The air seemed to hum with the power coming off him as Caligo carefully picked his way back home. It wasn't, of course, but he could just sense everything. He hadn't found this many souls in, well, probably ever. Found wasn't exactly the right word, as evidenced by the blood he was working to hide.
He had made sure to find people that wouldn't be missed, or at the very least deserved it in his opinion. He had gone after a couple demons after he got the first human soul, just to give him some hope of not dying when going after the demons. It worked, and he was amazed at how easy it had all been. Maybe it was just the lack of his normal worries.
Originally, he had been trying to find the one that killed Lauren. He took off soon after talking to River. That only lasted for about a couple minutes, though, when he realized how drained he was. He couldn't even make himself look slightly human. This, plus the frustration over not being able to do anything, led him to find some easily acquired souls. Then, after thinking about how if he had only had enough power, he probably could have saved her, he decided to just go overboard and make sure he had enough power to heal at least two people far enough gone that a doctor could probably not save them. That was as good as he was going to get at healing, anyway. As long as it worked in an emergency, it was fine.
It was only now that he was going back that he wondered exactly how any of this would help. Lauren was gone, and he wasn't getting her back. It didn't matter if now he could have saved her. That didn't shock him nearly as much as it should have, and he wondered if he had even accepted that she was dead yet. He kept having random thoughts about how he wanted to go talk to her about what had happened (oh wait, you can't, she's the one who died) or how he'd have to explain this mess to her (except she was gone) or how everything would be okay if he could just crawl into bed next to her, go to sleep, and forget all about this horrible day (too bad that would never happen again).
Instead, he found himself on his doorstep. He figured Alek or Yuli would have told Krigar what had happened. She had called a while back, but he hadn't responded. He wasn't sure if he hoped she was home or not. He really wanted to talk to someone, but at the same time he had no idea what to say or how to explain this. Deciding he may as well leap in and forget about trying to come up with an explanation, he dropped the illusion keeping the blood hidden, and opened the door.
