I soared through the air, my impossible wings letting me speed far faster than any car below, or change direction at a moment's notice. Humans could keep their thumbs; wings were better. I effortlessly grabbed a bird mid-flight as something to snack on, while keeping my eyes out for a more substantial meal on the streets below. So weak and fragile, no better than ants, milling around in their useless little lives.

I was flying higher than the tallest building, invisible to any unaided human eye, yet I could see them all so clearly. The dealers, handing out their little packets of temporary bliss, or showcasing arrays of guns from the boots of their cars. The pickpockets, bumping into their victims on crowded streets. The burglars climbing in and out of empty houses. The thugs in the back alleys, eyes darting around for their next victim. I could see them all.

I chose a burglar, halfway down a ladder at the rear of a house, plucking him off easily and laughing as he dropped his bag of ill-gotten gains, having barely managed a single grunt of surprise before my talons snapped his neck. I carried his corpse back to a high-up rooftop, having resisted the urge to make a permanent nest. After my merger with Leona, I could see the folly of sticking to a single location.

Or rather, it would be more accurate to call it my merger with Lily. The innocent girl called Lily was long gone. It had just taken her a while to accept the fact. I certainly wasn't her, given what I was currently doing, so I decided to keep the name Leona that Lily's last echoes had gifted me with. It was exactly as that police captain had said; she had been murdered long ago. I was what was left over. An artificially created monster, and now, thanks to Lily's parting gift, an intelligent one.

I stripped the corpse, clothing not being particularly tasty. I even shuffled through the pockets for valuables, adding a few coins to the bag I'd tied around my waist. Not that I had any idea how I'd ever be able to spend them; I could speak, but there was no way in hell I'd pass as human, either in terms of my voice or my looks. I'd caught a glimpse of myself in some glass windows, and my piercing yellow eyes with slit pupils would be a giveaway even if I covered everything else up. Not that my horns could be covered up. They were a good twenty centimetres long, jutting out on either side of my forehead and curving gently back.

I wasn't displeased with my looks. I was glad I was a harpy, and not Samantha's spider, or some of the other more freakish creations I saw in my escape. My face was broadly human, but was blemish free, far more beautiful than Lily's had been. My ears looked feline, sitting in little triangles atop my head. I was, in a word, cute. At least, I was cute as long as I didn't open my mouth. If I displayed my teeth, I rotated from cute to scary in no time. Again, that was not a fact that displeased me. What use would be a monster that couldn't terrify their victims with a mere smile?

I settled down to feed on my latest meal. Sure, I could live off animals if I wanted to, but I didn't. Why should I limit myself? My concession to Lily was that I would only feed on people who I felt deserved it. Then again, who could say if the burglar I'd just nabbed was evil? He did seem a bit underweight. Maybe he was just trying to provide for his family and felt he had no other choice? I'd picked him simply because he'd been alone in an area where I was unlikely to leave witnesses. I had no intention of pretending to be 'good', even if there was some absolute definition of 'good' to begin with.

I wondered what would happen if I did just walk into a shop and try to buy something. What's the worst that could happen? If the police back at that hateful facility didn't have weapons that could hurt me, then random civilians on the street sure wouldn't. I can't stay in one city for long anyway, and it would be no great loss if I had to leave here, so maybe I should give it a go just for the fun of it? Although even then, what would I buy? It occurred to me that I was still, strictly speaking, naked. Should I start wearing clothes? Nah, the weather doesn't seem to bother me, and modesty was something Lily lost long before I came along. As for me, I never had any to begin with.

In fact, modesty was even less relevant now; Lily had spotted my lack of need for excretion, but what she hadn't noticed was that beneath my coating of fur, I'd even lost the orifices involved, nor did I have any equipment for bearing young. Lily hadn't exactly been big busted to begin with, but I'd lost even more. I no longer had anything left to hide. Even if I did care about modesty, my fur was plenty.

Actually, there was something I wanted to buy; information. The mayor was off-limits for now, and making another attempt at him would require either certainty that I wasn't about to fly into a trap, or to wait enough time that I could be sure they weren't still looking for me. Perhaps I could find some softer targets to express my displeasure in the meantime. How could I best obtain a list of previous hunt participants?