She is dark-haired, and very beautiful.

If Ray Vecchio were here, he would be snarling already--"TROUBLE, Benny, that's what she is"--but Fraser doesn't need the warning. She is, after all, responsible for the death of a prominent Chicago businessman, and no matter how repellent the man's personal politics might have been, he cannot disregard cold-blooded murder.

She is dark-haired, and very beautiful, and also cornered on a rooftop twelve stories up, but she doesn't look terribly concerned. Which is odd, really, considering how quick she was to run when confronted.

"She might still prove to be armed," he remarks to Ray Kowalski, who is standing against the fire door with his gun trained on the woman and, thankfully, his glasses on.

"Yeah, I KNOW that, Fraser," says Ray. "I got my glasses on and everything." He wiggles his gun a little. The woman's eyes follow it, casually--register the lack of an opening. She stays in her corner, crouched like a big cat.

"You're in excellent shape, Ms. Holmes," Fraser offers. It's true. If she hadn't picked this particular building to flee upwards, they probably wouldn't have caught up to her at all. She inclines her head, acknowledging the compliment.

"So are you, Constable. But Chicago doesn't seem like your best venue. All this crush."

"You chose a dead end, yourself," Fraser feels compelled to point out.

"We're alike in many ways," she says agreeably.

"Lady," Ray snaps from his doorway, "Fraser ain't NOTHING like you." She isn't even looking at the gun anymore.

"You and I," she muses, "we could give up on all this." She looks out over the rooftops too distant for escape and seems... unfocused for a moment. She looks back at him, and she has the gaze of a snake charmer.

"We could leave, go into the dark forest, disappear. We are survivors."

"There are more important things than survival," says Fraser firmly.

"Yes," hisses the woman. "We are strong, but the weak are trapped here, and the powerful devour them as if they were nothing. We owe them something, do we not?"

"I don't believe I understand how this leads to murder," says Fraser, but the woman only smirks at him.

"The difference," she says, "is that you believe in the law, and I believe in... the jungle."

She seems to fold herself up and backwards, gripping the ledge behind her without even bothering to look back before she is flying up, up--and falling, dropping out of sight, dark hair streaming up behind her like a banner. Ray is shouting. Fraser is running for the ledge, too late, too late--and a dark wing is swinging upwards, past the roof, a raven's wing, larger than any raven--no. A woman with blue skin and dark wings.

Flame-haired, and very beautiful, and dark-winged, like an angel with a flaming sword. Fraser has never found the Old Testament very agreeable.

She smiles at him, as if they are sharing a secret, and then she plummets again, rising a minute later too far away to shoot.

"Well, shit," says Ray, squinting into the distance. He takes off his glasses.

***

They're sitting in the station, not talking. Didn't even get much of a lecture from Welsh, although the way he looked at them when they gave him the rundown and then just said, "Of course" was kind of demoralizing. Further demoralizing.

Fraser is obviously upset about it, which is understandable, it ain't like anyone likes losing a perp, and this lady killed some guy for writin' big fat checks to the wrong political muckety-mucks and then gave Fraser a line about protecting the weak, like he was supposed to understand her or something. She was, basically, a terrorist, so okay, that's probably gonna be good for ten or twenty years of self-flajeh-whatsit. On the inside, Ray sighs. On the outside, he rolls his eyes--no point lettin' the side down.

"Frase," he says. "It ain't your fault. The feds say the woman was a class A megamorph."

"Metamorph, Ray," says Fraser, but he's still staring at the paperwork, lost in his funk. Ray's lost count of how many reprimands the man's filed for himself, but this one is seriously more ridiculous than most, and he's starting to get steamed about it. More steamed.

"Fraser, I know you're a freaky shit MAGNET, but she jumped off a BUILDING! She turned into a BIRD! It ain't like you ever had to deal with THAT before!"

Fraser looks up from his report, finally. He still don't look happy, but he looks a little more... present.

"Well, actually, Ray..."