor, decrying the evil behaviour, and saying that this year's monster pacification would be cancelled, as he couldn't in good conscience take part in such an event while so many parents of his city were mourning.

That made me feel like a complete idiot. I realised at last why there were always more monsters to hunt every year, despite there being no threat for the rest of the year. So that was why they were turning children into monsters; there were no natural monsters in the forest at all. They all had once been people. They had a facility where they turned kids into monsters, stuck chips in their heads to make them weaker and easier to hunt, then let them loose for the rich and famous to murder. And now that their facility had been destroyed, and the monsters escaped, they'd had to cancel it. And then added insult to injury by presenting it as 'good conscience'.

Well, not escaped... Given the levels of professionalism I'd seen, they wouldn't have published this story while leaving any sort of loose end that could contradict it. The cops and other kids would all be dead by now. Either that, or they'd been recaptured to finish their transformations. If this year's event was cancelled, I felt dead was more likely. Alicia and Samantha... Dammit!

Leona stopped eating again, distracted by my raging emotions. Damn right I was angry! When I'd seen them a few days ago, I thought my friends had been rescued. Changed and damaged, maybe, but alive and safe, and in a better position than me. And now they'd presumably been murdered, not for any sort of personal reason, but because they would be a loose end. Because their very existence told a story that didn't mesh with the official lie. Killed by people who referred to them by a number instead of a name.

And those same people had given me superpowers. Superpowers with which I had just saved two people from a mugging. Slightly traumatising them in the process, admittedly, but no-one said the world was perfect. On top of that, I could guarantee a zero percent reoffending rate by any criminals I caught. I burst out in mad mental laughter, confusing Leona even further. A harpy superhero, coming to the rescue of the good citizens of Kholakel by means of eating all the bad guys. I suspect that more traditional superheros would not approve. Yes, I almost certainly qualified as clinically insane by now, even ignoring the fact that I was essentially a back-seat driver, but so what?

'Hey, Leona,' I thought, not caring if she understood. 'How do you think mayor tastes?'