Fragments

[Sören]

Sören's jaw twitched anger as a voice joined the breach in his senses. A short sigh blew frustration, ghosting his breath into the night, his glare angled down at the woman but not seeing her. The tendons in his wrist ached from the tight grip of his fist, but though power raged at his core it stayed in the prison of his body. He was not a needlessly violent man, and the patterns would take too long to draw if the intruder turned out to have a gun. Still, his eyes remained glued a second longer to the woman's bloody hand; the necklace within and its siren call. He could still feel it.

He stood slowly as bid, every limb reluctant and rigid as he unfurled to a terrible height. Though his expression remained grim, his hands splayed compliantly; one slick and bloody, the other clean, one finger releasing at a time from its closed fist. The current within him quietened, chasing his vision with shadows. The stranger was a black silhouette lit by the busy street beyond, a mystery.

For his own part Sören was well dressed; his coat finely cut, pristinely blended of navy wool, one cuff now irretrievably darkened. He was clean, not a vagrant; his hair short, his beard trimmed. Placidity marked his manner, but gauntness touched his face, creating diamond ridges of his cheekbones, the only anomaly in an otherwise unremarkable appearance. His gaze was mild and unsquinting, accepting the blindness of his position, but it was a lie; within he drew calculating. "She's dying. Officer."
The title was a guess, though not a difficult one. He didn't back away from the body, and he didn't plead his innocence; just watched until shadow receded into details of the man's face.